You Should Smile (19 page)

“What did you say??!!  She did
what
?” I screamed.

“Dean Sullivan put a Memo in all of the professor and graduate student mailboxes defending you.  Something about if she hears anything further about a ‘hostile work environment’, she’ll cut our balls off….or more professional sounding words that mean the same thing….” I rolled my eyes at him and smiled.  I was starting to really, really like that woman.

If there was ever a perfect time to my life, that next month was pretty close.  It was like your favorite romantic movie – great characters with chemistry, an interesting storyline, and a seemingly happy ending. 

I was with the man of my dreams and I didn’t have to keep it a secret anymore.  We could finally be together and out in the open.  We had fantastic sex (a lot) and I thought he was “the one” – even though I’d never believed in that “the one” stuff before him.  I noticed he began saying things with a connotation of a long-term future, like, “Someday we’ll go there…..”  or “After you get tenure, we’ll….”  Those moments always made my heart flutter.  I loved his mother dearly and we were becoming really close.  She was an amazing woman.  Every weekend, I went with him to the worksite and helped out.  I thought the world of all of the workers there, especially Roscoe.  I’d even adopted Willie as my favorite “stepson”. 

At the very beginning of the summer, I defended my dissertation successfully under Dean Sullivan.  I was an official Ph.D.  “Dr. Shay Elliott….”  It had a nice ring to it, didn’t it?  A week later, I interviewed for the new political science position.  The committee, made up of six people from across the university, chose me for the job.  I was set to start in mid-August.   

Thad and I’d celebrated my new job with a nice dinner.  Then we’d celebrated some more in the bedroom….with handcuffs.

Afterwards, when I went to put the handcuffs in his drawer, I’d made another discovery.  Tucked in the corner of the drawer was my torn underwear from months before.  I picked them up, turning toward Thad, who was lying blissfully sex-sated on the bed.

“What are these doing in here, you perv?” I teased.

His eyebrow arched up and his grin slowly spread across his face.  “I couldn’t throw them away.”

I grinned back at him.  “Why not?”

He cocked his head to the side, meeting my eyes.  A serious look flashed across his handsome face.  “They reminded me of you…..Of us…..Of the kitchen table….”

I nodded.  “Yeah…..”  I understood. 

His seductive voice reverberated throughout the bedroom.  “C’mere, Smiles….” 

He wasn’t done with me yet.

***************

Life was perfect, it seemed.

That’s the thing about life and human beings living it, though.  Nothing is perfect.  No one is perfect.  Life isn’t perfect.  In real life, everything will be going along smoothly and then the storm will hit.  In movies, you know the storm is coming and you know that there’s going to be a perfect, tied-in-a-bow happy ending at the end.  That’s how movies work.  In real life, though, you never know the storm is coming and there’s no guarantee of a perfect happy ending at all. 

On the third Saturday in June, I went to my apartment to pick up some things before meeting Thad at the job site.  The manila envelope was among a pile of nondescript mail, placed amid the phone bill and some pizza coupons.  It was much heavier than a letter.  My address was written neatly upon it and it was postmarked from Des Moines.  That didn’t mean anything to me at the time.  In fact, I wasn’t thinking about it at all.

I opened the envelope and peered inside.  It was hard to tell what was in it, so I dumped the contents out on my kitchen counter.....

Photographs.  Dozens.  Photographs of a man and woman having sex.  Explicit photographs of a man and woman having sex.  Explicit photographs of man and woman having sex – with a third person.  A second woman.  Explicit photographs of a man having sex with not one, but two, women.  What the hell?

Wait, was that my heart?  What was that noise?!  It
was
my heart.  The beating was erratic and I could feel the thump, thump, thump ringing in my ears.  The noise was like a soundtrack in a movie – sinister sounds that tell the audience something bad was happening.  Something bad
was
happening.  I closed my eyes and the images flashed through it....

It’s in those moments when you know something bad is about to happen, but you can’t stop it.  You sense it; it permeates the very air you breathe.  The fear of knowing is awful, but worse than that is the curiosity.  You have to know. 

I had to know.  Oh god, I had to look again.  I had to analyze every detail, every single pixel….I had to see....

I forced my shaky hands down to pick up the photographs and slowly opened my eyes to look again. 

I recognized the muscles on the back and the curve of the ass.  I knew the back of the head and the tousled hair, though it looked a bit shorter than usual.  As I flipped through the photographs, I finally saw the curve of the tense jaw, framing eyes closed in the throes of passion.  I knew that look.  I knew it because I’d seen it when he made love to me.

It felt like there was a rock sitting on my stomach.  A rock so heavy that it just sat there, holding my soul down like an anchor tied to a drowning body.  Sickness.  Despair.

I continued to analyze the photographs, one by one.  Different sexual positions, two different women.  Sometimes all three of them together.  The nausea came in waves, but I willed my body to keep the bile down.  It ate at my insides, roiling, roiling as I continued to stare.  

I wasn’t an idiot.  As soon as I allowed my brain to process what was happening, I knew immediately who’d sent these.  She’d gone back to Iowa, obviously.  I knew that she was one of the women in the pictures.  As I flipped through them, my hands still shaking, I saw her features more clearly.  Gina on her back, with Thad on top.  Gina on top.  Gina on all fours with Thad behind her – and another woman, unrecognizable, on her back in front of them with Gina’s head between her legs.  Then, that woman on top of Thad, beneath him.  There were so many.  So many images.

When I got to the last photograph, it had something stuck behind it – another piece of paper, thinner material.  Tentatively, I pulled the thin paper away from the back of the photograph – and that’s when the bile churning inside me finally lurched up my throat.  I heaved and I ran to the kitchen sink, making it just in time as I threw up yesterday’s dinner.

As my insides wretched, the image of an ultrasound, a tiny little dot of a being, once alive and there on paper, haunted my thoughts.

After I’d thrown up all I could, I wobbled over to the couch in a semi-catatonic state.  I had no idea what to do.  It was a strange feeling, really, because I tried to function in a logical manner.  I knew the photographs had to be old.  His hair looked different.  Gina looked different. I even admitted to myself that he’d never cheat on me with her anyway.

It still didn’t help me think rationally, though.  I was despondently sick at the thought of him with her....not to mention another woman.  I couldn’t even think about the threesome itself.  Again, rationally, I knew that people did that, that it wasn’t necessarily out of the bounds of sexual proclivities…..but all I could see was yet another woman he’d had sex with.  Another person who’d felt his touch, felt his passion, seen his smile.  If the thought itself wasn’t bad enough, now I had the mental images to prove it happened.  I wasn’t mad
at him
and I didn’t even expect that he should have told me, necessarily.  It was just one more surprise, one more jack-in-the-box moment in our relationship.

Perhaps what made my heart hurt worst of all, though....worse than anything else....was that I knew that this was the very reaction she wanted me to have.  She’d gone “no holds barred” on the Rule Book.  She’d gone for the jugular.  She’d instituted the “nuclear option”.  Right then, in that moment, I was too shaken to think about fighting back.  It was just too much to take. 

I was letting her win…..again…..and that made me sickest of all.

Have you ever been watching a movie and the heroine loses your trust somehow?  You’ve bonded with her.  You’ve supported her throughout, but then she does something to disenchant you.  You’re shaking your head at the screen.  You’re screaming, “Don’t do it!”  It’s too late, though.  She’s going to do it.  She’s going to disappoint you.   

I hope you can forgive me. 

I had to run away. 

I knew I shouldn’t run, but I couldn’t face him and his anger.  Not this time.  He wouldn’t be mad at me, of course, but he would be furious at her, furious at life, furious in general.  This would become about him and his anger and I would be cast in the role of calming him down, trying to tame him, trying to save him – and us – from his wrath.  It would be bad, really bad, this time.  Things would break.  Messes would be made.  Someone would get hurt.  Aftermath.  Consequences.

I didn’t have the energy to deal with it.  I didn’t have the courage.  I wasn’t strong enough. 

I needed space. 

I needed time. 

I needed a fucking break – from everything.

I picked up the phone and called Grant.  He and Ethan had gotten a research grant to study in Scotland over the summer and they were already there.

“Hey, Princess!  What’s up?!”

I don’t even know why I
wasn’t
crying.  I was still in a daze, barely cognizant of the world around me, acting purely on survival and instinct.

“Grant.....I need you.  Can I come stay with you all for a while in Edinburgh?”

“Oh, honey. Of course you can…..Is it Thad?”

“Yeah, but can’t talk about it right now.  Not yet.  I’ll be there as soon as I can.  Love you.”

“Love you, Princess.  Will you be okay until you get here?  Can you make it okay?”

“Yeah.  I’ll be okay.  See you soon,” I whispered and hung up the phone.

I finished packing up my stuff and wrote a note to Thad. 

Thad,

I got this in the mail today.  Try to understand why I needed to get away – from you, from this, from everything.  I love you, but I just need time.  Please don’t try to reach me. 

Shay

I taped the note to the outside of the envelope and placed the envelope against the inside of my door as I left.  He had a key and I knew he’d come to the apartment when I didn’t show up and he couldn’t reach me.  He’d see it as soon as he opened the door.  I winced as I thought about the damage he’d do to my apartment when he found it.  I hoped my landlord was an understanding person.

I turned off my phone, hailed a cab, and headed to the airport.

***************

Thad:

I wondered why she hadn’t called me back.  I’d left three messages since she didn’t show up on site that morning.  It wasn’t like her not to answer.  I wondered if something had happened at the department.  Maybe that asshole Chair was giving her a hard time.  I just hoped she hadn’t started drinking..... 

Normally, I would’ve texted Grant, but I knew he’d just gotten to Scotland.  I decided to wait until later and if I didn’t hear from her, I’d head over to her apartment to check on her.

By 7:00 that night, I still hadn’t heard anything from her, so I went to her apartment and knocked softly.  No answer.  I was getting really worried by that point.  I searched for the key to her apartment on my keychain and used it to open the door.  Something knocked against it and slid as the door swung across the carpet.  An envelope.

I reached down and saw my name on a note attached to the outside.  Those next moments are seared into my memory – like an etching on a gravestone.

***************

“Oh, god no.  NO!”  I screamed as I flipped through the photographs.  A quaking pain stabbed my heart when I got to the ultrasound at the end.  Emotions ran through me and I gasped for breath, trying to control my thoughts and channel my anger.  Think clearly.  Think. 

My blood pressure was rising, the dull sounds of a heart beating wildly permeated through my temples.  Rage.  Rage.  Rage.

Gina did this.  I would fucking kill her.  Choke her.  Watch the life leave her eyes.  I could feel the furor beating against my chest, begging to be released.  I wanted to hit something.  I needed to hit something.  Rage.  Rage……..No.  No.  Breathe.     

I took another deep breath and tried to force rational thoughts.  Where is Shay?  Where would she go?  Why wouldn’t she talk to me?  Why wouldn’t she let me fucking explain before she ran off?

Rage….. “Motherfucker!!!”  I roared.  I clenched my hands into fists and pulled frantically at my hair.  I needed to talk to her.  I had to try to explain.  Wait, what would I say?  How could I even explain it? 

I forced memories long repressed back to the surface.  My mind went back to that time – one of the lowest points of my life.  Drugs.  We’d done drugs earlier that night – cocaine.  It was the only time I’ve ever done it, but Gina’s “friend” wanted us all to try it beforehand.  I was already drunk.  We’d lost the baby a little over a month before.  I was still engaged to a woman I didn’t love.  I didn’t give a shit anymore.  About anything.  Fuck if I knew Gina had set up a camera, though.  Probably for a moment just like this.  The anger burned again…

Rage….Rage….No.  Breathe.  Fucking breathe!

Those pictures….Oh god, Shay had been looking at those pictures!  I felt the tears rolling down my face.  She must’ve been devastated.  How would I react if I’d seen pictures of her with two men?  I would be livid – atomic bomb livid – and hurt beyond words.  I couldn’t even fathom how she was feeling.  Should I have told her this?  Was she mad because I didn’t?  This wasn’t even in the realm of possibilities of something I could predict, though.  I didn’t know there was a camera.  I prayed she wasn’t upset because I didn’t tell her…..