Bethel's Meadow (16 page)

“You still doing the pickup artist stuff?”

“Oh, don’t start busting my balls on that again. Yeah, I’m still doing it, but don’t hold it against me, okay?”

“Okay, one out of two ain’t ever bad as far as you’re concerned. I’m glad to hear you’re clean. Anyway, did you hear about me and Samantha?”

“No,” he answered. “What are you talking about?”

I gave him the story, short and sweet. He didn’t seem to be too surprised.

“She’s not the type to cry the blues over losing a guy,” he said. “I do know she’s always experimented with some weird sex things though, but not so much since her husband ate the bullet. Just stuff like oral sex and jerking a guy off in front of his wife, but no intercourse. I kind of eat that stuff up, but as Sam said about you, you’re just not into that kind of thing. That’s cool with me. Live and let live, right?”

Hearing that stuff about Samantha made my stomach turn, but now that she was history in my life it was time to move on. Wally just wanted my approval for what he was doing with the community of pickup artists he was hanging with. I decided I needed to get off my high horse about the whole thing, so I called a truce with Wally about it.

“Okay, one thing before we hang up,” he said. “I have some news about Cath—uh, I mean, Caitlin.”

“What’s up?”

“She got her ass fired from Disney. It was for something she did on the way back from Minnesota.”

“Tell me.”

Sidebottom laughed for a bit, but he finally got it out: “Some kid sitting behind her on the plane was annoying her. He was kicking the seat or something. So she turns around and threatens this tiny little boy. The kid isn’t too impressed with the threat, so your ex ups the ante and tells him that she killed Mickey Mouse with her bare hands. She told him she could prove it, because she kept Mickey’s severed head in the cargo hold of the plane. That scared the shit out of the kid, and her ass was fired before the plane’s wheels hit the runway.”

“There’s bad karma for ya,” I said.

“True that.”

“You been to the library lately, Wally?”

“I can still go, but they won’t let me check out anything. I’ll be damned if I pay a dime to those assholes. Their accusations are bullshit.”

“Is my lovely redheaded friend still working there?”

“Yeah, she’s still there. Why? You thinking about tapping that?”

“Watch it there, Walter. She could be my wife one day.”

“Wow,” Wally said. “I’ve never heard you say anything like that. Must be the real thing with you, huh?”

“I don’t know yet,” I said. “I’m going over there tomorrow to see if I can still feel the magic.”

17

G
LORY NOLAN AND THOSE brilliant blue eyes of hers catapulted my heart and soul into another world, a world of our very own, a place where I felt warmth of a kind I had never known in my entire life. I knew as I sat there that I didn’t ever want to leave her presence. I wanted to set fire to the entire universe that surrounded us, so nothing could ever interfere with what we could have together.

“Well, I won’t lie to you,” Glory said quietly. She glanced about the library to ensure we had privacy. Then she turned to me and smiled. “I’m not too down in the dumps about your breakup.”

I hadn’t mentioned exactly whom I’d broken up with, and Glory hadn’t probed too deeply into the matter, only asking how long the relationship had lasted. My answer was vague: “Not long enough to matter. I’m over it.” I didn’t want to tell her I’d ended
two
relationships within the past couple of weeks. I didn’t want to scare her away.

She eyed me quizzically and said, “Why do you suppose relationships don’t last as long as they used to?”

“If I knew the answer to that,” I said, “I’d be richer than Bill Gates and Warren Buffet combined.”

“Yeah, okay, but if you could change anything about society that would make things easier on relationships, what one thing would you change?”

I mulled the question over for a bit, and then answered: “Well, when you put it that way, it’s rather simple. If I were the king of the world, I would confiscate all cell phones and roll back computer technology to 1985, when all you had was CompuServe and really slow modems. I’d halt everything right there. That would mean if you were driving down the road and had an urgent need to communicate with someone, you’d have to pull over to use a payphone. There’d be no Facebook or Twitter, no online dating services, nothing that could tempt a man to explore what lies in the electronic ether that might seem like greener pastures in terms of relationships. The way things are now . . .” I removed my cell phone from my pocket and held it up to Glory. “This iPhone is cancer to relationships. All such smart phones are. Right here in the palm of my hand I can communicate in any number of ways with people all over the world, at any time of the day, whether it be via telephone, Skype, Facebook, text messages, Twitter, whatever. I’ve been on dates, Glory, where girls spent more time looking at their cell phones than at me. Granted, I might not be much for looking at—”

“Oh stop it,” Glory said with a playful grin. “You know that’s not it. But go on.”

I then lost my train of thought because I was lost in space again, lost in Glory’s darling blue eyes. Since Sidebottom wasn’t around to snap me out of it, I had to come back on my own.

“Sorry, but I just completely trip out every time I see your eyes,” I said to her. Glory smiled and seemed a little embarrassed, her cheeks turning a light shade of red. To spare her further discomfort, I continued with my monologue: “Anyway, it’s just becoming too easy for people to not concentrate on the here and now. They always want to be somewhere other than where they are, to be with someone other than whom they are with. Men and women both will madly type away text messages while their girlfriend or boyfriend is sitting or standing right next to them. Walk into any bar or restaurant and you’ll see what I’m talking about.”

“You’d never pull out a cell phone on me, would you?” Glory asked.

“Hell no, I wouldn’t. And you on me?”

“No way,” she answered. “I would also never go on Facebook. If someone is truly my friend, they’ll have my phone number and they could call me whenever they wanted.”

The line of questioning after that went back and forth, picking up from the last time when we’d briefly inquired of each other’s background. Glory asked what I did for a living and where I was from. I said I was a computer guy and that I’d grown up in Oklahoma. I then asked about her background. I learned that after living in Dallas since she was a little girl, Glory had relocated to Orlando five years ago to begin life anew and to put behind painful memories. It was all because of a failed engagement with her college sweetheart (they’d been together for nearly eight years). She then asked about my parents. I tried to dodge the question, but she wouldn’t let me off the hook.

“Look, it’s a long story,” I said. For some reason I wasn’t ready for this. “I’ll tell it all to you some . . .” I trailed off. Some nagging voice inside of my head was telling me that Glory was too good for me, that I should just leave her the hell alone and not subject her to the train wreck that was my life. It was the damnedest, most awful feeling.

“You can tell it all to me some night soon over dinner,” she suggested. “And you’ll also explain to me why you don’t go by that beautiful first name of yours.”

Just then I felt my stomach tumble. My conscience was screaming bloody murder at me. That damned inner voice that had always succeeded in holding me back just wouldn’t shut up.

“Well,” she said, passing her hand in front of my eyes, “sometimes you go somewhere else.”

The enemy from within was working to sabotage what was perhaps my only remaining chance for a happier and more fulfilling life. Every negative and self-defeating thought running through my head had been planted there years ago by a procession of foster parents and social workers who’d told me I’d never amount to much, that I’d be lucky just to hold down a job and not end up murdering my boss or an ex-lover. I’d never said
Fuck you
to those doubting voices that constantly rattled inside of my head. They would never go away unless I did. But maybe today wasn’t that day. Despite how this wonderful woman made me feel, I found I just didn’t have it in me yet to spurn the ghosts of the past. I still don’t understand why I felt trapped within my own cowardly hide like that. It was a paralyzing feeling that I just couldn’t shake, not for anything.

I arrived at the painful decision that I wasn’t ready for a relationship with Glory. And I had no idea when I would be.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was thinking that maybe . . . I don’t know. Maybe you wouldn’t want to be with someone coming off of a fresh wound, so to speak.”

“You just said that it wasn’t long enough for it to matter, right?” Glory offered an expectant look, and I didn’t want to disappoint her. The woman was a doll. She surely had other suitors. But I didn’t have the guts to come out and tell her the truth—that I’d actually just come off of two relationships, one of which was long term and the other that I maintained solely for sex. I didn’t want to fess up about any of it, especially with regard to how I had improperly handled both breakups.

“Okay,” I said, finally disobeying my inner voice. “What kind of food do you like?”

“Oh, don’t you worry about that,” she said with a cheerful smile. “I’ll cook for you. You can come to my place. Don’t worry. I have a roommate that will probably be there. She has a boyfriend. Maybe I will be cooking for four. Whatever the case, I think it would be a low stress thing for both of us, a comfortable place to get to know one another better.”

I accepted her offer. She wasn’t wasting any time, either. She suggested I come over tomorrow night. The Thursday night NBA game on cable would feature the Magic. (Yet another basketball fan in my life.)

It was a date.

I knew Glory had to get back to work. I quickly removed from my pocket a stack of business cards Vernon had printed for me. I handed her a few of them. I told her I would somehow compensate her for each referral she obtained for me.

She gave me a sexy, playful smile. “Or perhaps we could just take it out in trade?”

I could have melted right then. But I maintained my cool and offered what I’m sure was a suave smile.

“One quick question,” I said. “What is your life’s dream? I mean, what do you want, professionally speaking?”

“Oh, that one’s easy.” Glory was beaming brightly at the thought. “I want to own and manage a bookstore. I know it probably doesn’t mean much in the way of money, but I really love books. And I know electronic books are beginning to really take off, but I don’t think they’ll ever do it one hundred percent. Anyway, the happiest thing I can think of is to open a box of brand new hardcovers and put them out on display. Don’t get me wrong—I like the library. But I would just
love
owning a bookstore.”

Glory sprung from her chair and said, “You’re so thoughtful to ask. What about you, Mr. Smith? What is your life’s dream?”

Without thinking I came right out with it: “After I’ve been married to the same woman for ten or fifteen years and she gets asked how things are going in her marriage, I want to be the kind of a man whose wife would answer: ‘I am still
madly
in love with that man!’”

I couldn’t believe those words came from my lips.

18

“
W
OW, YOU ACTUALLY SAID THAT?”

Sidebottom couldn’t believe it either.

“Smith, my brother, you need a few drinks to get your head right again. It just ain’t like you to fall head over heels for
any
woman like that.” We were sitting at the bar at 52 Palms. Sidebottom raised his hand to summon a bartender. “Keep the vodka and tonic’s coming for my man here, and don’t ever stop. They’re all on me tonight.”

“I jinxed our relationship before it even began,” I said ruefully. I raised my glass and took the last sip from it. Just as Sidebottom had commanded, within half a minute my refill was set before me by the bartender. “I’ve never even been engaged before, Sidebottom. I don’t know what I was thinking. Right from the beginning I have set the bar way too high. There’s no way I’ll ever be that kind of a man, not to her or anyone else. Besides, what marriage lasts that long anymore anyway?”

Sidebottom blew off my rhetorical question with a dismissive wave, and then he asked, “How’d she react when you said that?”

“That was the worst part,” I said. I surveyed the bar area and noticed it was beginning to fill up. The bar stools were all occupied and the side booths all accounted for. Pretty soon there’d be competition for floor space. I glanced back at Sidebottom. “She smiled at me in the same way a bride smiles to the groom when they’re standing before the altar getting hitched. The only difference was, Glory looked sincere. I’m telling you, Sidebottom, she gave me that look that says ‘money doesn’t matter’ and ‘I’ll never leave you for anything.’ And it just absolutely scared the shit out of me. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.”

He chuckled and nodded. “Yeah, that was definitely a fantasy you had going there.”

I grabbed his arm and said, “No, it wasn’t a fantasy at all. What I saw was the future. And I have to act now to change it, because once we get married I’ll
never
be able to live up to that expectation. I need to pull out of this
now
, before it goes too far.”