Evelyn was a beautiful athletic woman. In the minds of many, however, the operative word is "was." That wasn't the case for me.
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A little background information about me, Rob Warfield, is probably necessary to understand the rest of this story.
I was a juvenile delinquent until about the age of fourteen. I got in fights constantly, because I was tough bullied many other kids, stole from stores and people in the community, and with some older "friends" once purloined a car for a few hours. I got "religion" when I was put in a foster home at fourteen because my parents could no longer handle me. I know that many kids have horrible experiences in foster homes; fortunately I was not one of them.
My foster parents were big, tough, no-nonsense people. I needed to toe the line. My foster father had been a lacrosse player in college and one of my foster brothers, a year older than I was, also was a lacrosse player. By working odd jobs I was able to save enough money for a lacrosse stick, my foster parents sprung for my admission to a lacrosse league, and I practiced constantly with my foster brother and father.
It turned out that I grew to be almost the perfect size for an attacker in lacrosse; since I turned eighteen I have been precisely 6 feet 1.25 inches [186 cm] in height in my bare feet and 196 pounds [89 kg] naked. To make a long story short by the time that I was eighteen and a senior in High School I was good enough to get a scholarship to a Big Ten school.
I started three years [sophomore through senior] as an attacker in college, got a degree in electrical engineering in four years, and got a number of lucrative job offers when I graduated. I met my wife Jasmine, a marketing major from an ACC school, shortly after I graduated. We got married when we were both 24, and were enjoying life as an upwardly mobile couple.
My wife Jasmine and I got to know Evelyn Simmons and her husband Bret when we moved to North Carolina when we were both 26 for better job opportunities. Evelyn and Bret are three or four years older than Jasmine and I are, and were the best looking couple that we had ever seen.
Female looks are often inflated in stories however that was not the case with Evelyn. I honestly do believe that at the time that we met her since she had been eighteen Evelyn was never in a room in her life where she wasn't both the most beautiful and sultriest woman there.
I'm not much of a judge of male looks, but from what I could tell from females' reactions Brett was virtually in the same class as Evelyn as far as looks were concerned.
While I liked Evelyn I do admit that initially she was a little "stiff," but she clearly was also kind and empathetic. Surprisingly additionally she was almost shy; given her looks -- and the fact that she was really smart -- that was not expected.
Along with Brett and Evelyn we got to know socially a number of other couples about our age in the Research Triangle area of NC. They included Cindy and Dale, Sue and Rick, and Mandy and Carl.
After we had lived in NC a few months, however, Jasmine and others of our female friends seemed to change. They seemed to be down on Evelyn. I had a hard time figuring out why until I realized that it was jealousy when I overheard a conversation in my kitchen between Jasmine and two of her female friends. I was working on a project just outside of kitchen area of our house and since it was a nice spring day the windows were open.
"God, Jazz," Jazz being the nickname for my wife by her female friends, although I never called her that, "that bitch Evelyn really frosts me. Do you see the way that my husband Dale drools whenever he's around her," Cindy snarled.
"She's the sexiest bitch around and always seems to flaunt her goods," Sue added. "Rick and I had the biggest fight about her after he was even more obvious than Dale was drooling like a lovesick Bloodhound."
"Rob isn't as obvious," Jasmine chimed in, "but just like the rest of the troglodytes that we're married to I'm sure that he's ogling her behind his ever-present aviator wrap-around sunglasses when he's around the bitch."
"I would love to take that slut down a peg," Cindy cackled while Sue seconded the word "slut" as she joined in Cindy's merriment.
Ripping Evelyn down and calling her all sorts of names that were both erroneous and uncalled for continued for at least another five minutes before I got sick of it. I loudly made my presence known storming in the side door and going into the kitchen finally shutting the denigration party up for the time being. "Oh Hi, Sue, Hi Cindy," I smiled pretending that I didn't know that they were there. "What's up?"
"Just some girl talk," Jasmine smiled back, graciously allowing me to plant a kiss on her cheek.
I chatted with them for a while as I drank a bottle of iced tea, then announced that I was going right outside the kitchen windows to do a few odd jobs.
Fortunately, Sue and Cindy left shortly afterward so the "pull Evelyn down" party broke up.
The way that the three had talked really pissed me off. It was especially galling since both Sue and Cindy had legitimately hit on me in the past -- I can easily tell the difference between hitting and flirting, and it was hitting -- yet they called Evelyn, who I had no reason to believe was promiscuous, a slut.
I was also disturbed by Jasmine's attitude. She had changed since we moved to NC -- or maybe the real "she" was coming out, because I never saw the mean, catty side of her that I had been observing the last few months.
Anyway, whenever our group of friends got together (the females would never ostracize Evelyn in mixed groups because of how good-looking her husband Bret was) I tried to be as nice as possible to Evelyn to make up for the subtle ways that the females shunned her. Evelyn never dressed particularly provocatively -- it's just that she had so much natural beauty, sultriness, and poise that she couldn't hide it.
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We had lived in the Research Triangle area about a year when a tragedy occurred. Evelyn got in a serious car accident and ended up getting significant facial damage and she had to have her left leg amputated below the knee. Even after several months of plastic surgery and rehabilitation she didn't look good, including because the left side of her face was scarred in a way that no plastic surgeon, regardless of his or her skill, could completely fix.
The sad thing was the way the other women reacted to her accident. While pleasant to Evelyn's face they seemed almost joyous behind her back. I wouldn't have been surprised if at least Sue, Mandy, and Cindy -- and I hoped not Jasmine -- were satisfied that "the slut Evelyn had been taken down a few pegs."
The way that Evelyn was being treated was not my only complaint. Jasmine definitely had changed and by the time that we had lived in NC about eighteen months and I liked Bret, Rick, Dale, and Carl less each time that I interacted with them. They had all played football at small colleges (Division III) and somehow thought that that was superior to me playing lacrosse at a Big Ten school; I never tried to explain to them how naïve that was. Power Five (which includes the Big Ten) conference athletes are typically in an entirely different class than Division III athletes.
Jasmine seemed less affectionate than when we got married, much more catty, and more concerned with material things. I talked to her about these changes but she either explained that her ideas were just maturing or that I was imagining them or that it was me who was becoming more sensitive.
As far as the guys in "our group" were concerned I only interfaced with them when we had social events with our wives. I joined a recreational softball league and started tennis lessons and developed another group of male friends who were easier to get along with.
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A first momentous event occurred about three months after Evelyn's accident. I had visited her several times in the hospital, had gotten her in touch with a great rehab facility, and she had been fitted for a prosthetic lower leg. I was jogging in a local park when I passed a secluded grove that had a couple of benches in it and heard what I thought was sobbing.
I interrupted my run wondering if someone was in trouble and walked into the grove. I found Evelyn sitting on a bench crying.
I walked up to Evelyn, sat next to her, and touched her arm before she even realized that I was there. She flinched when I touched her arm but when she saw that it was me she buried her head in my shoulder and continued to cry. I put my arm around her and just let her weep for a few more minutes.
After a few minutes Evelyn regained most of her composure, looked at me, wiped some tears, and said "I'm sorry that you had to see my self-pity party, Rob."
"I understand that you've been through a lot, Evelyn. If what happened to you happened to me it would take me a long time to come to grips with it."
"I guess that I shouldn't be so shallow and worry about how my looks have changed or that I can't exercise like a used to or wear clothes showing off my legs which I was previously vain enough to enjoy," she replied smiling weakly.
"You're not shallow, but you seem resigned. You don't have to be resigned -- you can have just as good a life as you had before."
"Not with this awful scar on my face," Evelyn huffed, turning her left side toward me, "or this artificial leg," she continued knocking on her left lower leg which created a metallic sound.
"That's where you're wrong, Evelyn," I continued. "Maybe you're not in the 100th percentile in looks anymore like you used to be but your still in the 98th percentile; and people with more significant need for prosthetics than you have are able to perform physical tasks just as well as average people."
Evelyn looked perplexed. "Why are you saying that when you know damn well it's not true? I look hideous -- at least Bret seems to think so."
