This might seem like an odd story for the Romance section, but that is how I view it. There are stories elsewhere about spouses who step out with a hall pass or a decision to take a sabbatical from their marriage and the pain it causes their partners. I started to wonder what would happen if the deserted spouse found greater happiness as a result of that betrayal?
There is no sex in this story. It is a story of betrayal with no revenge and no reconciliation. It is an exploration of a bad situation and two people who make the best of it. It's a character study about two good people left to find their own way through the betrayal. The places mentioned here are real.
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Ask any man how he met his wife, and I guarantee he'll say something like, "We grew up next door to each other. We met at a mixer or a frat party in college. We worked at the same company. A mutual friend introduced us." or the dreaded, "I was dating her sister!" My answer is a little different. You see, we were set up by two swingers, or were they swappers, or cheaters? I don't know. By itself, that might not be all that unusual, but neither of us are, have ever been, or will ever be swingers ourselves. We are old fashioned, monogamous dinosaurs and we like it that way.
My name is Henry Halstaff. I was 55, tall, divorced, and at the peak of my career when this story starts. For the previous six months I'd been dating a lovely woman named Jean who was 52 and about 5 foot 6 inches. I can't deny that Jean had a lovely figure and if you ask me how she kept it after so many years I couldn't begin to tell you. She was bubbly to the point of being a bit flighty, occasionally flirty while not outrageous, and she was fun. We never had "The Talk", but I thought we were exclusive. We were in one another's bed more nights than not. We never talked about dating anyone else, and it was just assumed that where one was going the other was going, too. Truth be told, I was falling for her, and I saw us making a life together. There's a lesson there for you single guys: don't assume that your definition of exclusive is also her definition. You might think you look weak or needy when you initiate The Talk, or maybe you wait for her to start it, but one way or the other you don't have what you think you have until she says you have it.
It was early March on the seacoast of New Hampshire. The snow was fast disappearing with the occasional inch dropped maybe once a week that would quickly melt the next day. It wasn't spring yet, but spring was on the way. Jean told me we were meeting friends for dinner at Jumpin' Jay's Fish Café in Portsmouth. I know that sounds like a tourist spot, but it's actually a very good seafood restaurant with an excellent menu. One of their signature menu items is to offer six to eight different kinds of fish with a similar number of sauces and preparation styles for the diner to mix and match the way they want. Not convinced? Okay, let's just say they have white tablecloths and let it go at that.
We got there first and secured a table for four. Jean ordered a white wine, and I ordered a craft beer. I figured "Why wait?" and ordered a half dozen oysters to get us started. The other couple arrived about ten or twelve minutes behind us, and that's when I was introduced to Frank and Marie Waters. Actually, Jean introduced me to Frank and then Frank introduced me to Marie by saying "And this is Marie." As I think back on it, I realize I didn't pick up on that at the time. I remember chuckling to myself and thinking, "What better name than Waters in a coastal town?" You see, I've been a sailor all my life, but by the end of that evening I'd have quit sailing and moved to Iowa if I'd had to spend just one more hour with that jackass Waters! But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Conversation never waned that night, or at least the talking never did, as Waters had an unlimited supply of stories about himself and wasn't shy about sharing them. Somehow, they all ended with him being richer or smarter or more devious than someone else. It was quickly becoming clear to me that it would be a long night and I ordered a second beer. For reasons I could not understand, Jean seemed fascinated by his stories. That was when the first shoe dropped. Jean worked in a small accounting firm, and it turned out that Waters was one of their clients, so she saw him quite often. Unknown to me, they'd been going out to lunch together weekly. That was just one of those little surprises they dropped on the table that I knew nothing about.
The dinner conversation continued mostly between Waters and Jean with Marie and I listening. I started watching Marie and I was fascinated by what I saw. First, she was about my age, tall, very slender, and if I'm being completely honest about it, she was flat as a board. The polite way to describe Frank is stocky. He was neither tall nor thin. I briefly wondered what drew these two together but decided that I'd probably never learn the answer and quickly dropped the thought.
Now I will admit that I have a theory about women and breasts that I know many men don't share. It goes like this: if a woman shares her breasts with you and only you, then those are the most wonderous breasts in all the world. It doesn't matter if they are triple-Ds or she still wears a training bra, if they are yours alone then they are all you will ever want. Why do I say that? It's because breasts are for foreplay. Breasts are how you start a woman's motor running and the sensitivity of a woman's breasts has no relation to their size. Let me say it another way. If women everywhere wore socks all the time, if they put their socks on before they left the bedroom in the morning and didn't take them off until they went to bed at night, if they wore socks around the house and when they went to work, and if they wore smaller, more provocative socks when they went to the beach, and everywhere, all the time, they wore socks, men everywhere would develop a foot fetish. I like breasts and I don't like to share.
So I watched Marie as Waters droned on and Jean hung on his every word, and I began to notice things. I noticed that there was no contact between her and Waters. There was no touching, no knowing glances, no affection, and as the evening wore on, I began to get the impression that she could barely tolerate him. I tried to engage Marie in conversation at times when Waters would take a breath or slam a big chunk of beef into his gaping maw. (Oh yeah, that's another thing. We went to a fish restaurant and Waters ordered the only red meat entre on the menu.) I don't know what was worse, listening to him talk or watching him eat! Marie, in contrast, was poised, polite, and demure. Well, either she was demure, or she just couldn't get a word in edgewise when her husband was sitting next to her.
I kept wondering, "What is she doing with this crude, uncivilized oaf?"
Where Waters was a bore, Marie was a delight. Eventually, we gave up any effort to participate in the conversation going on next to us and we began to talk and share our meal.
"Have you tried the mussels here?" I asked.
"No, I haven't. To be honest, I'm not very adventurous. Are they good?"
Boy oh boy, that sentence "...I'm not very adventurous" would come back and puzzle me for hours later that night.
We shared a bowl of mussels, and she was surprised by their nutty flavor. She'd ordered the shrimp scampi and I had the tuna grilled rare with wasabi. She started to open up and I offered her some of my tuna. With some hesitation, she did try it and with just a little coaxing we divided our plates. The scampi was good, and she seemed to enjoy the tuna far more than she expected. We talked a little bit about our jobs and where we grew up, and just when I started thinking that we were having our own little dinner for two, I asked her about how she met Waters. Bam! The gate came down and she just shook her head slowly as she looked at the table. Strange. There was something going on that I didn't understand. Little did I know just how much was going on without me knowing it. Meanwhile, Jean and Waters never noticed any of it and they remained locked in their own little world.
So I quickly changed the subject and with a little coaxing from me we resumed our conversation. In a few minutes it was as if I'd never asked that seemingly innocuous question. We were both fans of the Music Hall in town that brought in performers of all kinds and soon we realized that we liked many of the same musicians. It was once again turning into a very pleasant evening despite the fact that we all but ceased to exist as far as our other two companions were concerned.
As Marie and I talked, I kept an ear open to the conversation alongside us. Before too long, little things began to annoy me. They were finishing each another's sentences, for instance. They knew the same people and that by itself didn't surprise me, but it was more the way they didn't talk about the obvious things that I noticed. Then in time I noticed little touches across the table that struck me as a bit too familiar, although Jean always was a touchy-feely type. I could see the same thoughts on Marie's face as if she were scanning mine to see if I understood, but I didn't see the anger of a wife who was being ignored. I could see the expected annoyance, and I saw empathy for me and an embarrassment that made me appreciate her more, but there was a detachment that I could not fathom. If I didn't know better, I'd say she was embarrassed more as a witness to my humiliation than her own, but the anger I would expect from a wife being ignored wasn't there.
At a few points in the evening Jean would nudge me with her elbow and ask, "Did you hear that?"
And I'd say, "Yes, Frank just closed a big deal and made a bucket of money on it." Even if I didn't hear the remark, it was a pretty safe bet I was right.
She'd say something like, "Oh, that wasn't the half of it!' and return to her conversation with Frank.
Dinner ended and I was wondering how we might skip desert and get away when the conversation between Jean and Waters grew quiet. Marie and I gave each other an inquisitive look and turned to face the other two. They were looking at us as though they expected something from us, but after being ignored all night, I couldn't imagine what it might be.
