Dealing with Jessie Pt. 02

What was the name of that poem, "Time heals all wounds"? Jessie's infidelity and her hatefulness really hurt a lot at first, but he found with each day it hurt a little less. He spent a lot of time on You-tube listening to old music. There was an old Oakridge Boys song, "Sometimes it doesn't Hurt to Hurt sometimes". There's a line in that song; "You try to hold on to the moment, but time won't let you stay, and for every step you take you lose something on the way." He still loved his soon to be ex-wife, but with each day the pain became more bearable.

Gary thought he was going to be all right, but there was still something missing. It wasn't something he could put a finger on, but it was something. Every day at work he saw Carolyn, the science teacher he'd helped in the fall; she looked so nice, hair always done up just right, big brown eyes, cherry red oh so kissable lips, those soft velvety blouses, and the way her breasts moved, no wonder the boys gave her a hard time.

One afternoon, it was a Thursday in April, about a week before spring break when Carolyn stopped in. Back in the fall he'd found time during the sixth period, it was a seven period day, and her last class had a handful of really rambunctious boys. He would stop by just to say hello and to see how she was holding up. Gary was busy working on some papers that afternoon when he heard someone tapping on his office door. He knew it was Carolyn because he heard her say, "Mr. McGowan are you there?"

She had the sweetest voice, kind of a soft lilt to it, a lot like Jessie's when she wasn't yelling. He got up and went to the door and opened it. She was standing there wearing a cream colored V-necked linen blouse, dark brown pleated miniskirt, and brown heels. He hadn't held or kissed a woman in months, and there she was holding a crescent shaped Tupperware container. She said, "May I come in?"

He stepped back and said, "Sure." She smelled like lavender.

He showed her a seat next to his desk, but remained standing. "What can I do for you," he asked?

She sat down and crossed her legs. She was wearing skinned toned nylons. He supposed they were pantyhose. The dress was short, she had nice thighs. He could see down her blouse. She had on a lace trimmed brassiere; it looked loose, comfortably loose. He could see a lot. He took a seat and asked, "Everything still all right?"

She smiled. She had the whitest teeth. She said, "Yes, and thank you again so much. You've been such a help to me. I don't how I would have done it without you."

He didn't say anything. His girls used to laugh and call them "pokies", that's when their nipples would stick out under their clothes. He kept his office cool; it helped him concentrate, and Carolyn had pokies. He might have blushed.

Carolyn held up this Tupperware container and said, "I baked a cake last night for my mom, and thought perhaps you'd like a slice. It's vanilla cake with coconut icing." She opened the container and showed it to him.

He looked at it and said, "It looks good. You wouldn't be offended if I saved it for later. I just had lunch." His lunch had been two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Her breasts moved under her blouse when she handed him the cake.

She sighed and her breasts under her blouse stirred again. The blouse was a little translucent. She said, "There's a plastic fork in there when you do eat it. I hope you like coconut."

He said, "Yes I do." Then they sort of sat there. Neither said anything. She just kept smiling. She had her hands down beside her hips, and it made her breasts press against the thin material of her blouse. It was like they wanted to get out. He tried not to look, but it was hard. Her eyes were so wide. She had long lashes. She had hardly any makeup on, her lips looked wet, wet and red. They were kind of puckered, like they wanted to be kissed. Finally he said, "Have you made any plans for spring break?"

She unconsciously touched her blouse at the place where it was buttoned, her breasts moved again. He felt 'uncomfortable'. She said, "Yes, me and several of the girls have booked passage on a cruise ship. We'll be sailing the Bahamas. Have you ever been there?"

He and his wife had done that once; it had been a gift trip from her firm for work she'd done. He remembered trying to keep track of how many Pina Coladas Jessie drank during the afternoons. He had to keep oiling her skin with lotion. Jessie's skin was pale and burned easily. He saw Carolyn's skin was pale too. Jessie had been particularly bossy the whole time they'd been on the trip, and he'd put up with it. He remembered he had to since she kept reminding him her firm was paying.

Thinking back he should have left her out in the sun on that chaise, gone inside to a bar, and left her there to burn up. He remembered, there were guys ogling her and she knew it, but there'd been women looking at him too. He bet she saw that. He'd never been overweight, never been real muscular either, but he knew he looked well proportioned. Jessie looked like a model. That cruise was supposed to have been some kind of wildly romantic tryst, but it had been hell, they'd bickered about everything.

Gary told Carolyn, "Yes, I've been to the Bahamas. We used Royal Caribbean."

She put her hands together in front of her breasts, her fingers flicked over the tips of her nipples. She gave a little clap, "Oh, that's who've we've booked. Were they good?"

"The best," he said. Then they sat there and looked at each other for several more seconds.

Finally she looked at her wristwatch, it was gold and looked expensive, it fit her wrist elegantly, she said, "Oh, I should leave. I have a class. The ruffians you know."

He chuckled, "Oh yeah," they'd nicknamed her last class the ruffians.

She leaned forward to stand up, he stood up too. They were very close. Neither of said anything. Then she said, "Well gotta go. Enjoy the cake," and she turned and left. He watched her leave; pretty legs, they looked firm, not muscled, but toned. Her skirt swished as she walked away. She had a nice ass. Gary wondered about the shape of her vagina. Did she shave it? He went back to his desk and looked at the cake. Maybe he needed to get out more? He reflected on Carolyn Campaneris, he bet she had a steady boyfriend.

~~~V~~~

More than anything Gary loved his girls. Dorothy, being the oldest had always taken on the most responsibilities. He worried about Dorothy, but not as much as he worried about Katy and Melanie. Katy was awfully immature. He was glad Dorothy was there for her; she was like a second mother.

Melanie really worried him. She was their middle child, and he'd read about middle children. Jessie and he had tried extra hard never to leave Melanie out, but Melanie was different. He wished he could find a way to fully understand her; she was just so mysterious. He watched her grades and checked with her teachers all the time; everything seemed OK. Just the same, she was his; he needed her to be happy and feel secure and loved.

How was it with Melanie? There was a time when she was getting ready to go to a party. She wandered into the living room where he and Jessie were watching the news and warned them she would be going to a party where there would be all kinds of drugs, older boys, and alcohol, but not to worry because she wasn't into any of that. Gary recalled feeling like his bowels had just turned to ice, and the expression on Jessie's face revealed a similar reaction. Why did Melanie say that? She could've lied and they would have been none the wiser. Once Gary decided to check Dorothy's car; thought he'd change the oil, put in some gas, and maybe clean it out inside. Big mistake! He looked inside and found a full bag of prophylactics under the passenger's seat. Wow! Bonkers! He went back in the house and said something to Jessie. She laughed, she said they were Melanie's. Like that made him feel better? Then she explained how Melanie and some of her girlfriends would go to the mall and hand them out. 'Jesus,' he remembered thinking, 'let's give dad a heart attack.'

He worried about all of them. Until recently he thought he had Jessie figured out pretty well, but some time in the fall her obsessive nature had become stark maddeningly apparent. Her career and her remorseless determination to be better than anybody else, especially at her law firm, had completely taken over her life. Jessie, like most people, had always had a problem with self-doubt, but with her it had become a fixation. He'd been doing a lot reading and learned Jessie was the type who viewed success as a relative failure, and failure as a complete catastrophe. Psychologists, he read, called it catastrophism; the least mistake was unforgivable. It was totally irrational; he believed Jessie had come to think that in order to be just as good she had to be ten times better.

Gary was sure the older partners were feeding her morsels of conditional recognition; just the kind of praise that kept her on the treadmill trying to go faster and faster. That coupled with perhaps guilt about her behavior, was making her life a living hell. He wanted to find out more, but the only way he could would be to talk to her. That was the problem; she wouldn't talk to him, but he was working on that. He needed to get inside her head; if she wouldn't talk to him she might talk to the girls. He sat down with the girls and discussed it.

Gary's girls came out to his new house, "Girls I want you to do something for me."

Melanie looked like she knew what he wanted, "Dad, you want us to talk to mom. Find out what's inside her head."

He answered, "Great way of putting it. Can you do that?"

Katy said, "Gee, she hardly talks to us. She thinks everything she says to us gets back to you."

"That's exactly what I want. I want to know everything you can get. Tape what you can get, then maybe I can figure her out."

"That's really cheesy," said Dorothy.

"I'm with Dorothy dad," said Katy, "I'd feel like a phony."

"No," responded Melanie, "That's exactly what we need to do. We need to pry what we can out of her, and then the four of us can see what we can do from there." She looked from Katy to Dorothy, "Mom's sick. Dad wants to help her."

Dorothy looked at her father, "You're not trying to get us to dig into mom's secrets so you can use them against her?"

Melanie raised her voice, not quite a yell, but close, "Dorothy! Dad's not like that!"

He was surprised too, "No, absolutely not! I might be stupid, but she's your mother and for a little while she's still my wife. I still love the dumb boob."

"You mean you want to reconcile," ask Dorothy?

He answered, "That's a stretch honey; for now I just want to help her get her head back on straight."

"That's asking a lot from mom," commented Melanie.

"I'd give anything for it if it happened," said Katy.

"We'd have to do it at home," said Dorothy.

So it was agreed. They set something up for a week hence. Gary got in the house and set up listening equipment in the kitchen, the den, and the living room. The big day came. It was one of her Sundays. She never planned anything so the girls getting her to talk didn't seem to be that big of a problem, it turned out to be a fiasco. He forgot the girls were still just kids, and Jessie? Well Jessie was who she was.

They'd sat down at the kitchen table with Dorothy going first, "Mom we're worried about dad and you."

Jessie blew the lid off everything, "Oh, is this the conversation we're supposed to have when you kids record everything and later sit down with your father and discuss what we said? Tell me where's the taping device? I want to speak clearly so you girls and your father get it all loud and clear."

With a child's naiveté Katy said, "How did you know?"

Jessie's answer was swift and sure, "Come on girls you don't think I'm that stupid. It might be against the law, but I've been to your father's new house. I've had him wired." She must have turned about looking for the wiretap, because she said, "Hear that asshole?" Then back to the girls she went, "The dumb son-of-a-bitch thinks he's smart. Dorothy where's the monitor? I know there's one here somewhere."

One of them must have pointed to the top of the refrigerator, because everything Jessie said after that was so clear Gary knew she'd seen it, and she really let him have it, "Listen asshole. You aren't smart enough get ahead of me. I'm on to you. You want to reconcile with me? I'll tell you what!" She started yelling, "I'll tell you what you can do with your reconciliation! I'll tell you!" She never finished. She got up and went to the den.

The next day he got the tapes. He got to listen to her cry. Later it occurred to him she never answered her own question; she never said yes or no to reconciliation. He wondered why, and why he even cared.

So the big taping plan didn't work, but Dorothy's birthday was just over the horizon. Gary had another idea. He thought what if he and the girls wangled something that would require Jessie to participate? They might be able to get her to start to reset.

Gary and the girls planned a party at one of her favorite restaurants, a place called the Napoli's. Jessie's favorite Italian dish was lasagna, and Napoli's had the best. Another thing Jessie used to obsess about was how the girls should look. It was always three girls and mom with matching outfits. Dorothy would persuade her mom to wear an especially cute blue dress, and the girls would go to Nordstrom's and get a three set that matched. Everything would be ready, dresses, food, everything. Gary's appearance would be a planned accident; he would unexpectedly show up right after they'd all ordered. They'd get her to the table, and the girls would work their magic.

~~~V~~~

Jessie's circumstances at work were tense. Gary didn't know how tense until he saw it himself. The critical event that revealed just how awful her situation was emerged right after there was a blow out with the girls back at her house.

Jessie strongly believed the girls and her so-called lazy husband were up to something so when Katy approached her about the restaurant she knew where that was headed. She knew Gary was using his G.P.S. to track her; she was doing the same thing to him. She knew about his house, his new tool and firearms purchases, she even knew what furniture he'd bought, but there was one crucial piece of information she completely forget; she'd forgotten her house was still wired.

With Dorothy and Melanie nearby in the dining room Katy approached her mom, "Mom? You know Dorothy's birthday is only a week away."

"Yes dear. I know," was Jessie's blithe reply.

Katy stammered, "Maybe we could go out or something, maybe the four of us, you know just us girls and you, go to dinner."

Jessie's antennae went up. Was this another trick, another trap? "Yes," she responded, "sounds like a good idea." From the corner of her eye she saw Dorothy and Melanie; they were listening to every word.

Katy added, "It would be just us four, nobody else."

"You mean, no fathers," was Jessie's probing response. Melanie and Dorothy had come in the kitchen.

Nodding toward Dorothy Melanie chirped, "Hey, we overheard; a dinner for Dorothy's birthday. What a great idea!"

That was when Dorothy took the conversation one step too far, "Mom? Could we invite dad too?"

Her suspicions confirmed, the scales were tipped! Their mother exploded, "It couldn't be just we four could it?"

The pot started to boil. "You know how I feel about him. He might be your father, and I know you love him, but I can't... I can't."

It all came out, "That lazy no good, conniving, scheming son-of-a-bitch! He put you up to this! God how I hate him!" Frightened, the girls unconsciously stepped back.

Jessie's filter was off, "That school teacher! That school marm! A man with his talents should be running his own business! He could've started up his own business, a tax business, or his own accounting firm."

Dorothy tried to intercede, "Mom."

"Don't mom me!" Jessie was gone. "You're all on his side! He put you up to this! Do you have any idea how much he infuriates me? He makes me so angry! Why can't he be... uh... be... what I want him to be!"

She started sobbing, crying, and yelling. She grabbed a nearby coffee cup and threw it against the wall. It crashed, splintering into hundreds of pieces. The girls backed from the room. Jessie was no longer aware. Yelling at no one in particular she went on, "Look at his clothes! What he wears is a disgrace! I bought him nice things, but he only wears the same old frayed and wrinkled stuff. I've put out a lot of money for nice things for him, all he had to was go get fitted. Not him! With him it's always trash off the rack. I hate him! Where I work jerks like Snyder wear three thousand dollar suits and still look like assholes. If your father wore what Snyder has he'd make George Clooney look like Michael Moore. All he's ever done is embarrass me! Why does he have to do that?"

The girls waited timidly in the dining room while their mother, oblivious to everything, continued her rant. "Work is getting out of hand. There's too much of it. I need that partnership, but it's like the harder I work the further off it gets. I hate that place. I hate Snyder and his stupid sycophants. They're always hanging around my desk." She reached for her head and started pulling at her hair. "I'm so sick and tired of everything; their slimy grins. I'm tired of Snyder's lascivious innuendos and underhanded hints. The secretaries know something happened. I've seen their sly smiles." She gasped!

She looked all around. She realized she'd gone too far. Taking a seat at the kitchen table she tried to compose herself. Smiling at the girls who were awkwardly standing in the dining room she crossed to the partition separating the kitchen from the dining room. Arms crossed, leaning against the portal she forced a sheepish smile, "Yes of course. Let's go to dinner; the four of us, just we four."

Katy said, "Sure mom. We'll set it up." They retreated from their mother's sight.

Deeply distressed at what she'd just done Jessie returned to the kitchen and sat down. Where was she? Who was she? She knew the only stupid thing she'd ever done was give in to Snyder. She wished she'd never fucked him. She wished she'd never acquiesced to that stupid wager. Everything was wrong. She told herself she never wanted to be a lawyer anyway, not really. She wished she could put things back the way they were, but she knew Gary. Gary and his stupidity; his stupid pride. Gary was so god damned pure, so fucking forthright, so god damned, motherfucking honest and good. Why couldn't he? Where was he?

She looked out the kitchen window and tearfully whispered, "Where are you Gary? You're never around when I need you. You son-of-a-bitch."

She turned and sat back down. Damn it! He had the girls on his side. She couldn't go back, she just couldn't; if she did she'd have to admit she was wrong. She'd have to give in. Just thinking of apologizing to Gary, begging for his forgiveness, it made her head ache and her stomach hurt. Why didn't he do what he was supposed to do? Why didn't he do what she wanted, he was such a coward.

~~~V~~~

Gary couldn't get his mind off the science teacher. Carolyn and he had become very close. They often stopped and talked in the hall. He bought her a pen and pencil set and stealthily left it in her mailbox. He noticed she wasn't wearing any rings. In passing he'd mentioned how much he liked women with short hair, and a couple days later she was wearing a bob. He told her how much he liked it, she blushed.

Still there was Jessie, he'd heard the tape; her big tantrum in front of the girls was bad. He not only heard Jessie's tirade; he'd heard the girl's reaction when they'd fled their house. They were with him at his house almost right away. They'd piled in Dorothy's car and come straight out. The girls were counting on him to do something.