Girl's Night Out

She was silent. Her mouth hung open slightly and a tear formed at the corner of her left eye.

"But most of all, I'm just the guy that hopes his wife loves him even half as much as he loves her. I'm just the guy that desperately hopes that his wife chooses him." I had to stop again because my voice was breaking, and I could feel tears welling up in my eyes despite my harshest efforts to banish them.

I exhaled audibly. "Thank you for hearing me out. It's your turn." And I sat quietly to listen to her take apart my childish whining.

She picked up her phone and hit a button and held it to her ear. I had no idea what she was doing. Was I so off the mark that it made no impact? I felt a failure as she spoke into the phone.

"Jinny?" She said into the phone. My heart sank. If she was calling Jinny for advice things were likely to get unpleasant at home. "It's me, Tonya. No, everything is fine. Yes, I told Tom exactly what was on my mind. Yes, Tom's good with Friday." I felt the shame welling up and my stomach clenched. She was openly rejecting me and my offer. I felt my marriage and my life slipping down a soapy slope to ruin.

"I wanted to call to tell you that I'm bringing Tom dancing with me on Friday. Why?!! Because he's my husband and I love him, and I want to spend as much time as I can with him. Hell, I see you at work every day." My heart nearly broke with pride as I listened to her half of the call. "Now why in the hell would I want to dance with some strange young boy when I have a man? Yes, all my dances. I'll tell you this Jinny, it wouldn't be so bad an idea for you to invite Mike along too and stop paying attention to all those flatterers you fawn over. When was the last time you two had a date? Yeah, I thought so. You better fix that. All the devil needs to kill your marriage is a toe hold girl. What should you tell the girls? Well, I'm going to call Linda and I'm going to tell her that our boring girls night just morphed into date night and that we are springing for a Limo. I'm going to tell her to dress to impress. I'm going to tell her that we are going to walk into that club with four of the hottest guys in town escorting us and that we are going to make all the single girls green with envy. I'm going to tell her that I am going to show my man how much I love him and just how special he is to me and then I'm going to tell her that we are going to make love all night when we get home. Well maybe I'll skip that last part, TMI and all. Now, go invite Mike and when you're done you call Sandi. Ok. Yes, I'm glad we decided to include the boys too. Yes, I know they're like little children and would be lost without us. I'll see you at work tomorrow. No, I won't tell you what I'm wearing. But I will tell you this, you better pull out all the stops if you don't want to be embarrassed. I intend to make Tom forget every other woman in the world on Friday. I'll see you at work. G'nite."

Tonya clicked off and started to walk to the stairs. She stopped about halfway up. "Thank you for being so courteous and hearing me out. You did better than me. Didn't interrupt once."

I sat looking up at my beautiful wife smiling. As hard as I tried, I could not stop myself from tearing up and long wet trails ran down my cheeks. When I looked at her face, smiling back down at me, I swear she was 25 again. I thought I would positively burst with happiness.

She started back up toward our room again but after two more steps she stopped and turned back to me.

"When did you learn how to read my mind?" She asked.

I was quiet a long moment. "I knew you would ask that." Was all I replied.

A Happy Ending.