Have You Ever Felt Unwanted

Have You Ever Felt Unwanted?

This is just a little love story about two friends finding each other later in life.

There is no sex in this story.

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It was a Wednesday evening and snow was making the drive difficult. It was one of those snowy nights when the highway seemed passable, but you know that if you need to swerve suddenly you will probably spin out of control. The wipers were working, but ice was building up around the perimeter of the windshield. Some drivers were speeding by in an effort to get to wherever they were going before the road was shut down, and I was doing the mental arithmetic to calculate how many of them would get to their destination without running off the road. It was the usual winter storm highway crazies.

Fortunately, I had good company tonight. Claire and I had been sent out on the road for the week. The company sometimes sent us out as fixers. That's how they repay us for cross-training in both the technical and management sides of the shop. We had too many skills, and we were way too agreeable for our own good. We had four stops to make on one of those trips that just made more sense to do by car than by plane. A lot of people would complain about a trip like this, and I would, too, under normal circumstances, but I was enjoying the company and that made all the difference.

I should probably tell you a few things about the two of us. First, we aren't newbies to any of this. In fact, we were both closing in on the dreaded sixty, and we were starting to feel every one of those years. When you're thirty, you feel like you're twenty but with more money. When you're sixty, you feel like you're seventy but with less money. Second, we were both single. Claire has been single all her life, and to be honest about it I've never felt it was any of my business to ask her why. I was divorced five years ago and living less like a bachelor and more like a monk since then. When you reach my age, you start to realize that marriage is less about sex and much more about companionship. Instead of thinking, "My God, she looks sexy! I want to go to bed with her" you tend to think things like, "My God, she makes me laugh! I want to go to bed with her." Okay, they both end in bed, but what a man values in a woman evolves. At least, that was my theory. Like I said, I'd been living more like a monk than a single man, so what did I know?

Our week was shaping up like this: Get up early and drive for a few hours until we get to our destination in late morning. Fix what's broken, have the meetings, and then hit the road until we get close enough to our next meeting to stop for the night. Then get up early and drive for a few hours until... You get the picture?

So like I said, it was a Wednesday evening, and the snow was falling hard. Our drive time was coming to a close and whether we would make our scheduled appointment tomorrow was going to depend on the weather and the plows. Still, the conversation was good, and the company was better. We'd been working our way through the usual list of office gossip, vacation plans, music, and politics and had reached a break in the conversation. That's when Claire's thoughts turned to more serious matters.

"John, have you ever felt unwanted?"

I couldn't help myself; I snorted. I turned to look at her and I know I was smiling, but it was one of those "Are you kidding me?" smiles that questions a person's judgment.

"My wife ran off with some jackass and filed for divorce. Along the way she said the most hurtful things to me that she could think of. I even remember her telling me that she didn't respect me. I guess that one makes a certain sense. After all, she'd been running around behind my back for a year, and I never caught her or even suspected her duplicity. If she'd had any respect for me, she never would have done any of that, or maybe she didn't respect me because she knew I was too stupid to catch her! Then I had to hire a lawyer and fight just to get my half. So yes, I have felt unwanted."

The sadness in her eyes was undeniable. "I'm so sorry. I never should have said that. Please forgive me."

I guess I overreacted, but she had caught me off guard. "Of course. I'm sorry. I guess I went a little overboard. Everyone has felt unwanted at some point and I'm no different. I guess you just need to take a good, honest look at things, realize it really isn't you, and move forward."

"That's hard to do when you have a lifetime of being unwanted."

That remark caught me off guard. "What do you mean a lifetime? You mean you? Lots of people care about you. Hell, last year half the division got together to nominate you for that big award! I've never seen anything like it. I watched people who have never agreed on anything come together to work on that nomination. I had to fight just to get a seat at the table."

Now I had her smiling. "That did feel good, I can't deny it, but that isn't the sort of thing I meant." She just sat there as if she were having an argument in her head that I wasn't party to. "Maybe we should just drop it."

"Claire, how long have we known each other? All these years and you won't tell me what's bothering you?"

She just sat there thinking. Several times she seemed to be ready to say something and then stopped. Just when I thought I'd never hear whatever was on her mind, she mumbled, "Men think I'm just one of the guys."

Where did that come from? Don't get me wrong; Claire could hold her own with any of the men, but this was something different.

"I really don't think anyone confuses you for one of the guys!"

Now she seemed annoyed, like I was a slow child and she needed to spoon feed me. "Did you know that Sheela has filed three sexual harassment complaints with HR in the last two years?"

"Well, given the way she dresses and behaves..."

"That's not the point. She gets hit on all the time."

"Sheela dresses like a hooker! I'm sorry, I know it's not considered correct to say this, but she dresses and acts like she can be rented by the hour! You dress like a professional and you always conduct yourself in a professional manner. I admire that about you!"

"A girl still needs to be asked occasionally."

That one sentence turned my stomach into knots. I glanced at her as I drove, and she seemed to collapse into herself. She was barely mumbling her remarks and it didn't take a clairvoyant to see that she was suffering. If this woman only knew how I fantasized about her. I think what I said next must be one of the most stupid things ever said by a man to a woman.

"Claire, do you really think that if you were walking around the room naked, any man would be saying things like, 'Excuse me! You're blocking the TV.' Is that really what you think?" I was trying to make a joke of it and not tell her what I was really thinking. What I was really thinking is that this woman has been my fantasy since the closing days of my marriage.

"Pretty much. I mean, you might say it a little nicer, but that's basically right."

I couldn't let this continue. I needed to tell her how I really felt.

"Claire?"

She hesitated before answering. "Yes?"

"If you were walking around naked, the TV wouldn't be turned on. I would be!"

At least that got me a smile. "You're just saying that to make me feel better."

"No, I'm saying it to make me feel better." I glanced over at Claire who was looking straight at me. With the traffic and the snow, a glance was all I could afford. "I told you what my wife did to my confidence. I haven't been with a woman since she walked out on me. Actually, it's been since months before she walked out. If you were walking around naked in front of me, you wouldn't stand a chance. It would be like waving a thick steak in front of a hungry tiger." I was smiling and trying to soften my remarks, but I was far from joking. "Seriously, don't you ever do it unless you mean it! If nothing else, you'll give me a heart attack."

It takes a lot to make Claire speechless, but that did it.

The car grew quiet after that. I did the one thing I hoped would both convince her of my sincerity and patch any offense I might have committed. I took hold of her hand as I drove. She, in turn, held my hand tight like she was afraid I might let go. One way or another, I was encouraged. I'd confessed how I felt about her without forcing her to make a decision. It was a step.

The snow was getting bad, and the road was rapidly becoming impassable when we found an exit advertising three hotels. We decided that we'd driven far enough. We pulled off the highway, found the Marriott Courtyard, and slid into one of the last parking spots.

I was still feeling charged from our very candid conversation on the highway. I jumped out of the car like I was twenty-five again. Granted, I hit my head on the door jam and practically fell on my ass from the slippery snow, but I didn't feel any of that.

We grabbed our cases and then Claire surprised me by taking my hand as we walked into the hotel. I told myself it was because our footing was slippery, but I enjoyed the moment none the less.

Registering was interesting. We got in line with two other couples behind us, and when we reached the desk we were told that we had the last room at the hotel. I leaned forward and asked the desk clerk, "What's that?"

"You and your wife are getting the last room we have. Another minute and we'd have been sold out."

"Oh, but we're..."

That's all I got out before Claire jumped in.

"Yes, we're very grateful. Thank you. I don't think we could have gone another mile."

I looked at Claire. The confusion must have been evident on my face, because she just looked back at me with a remarkably neutral expression that said, "You have a problem with that?"

I turned back to the desk clerk. "Yes, thank you. It was getting bad out there."

That was the first time that John Hughes and Claire Taylor registered for the same room together. It would not be the last, but I didn't know that at the time. I half expected the desk clerk to question us and check our identifications, maybe ask to see our marriage certificate, but he didn't so much as raise an eyebrow.

While walking to the elevator and then down the hall to our room I was doing a systems check. We were sharing a room, but that didn't mean she agreed to sex. I was telling myself, "Don't take anything for granted. Don't presume." When we got to our door I slid my key card through the lock, opened the door, and held it for Claire. As she walked into the room, she leaned into me and gave me a kiss that challenged every shred of uncertainty that I had. She took my breath away and her scent filled my lungs! Somehow, this woman who said she had never felt wanted could lay a kiss on a man that turned my legs to rubber.

I let the door swing closed behind us, and only as an afterthought I threw the latch. We were in! This was the room we would share tonight, just Claire and me, and still I reminded myself to take nothing for granted.

I think women have been saying this to men since the beginning of time. Cavewomen were saying it to cavemen when the man came back after fighting off the saber tooth tiger to save their children. "I'm going to freshen up a bit and then we should get some dinner."

"Sounds good." I tried to sound nonchalant, but inside I was dancing! Sounds good? It sounds great! I don't know why, but this routine moment of everyday life made me feel like I was home for the first time in years.

The weather prevented us from leaving the hotel, so we enjoyed the finest cuisine that the Courtyard had to offer. Okay, so we didn't starve, and they were serving beer, so we made do. I think we were both trying to keep the conversation light, but eventually things turned more serious.

"Did she ever tell you why?"

I was momentarily confused, but then realized that Claire was asking me about my ex-wife. With a quick breath, I said, "Oh! Not really. When she left, I suppose I was a bit clingy. I was still trying to save the marriage even as she was preparing to walk out the door. She started throwing some nasty shi... I mean stuff at me that I see now was intended to make me let go... I mean, in the emotional sense. I took the abuse until she hit me with, 'You've never amounted to your true potential. I simply don't respect you. It's no more complicated than that!' It was like grabbing a hot pan right out of the oven. After that it was easy to let go."

"Bitch!" Claire had muttered it under her breath as she shook her head.

"I suppose, but she actually did me a favor. I started wondering where the woman I'd married had gone and when this woman showed up in her place?"

"If you aren't successful enough for her, what did she expect you to be?"

"I think she believes that the real success lies in management."

That drew a snort and a guffaw from Claire. Neither one of us had a very high opinion of managers.

I was finding it hard not to laugh along with her. "I'm really quite serious when I say that. Everyone in her office spends their time preparing reports and spread sheets for upper management and then they prance around like the report means more than the product. I don't think they have a single engineer in the entire company. It's all managers, purchasers, and salespeople with a bunch of intermediates assembling reports. Upper management doesn't mingle with anyone except for once every year at the Christmas party where you could not find a more uncomfortable group of people if you tried."

Claire was just shaking her head in disgust.

"You've heard stories about company parties where someone gets drunk and embarrasses themselves? Well not at her company. Everyone is too uncomfortable to drink. Then after the party the upper management adjourns to their own little celebration and that's when all the worker bees tie one on!" I was shaking my head and trying not to laugh, but I was failing. "The first Christmas after our divorce was the best Christmas I'd had in years just because I didn't need to go to that damn party with all those tight-asses and their ass-kissing sycophants!"

By this point Claire had her napkin raised to her mouth and she was trying to hide her laughter enough to maintain what she viewed as proper dinner table decorum, but she was failing, and I was loving it! At that moment, Claire was giving me the kind of emotional support that I'd been missing for so many years. I had it once upon a time with my wife, but then it evaporated around the same time the kids were in high school. Looking back, that was one of the first signs that there was trouble in paradise. Hindsight is always twenty-twenty, so I shook the matter from my mind and moved on.

Once she had stopped laughing and I was back in the moment, we resumed nibbling a truly mediocre meal when she asked, "How are the kids? Have they adjusted to the new arrangement?"

"Oh, they adjusted faster than I did. They've always been very practical and very loving. Their mother told them a story that somehow had her playing the role of the wounded spouse, but they figured things out long before I had, and they knew. I gave them a bigger dose of the truth, but she's still their mother and there are some things they didn't need to know."

"Like what?"

"Well, I didn't tell them that she moved out of our house and straight in with her lover, but they figured that out on their own." I shook my head. "They weren't pleased, but I'm glad I wasn't the one who told them. I just told them that the divorce wasn't my idea, and it wasn't what I wanted, and I did tell them that I never saw it coming, but in the end the decision was hers and I had no choice but to accept it. After that, they were amazing. I am so proud of my kids! They keep us both in their lives equally, although I think I may be a little more equal than their mother, and they've been very honest with me about not liking her new husband."

"I'm not surprised. He was cheating with their mother behind their father's back. That's got to leave a bad feeling with your kids."

"They won't leave him alone with their kids." I was again shaking my head. "I don't know if it's a general dislike, or if they sense something, but they watch him, and they don't trust him. My son and my daughter's husband try to get along with him, but I'm told the girls don't hide their feelings very well and they don't apologize for it. At best, their relationship could be called 'tepid'."

"I like your kids already!" I might have still been shaking my head, but Claire was smiling.

I couldn't help but smile in return. "Yeah! They're good kids."

"So are you going to tell me about your grandchildren?"

"Okay, you asked for it..." For the next ten minutes I regaled her with stories of my brave, beautiful, and fantastically brilliant grandkids and all their amazing accomplishments. Granted, the oldest was only eight, but I had stories to tell!

When dinner was over and we eventually wandered back to our room, we were once again holding hands and taking our time. I was savoring every moment and not wanting to hurry at all while I reminded myself that nothing had been said about our sleeping arrangement. As far as I knew, I was sleeping on the couch, and it wasn't a very big couch.

We poured two drinks from the minibar and settled down on that same couch to spend a pleasant evening. For a time the conversation remained light, but eventually it returned to the matter at hand.

Claire looked at me and asked, "So how are we going to make this work?"

I'm embarrassed to admit that for a moment I was confused, but it only lasted a moment. "How are we going to make what work?" I was smiling too much for her to take me seriously.

"You know what I'm talking about. It's that thing over there!" and she pointed to the very big, but nondescript bed against the far wall.

"Well, I don't know about you, but I find those hotel pillows are like tissue paper, so I always pack my own and throw those pillows on the couch!" I was trying to nix the idea that I would be sleeping anywhere other than in the bed.

"You're that sure that we're sleeping in the same bed?"

"Well, I'm hopeful. I mean this is a four-foot couch and I'm a six-foot man, so sleeping here isn't going to work."

"Are you saying that I should sleep on the couch?" She was being playful, but she was making me work for it.

"No, if one of us sleeps here it will be me. I'm just hoping it isn't either of us."

"I guess it's a good thing that you don't find me irresistible."

"When did I say that?"

"Well, you did say that I'd have to be walking around naked for you to turn off the TV."

"That is not what..."

She was grinning. Claire always could play me when she wanted to.

"Okay, young lady, here's the way it's going to be. I will sleep on one side and you on the other. You will read me the riot act when we go to bed, make it very clear that you won't put up with any funny business, and then you can sleep confidently that I'll behave myself."

"And what if I don't read you the riot act?"

"Then I won't."

"Won't what?" She was looking anxious now.

"Won't behave myself."

Claire just sat there and looked at me for the longest time. I couldn't tell if she was offended, confused, or weighing her options. I was hoping for the latter.

In a quieter, more comforting voice, I said, "Claire, you told me earlier that you never felt wanted. Well, I think you're fantastic. You're everything that my ex wasn't, or everything I thought she was until she lost interest in me and our marriage. I've known you almost as long as I've known her, and you've always been the same steady, honest, caring person. That's a king size bed over there and there's plenty of room for us both, but a woman that I think is wonderful will be sleeping just two feet from me, so if you expect me to behave myself then you do need to tell me."