When The Heartache is Over

That was very bad. The guard also decided to save even more time by sneaking us in through the side door of the auditorium past the line of people going in. That way he could get the golf cart back even sooner and also get back to doing what he'd been doing which was fucking nothing. I was always amazed by people who were in a hurry to not do anything.

Just as we got to the door he was showing us, it all fell apart. In a total convergence of chaos, everything necessary for the disaster lined up. "Hey Cal," yelled the guard at his boss. Cal looked up as he waved back. Another guard who was guarding the stage door entrance opened the door as two men, Cal and my boss, Lou, tried to go into the door at the same time.

A lot of the other people who were headed towards the other door saw that the stage door was open and there was no line there headed towards it. Cal looked up and I realized that Cal was my amazing looking surfer guy who drove the Mustang from the beach that morning. Something else in my head clicked into place at the same time. I hadn't been able to see him from up close that morning, but now we were only about two feet apart and my brain exploded as my synapses fired.

The fire was quickly put out though because before my mind could make the critical jump towards recognition, Cal saw Lou who smiled at him. Cal's face, already darkened by years in the sun, grew even darker as rage overtook him. Cal lunged and punched Lou in the mouth so fast his fist was a blur. Lou staggered back and Cal punched him again and then again and Lou fell onto the ground. Cal leaped at Lou again and was only stopped by the guards pulling him off of Lou.

He struggled, fighting against the guards as Grace came running up. "Oh shit," she said looking at him. "I guess you already know."

"Wha..why?" asked Lou groggily.

"Get this piece of shit the fuck out of my building, now," screamed Cal. He was losing it. "Did he register yet?"

The guards and Grace looked lost. "Never mind," said Cal. "I know which company he works for. They are blackballed. We will never do business with them as long as he works for them.

"No," said Lou, who was just getting up with blood streaming down his face and his eye swelling.

Apparently someone had called the police because a couple of HPD officers came over to find out what was going on.

"Someone reported an assault," said the officers. No one said a word, not even Lou. The officer took out a pad and starting interviewing the first guard.

"I was just driving by on my golf cart," he said. "I saw this crazy old white guy rolling around on the floor and punching himself in the face. I've got work to do. If you need me to I can come by the station later and make a statement. Before the cop could stop him, he was back on the golf cart and pulling away.

The cop looked at the second guard.

"I didn't see anything," he said. "I just got here when you did." He looked at the other guard driving away. "Shit, he forgot me," he yelled taking off after the guard.

"Sir, who assaulted you?" asked the cop. Lou who was still confused by everything just lay down on the floor, pretending he'd lost consciousness. At that moment, his phone rang. The cop took the phone from his pocket and answered it. "Uh ma'am, he's been hurt. Tell the guards that sergeant Kino Amaka gave you permission to come back here."

He dialed another number on Lou's phone and called for an ambulance. The cop looked around at everyone trying to figure out who to interview. When he looked at me, I just shook my head. Grace spoke to him for a few minutes which gave the ambulance techs time to get there.

"I need to get to the bottom of this," said the officer. "Somebody needs to say something."

Cal was still angry and I noticed that the cop didn't even approach him. Grace did all of the talking. A lot of things happened really quickly. Two more huge Hawaiians came up being dragged by a very tiny little girl. She had the same almond shaped Asian eyes as Grace did. But her skin was much lighter. She ran right past the cop and over to Grace who was the first person she noticed. Her hand clamped onto Grace, who looked down. She smiled and picked the little girl up. The resemblance between them was uncanny.

The cop went over to the techs working on Lou. I went over there too. Mary came over at the same time and looked at Lou and shook her head.

"Is he okay? What's wrong with him?" she asked the ambulance tech.

"Well, in my medical opinion," said the first tech. "Somebody KICKED his ASS."

"I agree," said the second tech.

"Does, he need to go to the hospital?" asked the cop.

"Not unless they're teaching self-defense," said the first tech laughing.

"Who are you?" the cop asked me. Everyone there turned and looked at me. I didn't know what to say. I did notice Mary whispering to Lou.

"I'm...uhm," I said.

"She's his assistant," said Mary. "She wasn't here when it happened either."

"Great, just great," said the cop. "Nobody knows, Shit!" Grace was on him in a second. She chided him about the language he was using around an impressionable child and his lack of professionalism. She told him that at next week's chamber of commerce meeting she would be talking about the whole incident and his conduct. She told him that he was lucky that Cal had slipped away. He hung his head then and apologized. She told him to go back to the station and she'd come down later with statements from all of the concerned parties including the victim or whatever he was.

"But..." he began. Grace just looked at him and pointed towards the elevator. The tiny miniature version of her in her arms raised her arm too and pointed in the same direction. The cop turned and left.

I noticed then that Cal really had left.

Grace looked at a couple of her assistants and had one of them drive Lou back to the hotel.

"But I have to stay here," he said. "I need to get registered and get an account. We need to clear this whole thing up. Why the hell did that guy jump on me?"

The tiny girl in Grace's arms looked at Lou and pointed her arm at the elevator.

"Did you hear what he told the guards?" asked Grace calmly. "I'm going to try to calm him down. Maybe, once he's calm, he'll think about this from a business point of view instead of a personal one. If he doesn't change his mind there's nothing that can be done. WellWen isn't a publicly held company. We don't have a board of directors. There's no need for one. Cal owns 45 percent of the company's stock. I own thirty nine percent and ten percent is held by some of our senior employees.

"Who owns the other six percent?" I asked. Grace looked at me as if she wanted my head on a plate. She didn't even dignify my question by speaking to me. She just pointed at the little girl in her arms.

"Me," said the little girl. I don't even think she knew what she was saying, she'd just responded because her mother pointed at her.

As Lou struggled to get to his feet, Grace spoke to him. "We'll be done here today by four thirty or five. Why don't you come back here for dinner at six?"

She looked at me then and said, "You may as well come too. After all, this whole fucking thing is your fault." She turned and went into the auditorium.

They drove us back to the hotel in one of those shuttle buses. All the way there, Lou talked about getting some kind of pain killers for his face.

"We're in," he said smiling. "They have to give us an account now. This couldn't have worked out any better if we'd planned it. And I didn't even have to..."

"You didn't have to what?" I asked.

"He didn't have to try to make you fuck somebody," spat Mary.

"What..." said Lou.

"Shut up, idiot," said Mary. "You're not in. In fact you're even further out than you thought. I'm divorcing you. I'm tired of this shit."

"No, Mary," he pleaded. "Whatever I did wrong I'll stop doing."

"This isn't about us," she said. "It's about him. Before he left to go and do his speech, I really took a look at that man. I thought about his motivations and everything he's done and the look on his face told me everything I needed to know. No matter how this ends, you're going to lose. You are a fucking loser and you deserve to lose for what you did to him."

"What the fuck did I do to him?" spat Lou. "He just started punching me for nothing. If he gives us an account, I won't press assault charges. If he doesn't give us an account, I'll press charges against him and he'll do some jail time and have his reputation damaged."

"Lou, you're an idiot," she said. "He owns that huge building. I'm sure he has several lawyers who'll get him off. He may not even need them. I spoke to a few people. You have no witnesses who will claim that he even touched you. No one will admit to having seen anything except the one guard who claims you punched yourself in the face. And speaking of faces, did you see the look on his. That man wants to kill you. And here on his turf he might get away with it. This is an embarrassment. I'm not going down with you. It's time you got what you deserved. You hurt that man more than it's humanly possible to get over."

"I didn't do shit to that guy," spat Lou. Mary just shook her head.

"You fucked his wife, imbecile," she spat. "You destroyed his whole world so he built another one. From the look on his face, he'd tear this one down too for a chance to burn you back."

I thought about the other women that Mary had told me that Lou had screwed before me. "Who's his wife?" I asked. "Maybe we can talk to her and get her to help us out."

"Elvina, shut up," she spat. "You're as stupid as Lou is. Don't you people notice anything?"

She just looked at me shaking her head. I heard a rushing sound like water going through my ears and I almost passed out. She still had to say it though.

"Cal is your husband Danny, Elvina," she said. "That's probably why your PI's couldn't find him. They were looking for Danny Caldwell. Put the pieces together. Caldwell. Cal as his first name. D for a middle initial and Well for a Last name. They call the company WellWen. Cal Well and Grace Wen. How is it that you two morons still have jobs?" She just looked at us.

"You probably won't for long," she said. Lou just sat there stunned.

"That was the loser?" he said. "He must be taking steroids."

"And his wife," I said. "She was the gawky Asian girl that he trained to take his place. I remember now. I went to his job the day after he left to see if they had any idea where he would go. You know, I thought that if he had a job lined up somewhere he'd need references or a recommendation. She was crying the whole fucking time and she wouldn't talk to me at all, but she kept looking at me, up and down as if she was trying to size me up. The little bitch looked at every one of my weaknesses and used them to steal my husband."

Mary started laughing then. "Elvina, you win the prize," she said. "You just might be stupider than Lou. First off, she didn't steal Cal or Danny or whatever the fuck we're calling him. You chased him away from you. You called him all kinds of names while the other idiot here fucked you. In the second place, they aren't married. Hawaii is still part of the United States and you've never divorced him. I don't know about emotionally but legally YOU are still his wife. He got to be a Bazillionaire after he left you so I don't think you're going to get much money out of him, but that's only one of the things I'm wondering about."

I looked at her. "Why didn't you ever divorce him Elvina? Were you waiting the five years for abandonment or the seven years to have him declared legally dead?"

"How about the one hundred years for I love him and we're not getting a fucking divorce," I spat.

"So here's a bigger question," I said. "He has this hot new slinky, sultry Asian wife. That bitch is hotter than you are Elvina. Even though her tits are smaller, she has you beat. She's younger and smarter as well. He, again has all of those lawyers. Why hasn't he divorced you?"

* * * * * *

Danny/Cal

"Why didn't she divorce you?" The question hung in the air for a few minutes after Grace had asked it.

"There was no need for her to," I said. "She's got everything she wants. She has that big douche bag to fuck and his wife probably doesn't know anything about it."

Grace crossed the floor and I noticed again exactly how beautiful she was. She laid herself across my legs and looked up at me. "Either that or the wife is fine with it, or she might even be in on it." Grace lifted her eyebrows in mock shock.

"What's on your mind Gracie Grace?" I asked. I reached down and grabbed her hand stopping it from slowly walking up my leg.

"What's on YOUR mind?" she asked, turning the question to me. "It's unusual to see you lose your cool like that. I think our strategy should be to divide and conquer."

"By doing what?" I asked.

"First, you tell me what you want to do about the guy," she said. "Do you want to give his company an account or just hang him out to dry?"

"Fuck that," I said. "I want to go George Bush. Let's go nuke-ya-ler. Call his company. Find out who their CEO is and tell him that we've decided not to do business with them at this time because there was an incident with the person they sent. Tell him that we like a lot of the things they're doing but have no information about their products or services because the man they sent didn't have a presentation. Follow that up by telling him that we'd like to work with him but he's going to have to send someone else and not to ever send that asshole back here again."

"I like it," she said. "We give them the carrot. They give him the stick themselves. They'll probably fire his ass on the spot. Part two; what do we do about his assault claim?"

"Talk to the wife about it," I said.

"I'm thinking that you should do that," she said quietly. "In fact, I was hoping you'd do it. You need to resolve this once and for all. You just have too many unanswered questions."

"No I don't," I said.

"Yes, you do," she spat. "Shit, you still love her. You and she need to sit down and talk this out. Maybe I won't even strangle her the way I've been dreaming about for years. Shit, maybe I'll get lucky and she won't want you anymore. Even with all of the improvements I've made, you're still damaged goods now."

"I was actually talking about YOU talking to HIS wife," I said.

"Oh, I thought you were talking about YOUR wife," she said.

"You're MY wife," I said. "Everyone knows that."

"Everyone THINKS that," she said. "God damn, I wish it was true."

* * * * * *

Elvina

"God damn, I wish it was true," I said.

"Elvina, do at least a little bit of the work here, Honey," said Mary. "Like I told you less than three seconds ago, that man still loves you."

"Why would he?" I asked. Ever since we'd left WellWen, I hadn't been able to stop crying. "You yourself said it, Mary. I hurt him and very badly. He probably hates me. And he has that slinky bitch. I hate her, Mary. I hate the shit out of her."

"Mm Hmm," smirked Mary. "Why do you hate her?"

"Huh?" I asked.

"Your future employment with the company depends largely on her. Dufus over there has ruined his career and his marriage," she said pointing at Lou, who was asleep on the sofa in their room. The pain killers had put him down and Mary refused to allow him to sleep in the bed with her since she'd told him she was divorcing him.

"Think about this logically," she continued. "If you want to keep your job, your best hope is to secure an account with them. Remember the way my idiot, soon to be ex-husband thought that he had the inside track yesterday because your ex beat the shit out of him? You really do have the inside track. You need to do two things. Number one: you need to distance yourself from Lou so you don't go down the toilet with him. And number two: that slinky bitch is probably your best friend. You go and talk to her. She already told you to come to this dinner tonight didn't she?" I nodded my head but my face still showed my pain.

"Well, after dinner, you explain to her that if she gives you an account and sets it up so that you are the representative for your company, you'll just go away and never bother her again. You'd be set; if not for life, at least for as long as your company wants to advertise with them. And Elvina, be smart about this chance you'd be getting. Go back to school and learn all of that new technical shit so you don't get put out to pasture before your time." She looked at me and smiled.

"But we both know that you won't do that, don't we?" she smirked. "You won't make nice with the slinky bitch because like you said, you hate the shit out of her. Even though the bitch has never said a cross word to you, you can't stand her. She fucking modeled herself after you, only without the tits. But you just want to beat the shit out of her, don't you. Elvina, would you like to throw her down on the ground and just punch her in the face until your arms were too heavy to move?"

"Yesss!" I said loudly. I was no longer crying and energy coursed through me.

"Elvina, have you ever been in a fight in your life?" she asked.

I looked at her. "Uhm...no," I admitted.

"So you'd probably end up getting your ass kicked, right?" she asked.

"I know I could take her," I spat.

"Trust me, Elvina, you couldn't," she smirked. "Do you even know why your hands are turning into claws right now? Do you know why you hate that woman so badly?"

"It's because she's a slinky bitch and I don't like her," I spat.

"Elvina, that's the same way a lot of women look at you. They hate you before they even know you because of the way you look. Usually, it's even more specific than that. It might even be that some guy they like is always staring at your tits and doesn't notice theirs, so they hate you because you have something or someone they want. Does that ring a bell?"

I didn't say anything, I just looked at her. "Elvina, forget about all of that shit you read in the magazines about the sisterhood of women and how we all have to stick together to find our place in a male dominated world. The people who do the most insidious damage to women aren't men; it's other women. Women just hate women."

"I read an article on a business that was started by a woman. She'd been hurt in a divorce. I think her husband left her for another woman or something like that. Anyway, she only hired women to work in her business. Things went along okay for a while and then they all started to get really catty. They developed all kinds of cliques in the office and they started bitching and whining about being assigned to some of the more physical jobs. They perceived the jobs that involved lifting things or shipping them out to be less valuable. So as a way to alleviate some of the infighting in her office, she hired a man to do those jobs."

"He wasn't an Adonis or anything like that. He was just a guy. He was married and had a kid. In less than two months he had to quit because all of those women who never wanted to go anywhere near the shipping and receiving room were fighting over the guy and that job. He wasn't interested in any of them and they were throwing themselves at him just to prove that they were more desirable than the other women."

"What does that have to do with me?" I asked.

"You only hate her, because she has what you want most," she spat. "So instead of you trying to make peace with her to save your job and your future; you'd rather fight her, even though you've already said that you have no chance of getting him back."

"It's stupid," I said. "I guess I'm stupid."

"No, stupid," she said. "It's called love." That was when I started crying again.

"God damn it, please stop crying," she said. "I'm not sure the carpet can soak up all of those tears and when it floods in here...I can't swim."