I shoved all thoughts of the unopened lawyer letters to the back shelf in my mind—the place where I stored nagging doubts and discrepancies that didn’t quite add up but couldn’t be explained—and mixed us a drink.
We went on with our Friday-night ritual as we had for the past eighteen years, politely working together to get dinner, cleaning up afterward, watching a DVD, performing our bedtime routine, giving each other a peck on the lips, and falling asleep, back to back, on our separate sides of the big, king-size bed.
Standard MO for an old married couple.
That’s what I used to tell myself.
But now that I think about it, the letters weren’t my first clue. By the time they arrived, it was as if the universe was at its wits end and had resorted to slapping me up the side of the head and shouting, Open your eyes, you blind idiot. Can’t you see the truth?
Even so, I didn’t put two and two together until the next day when my sister, Rita, and I were on our way to Saint Petersburg to catch Le Cycle des Nymphéas—Monet’s water lilies—exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts.
Rita was driving and I was reading the newspaper, skimming each page diligently to make sure the competition didn’t somehow get a leg up on the retirement company I do marketing and advertising for, scoring free press in the paper. I’d finished with the main section and moved on to the local and state when I spied mug shots of two men that gave me pause.
One man looked like Blake.
I did a double take and realized the name under the photo was Essex. The other was of a basketball coach at one of the high schools.
Every little inkling lurking in the murky shadows of my subconscious jumped to attention and my worst fears were confirmed—right there for all of central Florida to read in twelve-point type.
My husband had been arrested for lewd and lascivious behavior after being caught in a sex act with—another man?
The high-school basketball coach.
Thursday, they were caught in a secluded park in Seminole County. According to the paper, it’s a place frequented by people—especially men—who are looking to exchange sexual favors. The coach had been arrested there before, but the school had no knowledge of his run-in with the law.
That’s why the story was in the newspaper.
For everyone to read—
“Oh my God! Oh my God!” I was shrieking. I couldn’t stop myself. “Rita, pull over. I’m going to be sick.”
She swerved a little bit. “What’s the matter?” She glanced at me, then back at the road as if she didn’t know what to do.
“Just pull over. Hurry!”
She veered off onto the interstate’s shoulder, and I tossed the paper in her lap as I stumbled from the car in the nick of time before upchucking my bagel.
The next thing I knew, Rita’s hand was on my back and she was handing me a bottle of water.
“Here, rinse your mouth.”
I took it without looking at her and did just that.
“Did you read it?” I asked.
“Enough to get the gist.”
I turned to face her. Hot tears of anger and humiliation and disbelief brimmed and spilled. “Oh my God! What am I going to do? What am I going to say to him? To everyone who knows us? How could he let me find out like this?” I realized I was screaming because the words scalded my throat and I started choking.
Rita took my quaking arm and led me in the direction of the car. But I shook out of her grasp and stumbled back a few steps.
“How could he do this? I hate him! How could he do this?”
I landed hard on my rump in the sparse grass, in the midst of the sharp-edged rocks and sand, sobbing with my head in my hands. In the periphery of my mind I heard my sister urging me to get in the car, then I heard the crunch of tires pulling off the side of the road.
I looked up and saw a cop. Rita confirmed that, yes, I was okay. I’d just suffered a shock after receiving some bad news and needed some fresh air.
All I could think was, Oh God, if the cop runs my name, he’ll know I’m married to Blake. Then it dawned on me that this was how it would be for the rest of my life. Look, there’s Annabelle Essex. She was married to Blake Essex, that guy caught having sex with another man.
I put my head on my knees until I felt a shadow block out the sun. I looked up and the cop loomed over me.
“You okay, lady? You need me to call an ambulance or something?”
I wiped a sand-gritty hand over my face and shook my head. “I—I’m fine.”
“Then get back in your car and move on. It’s not safe to loiter on the side of the highway like this.”
For a split second I contemplated that perhaps getting flattened by a large truck was preferable to getting in Rita’s car and driving back to my ruined life. But then good sense rallied and I realized I’d rather be alive to torture Blake.
He’d have hell to pay for this.
I intended to collect in full.
Having your dirty laundry aired in the newspaper feels like standing in the middle of a busy street stark naked. No, it’s more like standing in the middle of a busy intersection and not realizing the world is looking at you standing there stark naked until it’s too late and—oops, the joke’s on you.
Oh, look—I’m naked.
I’m standing here like a fool.
With that newspaper article, the whole of me was reduced to what was printed on page B–1 of the Sentinel’s Local and State section. Gee, all that and my name wasn’t even mentioned.
It didn’t have to be. Blake’s mug shot and name spoke for both of us.
I’d been oblivious to the gawks Saturday morning as I walked down the driveway to my sister’s car to begin our drive to Saint Pete; blissfully unaware that the reason Joe Phillips next door stopped mowing his lawn and stared at me wasn’t because he thought I looked hot in my new pink sweater that showed just a hint of décolletage. He didn’t speak; didn’t wave. He just stood and gaped at me across the stretch of Saint Augustine grass with a bewildered look on his face.
Ha! And I thought he was ogling my cleavage.
Later, when I realized the truth— Well, you can understand why coming to terms with Blake’s betrayal would be even harder knowing I had to face people who’d read all about it in the newspaper.
Even before I knew, others were devouring the juicy details with perverse excitement because they actually knew the guy who got caught with his pants down in the park.
Oh, and his poor wife. Didn’t she know her husband was gay? But they have a kid. Maybe it was one of “those kinds” of marriages…? What do they call it? A marriage of convenience?
How was I going to explain this to our son, Ben? He’d be wrecked.
Wait a minute. I didn’t have to explain anything. I was not the guilty party, despite the guilt-by-association factor.
Or stupidity by association.
I had to stop blaming myself, thinking this wouldn’t have happened if I’d been a better wife; a little thinner; more in touch with his needs….
More of a woman.
Or at least enough of a woman to keep my man from turning gay.
Rita and I drove to Saint Pete, but we never made it to the Monet exhibit. Good thing because I didn’t want to forever