The Other Woman's Club

"I knew that I was carrying cash from the United States to Mexico. The cash was loaded each night at the oil change business and unloaded at the house in Mexico. What I realized much later was the fact that the cocaine for the Scottsdale and Phoenix dealers and the marijuana for the blue collar and college and high school markets was being loaded at the house and unloaded over night at the oil change business.

"That bastard, I was acting as his drug mule and never knew it. It was one thing to be carrying cash across the border; it was another to be carrying drugs. If I was caught, chances were good that I would be spending the rest of my life in some federal penitentiary. I planned my revenge.

"Since it was up to me to invest our money, I was named as the owner of the accounts. That made it easier to open the accounts because I had a social security number. I had invested for the long term with a major investment firm, and into long term certificates of deposit and real estate.

"The real estate was for our retirement I told him. It was in both our names because I needed his name because it was in an active adults community in the northern part of the city of Peoria. I had been advised by my broker that the area was going to be the next "Scottsdale" and that there was a lot of room for market appreciation. I took Ernesto with me so he could see first-hand how beautiful the community was. It would be like living in a resort. I pointed out the golf course and the palm trees and water features as we drove from the entrance to the sales office for the closing.

'What do I need a golf course for; I don't play golf.'

'You're not paying for it; it's a public course: it's just for the view. Look at all that greenery. It's a lot better than looking out at the desert."

'We signed the paperwork and I showed him the house, the community center and the pool.'

'It's perfect, there are over two thousand houses in the community now, and they plan to add an additional four hundred more including an additional pool and community center on an adjacent parcel of land. We could live here in complete anonymity for the rest of our lives.

'It was four months later, everything was going well; even the check cashing businesses and the bodega were making money. As usual, I got up early on Monday morning and after exchanging vehicles I crossed the border and headed for home. I turned off route 15 and stopped at the security gate. Something was very wrong.

'The gate was broken, as if it had been crashed into by a tank and the glass of the guard house windows was shattered. One of the guards was dead on the ground, lying in a pool of blood.

'Instinctively, I knew what had happened, but I had to be sure. I turned off the dirt road and began the climb up one of the hills that formed the valley in which our house was situated. I stopped before I crested the hill and got out of the SUV and crawled the rest of the way to the top until I could see the house or what was left of it.

'The roof had collapsed; smoke billowing from the broken windows of the second floor. One of the two gates at the entrance to the grounds was hanging at a weird angle; the other gate was out of my line of sight, completely opened. Through the opening I could see bodies on the ground, lifeless. Windows were shattered, drapes hanging outside as the wind blew through the ravaged house. Overhead, the vultures were already beginning to circle, and on the ground, the desert scavengers were gathering, drawn by the stench of death.

'I didn't see Ernesto's body on the ground, maybe he had escaped. And then a gust of wind blew and the missing gate came into view. Hanging from the top of the ornament ironwork was a body. What was left of his clothes was soaked in blood. His hands and feet had been severed from his limbs and his throat had been slashed from ear to ear. He had been tied to the gate in such a way that he appeared to be starring out across his domain. They had left him as a warning to all those who saw him.

"This is what happens to those who try to take what is ours."

'I wanted to go down there, to cut him down and at least give him and the rest of them a decent burial. But I could not take the chance that the 'federales' had not already been called. Besides my obligation was to those who remained. I had to get back to town, to warn the others, to shut everything down.

I ran back to the SUV and drove back into town. My first stop was the repair shop. All appeared normal; two of the mechanics were standing by the door, having a smoke, waiting for my husband to open for the day. They appeared confused as I left the car and headed for the door. I fumbled through the set of keys to the various buildings that we owned until I found the right one.

"We're shutting down." I exclaimed to them without explanation. I ran to the office and opened the safe. I was shocked to see the stacks of cash, dollars and pesos, neatly banded and waiting to be deposited. "I need a large box," I shouted. One of the men picked up a large box, dumped whatever filters were in it onto the floor and handed it to me. I loaded the box with the stacks of dollars and made two stacks of the banded pesos. I had no clue as to how much was in each stack but I was sure it was more than each of these guys made in a year working for my husband.

'I handed a stack to each of them saying, "Take whatever tools and parts you want. "My husband and everyone else are dead. Don't ever come back here."

'I ran as fast as I could back to the SUV and headed to the check cashing offices. At each one, I cleaned out the safe; gave each employee one thousand dollars and told them we were shutting down.

'I filled the box on my front seat with the cash and headed to my final stop, the bodega.

'I walked in the front door and after checking that there were no customers in the store, turned the sign on the door to closed and locked the door. My actions caused the elderly couple who ran the store to tremble with fear. I could only imagine what they were thinking.

"We are closing the store." I watched as their faces turned pale. That's when I realized what this bodega truly meant to them. I made my next decision on the spot. After telling them that my husband was dead and that I was never coming back again; I removed the keys for the doors and wrote down the combination to the safe on a paper bag.

"The store is yours, do what you want with it. Whatever cash is in the safe is yours also. I know you used to own a bodega like this, so you know what to do. Good Luck."

'As what I was telling them finally registered, huge smiles and tears of gratitude appeared on their faces. They hugged me tightly. When I could finally break free of their grasp I walked quickly to the front door, flipped the signed over, turned the latch, and headed back to my car.

'Now what only remained was for me to cross the border one last time. As I waited in line my gaze suddenly fell onto the large box filled with cash on the passenger seat next to me. It was too late for me to try to hide it, so I quickly made up one final story of my fictitious life.

'When I reached the head of the line, I lowered my window and with tears in my eyes presented my US passport. To my relief, I knew the border guard. 'Maria, you're very early today, is anything wrong?' "I lost my job, today. When the boss came in this morning he told me I was fired and that I should clear out my desk."

'The bastard,' he said glancing past me at the large Fram Filters box in plain sight on the seat next to me. 'I'm sorry you had to go through something like that. I'm going to miss seeing you every evening. I hope you'll get a new and better job soon, maybe even back in Mexico , this way you will brighten my days again.'

'Then he handed me my passport and waved me through.'

"My last stop of the day was the oil change shop. Our employee was just finishing an oil change and I could see the puzzled look on his face as he wondered why I was back so soon. When the customer left I told him exactly what I had seen. He began to sweat as he contemplated what that meant for him. We shut the lights and turned off the open sign. I pulled into the garage, over the oil change pit.

"I don't think we are in any immediate danger here in the United States. I think they were satisfied taking out their unwanted competition; but I think it would be smart if you laid low for the next couple of weeks. I could see that he thought that too. Please lower the fuel tank and remove the cash. I'll get a box from the back and we'll load the cash into my car.

"While he went about his task, I went outside and pulled my Toyota into the other bay. I watched as he climbed down into the work pit and reached into the gas tank pulling out a number of shrink wrapped bricks of cash. I knew that he was too shook up to try to cheat me by leaving cash in the tank. As he pulled each brick out, he tossed it on to the ground near my car. I placed them into the oil filter carton that I had found. When he shouted that that was the last, I closed the box, placed it in my car and went into the office.

"Once again I opened the safe and removed any cash. When I returned I handed him two thousand dollars, and the keys to the SUV and the shop. "When I leave, lock up and don't worry about the dealers; they'll figure it out really quickly when they come here looking to resupply their inventory and find no one here. The place is yours if you want it. If I was you, I'd wait awhile, change the name, and act as if you bought the place. One last thing, I wouldn't take any long trips in that SUV. It runs really good, but you only get around 120 miles to the tankful."

"After retrieving my clothes and some personal things from the house, I loaded whatever I could fit into the Toyota, and headed north to start the rest of my life here

"That's my story, I'm not proud of what I did, but at the time it was the only way I could survive."

The last woman to tell her story was the club's designated leader, Helen Sanders. Helen was a tall vivacious woman, with shoulder length wavy blond hair, large blue eyes, a prominent nose, and a wide sensuous mouth.

"I was born and raised in Mount Clemens, Michigan. I went to Michigan State and graduated with a degree in Marketing. Jobs were hard to come by in those days. I ended up taking a job in the sales office of a CAT dealership, which had just opened outside of Detroit. The owner was the former owner of a large road construction company. After a couple of very good, but very stressful years, he had decided that it was better to sell the equipment than it was to use it. Because he had been in construction he had a lot of contacts and was well known in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

During my interview, I couldn't help but notice that he was really struggling to maintain eye contact with me, his eyes occasionally dropping to my chest. I knew he was going to offer me the job. He did, but he added a final statement.

'Your looks are going to get you into the door, which is very important. But once you get in there, it's going to take your ability to sell and your knowledge of the products that will close the deal. These are very large and very expensive pieces of equipment; buying them is a very big commitment on their part.' "I never forgot that."

"I learned everything I could about the equipment and picked my bosses brain as to his experiences buying equipment and what I should be looking for.

"Soon I was closing deals. I developed my own sales pitch, customizing it on the fly as I learned more about the buyer and the company and their prospects. If a buyer balked at the price of a larger model, I tried a smaller model; or maybe a used model if one was available. When all else failed I suggested leasing as an affordable solution; postponing the purchase of equipment until a later date.

I went to builders' conventions and equipment leasing companies. I was making quite a name for myself in the industry. After several years I was the highest seller in the company and my compensation showed it. There was a good deal of grumbling among some of the other salesmen both in our office and in the other offices as well. I once overheard a phone call between our office and the Minnesota office.

"It's just not fair; all she has to do is shake her tits in front of the customer and they'll buy anything she's selling."

"When he got off the phone, I marched into his office, slammed the door shut, placed my hands on his desk, leaned forward and shook my tits in his face while I read him the riot act. That was the last time I ever heard that kind of comment from anyone."

"Predictively, I was called into the owner's office soon after."

'Sit down Helen. I understand you had a little disagreement with Ralph a couple of days ago. I also know what it was about and that it was settled to the satisfaction of all concerned.' He said with a gleam in his eye and a smile on his face. 'I only wish that I had been there to see it.'

"I stared at him for a long moment as I tried to decide if he was serious. Then we both broke up into a laughing fit."

'Seriously Helen, I want to talk to you about something important. I want to give you a promotion. How does Vice President of Sales sound and also a forty nine percent ownership in the business? You don't have to answer now. I'll put together an offer, compensation package and the purchase of a minority share of the business; then we'll get together and hash it out.'

"Two months later, I agreed to both parts of his offer. We consummated the deal right there in his office on his conference table."

"From that time forward, after a long week for each of us, we met in his office and reviewed the sales for the week, the backlog of orders, and how each salesman was preforming."

"And then we enjoyed each other's company."

'That year, at the office Christmas party, I met his wife for the first time. He was twenty five years older than I was, but he kept himself in great shape and looked a lot younger than his age. His wife, on the other hand, was short, fat, and let's just say not very good looking".

"By New Year's Eve, she had given him an ultimatum. It was either her or me; one of us had to go. 'Well she owns half of my company, so I guess it's going to have to be you that goes.'

'It took a year for the lawyers to agree on the numbers. She had tried to get him on infidelity. She had even hired a private investigator to search for proof of an affair. All he could come up with was that we always stayed late on Friday nights and left the office together. He countered that as owners and President and Vice President of Sales, we always had a business meeting after normal business hours, but that we never left the grounds in the same vehicle and never saw each other on a personal basis outside of the office."

She tried to get half of the business, but since he only owned half of the business, the best she was going to get was a quarter. His lawyer argued that because I owned forty-nine percent of the business that his share was worth materially less than 51 percent because I was a key component in the growth of the company due to my substantial share of the sales."

"In the end, she settled for a lump sum payment of two million dollars and alimony of seventy eight thousand dollars per year for the next ten years. My payments for my share of the business would cover the alimony."

"We got married six months after the divorce was finalized. Twelve years later, CoVid-19 ended our happy marriage. I woke up one morning to find my husband in bed gasping for breath. He had been complaining of cold symptoms the previous evening. He was rushed by ambulance to the local hospital. As the ambulance doors closed I got my last glimpse of my husband as the EMTs frantically began pumping his chest. He died 2 days later of congestive heart failure brought on by CoVid-19."

"I sold the Company later that year to our major competitor in the region. I moved here shortly after the closing on the sale of our house. We had spent winter vacations here to escape the harsh winters in Michigan."

"Those are the other members of the OWC."

"They all sound fascinating, when will I get a chance to meet them?"

"Soon; next week you have your 'top surgery'; then you have to wait a couple of weeks before you can remove the bandages. After that I see no reason why you can't join us at the pool. At that point I'll introduce you as my daughter who has just come here to live with me."

Chapter Four:

We started our six hour drive just as the sun peeked over the Superstition Mountains. We left the Route 303 loop and got on Interstate 10 heading west. After an hour of driving we reached an area where on either side of the road, as far as the eye could see, there appeared to be absolutely nothing, nothing moved, nothing grew. I sat in the passenger seat and glanced at the fuel gage; relieved that Mom had thought ahead and had filled up before we had gotten onto the highway.

At New Hope, Arizona, there were a couple of truck stops, a towing company, a few food places, and a whole lot more of nothing. It almost resembled a lunar landscape. After nearly three hours of driving, we crossed the Colorado River and entered the state of California. There were cultivated fields on both sides of the road for next ten miles, and then, we were traveling through the desert once again.

"Mom, how did you qualify?"

"What dear?"

"How did you qualify for the Other Woman's Club?"

"I was wondering how long it would take you to ask that question. Actually my story is a lot like the others, but not nearly as interesting. I came to Los Angelis right after I graduated from high school in Nebraska. In high school I was always one of the lead players in the annual school play. My class mates told me I should try to get into the movies and the best place to do that was in Los Angelis.

"I worked at several low paying jobs, waiting tables, working in clothing shops, and other retail places; while searching the want ads for casting calls for any type of acting jobs. The problem was that in LA every other pretty woman is doing the exact same thing. In Nebraska I stood out, in LA not so much.

"After nearly two years of searching with no luck, I gave up on my dream and looked for something more realistic. I answered an ad for a receptionist/assistant for a small business in LA not far from my studio apartment. I had a 10:00 appointment. When I arrived, I opened the wooden door to a scene of mass chaos; a tall good looking man was on a cell phone, searching through a pile of papers on the front desk, while the office phone continued to ring, unanswered.

"I don't know why I did it; it was purely by reflex. I picked up the phone and said, 'hello, how may I help you'. On the other end, a frantic man asked to speak to a Mr. Crawford. With no one else in sight, I made the assumption that the man in the office was Mr. Crawford and that he was busy on the other line and asked if I could have Mr. Crawford return his call as soon as he was free. I got his number, wrote it down on a blank memo pad near the phone and sat down in one of the two chairs in the reception area.

"When the man finally got off the phone, he turned, read the note I had written, looked me up and down, smiled and said. 'You must be Elisabeth my 2:00 appointment. If you want the job, it's yours. We can discuss compensation later; right now I have to return that call.

"He retreated into his office, the only other room in the suite and closed the door. I sat down at the reception desk and straightened out the mess on the desk and looked through the draws of the desk and the file cabinet behind me. I didn't even know what the name of the company was and what we did; but that didn't matter. I had a job.