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"So is it OK if I call her?" I asked.
Jim shook his head and smiled.
"What is with you and her?" he asked.
"It's complicated," I replied.
"And it's also one-sided," Jim replied, turning to look at me. "I keep expecting you to tell me you want to do another man."
The thought of being with another man, even after all this time, scared me.
"There is no one I can think of inviting to our bed, Jim," I replied.
He nodded with a satisfied look. I guess he figured I was going to ask him to let me have a guy.
"Jim, if you and I ever did that, we would have to have very, very, strict rules and be sure about us. Our marriage."
"And we are not?" he asked.
"I'm not in the frame of mind to do another man, Jim," I replied and meant it. "Just enjoy this situation with Bella. If anything changes, you will be the first to know."
"OK," he replied, and we went to sleep.
The next day, I called Bella, and that weekend, she flew out to spend two nights with us in her hotel. Between the two of us, we about wore poor Jim out.
***
The Three Amigoes
I guess I let my guard down, thinking it would last, and the worse was behind us. Because now I was facing a possible collapse of everything. And all because of that stupid picture at the mall. No. I have to be honest here. The photo was just a serendipitous fingerprint of my adulterous affair. It didn't even show my face. But I knew that my husband recognized the blouse I was wearing that day.
I was thinking of all this waiting for Bella when the door chime rang. Was Jim back?
Opening the door, I was disappointed that it was only Bella.
"Are you gonna let me in or what?" she said impatiently.
I stepped aside, and she walked in. No hug and no girly kissy-kissy as we were prone to do when visiting each other.
"Have you seen Jim?" I asked right away.
"Not yet. What the hell happened?"
"As far as I know, my daughter found an article with a picture..."
"Yeah, I know all that," she cut me off.
"Is there more?"
"Who knows?" she said, walking to the kitchen. "Do you have coffee made?"
"I did, but it's gone. I can make more."
She then smiled apologetically and came closer to hug me. It was strange. We had been intimate two weeks before, and yet the physical contact in my frame of mind was platonic.
"I'll make it," she said and guided me to a chair. "You must be a wreck."
"Yes, and no," I replied. "In the past, I expected this to happen. But lately, I thought all was well between us."
My cell rang just then, and I looked expectantly at the screen. It wasn't Jim. It was Dee.
"Hi, Dee," I replied. "Bella is here. I'm putting you on speaker."
"I'm just around the block driving over," she replied. "Are your kids there?"
"Yes."
"Why don't the three of us come to my house," she suggested. "My kids are at my mother's. And Trevor left to go over to Andy and Rosie's house with Jim."
"Is Jim, OK?" I asked, concerned.
"Confused and rattled," she replied. "Trevor is trying to calm him down. I think the guys are going to be at the Alverez place. Don't go over yet. OK?"
Bella nodded to me in agreement as she stopped making coffee.
"Why?"
"Because we three need to get our story right. That's why. OK, I'm outside. You two come out."
After I told the kids I would be out for a while, Bella and I went outside and got into Dee's SUV.
"What a mess," Dee said. "Your daughter Emma is a trouble maker."
"I know," I replied, shaking my head.
"She's a teenager," Bella cut in. "Mine is no better with that mouth of hers."
"Things I have to look forward to," Dee replied.
Dee's kids were still in elementary school. She indeed had much to learn from raising kids through the teen years. Especially her precocious young girl.
"Be ready for it," Bella said, shaking her head.
I was quiet, thinking of Jim and what was going on in his head.
"I'm scared," I finally blurted out and started crying. "I'm going to lose him, aren't I?"
"Not if we can help it," Bella said as we pulled into Dee's driveway.
Dee handed me some tissues.
"You guys go to the back deck," Dee said. "I'll make us coffee. I have some chocolate cake."
"You had me at chocolate," Bella swooned.
"Will you two be serious?" I said. "I'm facing divorce here."
Dee squeezed my hand before she walked into the house.
"Calm her down, will you?" she said to Bella.
I put my head between my hands and rested my elbows on the deck table.
"How am I going to face him?" I asked. "How do I look at him in the eye and tell him I didn't cheat back then. I'm so afraid."
"You've done it for years," Bella replied.
"I deflected for years and kept it to myself. There's a big difference. Now he thinks he knows. I don't know if I can do it, Bella."
"Dee and I will be on your side. I'll tell Jim that you never did anything. That I had Mark under surveillance, and that you didn't do anything with him."
"Jim is not stupid, Bella. He has always wondered at the coincidence of you hiring me after Mark hit on me at the night club."
"I may have hired you after you turned Mark down at the club," Bella replied, going through a folder she pulled out of her purse. "But I had a head hunter company checking on you before you and I even met."
She lay out a contract with the head hunter company and their replies. All were dated Early January 2008 through mid-February.
"You did?" I asked, surprised. But I shouldn't have been. Bella was nothing if not diligent. Everything she did was planned as if in a chess match. In business and with everything else. Why not with me?
"The date of the contact... with the head hunters. Two weeks after I broke it off with Mark."
"I've told you before, Linda. No one... I mean no one before or since you ever broke it off with Mark. That you did, surprised and shocked me. I wanted to know who this woman was that turned the "great" mark LaVallierre down."
Bella mockingly did finger quotes when saying "great."
"I'm not that special," I managed to reply.
"No, you were not," Bella retorted. "But you were an aberration, one that intrigued me. In time, as I watched you debase yourself to keep your marriage together, I realized that you were indeed special. But you had to be punished. My dignity demanded that. Do you understand?"
"I do," I admitted. "It still hurt."
"It was supposed to," she replied with an intensity that told me she still hurt about it even after all this time. "Take my word for it; it was worse for Mark. While the three of us were in my bedroom that first time, he was going through his physical punishment."
"What did they do to him?" I asked, reminded of that night.
"All those men you saw had wives Mark seduced. Their wives chose to ruin their marriages in chasing after him. One would leave town and travel to his games just to get her slice of Mark."
"Are you serious?"
"She did it openly," Bella continued. "Her husband divorced her, and she didn't care. She lives in Frisco now just to get Mark's attention when he is not too busy with new talent."
"I would never..."
"I know," Bella cut in. "Which is why I decided not to burn you and help preserve your marriage. Instead, I became your judge and guardian angel in one, Linda."
She had never said this to me. The starkness of it and her empathy shook me to the core. I had expected her to do just that out of spite. Yet she had not.
"Thank you, Bella," I managed to whisper as my lips trembled.
"That's why I will not let your ditchy daughter ruin all the hard work I have put into keeping your marriage together. I'll tell Jim that Mark went through my papers and knew I was about to hire you. That he hit on you to inflate his ego."
"That might work," Dee said, bringing the cake. "Coffee is brewing."
Bella reached for the cake and cut herself a slice.
"All this is making me hungry," she replied. "Chocolate cake for breakfast... ha!"
She was munching on a big bite when Dee cut me a piece that I ignored. I was close to throwing up from all the stress.
"If Bella doesn't convince him, I'll step in. I'll remind him of how he damned near drove you away. I was there, remember?"
"And he has been fucking me for two years," Bella said with her mouth full.
"WHAT!" Dee gasped. "What's this?"
I placed my head back in my hands, remembering that Dee did not know about Jim and my affair with Bella.
"Oh shit. Bella, did you have to say that?"
"It's kind of important, don't you think?" my boss asked in between bites. "I'll go get the coffee. You tell Dee."
Dee smacked my arm, which woke me from my self-pity mode.
"Just when were you planning on telling me about that?" she asked. "Two years! She has been fucking your husband for two years?"
Bella opened the sliding door and came out with the coffee pot.
"I didn't want to miss anything," she said, pouring a cup for each of us.
Dee stared at her, then me, and then back at Bella.
"I know you are her boss and all, but you can be such a shit."
"What do you mean?" Bella pushed her plate away. "I've been quite generous considering."
"Like hell you have!" Dee shot back. "You took advantage. Two fucken years! She only fucked Mark a few times in a month."
"Dee, please!" I said. "The first time, I owed her. But it hasn't been that way since."
I could see the doubt in Dee's face as she kept staring at Bella angrily.
"What do you mean," she replied. "She is holding your job and what she knows over your head."
"At first, she was," I said. "But Jim and I chose to be with Bella again."
"WAIT!" Dee said, staring at both of us again in surprise. "Jim and you? What does that mean?"
"It means they both come to my bed, or I in theirs, together," Bella said to Dee with glee. "That's right, the three of us. Jealous?"
Dee shook her head and sat back, holding her cup with both hands. I could tell she was not satisfied with our answers. She continued staring at us both with disapproval.
"Bottom line, he shouldn't have much to complain about," Bella added. "No one twisted his arm. He certainly enjoys the perks of Linda's job, the new cars, and vacations to Europe."
"You let her have Jim for the last two years," Dee hissed at me. "After all the guilt trips you gave me back when I stayed at your house?"
"It was a different time then!" I protested. "And this situation with Bella... it's..."
"It's great," Bella smirked. "Your friend Linda is quite the lover. Not just her husband."
"Bella, please stop!" I heard myself pleading. "I could lose Jim, and you are going on about..."
"Not after all you just told me you're not!" Dee replied. "Trust me on this. You are not losing him. Unless you cheated on him again."
"I haven't, Dee. I swear!"
"I can vouch for that," Bella added, taking a sip. "I keep an eye on our girl Linda."
She reached out and held my hand.
"These two have grown on me, Dee. I would never let anything break them up. What was it your ex said long ago? Oh yes, they are the best of us."
"I don't feel like the best," I replied as both Dee and Bella pulled their chairs close to mine and hugged me.
We were all hugging in a girlfriend moment of closeness when we heard his familiar voice and looked up.
"Well, isn't this fucken nice," Mark sneered. "All three bitches together. Have you all been comparing notes on my dick?"
He stood above us, holding what was a menacing dark pistol.
***
Life Flashing BY
"Mark, what are you doing?" Bella asked in a surprisingly calm voice.
"Shut up, you bitch!" he snapped back.
I was transfixed by the barrel of his pistol. I don't know if you have had the misfortune of having one pointed at you, but it seemed so... huge. My mind raced to find a way away from him, but he had us at a disadvantage. Not only was he armed, but we were sitting as he stood above us.
I thought of my pistol back in the safe at home, angry at myself for not taking it along. I usually did, but I had been distracted and wasn't thinking straight. I had purchased it years ago to defend myself against Mark. Yet here I was facing my life's end at his hand, unarmed. How tragically ironic.
"All of you," he snapped, waving the gun at the sliding door. "Inside. No funny business."
Bella was first, then Dee as I was last to stand. When Bella reached for the sliding door, Dee made her move and grabbed Mark's gun arm, pushing it down.
"LINDA, RUN!" Dee yelled just as Bella rushed Mark at the same time.
"GO!" Bella yelled. "Get help!"
They say people under stress do one of two things: Freeze or run. I did the latter. I knew there was no way even the three of us could stop a professional football player even in retirement. We needed help, and one of us had to get it. There was no time to reach for a phone. Maybe I could have reached for one on the table, but I didn't think of it. It all happened so fast. I just ran out of the garden and kept going.
As I made it outside the back yard, I heard the shot. But if anything, it made me realize that I had to get help. My two best friends were fighting for their lives and needed me to get them help. Shit!
***
Dee and her husband, Trevor, lived in our old neighborhood. Just a block away from the Alvarez home where my husband and the men were supposed to be gathering. Jim would be there, but this was no time to worry about my husband's and mine problems. Gus Matiatis, one of our five couple men, was a cop; he would know what to do. I hoped.
Kicking off my heels, I ran barefoot faster than I thought I would. Ringing the doorbell over and over, I began to panic.
"Come on! Open the door!" I gasped, banging it with both fists.
And then Rosie Alvarez it opened it. She had a stern look on her face.
"Linda, we don't want any trouble..." she said, but I wasn't listening as I shot past her.
Inside their living room was a small gathering of our friends. Rosie's husband Andy, Helen and Gus Matiatis, Jane and Phil Nessman, Dee's husband Trevor... and my Jim. They all turned to look at me with questioning and reproaching looks.
"Linda," was all that Jim said, silencing everyone else who expected us to have a confrontation.
"Jim," I said, gasping. "We can talk later, but Bella and Dee are in danger."
"What do you mean?" Trevor cut in.
"We girls were over at your house, and Mark broke in with a gun," I said as fast as I could.
"Mark LaVallierre?" Jim asked with an angry tone.
"He is armed!" Gus asked as he checked for his holster.
Gus is not an imposing man physically. But as most police officers can, he went into his detective mode self.
"Is he alone?" Gus asked.
"Gus, hurry," I replied anxiously. "Dee and Bella were fighting him so I can get away. I heard a shot."
"Call 911!" Gus said. "Tell them the address and that there is a plainclothes officer on the scene. DO IT NOW!"
Hellen, the quintessential policeman's wife, reacted first, making the call. While the rest looked to Gus, Jim and I stared at each other.
"Jim, we can talk after, I promise. Bella and Dee are in danger."
Jim nodded.
"Are you OK?" he finally asked. "He didn't hurt you?"
"No, it happened so fast..."
"OK," Gus said, opening the door. "Linda, I'm going to need you and Jim. You two go through the back yard and distract him while Trevor lets me in through the front door."
"Are you sure about this?" Jim asked as we followed Gus out. "Shouldn't the swat cops take care of him?"
"My wife is in there, Jim!" Trevor replied. "She could be hurt right now."
"By the time SWAT gets here and get their act together, this could be all over," Gus cut us all off as we got outside Dee and Trevor's house. "Trevor, open the front door and hang back. Linda, count to five, then you go to the back and make sure LaVallierre sees you. No heroics. You distract him, and I take him out. Ready?"
"What about the rest of us?" Andy asked.
"Just hang back out of the way," Gus replied. "Let the cops know what's going on when they get here. Tell them I'm in there and give them my shield number."
We all nodded nervously. Then Trevor opened the door gently as I began to count, and Gus entered the house.
"Let's go," Jim said and led me down the side of the house to the back yard.
"I'm scared," I remember mumbling. But it was the understatement of the year. I was shaking.
Jim said nothing as he looked around the corner on to an empty back deck. We could hear voices coming from inside the house: a woman's stressed voice and Mark's.
"Are you ready?" Jim asked, looking at me directly.
We said so much to each other just then. Nineteen years of marriage flashed past our eyes. Nineteen years balanced by what was the dark cloud over us.
"When this is over..." Jim said.
"We'll talk," I replied and shot past him, glad to face a bullet than his accusative eyes.
When I stepped on the back deck steps, I froze. Splashed on the decking by the slightly ajar sliding door was blood. Red blood... with streaking leading inside. Remembering Gus's orders to distract Mark, I stepped on the deck and forced myself to look inside.
Staring back at me with a big smirk was Mark. He was pointing the gun at me with one hand and calling to me with the finger of the other to go inside. I think I whimpered and trembled but knew there was no other way but to do as he commanded. Opening the sliding door, I saw Bella lying on her side. The streak of blood from the deck lead to her leg that Dee was tying off with a towel.
"Come inside, Linda," Mark said, waving the gun. "You too, Jim."
Damit! Now he had two more hostages.
"How nice," Mark sneered. "If it isn't the happy couple?"
Jim and I walked in slowly, staring at the gun pointed at us. Everything that transpired after seemed as if in slow-motion when it did. Every move. Every word. Every sound. It happens that way when lives are on the line and someone else has their finger on the trigger.
As Mark turned the gun and his attention toward us, I saw Gus's silhouette behind him. And somewhere behind Gus, Travis followed with a serious look of concern for his wife, Dee. How had it all come to this? In those few seconds, I didn't think of the past. I was just focused on getting through the next second alive. Then the next and the next.
Then something spooked Mark. I'm not sure what, but it was probably a reflection because he turned toward Gus, who was raising his weapon.
"Drop it!" Gus yelled, but Mark didn't.
Instead, he fired twice. Missing once, but hitting Gus with the second. Dee screamed as Gus leaned over as he fell. His gun fired once before his weapon tumbled forward toward Bella and a screaming Dee.
"Fuck you all," Mark said. "Fuck you, Jim. I fucked..."
Then a series of shots reverberated in the room. I felt a shock as Jim stepped between Mark and me. Red blood mist sprayed past me as a look of shock on Mark's face told me he had been hit. A gun in Bella's hand fired again, hitting Mark before he fired one last time, and my world went dark.
***
What happened?
"Mrs Johnson. Mrs Johnson!" I heard a woman's voice while waking up from what seemed like deep sleep. "We're going to take the tube out of your mouth. Try and relax."
There was bright light as I tried to open and focus my eyes in vain. More yelling and something being pulled out of my throat. I had a bitter taste in my mouth, and I passed out again.
When I came too, it was dark in the room. I could hear the distinct beeping of monitors and the sound of a respirator. A breathing mask was over my face, and my mouth was so, so dry.
"She is awake," I heard a dark-skinned woman leaning over me say, a nurse. "Relax, Linda. Everything will be OK."
My mind tried to clear, but failed. I felt dizzy and confused.
