"Dan McNair and Miss Right"

I checked my watch. I still had time so I got out the vacuum cleaner and cleaned the place up. I emptied the dishwasher, changed the sheets on the bed, and scrubbed the kitchen and bathroom floors. Last, I took a shower and went in the living room, sat down, and got out a book, a book of poems, one of the poems was Coleridge's "The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner". Why I got that out I didn't really know, except that way back in high school that was one of the things "Emily the tutor" had used to help me with my Language Arts, that was before she changed her mind and got a nerd to replace her.

So I sat and waited.

Emily got home a little after 9:00 p.m. I put down my book and asked, "Hi Em. How did the professional meetings go?"

She gave me an awkward look and replied, "Oh, the usual. This person, then that person, they all had to make their presentations."

I started to ask her something else, but she interrupted me, "Look sweetie I'm really tired. Would it be all right if we skipped the usual banter? What I need is a hot shower and a good night's sleep."

I smiled and said, "See what I'm reading?"

She looked at the book and said, "Mm, Coleridge. That's nice." She started for the back of the apartment and the shower. I got up and followed asking, "Remember when you used Coleridge to tutor me?"

She kept walking, "No honey." She did turn though, "Look baby. I told you I was tired so just leave me alone. OK?"

I kept following. I asked, "Emily do you love me?"

She turned around again, "That's a stupid question. You know I love you." She turned and continued on her march to the bathroom and the shower.

I continued to follow, I asked, "No Emily. I mean do you really love me?"

She turned again, "You know I do. Now leave me alone."

I didn't, I said, "I love you Em. You know I do, and you know I'd never do anything to hurt you."

She stopped, turned, and a little bit disgustedly asked, "Ok, what exactly is all this about?"

This was it. I said, "I know you didn't go to Harrisburg."

She looked stunned, but she didn't say anything so I went one step further, "I was in Bedford and then Napier yesterday."

I had her. She'd been carrying her purse and overnight bag. She put them both down. She said, "I guess you want an explanation."

I nodded.

She asked, "Can I take a shower first?"

I asked her, "If I said yes, and let you go in the bedroom, would you use your phone and call Mr. Larson?"

She didn't move. We were both standing there in the hallway. She said, "You know about Gary?"

I nodded.

She asked, "So what are you going to do?"

I said, "Get a divorce I guess."

She paled. Suddenly she looked very small and very weak. She said, "Can I get a shower first. Then we can go in the kitchen and talk."

I pointed to the bedroom and said, "You're going to call him when you go in there aren't you."

Her faced got all contorted, "No, I won't."

I replied, "OK, I'll be in the kitchen."

She turned to the bedroom, and I turned to go in the kitchen. I went in and using the Keurig fixed myself a cup of coffee, then I sat down and waited. I wanted to cry. I couldn't think of anything else, I just wanted to cry. I felt so... sad.

Emily came in a few minutes later. She was wearing a pair of pajamas I'd not seen before. I asked, "You got them for him?"

She nodded, then she said, "Dan you don't understand."

I was holding it in. I said, "You want to explain?"

"Dan," she said, "Gary was my high school sweetheart. I knew and loved him years before I really met you. We were going to get married, but he said he was going into the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. He said it would be dangerous, and he didn't want me to become a widow."

I said, "So he left you."

She said, "Remember that time when you came over to me at the restaurant?"

I nodded.

She said, "It was that evening. He'd left me just before you came over."

My eyes were starting to drip. I shrugged, "So I got you on the rebound."

She reached across and took my hand, "At first I guess, but later, after we got married, after we started to make plans, things changed. I started to fall in love with you. The things we said; things about buying a house, having children. I meant them Dan. I do love you. You've got to believe that."

My eyes were dribbling tears. I hiccoughed back a sob and said, "I get it. You love me, you're just not in love with me. That's Larson's department."

She'd started crying too, "No Dan, it's not that way, not that way at all. It's just that, well, Gary and I... we had something."

I interrupted, "Sure, you had something, something so special I could never be a part of it. I could never replace it. I could never be what he was."

Emily sobbed and shook her head, "Oh Dan, you just don't understand."

I said, "No. I do."

She was crying.

I said, "I'll leave tonight, right now. Tomorrow I'll stop by and pick up my clothes. I know its Saturday, but I'll find a lawyer. We can do this and be done with it." I got up, found the keys to my truck and walked out of the kitchen, out the door to my truck, and out of her life. The last thing I saw that night was her sitting at the kitchen table crying.

After that night the whole thing went pretty smoothly. I did find a lawyer, just on Monday, not Saturday. If any divorce can be amicable ours was. I agreed not to touch anything of hers, and she settled on only ten percent of my business. I got another apartment. She sold all the furniture and moved to Napier to be with Gary. Once the divorce became final, she and Gary got married. I guessed that would be about it. I had a business to run. I bought another truck, and hired some more people. Priscilla let her lease expire and moved in with me. We lived together, but there wasn't anything wrong with it. Priscilla had a boyfriend, and I had my business.

As they say, life goes on, but sometimes not in the direction we expect.

It was a little over a year later. I remembered it was a Tuesday night. Priscilla was out with her boyfriend when I heard someone knocking on our front door. I opened it, and it was Emily. I was stunned. I thought I'd seen the last of her. The weather was warm, not a cloud in the sky, but she looked pretty ragged. I said, "Emily, what are you doing here?"

She looked a little scared when she asked, "Can I come in?"

I stepped back and she stepped in. I asked, "What's wrong Em?"

She fell into my arms. I let her at first, but then guided her to a chair. She started crying, she sobbed, "Oh Dan..."

I was seriously worried. Was she sick? Was she in some kind of trouble? Had something happened to her husband? When I thought that I had to admit to myself something bad happening to him wouldn't be so bad.

She kept crying and sobbing. Finally, she got out, "Dan I made a terrible mistake."

I sort of knew. We'd had mutual friends, and it seemed like every damned one of them wanted to keep me informed about my ex-wife. I wasn't about to let on so I deflected by asking her, "Can I get you a coffee. I have some cake. Would you like a piece?"

She stopped sobbing long enough to nod her head and say, "Yes please."

We went back in my kitchen. I fixed myself and Emily a cup of coffee. I'd stopped using the Keurig thing and had gone back to making full pots. I had a fresh cake I'd bought that day, a simple pound cake. I made and poured her a cup of coffee, and cut off a big slice of cake. She started to eat. I watched her; she was always so fastidious about such things. I remembered that was one of the things I'd enjoyed about her.

I waited, and about the time she was putting in the last bite of cake I asked, "So what's the matter?"

She started to whimper. I took her hand and said, "Now come on." Funny thing, I remembered about a year before she'd taken my hand in almost the same way.

She said, "I married Gary, and we bought a small house just outside Greencastle."

Greencastle was a town just west of Waynesboro.

She continued, "At first I thought I'd done the right thing. I remembered all the fun we'd had when we were high school, and all the times we'd gotten together when I was at Penn State and he was at Slippery Rock."

I asked, "So why are you here?"

She hiccoughed, "You know. I guess you know, sometimes the things we remember aren't always exactly the way they actually were. In high school Gary played football. He was very macho. Back then I thought... well, I thought it was a good thing. He went to college, and then joined the ATF. Dan, the ATF is kind of a paramilitary thing. Gary lifts weights. He uses special chemicals that make his muscles bigger. You know, steroids, I think. I'm not sure. He knows all about martial arts. He knows Karate. He says he needs that stuff for his job. Dan, he's a good man, but he has a terrible temper. He's pretty honest, and he works very hard, but he's... he's... he's very authoritative. When we go out, I'm not allowed to... you know, argue or even just disagree. If I do, he yells at me when we get home."

I sat up at that.

She noticed and said, "Oh he's never hit me but..."

I said, "But what."

"He goes away a lot. Sometimes he's gone for days on end." She hesitated, took a deep breath and went on, "You know when we were married, near the end, how I sometimes would sneak away to see him."

I interrupted, "You mean when you cheated."

She sort of gulped, "Yes, I guess so." She looked at me with pleading eyes and said, "You hate me don't you."

I couldn't look at her. I still loved her. I looked away and whispered, "No."

She drew courage from that, and went on, "He doesn't trust me. He's accused me of cheating on him. I didn't exactly know what to say." She smiled a little, "He was right, I guess. I wanted to come back and see you. I missed you. You were kind. We hardly ever argued, and when we did, I always got my way. Dan, I knew I'd made a mistake almost right away. Even before I married him, I knew. I was so wrong. I had everything when I was with you. I had a man who loved me, who paid attention to me, who always gave me my way, and with you I had someone who knew what it was like to make love. Making love with you had been so very satisfying."

I mumbled, "That's gratifying... I suppose."

She turned grey, "Gary, I hate him. He doesn't make love. He uses me. Once he even said I was just a receptacle for his sperm. He doesn't want children. One time when I refused to have sex with him he went in the bathroom and masturbated in a sock. Then he came out and threw it at me. He masturbated in a cup one time and tried to make me drink it."

She took a deep breath, "Real men don't do that sort of thing," she paused again and added, "And he cheats too."

I asked, "So what do you want me to do?"

She reached across and grabbed both my hands, "I want to come back home, to be with you again. This is where I really belong."

I shivered. There was a time when all I ever wanted was to hear her tell me how much she loved me, how she always wanted to be with me. Back a year ago, when we going through the divorce if she'd said that I would've dropped everything to get her back. Even now I still loved her. I probably loved her as much now as ever, but I couldn't explain it. Something was missing. I whispered, "Emily, I love you. I mean I don't just love you, I'm still in love with you. I mean if you needed a kidney, a slice of liver, a lung, or an eye or something I'd want to be first in line, but Emily it's different now."

She was going to cry again.

I said as calmly and as reassuringly as I could, "Emily do you remember how angry you got when I left skid marks on the toilet? Remember how much I cussed? How I sometimes picked my teeth after a meal when we were out in public. Don't you recall how angry it made you that I was always so sweaty and dirty after work? Oh, I love you so much, but Em I'm afraid you're looking back at us the same way you looked back at Gary. I'm afraid I've become just another fantasy."

She started shaking her head no.

I insisted, "Emily you're like a dog with two homes. You need to pull yourself together. If you can't stand it with Gary, you've got to move on, but coming back here, back to me isn't the answer."

She put her hand over her mouth and burped, "What do you want me to do. I can't go back to him. He frightens me."

I had an answer, "Here's what you can do. If you're that afraid, move out and get a divorce. Find a new place to live. Settle in. Then maybe after a few months you could call me. We could talk some more."

She looked so forlorn when she asked, "Do you think there's a chance. Could you ever take me back?"

I took her hands then, "Emily we're both still young. Since we broke up, I haven't found anyone. When I think of children I still think of you as their mother. I guess I've never gotten over you, but you scare me Em. What if we did get back, how do I know if it would last?"

She looked at me and smiled, "If I did all those things. If I left Gary, if I got a divorce, if I got an apartment, if I proved to you I was still in love with you, do you think you'd take me back?"

I smiled and nodded, but what I really thought was that if I took her back, she'd eventually go back to Larson. I figured what she would probably do now was go back to Larson, talk things over, and stay where she was.

The epilogue:

So how did things turn out? Did Emily and I get back together and have a dozen kids? No. Here's what actually happened.

First, I was right about Emily. She did go back to Mr. Gary Larson. They worked things out. They never had any kids. In public she never gets a chance to express an opinion, and he continues to never trust her. I saw them once; he was decked out in some fancy uniform with medals and all sorts of official accoutrements. People really fawned over the guy. As for Emily, she was the dutiful little giggler who was standing obsequiously beside him with this adoring, puppy-like, smile. I heard he still doesn't trust her. I was told he sometimes even locks her in their cellar when he goes out. I'm glad for her; she got what she wanted and deserved.

My sister Priscilla and her boyfriend finally got married. Her boyfriend is a real work of art. I mean that in the most positive sense; he's a dairy farmer, works like a Trojan, and he's filthy rich. Priscilla quit working for me and started making babies for her farmer. I've been happy for the both of them.

And me. Well, I never had much luck with the girls. I remember I was at Priscilla's wedding, sitting at my parents table minding my own business when that awful gnawing in my stomach overtook me. It'd become a regular problem since our separation and divorce. I knew I needed to eat, but the idea of one more greasy meatball, one more slab soggy roast, or one more starchy overcooked and over-breaded piece of deep-fried chicken was just more than I believed my poor digestive system could handle. I turned to my mom and dad, clutched my stomach, and politely begged off the rest of the reception. They said they understood and would tell Priscilla how I felt, I thanked them and left.

Outside I got in my truck and knew, though I had the queasies something awful, I still needed to eat something. My last best hope was to find a place that served good breakfast food. There was only one place that I knew would have what I needed. It wasn't far. I drove over.

I got there, went inside, a waitress came over and asked me what I'd like. I told her a coffee, some pancakes, sausage, and three fried eggs over easy. She said she'd be back with the coffee and left.

That waitress was good; she had my coffee there in no time. I drank about half of it. I didn't feel much better, but at least I knew where I was.

I felt bad, not achingly sick like the flu, I just felt sad, sad as in self-pity sad. I stared down into my half empty cup and thought, 'This is what my life has become, a half empty cup of cooling coffee.'

'

Just then, at that precise moment, this gorgeous little red head walked up. I looked over at her; she was short and thin, but she looked incredibly sexy. The tailored suit she was wearing looked like she'd been poured into it. God what a figure. Her face looked so pretty, like a doll's face, only alive and full of energy. Vivacious, she looked vivacious!

She looked down at me, she laughed and said, "Tell me did you ever get through Samuel Taylor Coleridge?"

I took another look and thought, 'Oh my. This can't be happening.'

She grinned and said, "You don't remember me do you."

I said, "Weren't you that skinny red head with the freckles Emily Loudermilk pushed on me so I'd get some Language Arts?"

She laughed and said, "I knew you weren't a complete moron."

I said, "I bet you're married now with six or eight kids."

She put her hands on her hips and in what seemed more like an exhortation than a comment said, "Oh I got married all right. He turned out to be a real asshole, lazy, no pride, and a work ethic that died with the dinosaurs." She smirked, "I know about you too. What a dumb shit you turned out to be; you married the high school whore."

I blushed.

Then she blushed. "Oh," she said, "you didn't know."

I didn't say anything.

She said, "Sorry."

I recovered and said, "So now you're just some little 'sheesh- ka-boob' who teaches near do wells Coleridge."

She laughed, "You still don't know your Language Arts do you."

I laughed and thought, 'This couldn't be the squirrely little nerd Emily had gotten to help me in high school. This is so unreal.' After a brief pause, I added, "So neither one of us found Mr. or Miss 'Right'."

She slid into my booth, sat down, and said, "I found out there's no such thing as that 'perfect person'. I found out what we should do is try to find someone who fits what we think we want and then work hard to make it go."

I asked, "Have you ever found that 'one special person'?"

She gave me a stare that would've killed a weaker man and said, "I thought I did once, but he went and married the high school whore."

I said, "You don't say."

She just stared at me.

I realized I was looking at that one person I'd been dreaming about. I added, "Ever think about trying again?"

She said, "Maybe."

I knew a winner when I saw one. I'd completely forgotten my stomach problems. At that moment someone must've put a coin in the juke box, because an old slow song started to play. I asked, "Care to dance?"

She got up.

I got up.

We fit together.

Six months later I had her coming down the aisle on her father's arm. Funny thing about that; she turned out to be a Methodist so I changed back. That was six years ago. Right now, we have three kids, and I'm happier than a pig in mud. I finally got it right, and to think I had Emily to thank for it. Go figure.

The end.

Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed it. Vote if you're inclined. I really like fives.

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