Serena's Choice - Coastal Romance Series (21 page)

After a while of baking in the
late August sun, Steven suggested they go get something to eat. “We
can get a late lunch at this restaurant on a pier down the beach,”
he said. Janet put on the shirt she was using as a cover-up, one of
Steven’s shirts. He would have found that cute at one point, but
not now. “Is it okay if I’m wearing this?” she asked gesturing
at the shirt.

“
Oh, yeah. It’s a real casual
place. People go in there with their bathing suits on all the time.”

They gathered up the blanket,
towels, and cooler and took them back to Steven’s house. Steven
took his wallet and cell phone out of the plastic bag in the cooler.
Janet took his hand and they walked hand in hand down the beach.

It was cool inside the restaurant
and ceiling fans were going full blast. They got a booth looking out
on the water.

“
I think I’m going to have a
strawberry daiquiri,” Janet said. She was feeling festive. Steven
was starting to feel guilty about what would happen later. If Janet
had been a reasonable person, he would have told her that her parents
were on the way and she needed to leave with them. But Janet was not
a reasonable person and never had been. She was a narcissist to the
core and she had to win every battle.

When the waitress came to their
booth, Janet ordered a strawberry daiquiri and a seafood sampler.
Steven ordered a beer and a basket of fried shrimp. His feeling of
dread and doom made it feel like the last supper. And it would be the
last supper with Janet, if he had anything to say about it. This
marriage was going to come to an end.

Janet chattered endlessly during
lunch and Steven barely took in a word she said. “And then she
gained fifty pounds!” she said incredulously. “Fifty! She looks
awful. She’ll never get another man like that.” Steven had no
idea who Janet was talking about. She popped fried shrimp and fish
and oysters in her mouth as she talked. Her lips were greasy. It was
disgusting.

Steven ate his shrimp but he had
no stomach for it. He forced himself to put the plump shrimp in his
mouth. He chewed slowly. Janet ordered another daiquiri. The day
seemed endless.

As Janet chattered, Steven
allowed his mind to wander. He remembered when he first realized,
really realized, that Janet had a mental problem. They had been at a
party at his boss’s house on one of the islands off the coast of
South Carolina. There were so many islands in the area, he couldn’t
remember which one now. Edisto? Maybe. It was a big Fourth of July
party and there must have been a hundred people there.

Steven was keeping his eye on
Janet because he already knew she could be impulsive. He was also
trying to talk to people at the party because it was expected of him.
And that’s exactly what he was doing when it happened. He was
talking to the daughter of somebody there, some big donor to the
college where he worked at the time. He knew it wasn’t a good thing
he was talking to her because she was very attractive, but the other
people that had been there when the conversation started, had
wandered off. Steven was about to find a way to extricate himself
from the young woman when Janet walked up. She was a little drunk,
which was embarrassing.

He introduced her to the woman
whose name he can’t remember now, and Janet said, “I think you’ve
talked to my husband long enough. You can’t have him.” And then
she threw her drink on the girl. Because she really was just a girl,
in her early twenties he guessed. He grabbed Janet then and escorted
her out of the party. It wasn’t the first time that Janet had said
or done something inappropriate, but it was the most serious time. He
could lose his job over it, and likely would.

He put Janet to bed and the next
day he called her parents. He had had about enough of Janet’s
behavior. Somehow, he needed to know what was behind it. He was
already thinking about leaving her. Mr. Welker reluctantly explained
to Steven that Janet had been diagnosed with a personality disorder
when she was a teenager. She had spent some time in a hospital, but
there really was no cure. It could be lessened, he said, with
medications, but not cured. Steven never forgot his using the word
“lessened.”

That’s when Steven realized he
was in for more than he had bargained for. He didn’t want a
mentally ill wife that could embarrass him at any moment. She was
like a powder keg, ready to go off at the slightest provocation. At
that point, Steven and Janet had been married for two years.

Next, he called his dean at the
college and explained that Janet had gotten drunk at the party—she
hadn’t eaten a thing and it got to her, he had said—and had done
something inappropriate. He wanted to apologize for that and promise
it would never happen again. It was the most embarrassing moment in
his career.

The dean had already heard about
the incident. He was outraged. But in the end, he took sympathy on
Steven. “If the donor doesn’t demand your removal, you won’t be
removed,” he said. “But you need to contact his daughter and
apologize to her personally. Janet needs to do that with you. It’s
your only hope, son,” he said.

And Janet had turned on her sweet
charms and called the woman and apologized profusely for her actions.
“I got a little too drunk on tequila. I just can’t handle that
stuff.” In the end, the woman didn’t make things difficult for
Steven. She was gracious and accepted the apology. Steven knew he
didn’t deserve to be so lucky.

He never took Janet to another
college party again. He never told her about them. He did feel that
he had to attend those functions, but he told Janet he had to work
late on those nights. Of course that didn’t stop her from attending
parties her parents threw, and she could be counted on to do
something outrageous. He wondered why her parents kept inviting her.
Janet was an embarrassment.

He let another year go by and
then he’d had enough. He wanted out of the marriage. But Janet
wouldn’t let him out. She got her father to hire the most powerful
divorce lawyers in Charleston to fight him. He didn’t want
anything. He just wanted out. Every time it seemed the divorce might
happen, her lawyers would do something to stop it. They finally
settled on Janet’s mental illness. She didn’t know what was
happening, therefore she couldn’t legally sign divorce papers. She
refused to leave the townhouse they lived in during that whole nasty
process. Steven couldn’t afford to move out. It was very
unpleasant.

Steven decided the only way out
was to leave. Eventually, Janet and her lawyers would give up and let
him out of the marriage. But he needed to leave. He was offered a job
by the Virginia Coastal Institute, which he accepted. He couldn’t
wait to get out of there, and he wouldn’t be telling Janet where he
was going.

But she found out anyway. He
stupidly left his email program open one night before going to bed.
It was the opportunity Janet had been waiting for. She read all of
the emails from the VCI. She called the VCI the next day and asked to
speak to Mr. Rodriguez, who had signed the emails. She explained to
him that Steven was a raging alcoholic who needed treatment and
really couldn’t fulfill the duties of their job as oceanographer.

When the job offer was withdrawn,
Steven called Mr. Rodriguez and asked him why. He told him. Steven
tried to explain to him that his wife was mentally ill and that it
wasn’t true that he was an alcoholic. It did no good. Steven was
enraged.

He was smarter the next time he
looked for a job. He bought a laptop and opened a new email account.
He kept his laptop at work so that Janet wouldn’t know it existed.
He lied to her when he went to Tampa to interview for the position
with the Gulf Coast Ocean Institute. They offered him the job and he
accepted through his brand new email address. He gave his notice at
the college, but he didn’t tell Janet that. His dean seemed
relieved he was leaving.

He didn’t tell Janet he was
leaving. He wouldn’t take much with him so it would be easy to pack
up. The Institute had a house on the beach for him to live in, fully
furnished with everything. He waited for the right moment. He knew it
would come. Janet wasn’t one to sit around the house all day doing
her nails. She needed to get out and create trouble in the world.

Steven pretended to go to work
every day. In reality, he was visiting museums and libraries in the
Charleston area. Or he would go to movies. He would arrive back home
at the end of the day, briefcase in hand like he’d been at the
college, teaching students, doing paperwork. All that boring stuff
college professors did. Janet never questioned him about his work. It
was boring to her.

Finally, the day came when he
could make his escape. Janet had a hair appointment. “I’ve got to
get these split ends gone,” she said.

“
I was thinking about lunch,”
Steven said. “What time is your appointment?”

She frowned at him. “It’s at
twelve thirty. It’s going to take a while. I guess we’ll have to
do it another day,” she said. “Sorry.”

“
Okay,” he said picking up
his briefcase and walking out the door. “See you later.”

He went to the library that day
to kill some time. At eleven thirty, he drove back to the townhouse,
but he didn’t park in his usual spot. He parked in the next complex
of townhouses, but he could still see her car if she pulled out. At
noon, he saw Janet flounce out of the apartment wearing a sundress
and high heels. He watched her car pull out of its spot and drive to
the exit from the townhouse village. He watched the car as long as he
could until he couldn’t see it anymore. He waited fifteen minutes
in case she forgot something. If for some reason she came back when
he was already in the apartment, he had decided he would say he came
home sick. Then he would have to figure something else out.

After fifteen minutes, he walked
into the townhouse. He looked around at the expensive furniture and
artwork her parents had bought them. He had no feeling for it; he
didn’t care about that stuff at all. He really didn’t have much
there to call his own. It shouldn’t take long to get out.

He walked to the bedroom and took
his clothes from the closet, hangers and all. He opened the door and
looked both ways before he carried the clothes to his car and put
them in the trunk. It took two loads to get them all in. He opened
the dresser drawer and put all of his underwear, socks, pants, and
T-shirts into a large plastic bag from the kitchen. He threw his
toothbrush and razor in on top of the clothes. Was it possible that
he had so few belongings? Janet had made him get rid of just about
everything he owned when they got married.

He looked in the top shelf of the
closet and saw his box. It had all of his childhood mementos—special
rocks, his Swiss Army knife, old school photos, old family photos. He
reached up and pulled the box down. He tucked it under his arm and
drug the plastic bag out to his car. He took one more walk through
the townhouse to make sure he wasn’t leaving something important to
him. He didn’t see a thing. Everything had Janet’s touch on it,
or her parents. He was ready to go. He felt a sense of urgency as he
closed the door and locked it for the last time. He kept looking over
his shoulder, thinking Janet was going to drive up any second.

He sprinted to his car and once
inside, locked the doors. He had a vision of Janet coming up
screaming to his window, yanking his door open. He backed out of the
parking space and drove to the exit road. He navigated through town
toward the highway.

He was free.

“
Steven,” Janet said shaking
his arm. “Are you listening to me?” Janet brought him right out
of the past and his sense of freedom into the present and his sense
of imprisonment.

“
I’m sorry, Janet. I was
thinking about work.”

Janet pouted. “I was telling
you about the country club,” she said.

Steven didn’t give a damn about
the country club, but he feigned interest and glued his eyes to
Janet’s. She rattled on and on and he smiled and nodded at all the
right places. Then she dropped her bombshell.

“
I want to move down here with
you, Steven,” she said. “I think we can make it work here.”

What the hell was he supposed to
say to that? Her parents would be there soon to take her away.

“
I don’t think I’m going to
be staying here,” he said. “I don’t really like this beach that
much.”

“
Why not? I love it.” Well,
it’s all about you, Janet, he thought.

“
I don’t know.”

“
I need to get away from my
parents and Charleston,” she said. “I think it’s just what we
need to make our marriage work.”

He wanted to scream at her, “This
marriage is NEVER going to work!” But he kept his face calm. “Let’s
talk about it tomorrow,” he said, knowing that tomorrow would never
come.

It was almost six and Steven was
worried they wouldn’t get back before Janet’s parents arrived. He
motioned for the bill and hustled Janet out of the booth.

“
Why are you in such a hurry?”
she asked as they walked back down the beach toward Steven’s house.

“
I’m not in a hurry. What
makes you say that?” Biding time.

When they got inside Janet
changed out of Serena’s bathing suit in the bathroom and came out
wearing a sundress. Despite the sunscreen, she had gotten too much
sun and was pink on her face and arms.