Unhappiness lay on the face of Jack Collingwood as he lunched alone in a crowded restaurant. Everyone around him looked happy, he thought, and that made him odd-man out.
Ah, yes, the truly lonely people eat alone while watching other people enjoying themselves, and thus the lonely are reminded of what loneliness is like and feeling the emptiness than is synonymous with their situation.
Jack mused, only the lonely really feel life ebbing away, with front-of-mind realization that escapes lively-living people.
His partner of four years wasn't lonely. Jack could see it in her eyes, the way she moved, the way he heard her humming, occasionally singing. That's because she had gotten what she wanted from him: she was with child.
The reality was no longer did she have any use for him and he appeared powerless to change the situation. He felt he was becoming a loser.
Oh, she still conversed with him, ate with him, went out with him, even danced with him occasionally and sex was there for the taking, near mechanical sex that is.
But the most telling thing of all was she didn't share a single thought with him about the baby. Any questions he asked about the baby, 'her' baby, due in another seven and a half months, would be answered stripped of any emotion and real information.
He was being shut out.
Jack knew what to do and actually went looking for an apartment for himself on the other side of town across the river. It seemed senseless leaving his job. Positions for people paid just to think were rare.
He was part of a corporation's strategic planning team and held first-class qualifications in law and business administration. Such jobs, apart from being rather difficult to find, were not easy to retain.
A boring job for a boring person? Far from it on both counts.
Viewing empty apartments that letting agents alleged would be ideal for him as the new occupant, do not make for a rewarding experience for a divorced man, divorced in the emotional sense, that is.
So, Jack Collingwood stopped looking for an alternative abode in which to sit in loneliness.
He and his wife had friends, some very good friends. Jack would watch Mimi talk to the female friends in great excitement about her pregnancy and feel shafted through the heart.
It would appear time was ripe for him to persuade Mimi to consult a psychologist, with or without him?
Ha!
He'd tried that once and it had sent her raving, he being invited to consult a psychiatrist when she figuratively came down off the ceiling in a massive tantrum.
That triggered him into a black mood that deepened when she banished him to sleep alone for four nights.
Jack had briefed both his mother and her mother about his predicament.
They sympathized with him initially but now those women were no longer talking to one another and Mimi no longer talked to Jack's mother.
'I can't bear the sight of her with her poisonous tongue' were the words Mimi used, ensuring the temporary upset between Mimi and his mother became permanent.
Understandably, his mom's wise words to her son were, 'Ditch her and get a nice woman pregnant'.
Ditch her?
Until the confirmation of pregnancy, he and his mom had regarded Mimi as one of the best things that had happened to them in terms of relationships.
Mimi was shortish, habitually wore a telling smile and on weekdays dressed colourfully which suited her. On weekdays she wore black working long hours as a legal executive.
She wore her so-called telling smile around the apartment; it only retracted when Jack attempted to talk to her very personally, usually after they had a few drinks and she opened her spontaneous present from him.
Spontaneous meant something purchased presented by the devious Jack attempting to penetrate through the defences of her mind that still remained a somewhat porous wall between them. She scoffed at every gift that she opened.
Frustrated by these events, Jack decided to stay living with her and attempted to eliminate the occasional nagging thought of walking out on her.
The other matter of concern was the foetus, now taking on its future appearance that would be evident on arrival. Mimi once claimed she knew its sex; the hurtful thing was she'd declined to share that knowledge with him.
In that respect alone, Mimi was a damn selfish bitch.
Repeatedly thinking those words finally spurred Jack into motion: he decided to do something to resolve his loneliness. As a result, Ella entered Jack's life.
Jack had decided not to leap into sex with a new woman because her primary role, as visualised by him, would be to unknowingly pull him out of his rut of loneliness. Jack had reasoned that rutting, um any sex for that matter, seemed illogical if his objective was to be pulled from a rut.
But easier said than done.
When you're lonely and the reason for that state knifes you through the midriff because it's seems so unjust.
Clearly, being tall, dark and handsome with the right electrifying smile to win the beautiful hand of a likely woman required to become your mistress was a tall order, certainly for Jack, being cut-off at 5ft 8 in, a little over-weight and his light-coloured hair was receding and his facial appearance was merely okay.
Well, Jack surmised, nothing much in life was fair was it? He worked at refocusing to extract himself from his depression.
The target of achieving success within three weeks was rather ambitious to initiate a complete turnaround for him; drifting into loneliness had taken far longer than that. But Jack believed that short period was the incentive required to spur him on to mount a proactive charge, knowing that out there were woman with potential to resolve his problem.
Oh yes, likely women existed in busloads but the problem was to put a finger on one of them, so to speak. How, Jack thought with nervous jiggles in the pit of his stomach, would he actually make contact with a likely woman?
Jack decided to operate away from the vicinity of his home, no longer a desirable marital nest.
At least two of their mutual female friends were sexually interest in him, or so he felt, giving themselves away by what they had fondled his groin in moments of drunken indiscretion. No, this liaison had to be outside of Mimi's realm and Jack must never talk to this lucky woman about Mimi and her pathetic problem that had torpedoed his happy life.
Lucky woman?
Jack sighed.
He sensed that the strategic planning objectives of this mission would fall well short of any woman's conception of a White Knight requiring a confidential liaison or, more precisely in Jack's case (and not to be revealed) to become a case worker to banish his loneliness.
Aged thirty-two, Jack knew a great deal about women and generally really liked them; he knew some guys, including married ones, who seemed to regard being attached to a female was a necessity for the purpose of unleashing mutual benefits, whereas he possessed a wider point of view that the female chosen was for a romantic partnership, with equality being paramount.
In admitting that, Jack never regarded himself totally as a romantic, knowing he tended to see life in pastels rather than in vivid colours. He accepted that perhaps Mimi saw that and wished to expose 'her' baby to people living vividly. It was a thought that offered the only explanation he could come up with, and clinging to that thought was enough to relieve him of the need to seek professional consultancy to explore his mind for soundness.
He spent half a day at work planning this new woman. After much revising, his preferred concept emerged as a brunette, 5ft 8in, moderately voluptuous, mild manner, caring attitude, used to soothing damaged egos, married to a sloth-like husband, at peace within, adventurous and possessing a supressed desire to curl her finger around a more professionally accomplished male while murmuring into his ear.
Jack looked at his creation, well pleased. He hadn't noted age because what age was any woman? Nor had he noted intelligence because most women were intelligent, and attitude to sex was missing because it was bottom-drawer priority, for the time being.
