Where Does My Heart Belong? (12 page)

CHAPTER
32

The next morning I knock
on Red’s door to see how he’s doing.  I’ve decided to let him tell me the
reason why he left me.  When he answers the door, I ask him if he’s going to be
home today.

“I’m not going anywhere,
why?”

“I want to talk to you,
so when you have the time let me know.”

“Is it about Friday night
and yesterday?”

“No, I’ve decided that I
want to know what happened in Ellensburg.”

“Good, I want you to
know.   There’s no time like the present so come on in.”

The story he tells me is
unbelievable, like something straight out of a low class Hollywood movie.

“Do you remember when I
told you I thought there was something shady going on with that dealership and
that I was ferrying cars?  Well, I was right; they were buying stolen cars from
chop shops and then re-selling them.  The owner of the dealership would drive
me to wherever the cars were at and I’d drive them back.  When I finally
figured out what was going on I told another salesman who’d been suspicious as
well.  I told him I was going to turn them in.  Somehow, word got back to the
owner and all hell broke loose.  The owner’s name is Linda; she’s the woman I
ended up marrying.  That bitch had the hots for me from day one.  I told her I
was in love with you but that didn’t faze her.  When she found out I was going
to turn her in, she said she could make it look like the whole thing was my
doing, I would take the fall, not her.    And, if I wanted to keep my little
girlfriend healthy I would dump you or she would turn me in herself.  God,
Libby, I didn’t care what happened to me but I couldn’t stand the thought of
anybody hurting you.   By then, I knew she was crazy, certifiable; but I didn’t
know how far she would go.  From then on, she had me on a short leash.  When
you called on my birthday and asked for me she was the one who answered the
phone and told you I had quit.  I hadn’t, I was still there.     The next part
of her plan was the marriage.  Same deal, I marry her or she turns me in and
you get hurt.  So I did it, and god what a nightmare.  I have never hated
another person as much as I hate her.  I was impotent the whole time I was with
her.  She would try to have sex with me but I could never do it.  To make a
long story short, I finally got the chance to turn her in.  She got sick with
the flu, couldn’t go in one day so I called the cops and told them the whole
story.  They called the FBI since some of the cars were coming from out of
state.  The FBI tapped the phones and the next time we went to get another car,
they followed along.  Once they had all the evidence they needed we were
arrested and the dealership and chop shops were shut down.  I got immunity from
prosecution for my testimony.  They wanted to put me in the witness protection
program because the chop shop people were a bad bunch and they weren’t sure
they had them all.  I turned it down because I wanted to find you and I
couldn’t do that in witness protection.   Everybody involved was convicted and
sent to prison.  Crazy Linda was in fact truly crazy. After her sentencing, she
went into a catatonic state.  She’s now incarcerated in a mental institution
for the criminally insane.  The doctors don’t think she’ll ever come out of
it.  I got a job at another dealership, divorced her and starting looking for
you but nobody knew where you were.  And that’s pretty much it.”

“Pretty much, but not all
of it right?”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s more to it, I
want to hear it all.”

“Jesus, haven’t I hurt
you enough?”

“Yeah, you have and
you’re hurting me right now by not telling the truth.  As far as I’m concerned,
nothing’s changed; I can’t forgive you until you man up and tell me
everything.”

“Okay, okay. The first
time I met Linda was at that sales convention I went to and she told me about
her dealership and said she was looking for another salesman. Was I
interested?   I told her maybe and that I wanted to see it so we made plans to
go there the next day.  Later that evening I got rip roaring drunk, we were
dancing and having a good time and the next thing I knew I was in bed with
her.  The next day she apologized and said if I came to work for her, it would
never happen again.     She showed me her dealership and I accepted the job. 
At first, everything was fine, I could tell she wanted me but she didn’t do
anything out of the way until I threatened to turn her in.  Is that what you want
to hear?  I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I’ll understand if you can’t forgive me
because I will never be able to forgive myself for what I’ve done to us.”

“So you cheated on me,
right?

“Yeah, but i
t
wasn’t a conscience decision.
  It was a drunken mistake.”

“So, you divorced her,
but now you’re getting divorced again.  What’s that all about?”

“That’s another story,
just about as weird.   Do you want to hear it now or save it for another day?”

“I want to hear it, let’s
get this all out in the open.”

“Okay, one day, at the
new job,  I sell a car to this really nice lady named Joann and I offer to buy
her a drink after work to celebrate.  We have a drink and I ask her to go out
to dinner with me sometime.  She says yes and we start dating.   She is one of
the nicest people I have ever met; she’s 25, and a CPA at a large accounting
firm.  After dating for about a month, she opens up and tells me about her
past.   When she was 18, she was brutally gang raped by four men.   I am the
first man she has been out with since it happened and she respects me for not
trying to have sex with her.  Then I told her about Linda and the impotency.  A
few weeks later, she says she has a business proposition for me.  Some years
back her uncle swindled her parents out of a huge sum of money.  He died and
left his estate to her in his will.   There’s only one catch, in order for her
to get it she has to be married for at least a year.  She says she will never
be able to get married and have sex but she wants the money to give back to her
parents and tells me that if I’ll marry her and promise not to try and have sex
with her she will give me half of it and then I can divorce her.  So I married
her, and after a year she got the money but we didn’t divorce.  We liked each
other and enjoyed being together so we decided to stay married.   I told her I
didn’t want any of the money, told her to give it all to her parents but she
set up an account for me anyway and gave me $125,000.00.  I had told her about
you and the first thing she did when she got the money was hire a private
investigator to try to find you for me but I didn’t have enough information for
him to work with. Then when Bob called and told me you were back in Eagle
Valley, the next day she went down and filed for divorce, told me to quit my
job, pack my bags, and go home to you.  God, Libby, next to you and my girls
she’s the best thing that ever happened to me.   I just wish I could have done
something to help her, but I couldn’t, she’s just too damaged.  Even the
shrinks haven’t been able to help her.  So, that’s it, end of story.  The
divorce will be final in a few months.  Talk to me, tell me what you’re
feeling.”

“I’ve never stopped
loving you, but the fact that you cheated on me and left without a word hurts
me more than you can imagine.   I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to trust you
again.”

“I love you too, Libby. 
Please, give me a second chance and let me show you how much I love you.” 

I shake my head no.  “I
need to go; I need to go right now.”  I run out of his living room, back to my
side of the house, and throw myself on my bed where I cry until I fall asleep.

When I wake up I make a
decision, it will be either the worst decision I have ever made or the best
one, but I have to do it, I can’t go on living in the shadow of this
relationship any longer.

CHAPTER
33

Shortly after noon, I
knock on his door again.  He looks like hell, I can tell he’s been crying too
and I can smell the booze on him.

“Hey,” he says.  “What’s
up?  Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay.  Will
you have dinner with me tonight?”

“Hell, yes, I’ll have
dinner with you.  What’s going on, I didn’t think you’d want to have anything
more to do with me?”

“Look, we’re never going
to work all of this out if we keep avoiding each other.  I’m willing to give it
a try if you are.”

“Oh, God Libby, you don’t
know how much that means to me.  You won’t be sorry, honey, I promise you. 
I’ll make you the happiest woman in the world.  Hey, you’re not planning to
cook are you?” he teases.

“Of course not, I thought
we’d order in, maybe Chinese or whatever you want.”

“Chinese would be great.”

“Okay, I’ve got a menu
from the Shanghai Garden so we can look it over and have them deliver.  Look,
I’d like to forget about all the crap for tonight, let’s not talk about it,
let’s just have a nice meal, and enjoy ourselves.”

“You got it, babe,
anything you want, sweetheart, anything you want.”

“You won’t think I’m so
sweet when you hear what I’ve got planned for you for the rest of the day,” and
I push him out of the way and stomp into his living room.

“What?  What are we
doing?”

“Not we,
you
, this.”
I spread my arms out. “This hovel, this pit you’re living in. I can’t believe
the management company hasn’t told me about this, they’re supposed to be making
monthly inspections.”

“They’ve never seen it
like this.   I’ve gotten a little lax lately with all the drinking and stuff
but I’ll get right on it.”

“You do that, pick up all
these clothes and get this garbage out of here.  My god, look at this mess, I
could write my name in the dust.”  The ashtrays are overflowing, empty booze,
beer bottles, pizza boxes and Chinese cartons are scattered everywhere.   “Don’t
you ever eat in the kitchen?  And where’s that rotten smell coming from, do you
have a dead body stashed somewhere?”  I rush around grabbing up beer cans. 
“I’ll bring you some dust cloths and the Endust.”

"Hey, Libby, take it
easy, I'll get it all done.  While you’re at it, can you bring me the broom, so
I can stick it up my…”

“Shut up, Red.  Are you
high, or just an idiot?  I can’t believe what you were just going to say. 
You’re sicker than I thought.”  He’s standing there laughing his head off, and
then so I’m I.  I have heard him say some crude things before and never liked it,
but right now, seeing him happy and laughing, I could care less what he says,
but I would never tell him that.

“I’m sorry, Lib, I just
thought I could get it done quicker if I was doing two things at the same time,
you know, dusting, and sweeping.”

  Still laughing, I say,
“If you don’t get busy, I will find that broom, and you won’t be walking around
too well for a few days.  This was a new house and your side of it now looks
like a garbage pit.  I can’t believe you wanted me to have sex in this dump. 
I’m going to wash the bed linens and take a shower.  Tomorrow I’m hiring a
cleaning service to scour the whole place.  Get busy.  I’ll bring you some
garbage bags, if you need anything else, look in the utility room.”  I strip
the bed and carry the linens to the washing machine, grab some black bags and
take them to him.  I get the laundry started and then drag a garbage bin up to
his deck.  The sanitation company will probably charge me double this month.

By 3:00 o’clock he’s
knocking on my door telling me he’s done, except for vacuuming, he wants to
borrow my vacuum.  I get it for him and then go check the place out.  It looks
great.  Maybe I won’t have to hire the cleaning service after all.

“Great job, Red, maybe I
should fire my cleaning lady and hire you.”

“You have a cleaning
lady?  How come I’ve never seen her?  Do you suppose she’d clean for me?”

“I’ll ask her.  She comes
once every two weeks to do the heavy cleaning.  I pay her $20.00 and she’s here
for about 2 hours but there’s no way she’s going to clean a mess like you had
today for twenty bucks.  You’ll need to keep it half way picked up.”

“You bet.  I’ll do that. 
Let me know what she says.  Come on now, let’s have a beer, and decide on what
we want to eat tonight.”

So, I get us both a beer
and we look over the menu.  Once we’ve decided I call the restaurant and tell
them to deliver it around 6:00.

Our dinner was wonderful,
there was so much food that we’ll be eating on it for another 2 days.  Barbeque
pork with hot mustard and sesame seeds for the appetizer and then egg flower
soup, almond chicken, sweet and sour pork, chicken chow mein, and pork fried
rice for the main course.  We kept the conversation light and didn’t bring up
our relationship from the past.  He brought me up to speed about his girls and
the rest of his family.  I told him about my time in San Francisco with Grandma
but didn’t tell him about the trust fund or my potential inheritance.  After we
ate, we went into my living room to watch some TV.  I sat next to him on the
couch and he put his arm around me, hugging me close.  By 8:00 o’clock, I was
falling asleep.

“Hey, babe, don’t fall
asleep on me here, I’ll never get you moved.”

“Guess it’s time I went
to bed, all that food and stress of the day has taken its toll.”

“Stay with me tonight,
Libby, stay with me.  I don’t want to let you go.”

“I told you I’m not ready
for that yet.”

“I know, but stay with me
anyway, let me go to sleep with my arms around you, the same way we did the
last time.   I’ve wanted to be with you for so long.”

So I do, I spend the
night with him and let him hold me close and he tells me he loves me and I tell
him I love him too.

The next morning he cooks
me breakfast, scrambled eggs with toast and fresh cantaloupe and watermelon. 
We keep grinning at each other, and then laughing, remembering yesterday and
how it was to be in love in the beginning.  Then he’s off to work looking
happier than I’ve seen him in a long time.

We settle in to a
routine.  Some nights I stay with him and some he stays with me, I finally let
him make love to me again.    His excessive drinking has stopped, he still
likes a couple of drinks before dinner, and a couple of beers on the weekend,
but other than that, the drunkenness is over.  I keep wondering if he’s going to
suggest that he move in with me so he can avoid paying me rent but he doesn’t. 
His divorce from Joann becomes final and he wants us to get married but I tell
him it’s too soon.  He doesn’t push.  I still have my issues with everything
that happened in Ellensburg.  Will I ever be able to put it all behind me?  For
the time being I’m content to leave things the way they are.