As always, Tucker was more aware of his hunches than I was. Before we hefted Birdy's little body between us for the hike down the hill to the road, he walked closer to the apple tree where Birdy had spent her last moments on Earth. Brushing away the windswept, caked snow from the trunk of the gnarled little tree, Tucker waved me over.

'Jimmy

"Where was she going?" I asked Tuck, troubled that this woman would have ventured out in the storm on some mysterious mission that only she understood.

"Beats me. But I don't think she was out here wandering. I think she knew exactly where she was going. Just a hunch." He replied.

We slipped and slid to a small tree stand in the middle of an old farm field, bordered on two sides with haphazard rock walls that stood two feet high and were covered almost completely by the storm. An unnatural lump was evident in the snow near an old apple tree.

A sick feeling began in the back of my throat and traveled to my mouth as I retched up my last cup of coffee. "No! Birdy, we're here, we're here. Don't give up!" I yelled as the blizzard winds stole my words, rendering me voiceless.

Tuck reached out and took my arm gently. "Smitty, Darlene, we've found her. But she's not alive. Okay? Look at me. It's Okay. We did what we could, and we'll take her back home. Give me the blankets. You stay here."

"No. I don't want Birdy to be alone. I'm coming with you. I'm all right. I want to be there with her, Tuck."

Shaking his head, Tucker knew not to argue with me. We approached the lump under the snow with caution and gently brushed the accumulation off from our dear Birdy, who had died with a brilliant smile on her face and her eyes open and shining happily in the glow of my flashlight. So untroubled and young-looking was she that I immediately could tell she was the pretty girl in the locket.

We placed the blanket over her, rolling her over so her body was completely shrouded and protected from the frigid cold and wind. I called in to dispatch and told them to send the search and rescue home, as Tucker and I had found the missing person deceased in the snow. I gave them the last known location before we left the road, and dispatch would send the coroner's vehicle to that location.

As always, Tucker was more aware of his hunches than I was. Before we hefted Birdy's little body between us for the hike down the hill to the road, he walked closer to the apple tree where Birdy had spent her last moments on Earth. Brushing away the windswept, caked snow from the trunk of the gnarled little tree, Tucker waved me over.

'Jimmy

My mind was wandering and I was thinking about the upcoming evening with Rick, when one of my students barfed all over her dress and the floor, causing the child next to her to gag and vomit also. Janitor time. I had to call the office and herd the class out of the room until it was cleaned up.

With the two ill kids at the nurse's office and on their way home, and the floor clean, we took our seats again to the tune of, “Man! Did you see Jenny’s puke fly out of her nose?”, “Gross! I can still smell it. Ugh.”, “Do we have to stay here the rest of the day?”

I did open a few windows, despite the below-freezing temperatures, just to let them think the smell was going to get better. It did not.

We were all relieved when the bell for the buses rang. I broke speed limits driving home to get into a hot shower. Scrubbed from head to toe, I warmed up a quick heat-and-eat meal for Brenda and nibbled on celery and carrot sticks before heading back to the hotel for my last rendezvous with Rick before I reluctantly sicced Marcia on him. Be still, my heart! My palms were sweating, and my foot kept slipping off the gas pedal as I shivered all over, thinking of how much letting Rick go was going to cost me. It was making me sick to my stomach thinking of Rick and Marcia together, which reminded me of the vomit in my classroom. Ugh, now my stomach was flipping violently, and I almost had to pull over to the side of the road and open a window.

Fortunately, the nausea passed, and I pulled into the hotel parking lot in time to see a heavy-set woman with frizzy, bleached blonde hair step out of an enormous SUV and stomp toward the hotel entrance. Whoa, someone was in trouble!

I drove around to the back entrance to avoid running into this pissed-off person. Unfortunately, she and I both got into the same elevator, and she pushed the same floor that I had pushed. I tried to not make eye contact by checking my phone the entire trip to the third floor.

When the elevator doors opened up, she flew out, like buckshot from the barrel of a rifle, and pounded down the hallway, in the same direction I happened to be going in. Al, the night desk guy, had warned me about Rick and his angry women. Not wanting to take any chances, I walked to the ice and soda nook around the corner from the elevators, then peeked out just as Miss Angry Pants got to Rick’s door and began banging furiously on it. Holy shit. Too bad I didn’t bring popcorn. This was going to be good.

“You sleazy son of a bitch- open this door or I’ll kick it in,” she shrieked, alerting all the bored travelers on this floor, who opened their doors a crack to get some free drama.

“Jesus, Marybeth. Calm down. What is wrong? Come inside before you get me kicked out of here,” a flustered Rick called out as he pulled her inside the room, with a hurried glance in either direction.

The acoustics from the vending nook weren’t very good, so I crept closer to the room. All right. All right. So I crept right up to the door and put my ear against it. I almost wish I hadn’t.

“You liar! You said I was the only one. Now I have to explain to my husband how I got Chlamydia. How many other women are you sleeping with?” The woman raged.

What I heard next froze my blood. In a mocking, icy tone, Rick replied, “So, you’re a married slut. How do you know you caught something from me? How many other women am I sleeping with? Do you want me to tell you, or do you want to keep living in your little fantasy world?”

Even though I couldn’t see into the room I could feel the woman’s face collapse and the tears running down her cheeks, “I, I’m not a slut. I love you. I’m not sleeping around, damn it. I’m in love with you, Rick!”

“Listen, wherever you picked up your STD, take it back to him and leave me the fuck alone,” he spewed at her viciously. “I’m tired of your whining and crying all the time. We’re adults, Maryanne. We had sex. Period. Do you think I would ever fall in love with someone who looks like you? Come on. Get real. You’re fat, you’re ugly and your pussy is so big I’m afraid I’ll fall in and get lost. Go home to your prickless husband.”

The blood left my face, and I feared I’d faint right there if I didn’t get away before the door opened. I imagined that speech being hurled at me if I annoyed him. You know what? Marcia could have him. Oh, my God. This man had ice in his veins. I ran to the elevator before the woman left his room.

I drove over to Denny’s restaurant to sit and catch my breath before going home. I ordered dinner and thought about the conversation I had just heard through the door. That poor woman. All of us poor women whom Rick had used and fooled. What was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he just get laid without playing games? Millions of men do it every day. It’s not that difficult. The great lengths he went to in pretending to be the good guy and pulling women into his game made no sense.

It was difficult enjoying my hot roast beef sandwich, imagining Rick accusing me of being fat and ugly, and God only knew what he’d say about my vagina when he got tired of me. I shuddered as I choked down my dinner, thinking of the chilling voice he used to make fun of that woman. We meant nothing to him. It was all a game to him to see how many women he could trick into falling in love. It was to feed his ego. Nothing more.

As I paid my bill at the register, I noticed a commotion at the intersection up the street from the hotel. Flashing red lights, police cars, a fire rescue truck, and finally, an ambulance. Wow. Someone was having a worse night than I was.

Hating to drive past accidents and gawking, I was uncomfortable but had to drive that way to get home. As I slowed for the officer directing traffic around the accident, I almost plowed into a police car when I saw who was being loaded into the ambulance. Although her bleached blonde hair was now matted to her skull with clotting blood, I could still tell it was Marybeth, or MaryAnne. Whatever her name was. Certainly, Rick didn’t know and didn’t care.

It's a freezing day in December, almost Christmas. My breath puffs out like clouds of cigarette smoke in the clear night air of the motel parking lot. At the moment, I wish it was cigarette smoke because I can't remember being this nervous in a very long time. Maybe the Christmas Eve service twenty years ago, when a pushy grandmother shoved her mini-skirted teen granddaughter up to the piano in our little Baptist Church and plopped an unfamiliar piece of music before me, stating, "Missy is going to sing. Play this."

This wasn't our Baptist Church, and I wasn't about to play a difficult piece in front of two hundred people. It was a sleazy motel parking lot, and I was here to meet someone I'd fantasized about every day for the past year. Someone who was not my husband and someone twenty years my junior. I hugged myself to keep from shivering as I glanced around, almost hoping he wouldn't show.

How did the 70-year-old church pianist and Sunday school teacher end up in this motel parking lot, waiting to keep all the promises she had unwisely made to this young man? What if my knee popped out in the middle of giving him, you know what? What if I broke a hip as he crashed into me during, the well, the thing? What if I had a freaking heart attack from the excitement even before we got into the room?

My wiser angels never weighed in on these tricky moments, so I stayed, shaking and chastising myself, "Fine Christmas gift for the hubs, girl. Meeting a lover for the first time ever. Forty years of faithfulness, and now this?"

This circumstance wasn't entirely my fault. When my husband retired last January, he suggested getting into swinging. I was shocked when he stated that was how he wanted to spend his retirement. His idea of swinging was to invite another woman to our bed. In trying to battle his penchant for watching me with another woman, I suggested we look for a man first. He reluctantly agreed and signed me up for a dating site,

orchestrating everything from what picture to post, what desires I had, and exactly what I was looking for, leaving out the cuckold aspect.

Being married for almost forty years had rendered me invisible. I was the kids' mom, and now I was a grandmother. I was my husband's wife, the retired piano player, and Sunday school teacher. Not exactly a sparkling Play Boy bunny resume. Plus, I was almost seventy. If a man had ever noticed me during those years, I would have suggested he try to locate his seeing-eye dog. Men's attention was something I simply did not worry about. There was none.

Within half an hour of my dating profile going live, I had over sixty requests for more information, messages, hearts, flowers, you name it. 'Hmm. Weren't there any women on this site,' I thought. It was a bit overwhelming as I tried replying politely to everyone while my husband tried to explain that I picked who I wanted and moved on. Ouch, that was a bit harsh.

We had settled on a sixty-plus age group, as he didn't want some young punk with his wife. You know how those fifty-year-old punks can be. One young man kept popping up in my feed, asking me why I didn't consider him. I explained that someone in their forties was much too young. I was sure he was joking when he told me he liked older women. Try as I might, he would not give up. I finally told the hubs he was the man I was interested in.

After an hour or so of explaining why that was a bad idea, hubby finally wrote the man a very explicit message explaining what he would encounter when we were together. He told him we would be having a three-some and that it would be a night the man would never forget, as I was one talented and sensual woman.

The man eagerly accepted the challenge, and then my husband withdrew the offer, pulling the rug out from under the young guy. I was mortified. This led to months of texts between him and me, with me almost deciding to leave my marriage behind at one point. Then, in the Summer, my husband had a near-fatal heart attack, and I had to get my priorities in order, leaving my infatuation in the dust.

Or, so I thought. Try as I might, weeks could go by without checking on my 'almost lover'. I would declare victory to my therapist, who never really understood my strange infatuation with this man anyway. Then, as soon as I heard a song that reminded me of him, I would begin pining for him again. My poor therapist was so distraught at my obsession that I was worried she might have a nervous breakdown over it. I finally stopped telling her about him. What she didn't know wouldn't hurt her.

Not that Jake was sweet to me. He was an angry, sullen individual who rarely said anything kind to me. He insulted me, called me a slut wife, and told me that I liked holding my marriage over his head. He constantly told me I did not try hard enough to meet him when he always backed away. It was like a game of cat and mouse, and I didn't know if I was the cat or the mouse. Yet, still, I persisted.

I can't recall a man I argued with more viciously than Jake, my texting lover. I never called my husband names or tore him up one side and down the other. The safety of hiding behind my phone screen or knowing I would never meet Jake in person made me bold. Once, I commented that if we ever met in person, a fistfight would break out after the first five minutes. He replied that, more likely, full-on animalistic screwing would break out.

Here I was, feet frozen to the frosty blacktop of this old motel parking lot, wondering if we were going to have a fistfight or a night of sexual pleasure so intense that I would never want to go back home. It was too late to rescind my Christmas gift offer of an evening of lovemaking to Jake. How many hours had I thought about him? How many times had I woken up, ashamed, from dreams of making love to him? How many imaginary conversations had I contrived, telling him how much I needed and loved him from our first real conversation?

A lone set of headlights turned into the parking lot, zeroing in on me as they slowly approached. A deer in the headlights. A guilty woman in heels, stockings, and a short skirt with seductive, lacy underthings hiding beneath. I feared my age would now matter because we would be close together for the night. Afraid I wouldn't be good enough for him. Scared of being a disappointment, I slipped back into the driver's seat of my car, pushed the button, and slowly backed out of the lot just as he exited from his car, shrugging his shoulders at me, just like his favorite emoji when I spoke of my feelings for him. Good. I hope you feel confused, just like you made me feel for the last year.

On the way home, I stopped at an open store and picked up my husband's favorite fruitcake, with chocolate milk for him, and a big bottle of wine for myself. Then I drove home, sighing in relief, after blocking Jake's number.

Not tonight, Satan. Not tonight.

Tomorrow? Maybe. Shh. Don't tell my therapist.

The 911 missing person call from the Sunnyside Nursing Home came in at 8:45 PM on Christmas Eve. My partner and I had signed on for the extra holiday shift because we didn't have a family waiting at home for us. We were just a couple of twice-divorced, bitter single folks counting down the hours to retirement, living on donuts, coffee, and adrenalin.

As we headed toward the outskirts of town where the nursing home was located, the heavy falling snow made the roads slippery, and visibility was low. There were better nights than this for a search and rescue operation, that was certain. The thermometer wasn't helping us either, as it was hovering at -2 degrees. My biggest fear was that the missing resident had decided to go for a walk in the nearby woods, probably dressed only in a nightgown and slippers.

"So, what do you think, Tucker? Senior Citizen flavored ice-pop?" I asked my partner.

Looking at me over his black-framed glasses, he just shook his head and replied, "Jesus, Smitty. You are the most vile woman I've ever met. Let's hope not."

"Hey, I call 'em like I see 'em. It's two degrees below zero, it's a blizzard, and the missing woman is probably half-naked."

Silently scanning the woods alongside the road, Tucker just kept his thoughts to himself as we approached the driveway to the home. The cruiser plowed through six inches of wet, heavy snow, and we pulled up to the front entrance as an employee waved us in.

After stomping the snow off our boots, the nurse ushered us down the quiet hallway that smelled of ammonia and lemon pledge. "Birdy seemed just fine at dinner. We had a special Christmas Eve meal with a lovely cake for dessert. She was singing along to the carols the high school chorus was performing. I don't understand it. She has been fairly lucid these past couple of weeks."

The nurse unlocked a door, and we entered "Birdy's" sanctuary. "We will look around, but I don't know if we'll find any clues. Have you contacted her family?" I asked, pawing through well-organized drawers and flipping through neatly hung garments in the closet. A sudden flash of familiarity went through my mind as I caught the distinctive scent of Muguet de Bois perfume. My Aunt Dolly had worn that daily, and it was one of her favorite Christmas gifts from me. A sudden feeling of connectivity overwhelmed me. I pushed that sucker back down where it belonged. I told myself that this was business, not a family reunion with ghosts.

"Oh, her family has all moved away, the ones she had left. Her husband passed away last year around this time, and we thought we were going to lose her too," the nurse explained.

Tucker piped up, "We will take a quick look around the property, but I think I will call the search and rescue team in case she has wandered into the woods. There's a creek running through just a few dozen yards from the property, and we don't want to take a chance."

"Oh, dear. That's not good. Well, whatever I can do for you, please let me know. Please don't hesitate to look in all the common areas. We've checked the resident rooms already," The nurse informed us.

Tucker, always more astute to the human condition than I was, commented, "You don't think she wandered away on purpose because she was thinking about her late husband, do you?"

"Naw. She was probably glad to not deal with his snoring and bad habits anymore. I'll bet she's shacking up with some hot, young orderly," I snapped.

"Never mind," he snapped back, rolling his eyes at me.

We made the rounds of the dining room, kitchen, and physical therapy rooms with no luck. Tucker pulled his watch cap on over his thinning, gray hair. "Time to go for a walk in the snow. You coming?"

"Do I have a freakin' choice?" I whined.

"Nope," he declared with a smirk.

"I didn't think so," I glumly concluded as I pulled my cap and gloves on, following him out into the frigid night air, my nostrils sticking together with every breath and my cheeks prickling in the cold wind. "Sheesh, I hope she was dressed warmly, this is brutal out here, even with our winter gear," I opined.

"Chances are she was in a nightgown and bedroom slippers, Smitty. I'm gonna call in the search and rescue team and grab some blankets and a first aid kit from the cruiser."

He handed me the emergency blankets and kit while he radioed in the call. Once we knew the team was en route, we began a careful search of the property, looking for footprints, which were hard to find with all the fresh snow that had fallen. Having no luck in the parking lot or yard of the home, we began walking down the road twenty feet in either direction, looking for any hint of our "Birdy".

Nothing to the South, so we turned around and headed North, carefully brushing snow away as we trudged through tire ruts so our footprints wouldn't cover up the missing person's prints. About twenty-five feet down the road, we found a pair of twisted and bent wire-framed glasses that had been crushed into a tire rut.

"What do you think, Tuck? Abduction? Rescuer?"

"Hard to say. I don't see any signs of a struggle near the glasses. Maybe it was a good Samaritan, and they took her to the hospital? I'll radio it in to check hospitals," he told me as he touched the radio on his shoulder that buzzed into life.

I walked forward about ten paces and could barely make out the outline of a small, bare footprint highlighted by my flashlight in the crystalline snow. Oh boy. It was worse than I thought. She wasn't even wearing bedroom slippers. How on earth did an eighty-year-old woman walk this far in this weather barefoot?

"Tuck, Tuck! I found footprints. You aren't going to believe this, but our Birdy is barefoot in this howling storm."

This missing person had become "our Birdy" in less than half an hour. This is why cops can't leave their work at work. Our work is all about human beings. Whether we arrest or save them, they infiltrate our souls with their troubles and seep their pain into our hearts, whether we want them to or not.

Birdy had grabbed a hold of my heart as soon as I smelled that familiar old-fashioned French perfume my Aunt used to wear. For Tuck, it probably happened as soon as he heard the call. He's like that, always trying to hide his tender heart under a gruff exterior. But he can't fool me. We'd been riding together for seven years, and not much gets past me. Tucker had held me together and kept me employed while recovering from my second divorce. It was messy and sad and took me forever to get over. He listened quietly, never offering to fix me. That was all I needed: an ear.

Tuck knelt down in the snow beside me to examine the footprint. Running his gloved hands down his face in frustration, he turned to me and said, "This just keeps getting worse. It's a long way to walk barefoot in this weather. She must be one determined lady. Let's stay close to the ground and see if more prints show up."

He found the next set of prints: one bare foot and one with a slipper still on. At least she still had one slipper. We were hunched over, practically crawling on the hard-packed snow, while the storm kept barreling down, relentlessly blasting our faces with bitter, stinging, icy pellets.

Tuck looked up at me with concern. "Smitty, you holding up? You need a break?" he said, pulling a handkerchief out of his uniform pants pocket for me.

"Thanks, yeah. I'm just worried about our Birdy. She's not going to be okay, is she, Tuck?" I asked, wiping the tears and snow from my face.

"I can't even think that far ahead. We're thirty years younger, dressed for the weather, and struggling. I just want to find her, is all."

Flashing red lights lit up the snowbanks and danced off from the whirling snow, causing us to move to the side of the road as the search and rescue teams approached. I flagged them down and told the lead team they needed to search the wooded area behind the nursing home to rule out the danger of Birdy falling into the frigid waters of the creek. Once they were on their way, Tucker and I resumed our painstaking search for tiny footprints.

An unusual glint caught my eye as we crept along, searching for clues. I shone my light on it and was rewarded with a broken gold necklace with a locket hanging from the twisted chain. I held it up in the air, and Tucker pushed himself up from a crouch with a groan and shuffled over to take a look. I wiped the slush off the locket and pried it open with freezing fingers. On one side was an oval frame with a tiny photograph of a dapper young man with dark hair combed into a duck's tail. On the other side was a similar photo of a pretty girl with short, blonde curls neatly tucked into a pink chiffon head scarf. A perfect fifties couple who probably did the twist and listened to Chubby Checker together. Maybe they went to the malt shop and high school hops.

Birdy was now more than a memorable scent or an elderly missing person to us. She was real. A person who had lived a life and deserved to be found so she could keep living. We stayed on the trail until the little footprints disappeared into a snowbank at the side of the road.

Tuck reached out and steadied me as I climbed the bank, wondering at the agility of our little Birdy. I had all I could do to not wipe out in the two feet of snow, even with help from Tucker. Once settled at the base of the hill's incline, I helped Tuck keep his balance on the slippery slope as we climbed. A fresh wind blew the powdery snow aside, revealing more tiny prints that had previously made it up this mound.

"Where was she going?" I asked Tuck, troubled that this woman would have ventured out in the storm on some mysterious mission that only she understood.

"Beats me. But I don't think she was out here wandering. I think she knew exactly where she was going. Just a hunch." He replied.

We slipped and slid to a small tree stand in the middle of an old farm field, bordered on two sides with haphazard rock walls that stood two feet high and were covered almost completely by the storm. An unnatural lump was evident in the snow near an old apple tree. A sick feeling began in the back of my throat and traveled to my mouth as I retched up my last cup of coffee.

"No! Birdy, we're here, we're here. Don't give up!" I yelled as the blizzard winds stole my words, rendering me voiceless.

Tuck reached out and took my arm gently. "Smitty, Darlene, we've found her. But she's not alive. Okay? Look at me. It's Okay. We did what we could, and we'll take her back home. Give me the blankets. You stay here."

"No. I don't want Birdy to be alone. I'm coming with you. I'm all right. I want to be there with her, Tuck."

Shaking his head, Tucker knew not to argue with me. We approached the lump under the snow with caution and gently brushed the accumulation off from our dear Birdy, who had died with a brilliant smile on her face and her eyes open and shining happily in the glow of my flashlight. So untroubled and young-looking was she that I immediately could tell she was the pretty girl in the locket.

We placed the blanket over her, rolling her over so her body was completely shrouded and protected from the frigid cold and wind. I called in to dispatch and told them to send the search and rescue home, as Tucker and I had found the missing person deceased in the snow. I gave them the last known location before we left the road, and dispatch would send the coroner's vehicle to that location.

As always, Tucker was more aware of his hunches than I was. Before we hefted Birdy's little body between us for the hike down the hill to the road, he walked closer to the apple tree where Birdy had spent her last moments on Earth. Brushing away the windswept, caked snow from the trunk of the gnarled little tree, Tucker waved me over.

'Jimmy

Alone in the twilight, restless, steeped in anger and regret

This battle-scarred warrior, broken thoughts he can never forget

Pacing and brooding. All the injustices of the universe

Have swallowed him up, leaving him aching and hurt

Head in hands, pretty faces replay time and again in his mind

Always the beginning of hope, a flutter of the heart, the fruitful find

Those first sleepy, warm mornings of discovery and sunny days

The bloom of love, the beat of a heart that this time will stay

Until the pain of the past grips his heart like a vice

Squeezing out the fury, pressing his mind against the ice

The unseen injuries. The hidden disease. The fractured soul.

Haunts his path and follows wherever he goes

Shutting down, shutting them out, he closes the door

Can’t share. Hides the fear. Breaks a tender heart once more.

Perplexed by his chronic desolation, he blames the lovelies.

The arms that tried to comfort him. The hearts that he pushed aside.

No sense can be persuaded when someone remains willfully blind

Only others on that bitter, murky path understand. The same kind.

Warriors who live to see another day gripped by horrors that will never set them free

Hiding the scars that are a thousand wounds deep.

Our finances were a mess, and until that was sorted out, leaving Tom now was a losing proposition. I would be packing up my clothes, having a garage sale, and beginning my life over again at 47 with nothing. That was not happening. I didn’t put up with his shit and work my ass off for the past 20 years to be homeless, in debt, and single. I needed a plan and I needed to keep my mouth shut until my plan was put into action.

Staying out of sight of the security cameras, I retraced my tracks back to where I’d left my car and sat for a good twenty minutes, just drumming my fingers on the steering wheel, and thinking. I could not face Tom tonight. I would crumble and confess what I knew. I needed to keep this information between me, myself, and I.

Pulling out my cell phone I pushed his number and left a text message, ‘Hi, Hun, the nursing home called tonight about Mom. She’s having a bad time, so I’ll be spending the night with her. Sorry- love you. Tanya.’

Good. Now all I had to do was find a motel that wouldn’t blink twice at my weird get-up. I needed an anonymous place to get my thoughts in order before I screwed this up royally.

20 years, I thought bitterly. 20 years of always listening to this jackass and doing everything he thought was best for us. Good grief. What the hell was wrong with me? Our house had already been mortgaged a second time and once again we were looking at another bankruptcy, with our debts piling up even worse than before.

“I need a new car. I can’t be driving around a piece of shit to client’s businesses”’, he had explained to me like I was a toddler, incapable of making sense of the grown-up world of business.

I had folded, thinking he knew best. After all, I was just a substitute teacher in an elementary school. What did I know? What I knew was we couldn’t afford to live his lie. He was the only one who couldn’t see it. A country club membership with golf games every weekend. Dinners at the club that we paid for with an already over-extended credit card, which the bank was one payment away from snatching from us. His pricey suits and Italian shoes. He was able to impress Miss “I’m getting a raise.” I guess that was worth it to him.

Now we were in a world of financial hurt and if I left him now, I’d be leaving with the clothes on my back unless the credit cards took those back too. Hey, maybe I could get a job on a street corner? Or not. Who wanted to pay for sex with a 47-year-old woman who was going gray and had put on an extra two dress sizes during the pandemic?

Tom didn’t even want this for free.

I checked on my phone for motels in the area and found three that looked promising. The closest one was the ‘Rest Inn’. It was five minutes away from my location, so I drove past it, quickly. Ugh. Nope. Not while I still had working credit cards.

The next motel was even scarier looking, so I opted for the Homewood Suites on the other side of town. At least it would be clean and safe. The night clerk barely looked at me, or my odd wardrobe. In the morning I would stop in to look in on my mother and snag a few of her slacks and blouses to get me through until I could sneak back and get my clothes while Tom was at work.

My next planned substitute day was on Thursday, so that gave me two days to get some of my ducks in a row. I had a gun now, so I could shoot those ducks too if I chose. I’d push going home off as long as I wanted and Tom would never be the wiser, nor would he care. My mother had frequent emergencies when she could not remember where she was or who the people around her were. Much of my time was taken up at the nursing home, keeping her grounded.

The book club didn’t meet again until next Monday, so most of my obligations were taken care of. I’d just stay at the Homewood Suites until this card was maxed out. There was a Denny’s all-night restaurant down the road from the hotel, so I stopped there and ignored the strange looks my classy clothing got from the staff.

While eating my early breakfast it dawned on me that I could do whatever I wanted to. An invisible spirit floating above my reality. Is this what freedom felt like after 20 years of being joined at the ring finger to a man-baby? Always being there for his convenience, doing his laundry, cooking, dishes, and cleaning up after him while he whined about all the hard work and hours he was putting into his career, ‘for us’.

A weight lifted off my chest when it sunk in that my only responsibilities unless I chose otherwise, would be to myself and my mother. No more insufferable golf games to make up a foursome, with him nagging and criticizing every freakin’ swing and complaining that if he wasn’t stuck with me, he would have won. No more late evenings and early mornings prepping for the work bar-b-ques, which he Insisted always be held at our house. He would tell me what to prepare and I would dutifully create these monstrous salads, dips, and snacks for his beer-guzzling office homies and their mistresses of the month or spoiled wives, whom I had absolutely nothing in common with. It seemed as though once everything was served, there was simply no reason for me to stick around, as no one even noticed if I stayed or left. Not even Tom. Not that I was a perfect person, remembering one time when I was particularly annoyed with having to cook for hours for people I could barely stand to be near. So annoyed that I spit into the onion dip as I was mixing it up. Spit, spat, sput? I’m not sure which of those apply. But yes, they were enjoying it, thinking that double-dipping was their only problem.

Without his slave to cook up his bar-b-q side dishes I wondered if he would try to return his Grille-Boss-5000 and get his money back. Money, which he would need for the divorce lawyer, I thought, giggling over the Eggs over My Hammy and coffee, hoping this chef wasn’t as evil as I was.

Of course, I could follow the mirror’s good advice and just torture him for the next thirty or so years instead of divorcing him. Then, again, as I ruminated over the last twenty years, and the imbalance of our relationship, perhaps things were never as rosy as they had seemed. Had mom’s progressing dementia become such a focus in my life that I missed the signs of a failing marriage?

Just for fun I whipped out a pen from my purse and grabbed a napkin to make a list of all the things that annoyed me, hurt me, or generally pissed me off about our marriage.

1. Tom’s ridiculous money philosophies

2. His peacockery- fancy clothes, haircuts, etc.

3. His ridicule and disrespect

4. Having to wait on his useless work pals and their sluts

5. God damned golf. I hated it. Always have and always will.

6. He never asked me how my day went while he bored me to death with tales from the dullest job on earth- insurance broker...zzzzz

7. His snipes about my weight, hair, lack of phony eyelashes, crazy painted-on eyebrows, and makeup.

8. Nothing I ever did was quite good enough for him.

9. He hasn’t visited Mom since she went into the nursing home over a year ago. He couldn’t even pretend to care.

10. How he bitched at me about literally everything.

11. Lastly, why am I just noticing these things now? WTF is wrong with me?

Oh, God. I’m a crazy woman, I almost said out loud as I reviewed my scribbled observations on the wrinkled napkin. I’ve been living like a hunk of dog shit being dragged around on someone’s shoe for the past twenty years and didn’t know it. It’s not like Tom all of a sudden turned into a selfish, foolish slob. How could I have played dumb all these years?

Maybe I was too caught up in caring for my mother, working as many hours as I could get at the school, all my volunteer work, and keeping up with my book club to notice who I was married to. That probably happens to many women my age. Feeling comfortable, not wanting to look too deeply into our marriages. Settling for what we had so we wouldn’t rock the boat. As I was now finding out, rocking the boat had to be done carefully because there was always a chance you were going to end up in the drink with your spouse.

After several more reviews of my list of ‘cons’, and a trip to the ladies’ room to empty my bladder of leftover wine and a carafe and a half of coffee, I drove across the parking lot to the hotel. Hardly any cars in the parking lot assured me there would be a room at the Inn for me tonight. Leaving Tom’s ripped-up, oversized hoodie in the car, I quickly ran through the dark, spooky parking lot and into the well-lit lobby.

Handing over my license and credit card I asked for a suite with a kitchenette for a week. The clerk took down the information and ran the card, never mentioning that the address on my license said I lived about ten miles away. A sale is a sale is a sale, I suppose.

The mirror showed a reflection that wasn't my own. The anger pouring out of my heart had frozen my face into a stone mask of fury and indignation. 'Who did he think he was?' I raged internally. 'He was not going to get away with this.'I tried to calm myself by splashing cold water on my face and reapplying my makeup, hoping to soften the bitter resentment that was showing.

That son of a bitch had been cheating on me for months. Without an accidental eavesdropping encounter at the supermarket, I still would have been in the dark. It was a good thing that bastard wanted Swiss Cheese, or I'd never have found out. I'll give him holes...

Trust was a four-letter word, as far as I was concerned. I wasn't going down without a fight. If he wanted that tall blonde with the big boobs he was going to have to claw his way out of my clutches first. Good luck with that, pal. I was reapplying my mascara when I noticed a fogged section on the mirror. That was odd. There wasn't any hot water running. Running my fingers over the haze on the mirror it was apparent that the fog was coming from the inside of the mirror. Hmm. I touched up my eyeliner and chose a bright coral lipstick to go with my blood-red fingernails. It was time to pull out the femme-fatale on my dear husband, Tom.

Damn. The frost on the mirror was spreading, leaving me with half a lip unpainted. What the heck? Inside the layers of glass and steel, a message appeared, seemingly written by an invisible finger. 'REVENGE', stood out in bold relief behind the mirror's glass. As quickly as it appeared, the word disappeared, leaving the mirror clear once again. My imagination was running away with me, I thought, painting my lower lip with the shiny coral gloss. Revenge was a pretty good idea. However, first I was going to make him regret turning his back on me. If you are my man, you have to be all mine. I don't play well with other children, and I don't share.

I ran a razor over my legs and massaged his favorite lotion over them until they were silky smooth. The scent of coconut and honeysuckle drove him wild. Exactly where I wanted him- in the wild- with only me. Putting on the scarlet red panties and bra with the lacy teddy, I smiled, thinking of the trap he would be walking into tonight. The black silk stockings and high heels were the icing on this delectable cheesecake. Cheat on me? I don’t think so, cupcake.

One last check in the mirror before my dearest, faithful husband came home from a hard day at his job, screwing the blonde bimbo who worked at the front desk. I do so hope he got a raise for all his overtime. Poor dear. Before I flipped off the bathroom light, another message from the fickle finger in the foggy mirror appeared, 'Torture him.' The mirror and I were in perfect agreement, revenge, and torture were definitely on the menu for tonight. I giggled and went downstairs to await my knight in tarnished armor. After pouring a good-sized glass of red wine, I settled onto the sofa with my legs displayed provocatively, just barely hinting at the secret delights beneath the red lace.

Sipping wine, I waited patiently for the unsuspecting fly to snag himself in my web. My blood boiled as I thought back on the afternoon at the market, hearing that brainless twit giggling about how she would be getting a raise this year because she sure gave her boss a raise. Not on my watch, bimbo. Not on my watch.

I refilled the glass with more wine and checked my phone. It was after seven and there were no missed messages. Hopefully, Tom wouldn't be too tired out from 'working' overtime. Mama had a honey-do list to die for. Maybe he'll give me a raise.

At eight o'clock I made a run to the bathroom to pee an entire bottle of wine into the toilet. That was funny. The wine started out red. Now it was yellow. Huh. It was a miracle. As I washed my hands the message in the mirror read, 'What are you waiting for? You know where they are.' That was it. The mirror was right. I knew exactly where they were, and a scrap of an idea was taking shape inside my wine-drenched mind.

I threw on my jeans and a loose sweater and topped off the look with one of Tom's dark hoodie sweatshirts. I slipped on a pair of his running shoes. They were a bit large, so I tucked a ball of tissues into the toes so I could walk in them, disguising my footsteps. Next, I rummaged through the lock box where he kept his pistol. It was a Glock something or other. I checked the magazine and there were ten bullets in it. Good. Five rounds for them each- if I was lucky. I stumbled into the bathroom for a quick clean-up of my makeup, which had started to run about half a bottle ago.

The mirror had one last message for me, 'Save one bullet for yourself. Or you could forgive him.'

Forgive him? Forgive him? I'd rather eat a bullet.

I snagged his extra set of car keys out of the tray along with mine and hurried out to the driveway, with the Glock in the hoodie pocket. The plan solidified as I drove through the city to the building where he and that blonde whore worked. I parked down the street, out of view of cameras, and walked quickly to the insurance company's parking lot behind the office building.

Quietly opening the driver's door of my husband's car, I slipped into the seat and kept the door open just a crack, so I'd be ready to pounce when my prey appeared. It was almost ten o'clock before I saw them, arms slung over each other's shoulders, laughing loudly at something terribly witty, I'm sure. The blood was pounding in my head and the parking lot turned to a red haze as they approached his car. About twenty or so yards from the car, Tom must have noticed the overhead light on before the bimbo did. "Hey, what the heck? I hope the battery isn't dead."

My heart was pounding in my throat as I fumbled, trying to pull out the handgun. I tore the hoodie pocket, extricating the handgun. I couldn't remember if the safety button was red or black. If the safety was on, I wouldn't be able to get off a shot before Tom cornered me. It was getting more complicated the closer they came to the car. What was I doing? If he left me for that woman he'd be gone and if I killed him, he'd still be gone. Either way, I would lose because I still loved him and my heart would be broken without him, no matter how he left me.

I remembered the last mirror message, 'Save one bullet for yourself. Or you could forgive him.'

Chapter 1

My dorm mates had read about an amateur dance contest at a nightclub in

Rochester, New York, a short jaunt from our campus. They were convinced that I

would take first prize if I entered it. They were also convinced they would have

much more fun at a fancy club in the city than hanging out at the local watering

holes with the townies.

After an hour of transforming me into a short Barbie hooker in a shiny tube top and short shorts with way too much mascara and eyeliner, the five of us loaded into one girl’s little Ford Mustang and headed into the big city.

No GPS or cellphone guidance back then in the 1970s. We had to ask for directions at every street corner. We sure raised a lot of eyebrows when a load of college girls asked where that particular club was.

The club was big, posh, and a little intimidating. Especially to a bunch of girls from mostly small towns, who had only been to neighborhood bars before. It was like being in a movie scene- they even gave us real cocktail glasses, with napkins. No red solo cups in that joint.

There were twenty or so candle-lit tables set up around what used to be a dining room, with the stage tucked into a corner of the room, so patrons at the bar area could also view it. The dressing room for the strippers was located in the old kitchen, which was right behind the stage. The wait staff consisted of young women in black skirts and low-cut black blouses.

The house strippers who weren’t onstage or preparing for a show were seated at tables, casually chatting with the customers, sipping on cocktails, and smoking their cigarettes. They were dressed in elegant gowns and high heels, making me feel very out of place in my short Barbie hooker get-up.

The drinks were expensive, so we had to pool our money to meet the two-drink minimum. There was a real DJ, named Wolfman Jack, who introduced the entertainers, and it didn’t take long for us to realize what sort of dance contest this was going to be. I wanted to leave but was glued to my seat out of sheer, morbid curiosity and the fact that we had just spent all of our money on the two-drink requirement.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Wolfman shouted, “I use that term loosely, please welcome our feature stripper of the night, all the way from the Combat Zone in Boston, Boom-Boom Taylor, and her Boom-booms!”

Boom-boom scared the heck out of me. Adding to her already statuesque six-foot physique, she wore six-inch pencil-thin stiletto heels and sported a monstrous, flaming-red, beehive hairdo. Even without all the extra accouterment, I suspected she surely must have played basketball in another lifetime. Her skin-tight gown glittered in the spotlight as she stalked around the stage with authority, knowing that all eyes were on her and her boom-booms. She never did anything akin to dancing. She strutted about like a Gestapo commandant inspecting the prisoners before choosing his quarry.

When she zeroed in on her victims sitting ringside, she would flop her cement bag bosoms in their faces and laugh hysterically at their surprised reactions. Men, women, waitresses, cockroaches, it didn’t matter. Whomever or whatever was close enough to the stage got a face full of boom-booms.

By her second song, she had flung her shiny gown over the DJ’s head, proving what I had suspected all along. She had given up her basketball career for something more lucrative- stripping. Her act ended with a dirty ditty about a dentist asking someone to ‘open wide’. She obliged the dentist by rolling around on a tooth-shaped cushion, dressed only in a flimsy G-String.

That night I learned that strippers only had two rules; keep your nipples covered with things called ‘pasties’, and make sure all your hair ‘down there’ was tucked neatly into something called a G-String, which was a piece of fabric no bigger than a square of Charmin toilet tissue.

Well, well, well, so it was that kind of dancing. It was more than a little disturbing to me. But it was dancing. Not only was it dancing, but it was also dancing in my own style and I knew, without a doubt, that I could outdance the featured stripper from the Combat Zone, wherever that was. When one of the house strippers took me back to the dressing room to get ready for the amateur show, I was informed that there were ‘go-go’ dancers, who did not take off their clothes and ‘strippers’, who did. I was to be the former, as I was nineteen years old and had a firm set of 36Cs. Plus, no one wanted to share pasties with a stranger. That was not a problem, as I hadn’t planned on removing my clothing anyway.

The DJ decided to put me on after Jackie Cantrell’s Rubber Ducky bath routine, which seemed innocent enough until the duck went under the bubbles. Wow. The bouncer had to remove Jackie’s swimming pool from the stage and wipe up the water when she was finished with her show. It hadn’t quite dried up by the time they announced the amateur contest, and the floor was still pretty slick when I walked out onto the stage on shaking legs.

I think I almost vomited. No, wait. I almost passed out. Nope. Thinking back on it now, I believe it was vomited. At any rate, about halfway through the song I realized I was not breathing, nor were my feet moving. I was so scared I couldn’t stop shaking.

So much for outdancing Boom-boom. My friends were in the audience somewhere, hiding behind the spotlight that was blinding me. I stumbled through the rest of the song and ran off stage, humiliated by the fact that all my work and practicing had resulted in a nothing-burger performance, showing that I could stand up and wave my arms around. Ugh. Perhaps that was it. I simply wasn’t cut out for a dancing career.

After my humiliating performance, I had to listen to the roaring applause for the next amateur dancer, Baby Jane. We figured Jane was somewhere between forty and sixty-five years old. Toothless, with thinning bleached blonde hair and no makeup, Jane was a shameless marvel. Every time there was an amateur contest in a Rochester strip club, Jane was there, ready in her battered go-go boots and mini skirt. The crowd loved her because when they hooted and hollered, she would get more creative. Jane, Jane, Jane. She never paid heed to the rules, mostly because they didn’t apply to her. No pasties? No problem. Her naked nipples were usually hidden somewhere between her knees. No G-String? Also, no problem. The G-String would only cover what was already hidden behind her drooping belly. No one could tell if she was completely naked or not.

If Jane had imbibed enough the other strippers informed me that she would offer amateur gynecological tours of her inside organs. The house strippers hated Jane because there was just no way another dancer could follow something like that. Even Boom-Boom was appalled and when you looked up the word, ‘appalling’ in the dictionary, Boom-boom’s marquee picture was next to it.

As I was making my way back to the table where my friends were sitting, an older gentleman stopped me and asked if I was interested in having a dance agent. Thinking he was simply making fun of me I almost ignored him.

Not wanting to be rude I replied, “Um, I don’t think I’m cut out for this kind of dancing.”

“Look, every dancer freezes up the first couple of times onstage,” he assured me, “you’ll get over it. My girlfriend used to be scared to death. But she ended up loving it and got over her stage fright. Listen, I’m Don, here’s my card.” He said as he tucked his business card into my hand. “Call me, I can get you into some friendlier, smaller clubs to start.”

Like a sleepwalker, I took his card and walked to the table and told my friends what happened. When I told my friends about the offer, they were positively giddy. A flurry of encouragement came from my partners in crime:

“Do it! Do it! You can borrow my car.”

“I’ll help you with costumes if you want.”

“I’ll do your makeup.”

“Can we come to town with you and hang out?”

“Oh, my gosh! You’re going to be a professional dancer and you already have a real agent!”

Don didn’t have to ask me to think about this offer because that’s all I thought about for the next week. I couldn’t concentrate on anything else. Finally, by Thursday of the following week, I called Don and told him I was ready to work weekends in the city. He took down my dorm floor phone number and called me back after he had found a club for me to work on Friday and Saturday of that very week, giving me the club’s phone number in case I got lost.

Chapter 2

Oh, my gosh, I’d just gotten my first official dancing job. My dorm mates were ecstatic and wanted to come with me for support, and to hang out in the city for an evening or two. I skipped classes on Friday to work on my costumes and practice my dance moves. Everything was a blur until we, once again, piled into the Mustang and went back to the city for my first official dancing job.

The Rendezvous was the first club Don booked me into. It had been a steakhouse that had fallen upon hard times and the owner thought that bringing dancing girls in would keep him from going under. The stage was a slab of plywood that could be viewed from the bar and the dining room. The dancers had to walk through the crowd in the dining room to get to the dressing room. The stage was also just near enough to the front door to catch every draft when the door opened. The Winter I worked there, I noticed that the snow would sometimes accumulate on one side of the stage, creating an interesting twist on footing.

After that first, exciting weekend, my college friends found other activities for their adventures, and I had to find other girls to borrow cars from for my trips to the city. As a matter of fact, after a while, my friends became a little cold toward me. It was fine for me to take their help in getting into this business. But now that I was an actual stripper, they treated me with a bit of disdain. While my college friends were pulling away, my new dance friends were warm, accepting, and helpful to me. That made the decision to leave school even easier after the semester ended.

There was always a good egg at every club who would take me under her wing and work on different aspects of exotic dancing with me. Go-go girls were phasing out and everyone was becoming exotic dancers. At the Rendezvous, I worked with a sultry stripper named Bobbie Brown, (think Ginger, from Gilligan’s Island) who taught me to ditch the barefoot, modern dance look for heels. She slowly started changing my cringy, new dancer looks by showing me how to wear wigs, false eyelashes, and stripper gowns, instead of short-shorts and midriff-baring tops. She also told me to slow down and make the audience wait for the strip in stripper.

Bobbie didn’t know it then, but her advice influenced my performance style for the next thirteen years. Every time I worked at the Rendezvous with Bobbie she would share more exotic dance secrets with me, and sometimes I would spend the weekends at her apartment. We’d go out for breakfast together after work and spend Saturdays talking about dance ideas. She was not worried about a nineteen-year-old rookie with a big chest stealing her thunder. She was born a star. She once demonstrated she could keep an audience of horny men in rapture for twenty minutes by showing them only the top of her thigh at the last minute of her set. Her kindness and warmth to me were an oasis while my school friends were distancing themselves from me.

As my bank account began to grow and my dance wardrobe filled up my dorm closet, schoolwork mattered less and less to me. My grades were plummeting, and I couldn’t care less. My agent, Don, booked me into a different club for my second month of stripping. It was called La Florina. Annie, a belly-dancing teacher, worked there and became my new mentor. She helped me learn belly dance moves and isolations to add to my footwork. She also shared with me that the dancers at the first club I auditioned at with the amateur contest called me ‘Tits and Teeth’, for two obvious reasons and my smile. I suppose it could have been worse. They could have called me ‘Baby Jane’.

Something Annie had said to me stuck with me also during my thirteen-year career. ‘Never do anything to compromise who you are inside. If a club wants you to do something you are uncomfortable with, just say no. There are hundreds of other places to work.’ There were dozens of times I found myself unemployed because I refused to sit at a bar and ask customers to buy me phony drinks or let customers touch me inappropriately, or let the bartenders pimp me off. I also refused to do what is called ‘a spread’, which was a floor routine that showed off my baby-making apparatus.

Nope. Sorry. That wasn’t for public viewing. There were occasions when the money situation should have made me comply, but I just couldn’t do any of those things in good conscience.

La Florina was in an old building, but the owner kept his club immaculate. There was a twenty-foot real mahogany bar as you walked in that had leather, fancy bar stools, and real crystal chandeliers hanging over it. The liquor bottles were polished and set in front of a shiny mirror that made the club look twice as big. Its stage was set up in the dining room on the opposite side of the bar and had real hardwood- not plywood. Everything about the club screamed Italian country style, down to the red and white checkered tablecloths, candles in old wine bottles on each table, and white, crystalline, hanging light strands decorating the walls.

The bartender was a mixologist, a rare breed in the bars I was to work at in the future. He introduced me to Grasshopper cocktails and no one else could make them quite as John did. John ran the day-to-day business for the owner, who only showed up on occasion. The owner’s sister, Antoinette ran the lunches, cleaned, and played house mother to distraught dancers.

Sometimes, after hours I would stay behind and help her sweep, clean the tables, and prep for the next day’s lunches.

“What a shame you quit college. Most of these girls would give their right eye teeth for the chance you gave up, you know?” She liked to remind me.

“I know, Antoinette. It’s just that I always wanted to dance and when I finally got the chance, I had to take it.”

“Well, just be careful in this business. There are more bad people than good, and you need to be picky about who you keep company with. Fidarsi e bene non fidarsi e meglio,” she warned.

“Sounds like something my grandmother D’Angelo would say. What does it mean?” I asked.

“To trust is good but not to trust is better.”

I should have heeded her warning because trusting people would soon be my downfall. My agent began booking me at a new club, called The Beer Barrel. It was a huge party barn that was always packed with cheering patrons. These guys tossed dollar bills at the stage for us with abandon. That was cool- and lucrative. The Beer Barrel used to be a warehouse that the owners had turned into a beer and sandwich place, with the added benefit of topless dancers. Men from every factory and office in the area crowded the place from noon until two in the morning.

The service bar was at the back of the club and the kitchen was situated behind that. All day and night sandwiches were pumped out by the dozens and the waitresses were probably pulling in $200. in tips every day. Sometimes, especially on the weekends, there’d be over two-hundred drunken revelers pounding on their tables for the dancers, yelling, ‘Shake it!’ or ‘Take it off, baby!’

Fortunately, there was a staff of five, burly bouncers who kept the uproar to a minimum. Although, one of the dancers, Cece, ended up getting tossed from one table to another by a bunch of college kids after a football game. That didn’t last long, as the whole crew got airlifted out of the club by the bouncers.

At the Barrel I met my friend, Jackie, who was my agent’s girlfriend. Another good Catholic girl who just loved to dance. Jackie was short and a bit stocky with curly, dark hair, which she dippity-dooed into stick-straight locks. She was old-school rock and roll and when Jackie got her fringed mini skirt bouncing the club lost it. Shake, Rattle, and Roll would roar through the speakers and the regulars would be screaming for her.

We had different styles, that’s for sure. But she was down to earth and had a great sense of humor. We got along like sisters. She was saving up to start her own dog grooming business and was well on her way.

Most dancers had a financial goal of some kind, or simply realized they were not going to make it on $1.75 an hour minimum wage. $70-$80 bucks a day was hard to let go of. Back in 1973, it was an unbelievably good wage for young women with no college degree.

I also met my newest friend at the Barrel. Marjorie was thirty-two, and had two kids by men she couldn’t really remember very well. She was always high and never bothered to change her dance style, no matter what the newest music trends were. She would take one long step to the right, bend over, touch the hat perched on her pretty, little blonde head, straighten up and start over again. Because she was small and blonde the clubs loved her even if she couldn’t dance her way out of a paper bag. Marjorie was all for me leaving college to work full time and when she offered me a place to stay, I jumped at the chance.

As soon as I returned from Christmas break in 1974, I packed up my things and left college behind for life, love, and adventure in the city. The only problem was facing my parents with this decision. So, I decided not to. That was my standard method of dealing with unpleasant situations, running and hiding. Unfortunately, most of my interactions with my parents turned unpleasant far too easily. This time, though, it would be deserved, and I couldn’t face them.

After I finally moved in with Marjorie, I worked at the clubs every weekday afternoon, plus the evening shift, and even nights on the weekends. My take-home pay at the time was $70. A day. When you consider that I had been earning $1.75 an hour working as a swim instructor at my hometown YWCA the previous year, that was an enormous amount of money for a nineteen-year-old. I was doing what I loved and making buckets of money. It was truly a dream come true.

Every morning, as soon as the bank opened, I was first in line to deposit what I didn't need that day and never missed a deposit. The owner of one of the newer clubs I worked at saw me there and commented that he’d never seen a dancer put money in a bank account before. I thought that was odd. Who needs all that money every day?

All I needed was enough to help Marjorie with rent and groceries with a little leftover to take a cab to work every night. I didn’t need money for drinks at the clubs and I usually didn’t even take them up on their free alcoholic beverage offers. I didn’t do drugs, which is what a few of the dancers spent their money on. The only extra money I spent was on buying items for my own future apartment, dishes, linens, etc. and that didn’t amount to much.

Any more than that was limited to purchasing dance wardrobes, which, at that time, were highly specialized and had to be made by tailors. You couldn’t walk into Walmart and pick up a G-string in the lingerie section and unless there was a Frederick’s of Hollywood nearby you had to either sew your own costumes or have someone else do it for you. Luckily, I could sew and was able to make the basics for myself. Wardrobe edits never ended. Most of my disposable income went into costumes and makeup for the next thirteen years.

Men, you ask. Yes, indeed there were men. Lots of them and I did meet a few men here and there at the clubs whom I dated casually, but nothing serious came of them. I was more interested in where I would be dancing next and how to perform better. When I say casual, I mean that, sincerely, but even after all these years I still remember Fred. Fred was a construction worker who struck up a conversation with me one night at La Florina. He was tall, blond, and good looking and I enjoyed his company. After work we went to my favorite all-night breakfast joint, ’The Toddle House, which was a few blocks away from the club. Breakfast after work was a tradition, especially after dancing all evening. This was the biggest meal of the day for most dancers.

There was a local legend working the grill, named Elmer, who put on a show that rivaled anything we dancers had done earlier in the evening; flipping pancakes high into the air, tossing multiple omelets around in their pans one after the other, chopping fresh ingredients with flying knives like a sushi chef, and balancing dishes up and down his arms to serve the counter munchers. He was incredible to watch, and the food was delicious.

Fred was fun to hang out with and I was having too good a time to call it a night, so I ended up at his apartment. Fortunately, it was dark when we arrived, so I unwittingly stayed over. In the morning light, I woke up alone to see a note telling me to ‘make myself at home and maybe do the dishes and he’d be home at four.’

Yeah, no. That’s not how this works, pal. You weren’t all that good. Do the dishes, indeed. Then I got up and looked around. His place needed much more than the dishes washed. It needed to be condemned by the Board of Health and hosed down by the Fire Department.

I picked my way carefully back to my pile of clothes, got dressed without further contaminating myself, and searched high and low for a phone. While searching for the phone through the detritus of a sloppy single man’s apartment I found a letter from his wife telling him the kids really missed him and she hoped he’d finish this job soon and come back home. Hmm. How very interesting. Now, I definitely wasn’t going to wash his damned dishes. Kiss my ass, Freddy-boy.

Finally locating the phone under a pile of take-out containers and pizza boxes I dialed the cab company. After they answered I realized I had no idea where, exactly, I was. I hung up and called again, once I got my bearings. The front door had no number on it. There was a mailbox in the back of the house though, and I snagged a piece of mail with his address on it.

Calling the cab company again, I recited the address I had found and waited. Ten minutes later I heard a car horn honking. I quickly ran out to the front of the apartment to the terraced sidewalk and saw nothing. I ran back through the apartment to the back where the mailbox was and still saw no cab.

I called the company again, feeling frustrated, I gave the operator the address and waited patiently.

‘Honk, Honk, HONK!’

I ran out the front door and looked down at the street, seeing no cab again I raced through the obstacle course of Fred’s apartment and looked out the back door. Nothing. One more time I dialed the cab company and the operator said, “Look, lady, next time you go home with your john, make sure you know where the hell he lives. We ain’t sending another cab.” Click.

Ouch! I won’t be calling them anymore for rides and I sure as hell wasn’t going to end up at Fred’s garbage dump of an apartment with no address again. Maybe his wife will visit and wash his dishes for him.

I never saw Fred again until just before I quit dancing, thirteen years later. He wandered into a club I was working at and poured on the Southern charm. Apparently, he had been living down South since I saw him last.

“You just disappeared! Where did you go? I looked all over and couldn’t find you. I missed you so much.” He drawled.

“And you are?”

“Don’t tell me you don’t remember me?” He asked with a pained expression.

I did, but why give him the satisfaction of thinking he was Memorable?

“Nope. The face doesn’t ring a bell.”

“We met at La Florina, went out for breakfast, and had a rocking good time at my place. Then you just disappeared. I tried and tried to find you, but you left town or something.”

“Gee, I didn’t go anywhere. Are you sure you were looking in Rochester for me? It couldn’t have been that hard to find me if you had really wanted to.” I replied sarcastically.

Behind his back, my friend, Dianna was making his drink. Having pegged him for the phony asshole he was she prepared a special cocktail for him. One part watered down, well vodka, two parts ice-cubes tossed by hand into his glass, after they made the rounds of her gigantic brassiere and topped off with orange juice, freshly spat into his glass with love.

Enjoy!

Karma is best served on ice.

The next move was mine.

During my trip to the mall, I intended to buy myself the works, cut, color, nails, pedicure, and finish off the day with a week’s worth of brand-new clothes. If Tom could afford a mistress I certainly was entitled to taking care of myself better than I had been.

It was early enough in the day at the salon they had plenty of openings. After telling the stylist what I wanted she began mixing up a magic potion in a little ceramic cup and snapped on gloves like she was preparing to do a prostate exam. Wait. I don’t have one of those.

She painted my roots first and then let it soak for a while before spreading the rest of the contents over the remaining dry hair. She put me under the hair dryer and took off for a cigarette break while I baked. When I was done, she took me to the sinks in the back of the salon and shampooed the dye out of my hair, scrubbing my scalp until I thought it would bleed. As she twisted and pulled on my hair, I ruminated on the situation Tom had put me into.

How could he do this to me when my life was hard enough with my mother in the nursing home always having emergencies that no one else could tend to. Even though it was easier than when I cared for her at her own home, I still missed many days of work and hours of sleep when she had an incident. I had quit my aerobic classes and my painting classes to make more time for Mom’s care. I felt as though I had no life at all anymore. The book club and subbing at the elementary school were the only outside life I had left.

What kept nagging at me about Tom’s infidelity was not the ‘how’ or ‘why’, it was the ‘when’. When did I lose track of our married life? When did he stop caring and when did I stop noticing? Our sex life had been non-existent for years, as one or the other of us was always too tired, too busy, or simply not interested. Searching through my memory carefully, trying to pin down when, exactly, we had put our love life on the shelf, I realized that it had fizzled out without a whimper.

All I knew was that it had been a relief for me not to have him prodding and nagging me to give in to him. He was probably just as tired of my excuses and passive refusals. With my mom always needing more than I had to share, there wasn’t much left for Tom. He always seemed to handle my constant preoccupation with mom’s condition, reminding me that, “It is what it is.”

I never gave it a thought. Perhaps I should have.

The stylist took me back to her station and began chopping at the layers of my new, vivid auburn hair, creating a chic bob that curved in toward my chin. I loved it even before she applied the highlighter and the foil. When she finally finished applying the highlight, I moved on over to the nail station and let them have at it with both my toes and fingers.

The manicurist finished me up with bright red, unchipped nails. Then I moved back to the sinks for the final rinse. When the hairdresser finished, I had an adorable blunt-cut bob with light auburn highlights that brightened up my skin tone and woke my gray eyes right up. Perfect! Even in my post-pandemic pudginess, the cut and color were to die for!

Before the pandemic had trapped me home with the refrigerator and took away my exercise classes I had been in terrific shape. Now, not so much, I reflected, as I felt the flab around the waistband of my jeans.

At the register, I handed over my credit card, $180. Cha-ching! Nordstrom’s was next on my list for spoiling Mama. Instead of pawing through the sale tables I headed straight for the designer racks and picked out four or five new outfits. Some for school and the rest for me.

My chest and legs were my best features before the pandemic and fortunately, they didn’t suffer from my weight gain, so I deliberately chose clothes and shoes to show those assets off. Out of sheer guilt, I sent Tom a quick text, ‘Hi, letting you know mom is worse than before. The doctor will be in to administer a sedative. I may be here a few days.’ That should hold him for a while.

On my way back to the hotel I stopped at Panera Bread for a quick take-out bite and sat in front of the TV in my room, vegging out before calling it a day. I slept surprisingly well for someone who almost ended up in the Poky for a double murder the previous night.

After doing acrobatics to keep my hair dry in the shower, I stepped out and looked in the mirror to check out my new look. I wiped the fog off the mirror and inspected myself, checking for wrinkles and lines on my face. Finding a new crease between my eyebrows, I made up my mind that it was time for Botox. It probably wouldn’t cost any more than my recent spending spree had.

Before turning away to get dressed the fog returned to the mirror. The invisible finger had returned and was writing, ‘Think carefully.’

"What?" I said out loud, "About Botox? Naw, that's an easy decision."

The message disappeared and a new one appeared, 'SMART ASS'.