Operation Recover Mr. D

My divorce was drama free.

"My" divorce.

It should have been "our" divorce, but by the end we were so independent of each other we couldn't even share the dissolution of our marriage.

No bad guys. Or maybe we were both bad guys. Neither of us made the necessary efforts to stay connected, or at least not at the same time. Marriage is really hard to get right, and in the end Beth and I just didn't have what it took, at least not with each other.

So we did what we couldn't -- or wouldn't -- do for the last few years of our 23-year union: we talked, we listened, and we decided to end our marriage with a modicum of respect and appreciation. Our daughters -- we'll always share Katie and Suzie -- felt a lot of sadness and anxiety at the big change to their lives, but they suffered no mortal emotional wounds, and the mediator got Beth and me through the financial settlement with no lasting bruises either.

And so with a few signatures and fewer tears my marriage ended.

Leaving me sitting in my condo on an early Saturday afternoon feeling oddly melancholy.

At least I'd showered and shaved today, which was a 50-50 proposition on the days I didn't go into work. And I'd made the bed and picked up a little, so the day was already modestly productive. I'd been to the gym yesterday, so I wasn't particularly interested in going again today. The wet roads from intermittent rain made a bike ride unappealing. I'm not a sports-bar kind of guy, and I don't really like to read for leisure. Mostly I felt flat, like I'd felt for the last three or four years, just without the structure of a marriage, the maintenance demands of a house, and the obligation to Beth and the girls to seem like I gave a damn.

I was also restless. I hadn't been laid in months, and flat, unfocused, and horny is no way to go through life, son.

Then the doorbell rang.

I was tempted to ignore it. Beth and the girls knew where I lived, and the girls had actually been around to visit. Katie always stayed with Beth when she came home from college. It made sense. The house was familiar, and her mom and sister lived there. But Katie should be a couple hundred miles away in her dorm, and Suzie had said she was going to be at her high school's volleyball game today, and Beth, well, for the last eighteen months of our marriage Beth barely acknowledged me when we lived together. So I had no idea who might be at the door.

But it would give me momentary diversion from my ennui, so I jumped to my feet and padded quickly over to the door.

"Hi, Mr D!"

You could have knocked me over with something even lighter than a feather. Standing -- or rather bouncing -- on my doorstep was Jacquelyn Salvio, Katie's best friend since fourth grade.

"Oh, Jackie. Uh, hi." If my expression didn't show my utter confusion, then my scintillating reply certainly did.

Jackie just giggled in that way she had. She'd always had the most enchanting giggle. When she was ten it was pure joy that bubbled up. When she was in middle school it added a coquettish timbre. When she was in high school her giggle added more layers, first the beginnings of adult knowledge, and later a depth formed by new and intimate experiences. And now her giggle was full and rich, befitting a woman just launched into adulthood with passion and promise and purpose. Or maybe that was all just the projections of the creepy dad of her best friend.

I always tried to be the cool dad, and I was pretty good at not seeing the kids as sexual beings, at least until they got to college. I had no illusions that Katie or any of her friends were celibate. Beth and I discussed how to talk to Katie about sex and relationships and birth control, and while I let Beth do the actual talking I stayed engaged behind the scenes. Beth shared the whole of their conversations with me. Katie and the girls she hung around with weren't virgins by the time they graduated high school, but none of them had more than three partners. Katie said only one for her, and we believed her. Beth and I made a good parenting team at least.

And now Jackie Salvio was standing on my doorstep. And she seemed even more excited than usual.

"Uh, Katie isn't here, Jackie. She's up at school."

"I know. I texted her to get your address."

"Oh. Um, okay. Then what, ah, what can I do for you, Jackie?"

"Can I come in?" She was smiling. She was always happy, upbeat, and she looked right now like she could burst at any moment.

"What? Oh! Yeah, of course. Come on in." I stepped aside so she could enter, and she whizzed right past me into my condo.

"Nice place, Mr D! Quite the bachelor pad."

I looked past the entryway to the great room. It looked pretty generic to me: fireplace with a big TV over the mantle, a small sectional, a recliner, a rectangular coffee table with a glass top. The kitchen was tucked off to the left behind an island with three stools. The hallway opposite the entry led to a bathroom, a guest bedroom I used as an office, and the master suite with its own bathroom, including a soaking tub I had yet to use. The walls were painted something like Oatmeal Hush and the carpeting was from the same palette. The walls were pretty bare, save for an old schoolhouse clock that came from my grandparents' house. At least I hadn't pinned up any posters.

I didn't notice until she dropped it onto the sectional, but Jackie had been carrying an oversized bag on her shoulder, and it looked fully stuffed. She turned and hopped up onto the back of the sectional, steadying her balance by putting her hands down and grabbing the edge.

"You can't go out like that, Mr D. Why don't you get changed, so you can feed me properly. After all, I'm going to need a lot of energy for the next week."

The next week? "Um, Jackie, what exactly is going on here? Shouldn't you be up at school with Katie?"

She smiled, a warm, genuine smile. Caring even. "This is a little more important."

"And what's 'this' then?"

"Operation Recover Mr D!" Jackie threw her arms up over her head, losing her balance and nearly toppling over the back of the sectional before grabbing hold to right herself.

I laughed in spite of myself. "Recover Mr D? And what exactly am I recovering from?"

Her smile this time was wistful. "A neglected soul."

Well that went right to my heart. My eyes flooded, and I had to blink rapidly and look away. I had no idea why those three specific words in that specific order affected me so much, but I struggled for emotional control.

"Oh, Mr D," Jackie said. She was on me in a flash, wrapping her arms around me and pressing herself against me. I couldn't remember the last time another person had held me like that for more than a second or two. And I began to leak tears. My body vibrated as I tried to suppress them.

"It's okay, Mr D. You're going to be just fine."

My crying jag passed quickly leaving only mortification. I tried to hold onto Jackie a little longer to delay the coming awkwardness, but when she pulled back the compassion in her eyes melted away my anxiety.

"I don't know where that came from," I said, wiping my eyes with the sleeve of my t-shirt.

"I do. I told you, Mr D -- we're going to help you. We know what you've been through the past few years. And we love you, and we want to help you."

'We?"

"You know -- Katie, Emmy, Tara, and me!"

"That's very sweet of you girls, but I'm pretty sure I can manage myself."

Jackie stepped back and put one hand on a kicked-out hip. She dropped her chin, arched her eyebrows, and looked up at me through her black bangs. Her deep brown eyes were lively, but their message was clear: I was full of shit.

"You're so sweet, Mr D, but we all know that's not true. Now get changed, and let's get something to eat. I'll fill you in over lunch."

I chuckled, and realized that I could eat.

I always enjoyed the company of Katie and her friends. They were interesting young women, each of them talented, but most importantly they all respected themselves and each other. None of them were perfect, but they accepted that they were worthy just as they were, and that comfort, that solidity of self made them unusual for their age. I always talked to them as equals, because while they lacked my life experiences, they seemed to know themselves so well. And apparently they knew me better than I knew myself.

* * * * *

I thought it wise to defer the selection of restaurant to Jackie, and she picked PF Chang's. So over lettuce wraps, ginger chicken, and honey shrimp, she told me about Operation Recover Mr D.

"You know Tara is studying psychology, right?" I did, so I nodded. "Well, when Katie told us that you and Mrs D were getting a divorce, Tara happened to be in a class about relationships. She said it was about how different types of people interact with each other, and how hard it is for certain people to create and sustain relationships because they're so different. Like that language of love thing. And Katie really wanted to understand why you and her mom were separating, especially since no one was cheating or fighting or drinking or anything like that. Katie was really upset."

"I didn't know that. Why didn't she say anything? Unless she talked with Beth...."

"No, she only talked with us. She thought you guys were maybe hiding something from her, because there didn't seem to be any reason for you guys to split up. She was really sad and angry and, well, just really upset. So she started reading more and more about relationships, and really pumping Tara for information, so Tara started talking with her professors and TAs trying to figure out what was going with you and Mrs D."

"Beth and I just grew apart. Somewhere we lost the spark, and then we just stopped doing things together, and then eventually there just wasn't much of anything left between us."

"Yeah, we got that. Eventually. But then Katie realized that you'd been getting quieter and more distant since she went away to school. She thought maybe it was her fault that you and Mrs D got divorced."

"Oh, God, no! Not at all. That poor girl." I felt awful that Katie blamed herself. She was one of the two reasons our marriage lasted as long as it did.

"She gets that now. We all understand that sometimes people grow apart. But that's what started us digging into you guys even more. And we kinda made a project out of it." Jackie looked at me with a piece of honey shrimp between her chopsticks halfway to her mouth, sizing me up for a reaction.

"A project? What exactly does that mean?"

The shrimp made it into her mouth, and when it was chewed and swallowed Jackie continued. "Tara had to do a project in her psych class last semester, and since she and Katie had done so much research on relationships in general and your relationship with Mrs D in particular, she thought that she could use all that. So she analyzed you two and then compared you guys and your relationship to her parents who were still married. And she got an A!"

"Of course she did! I'm glad to hear something good came out of the divorce." I didn't mean it as bitterly as it came out. "I'm sorry. I was trying to make a joke."

Jackie brushed it off and kept her chopsticks moving. I don't know how she ate so much, so fast, and still dominated the conversation.

"No worries. Anyway, Tara thinks that you and Mrs D are just too different at your basic level. Opposites attract, you know, I guess because we need someone with different strengths to complete us in a relationship. But if you're super different -- like you and Mrs D -- you have to work really hard to stay connected. It just doesn't happen naturally by itself. You and Mrs D are like polar opposites. And with both of you working full-time jobs and having two kids and a home to take care of and all your church activities and working out like you do and all the other stuff you were doing, well, you just didn't have enough time or energy to keep yourselves together."

I was impressed that they figured it out so completely, and happy that Katie could see the truth of our divorce, but none of this was exactly news to me.

"Well, I think you guys nailed it," I said, grabbing some more chicken while I could.

Jackie smiled her brilliant smile. "That's why Tara got an A. But to understand your marriage and what happened to it, we had to look at you and Mrs D as individuals too. And that's when we realized we needed to help you."

"Well, I do appreciate your concern, Jackie, but I think I'm managing all right."

"You don't see what we do though. We love you, Mr D, and we aren't happy that you aren't happy. So we're going to fix it."

He chuckled. So sweet, so naive.

"Don't laugh at me like that, mister," Jackie said, narrowing her eyes in jest and waving a lettuce wrap around. "You just can't see it. You're like that frog sitting in a pot of water that slowly boils. But that's okay. You have us."

"I appreciate that, but I'm not sure I need the help. And what about Beth? Are you helping her too?"

"Mrs D doesn't need our help. She's so independent and completely fine to be on her own. She can be happy being self contained. She doesn't need other people like you do."

While it's true I was the extroverted half of our couple, I wasn't ready to concede my helplessness. Or haplessness.

"I do appreciate your help, Jackie, but I'm really fine. I work, I work out, I work with the youth group at church, I see friends when I can -- it's all cool."

"You know, when we were in high school, we always loved coming over to your house. Mostly because of you. You always teased us, and your jokes were really just not funny, but you always had conversations with us. You asked us about stuff, asked what we thought, showed a lot of interest in what we were doing. And you listened when we talked to you. Not like a lot of adults. Most of them, really. They think teenagers are too young to understand things and have opinions about them. But not you."

Wow. I didn't realize they saw all that, but of course they would. We always know when someone respects us. Or condescends to us. And I did love talking with them. Hell, I like talking with most people. My father always told me that every person in the world has enough interesting stories for at least one date. His way of encouraging me to give every woman a chance, I suppose. He also told me to keep myself fit because with the size of my nose I wasn't going to win any beauty contests. Wise man, my dad.

"So we always loved being around you. And you were always in really good shape too. We called you 'Hot Dad.' Em, Tara, and I used to talk about seducing you when Katie wasn't around to get grossed out." Jackie blushed a little, but her grin was wide and she didn't break eye contact with me.

Wow again. But crushes can really only go one way on the creep-o-meter -- it's endearing when kids have crushes on adults, but it can't ever go the other way. Best to ignore that sort of thing and hope it fades away.

"You were always fun to hang around with," I said. "Loud and lively, and you were good kids too. And thank you for worrying about me. But, really, I'm good."

Jackie shook her head vigorously. "Oh, no you don't! We see you. We've always seen the real you. You are at your best when you're with people. Katie noticed when she left for school three years ago that you were quieter and more subdued when she came home. It took us a long time to realize that with her gone, and with you and Mrs D not talking much, and Suzie getting into high school and having friends and getting out of the house, that you didn't have anyone to be with. So you just lost energy. And you kept losing energy. You need people around you, people who want to be with you, and we're going to get you re-started so you can be the ultracool hot dad we remember!"

And then, having polished off the balance of the lettuce wraps and the chicken, she popped the last shrimp into her mouth and said, "Let's get DQ for dessert on the way home."

* * * * *

All that food must fuel her enormous personality, because Jackie Salvio didn't need it for her body. If she topped five feet it wasn't by much, and while she wasn't skinny she was small-breasted with slim hips, so she fell on the slight side of the body-type scale. She was pretty in a wholesome girl-next-door sorta way, if the girl next door had flawless olive skin, lustrous hair that fell just below her shoulders, and a smile that could light up most of the eastern United States.

My small dipped cone looked inadequate next to her large Blizzard, but she'd bested me all day long, so why wouldn't she keep her winning streak alive at Dairy Queen.

"So when does this miraculous operation to rebuild me begin?"

"Oh, it started weeks ago."

I chuckled again at the chutzpah of these young women. So certain, and so earnest. Their innocence was wonderful, and I teared up just a little at the thought that I was worthy of their time and efforts.

"Are you going to share the project plan with me?"

"Sure thing! Since I'm the most outgoing, we decided I'd start off. I'm staying with you until next Saturday to build the foundation. You know what I'm studying at college, right?"

"Industrial Design. Unless you've changed your major."

Jackie clapped her hands and squealed. "Yup, that's right! I'm not exactly an interior designer, but I can get you at least ninety percent of the way there, so the first thing we're going to do is make your condo a showplace. And it's going to show off the best of you!"

That actually sounded pretty worthwhile, particularly given my complete lack of interest, enthusiasm, and talent in decorating. Picking out the furniture for the condo exhausted me. Okay, I was impressed with Step One of the plan.

"That's going to take a whole week? There's only four rooms and two bathrooms."

"I'm also going to get started on your wardrobe. And I'm sure we can find plenty of other things to keep us busy too," Jackie said with a lecherous smirk.

Stay cool, I told myself, remembering the creep-o-meter. "Am I going to be working during the week, or do I need to take time off?"

"You can work three days, but I need the other two. And I'll meet you for lunch on one of the days you go into your office."

They really had thought a lot about this. "When are Katie, Tara, and Emmy joining us?"

"We're going to tag-team you! Emmy will be here to take over next Saturday, and then Katie will be down for the next week, and then Tara will finish it off the week after."

"What are you doing about classes? You guys really should be concentrating on your studies instead of doing all this for me. I'm really doing okay."

"It's already decided. And we're going to be fine. When have we ever neglected school?"

"Senior Ditch Day?"

Jackie giggled. "Nope! We turned in all our assignments the day before, and Tara and Katie even did extra credit for French because Monsieur Delacroix got all bent out of shape at the idea of 'planned truancy.' So again, it's decided. You'll just have to put up with us for the next four weeks!"

There are many worse things in the world, I suppose.

* * * * *

I tried to give Jackie the master bedroom and bath, since my spare bedroom doubled as my home office and felt a lot cramped when the sleeper-sofa was pulled out. She wouldn't hear of it. So she hung her clothes in the closet and unloaded her personal care stuff into the guest bathroom. When she was finished she came out and slid next to me on the sectional.

She took my hand in both of hers. Her fingers felt cool, and their touch sent little shivers up my arm. I realized with a bit of a start that I just wasn't used to being touched. Beth really was self-contained, so I usually initiated our physical contact, but I hadn't done that in a very long time. I clearly missed it.

"Mr D, I know this kind of seems like just a big joke to you, but it's really not."