Summer Sunshine

Most of the musicians and the sound people had heard our exchange and knew that Brenda and David K didn't like each other very much. Last year, they'd had a very tempestuous fling during the fall and winter months. Brenda thought she was in love. She went all out. She told her parents, back in Great Neck about David K and had visions of a wedding. Right after Christmas, he'd given her the speech.

David K, no one ever called him anything other than David K, was bored. With the orchestra doing a mini tour of several South American cities, David K wanted to be free and unencumbered. When she'd told him about her hopes for their future, he'd crushed her hopes even further in an embarrassing scene when he explained to her that he had never even thought about marrying a "bigger" girl.

"Fuck him," spat Brenda. "But if you are interested in finding yourself a man, you've got to get out there. And for God's sake, Thena show a little cleavage. Let all of that fucking hair down. You look like a librarian and not the sexy kind."

"What makes you even think that I want a man?" I asked.

"We all do," she said sadly. "Don't you want to have something to wrap those long legs around at night?"

"I have my cello for that," I smiled.

"Is that thing going to keep you warm?" she asked.

"Shit, it's late spring," I quipped. "It's going to be warmer every night until summer anyway. Then we'll all be whining about it being too hot."

"When was the last time you were in love?" she asked.

"When I got my..." I began, but stopped abruptly with a withering look from her as she secured her flute in its case.

"If you say one more word about that fucking cello..." she warned. "Seriously when was it?"

"I guess grade school," I confessed. Her mouth dropped open and her eyes grew to the size of saucers.

"It's been that long?" she asked, incredulously. "You're a God damned nun. No wonder you're not trying to get laid like the rest of us. We need to do something to ease you back into life. I think we have to find you a man. No no, that wouldn't be good," she said. Her eyes narrowed as she began to plan.

"We need to get you a practice guy first," she said looking at me. "We don't want you to fuck up the love of your life by not knowing what to do. You need to have a...."

"A what?" I asked.

She smiled at me. "Honey you need to have a summer fling. Just spend the next few months with a guy learning the ins and outs of the whole relationship dance. Learn all of the good things and the bad things and what you like and don't like in a guy. Then, when summer ends and life goes back to normal, just let him down easy and go on with your life. In the fall, you'll be up to speed with the rest of the world and you can start looking for the real thing."

"But..." I began.

"But, my fat ass," she snapped. "We're doing this. What kind of guys do you like?" Even as she asked me the question, we were walking towards the elevator. As I thought about it, the doors to the elevator opened and we stepped forward. As clumsy as ever, I tripped over the ledge between the elevator and the floor. Truthfully, I was not totally to blame as the floor of the elevator was about an inch higher than the floor.

The only thought running through my mind as the floor came up was my cello. Even in its padded protective case a bad fall could damage the expensive instrument. Strangely, I didn't worry about injuring myself. But I didn't need to worry about either because out of nowhere, a briefcase dropped to the floor and two arms shot out. One grabbed me and the other cradled my cello.

Even as the strength in those arms halted my downwards progress, our eyes made contact and locked. It was probably less than a second, but in my mind, that second stretched out for an hour. Like two flies trapped in amber, we held our position looking into each other's eyes and in that second, I knew my life had changed forever.

"I can't believe you," spat Brenda. "You must be the luckiest bitch on the planet."

"You don't know the half of it," I said, still staring into my rescuer's steel blue eyes.

"I tripped and fell like that a couple of months ago," she continued. "I landed right on my fat fanny and my flute went flying. It bounced off the wall so hard it cracked my mouthpiece. The only person around to see me was one of those boring stodgy accountants that Anton always has trailing around after us. And that guy had his head so far up his own ass that he couldn't have saved me if his life depended on it. All, those guys do is work with numbers all day. What good is that?"

"Thanks," I said, as the man returned me to my feet.

"No problem," he said. He readjusted his glasses and headed towards Anton's office.

"Who are you?" I asked, ignoring Brenda's rant.

"I'm a senior account specialist from the bank that's financing the orchestra this season. I specialize in international taxes and finance. I guess you could say that I'm Anton's new boring stodgy accountant." He smiled and then walked away.

Brenda continued to drone on and on in the background. I watched the man until he turned the corner. "That's him," I said quietly.

"Who's him? Err...That's who?" asked Brenda in puzzlement.

"I've decided to go through with your plan," I smiled.

"You did?" she smiled back. "What plan?"

"The one about me having a summer fling," I reminded her. "And you just met the man I intend to have my summer fling with."

"Uhm Thena, Honey," she said. "Shouldn't you pick someone a little bit closer to your age? At least pick someone from your same decade. The idea here is to get you out and enjoying life and doing things. Not someone who'll probably be as boring as you already are."

"If I'm doing this, and I do mean IF," I said. "He's the one. I can feel it in my bones."

"Thena, don't get too serious," she said slowly. "Remember he might not be interested in you. He might be married, even. Let's pick out a few guys just in case."

I just smiled at her and we got onto the elevator and headed for the parking lot. What I didn't tell Brenda was that she had very good and very valid reasons why this might not work, but I didn't care about any of them. If he wasn't interested in me, I'd make him interested. If he was married...as much as I recognized and respected the sanctity of marriage, the way I felt when our eyes met was too strong to be denied. Heaven help me, I'd go after him even if he was married.

* * * * * *

Blake

I'd met Anton Stravinsky on several occasions. I suppose that he's a great conductor and musician, but as a business director, he left a lot to be desired. His records were incomplete and sloppy. And he also failed to document some of his expenditures. That meant that by the end of each month his records for the amount of cash he actually had on hand and the money he'd put out didn't match.

The bank stood to make a tidy profit on this season and the tours for the orchestra, but that profit would be severely curtailed if we had no idea how much money we were actually working with. My job was to come in and wade through whatever jumble of records Anton had and bring them all up to date. Then, I would assign someone to maintain Anton's records for the remainder of the tour. I would also be taking a look, at Anton's request, at some problems he was having with his personal accounts and taxes. Anton made just slightly more than I did, so I knew first hand that if not managed well, he could have a seven figure salary and still end up broke.

I needed to work quickly because the orchestra was due to leave for Paris in a few days and I really didn't want to go with them. I'd been to Paris before. Several times, in fact, over the years and would rather stay home. Sure, it was everything that people said about it. It was a beautiful city, an old city with all of the romance and old world charm that it's reputed to have. The problem is, that those things are only great when you're young and in love. I'm no longer young and although I've been married for more than twenty years, I'm not sure that I'm still in love.

If you ask me about my daughter, I could tell you without hesitation that I love her more every time I see her. But when the question moves to my wife, I'm truly not sure any more what the answer is there.

I knocked on Anton's door before trying the knob. It didn't turn, so I sighed in frustration. I looked at my watch and walked down the hall to the next office. There was a young woman there who looked up as I stood in her doorway. "I'm here to see Anton," I said smiling in an attempt to seem friendly and less...stodgy.

"Good luck," she said. "He usually takes a lunch right after rehearsal. If you're lucky he'll be back in an hour or so. Go across the street and have a cup of coffee. I'll have him call you if he comes back sooner. Who are you?"

"Blake Livingston from the Hunt Bank," I said. I left her one of my cards.

The coffee shop across the street was full of young artistic and musical types. Watching them was an eye opener. I think I acted far older than they behaved now, when I was younger than them. My life had always been one of doing the right thing. I'd always tried to do the things that would give me a long and successful career. I just hadn't had a lot of time for frivolity. At first, it was because I was so busy making a name for myself. Then, it became even more important when I got married and then when Selena came along. I wanted her to have everything that every little girl wanted. Nothing was too good or too expensive for my baby.

"May I sit here, please?" The voice was cultured and rich. I looked up and saw a woman not too far from my own age. Compared to the sea of low rider jeans and belly shirts she was a touch of immediate familiarity. Come to think of it, there was actually something familiar about her face.

I nodded and got up and pulled the chair out for her. "Please join me," I said. "I'm terrible with names but we know each other, don't we?" She sat down and smiled.

"I am not going to pretend to remember your name," I continued. "But it's one of those cases where I've known you for an obscene amount of time but only seen you once or twice a year if that, right?"

"Very good, Blake," she said. "We see each other every year at the Sisters of Virtue Gala. Perhaps we run into each other a few other time of the year if we're lucky. But in actuality, I'm unfortunately more acquainted with your wife Clara, than you."

"Why is that unfortunate?" I asked smiling. I had the idea that a compliment was coming.

"Well, to tell you the truth," she began. "I've known Clara since we were both in grade school. I've always envied her throughout our lives. Oh, this is so hard," she said. She hesitated as if what she was saying brought her physical pain.

"I've always tried to live my life on the good path," she said. I was hoping that she'd just go ahead and say whatever it was that she had to say. The suspense and my own disinterest were killing me. I looked at my watch, but the hands seemed frozen in place. I couldn't escape from her for at least another forty five minutes.

"I suppose if it was me, I'd want someone to tell me," she continued. "Hell, when it was me, someone DID tell me."

"Told you what?" I asked.

"That my husband was cheating on me," she said.

"So you're saying that your husband is cheating on you?" I asked. "That's awful and I hope he gets what's coming to him but why are you telling me."

"I'm not telling you that," she said. "It's you."

"Your husband is cheating on ME?" I asked. "Is he one of my clients?"

"No," she said softly. "Clara is. I was at our weekly luncheon at the hotel downtown. I wanted to go to that jewelry store in the Galleria on the second and third floors but I got off on the fourth floor instead. I'd been talking to my son on the phone and that boy always exasperates me. Anyway, I missed my floor so I decided to take the stairs back down. It was only one floor but the stairs are on one end of the building and the elevators are on the other so I had to walk down the hallway.

As I walked down the hallway, I saw a young man walking towards me. He was very good looking if you go for those swarthy types. I've always preferred the more ruggedly handsome but aged type like you. Anyway, just before we passed each other he turned and opened the door to a room. He had a key to the room. When he opened the door, he stepped inside and started talking to a woman in the room." My facial expression must have shown my boredom with the whole story so she picked up her delivery.

"The woman in the room was Clara," she spat. The tone in her voice was almost victorious. It was as if she'd just delivered the coup de grace to a downed opponent and secured a sure win.

She must've been really disappointed when she noticed that my face registered no shock or horror.

"Was he perhaps a young doctor?" I asked. "An Indian fellow?" She nodded her head woodenly.

"You already knew?" she asked.

"If you're asking me if I knew that she was seeing a therapist who looked like the man you've described, yes I did. Did I know that we're...notice that I said WE'RE...meeting him in a hotel room instead of his office...again yes I did. Would you like to know why?" The shock on her face was actually funny.

"Because we, like your-self, are from one of the oldest families in the region. Everything that we do becomes news or fodder for the tabloids. We aren't even allowed to have problems in private. Clara and I noticed that we're having some issues in our marriage that we needed to work out. I think that she's becoming a shopaholic. She doesn't even remember most of what she buys anymore. She, on the other hand, thinks that I spend far too much time on the job. Those issues are creating stress between us. So, in order to make sure that we stay married for another twenty years at least, we're seeing a therapist. He's the previously mentioned Indian man." She gulped loudly.

"The problem is that if we went to his office, we'd have no privacy because every waggling tongue in town would be talking us getting a divorce or even worse things. So, we agreed to meet in a hotel room for privacy's sake. It actually costs us even more."

"I'm sorry," she spat. "I guess I'm as bad as the rest."

"Well, at least you bothered to come to me before you tried to poison our reputation. That really was a very classy thing to do," I said.

"Well, I'm nothing if not classy," she said.

"Wow, I'm just glad it wasn't me you saw coming out of the room with him. You might have assumed that I was having some sort of homosexual affair," I laughed. She picked up her purse and snapped it open.

"Don't worry about it. I've got it," I said, noticing that she actually looked angry as she hurried away from the table.

After she left, I took a long deep breath. I let it back out and with it my anger. The only reason I'd been able to remain calm and think on my feet was the fact that I'd known about Clara cheating on me since her affairs began. I'd had some suspicion late last year, so I'd put a private eye on her. She'd had several affairs over the past three years. When she started this one, I hadn't said a word to her about it. I guess I'd been struggling with the why part. I loved Clara. At least I had until I found out about her affairs. I still hadn't made a decision about what to do about it but I had simply stopped sleeping with her.

It had been hard early on, but the longer it went on the easier it became until now I didn't even miss it any more.

I had to admit that Clara was simply a serial cheater. She'd done this more than once, more than twice. My PI seemed to think that for some reason she only did it during the summer. I wondered about that. What did she fancy herself? Was she some kind of part time wife/part time whore? I had no idea. I guess for the past year or so I'd begun to think of Clara as just another option or luxury item in my house. She was just another thing that I'd apparently bought and paid for that I used occasionally.

Sooner or later, I'd do something about her but for now; it was, in fact, cheaper to keep her. Being a financial planner, I knew the type of hit my finances would probably take in the event of the divorce. I would and had already taken certain steps to limit the hit I'd take, but if it came right down to it, I'd be as fair as possible with Clara. We'd been married for over twenty years and for most of it she'd been a wonderful wife and partner. I had no intention of hiding assets or trying to short change her. I was mature enough to realize that people often changed over the years. Perhaps we'd just drifted too far apart.

We both had the right to be happy. I just didn't want an embarrassing scenes or any histrionics. Of course, it hurt to think that I wasn't enough for her. I guess early on I'd tried to make excuses for her. I went through them all. I'd tried maybe her hormones were out of whack. But every physical she'd taken over the past few years confirmed that her hormone levels were securely in whack. They were close to optimal for a woman of her age and body size.

Next, I'd told myself that she was probably bored. Clara had never worked but she was on and active in several different committees and charities. There were times of the year that she worked at least as long as I did and without getting paid for it.

I investigated the theory that perhaps she was just attention starved. I started telling her that I loved her more. And buying her little gifts and leaving them in odd places around the house for her to discover. That didn't work either. I finally had to simply assume that it was just about sex. Clara needed a younger more virile man. I'd read several articles that claimed that women after a certain age dwarfed the men in their age groups in terms of sexual desire.

I guess on some level, I could understand it. And though it hurt my pride to think that I couldn't give her what she needed, I am, in fact, a realist. Men and women simply have differences when it comes to sex. I remembered back to when we were younger and I wanted to have sex almost every night. On some level, I knew that my darling Clara didn't need it nearly as much as I did, but she NEVER once turned me away. I guess if she could put up with giving me what I wanted, I should be man enough to let her have what she needs.

I wasn't contemplating divorcing her because of the sex. What had destroyed the feeling I had for her, was the fact that she snuck around and cheated on me. After more than twenty years together, during which I had supported her and given her everything she needed. Scratch that I'd given her more than she needed; I'd given her everything she wanted. Besides monetary and comfort items, I'd given her my heart, all of my love and everything else I had to give.

I remember when we were younger and living in a barely habitable apartment. We'd sat on our balcony night after night with the sirens from police cars and ambulances as a constant reminder that we weren't in a good place. We'd shared our hopes and our dreams that someday we'd have everything we needed. We'd also sworn that we really didn't need a lot because as long as we had each other, we had everything.

Now, we live in a house that's big enough to play football inside of it and we have every modern convenience, but we no longer have each other. Somehow, we've grown so distant that Clara couldn't come to me and tell that she needed something. I've always moved heaven and earth to get her whatever she needed. Why didn't she trust me enough to even let me try? Our sex life seemed to be robust enough for her a year ago when we'd stopped. She still threw out a hint every now and then that she was willing. I mostly pretended to be tired.