I remember the look in Rose's eyes when she finally hit the crossroads. Before that, I never felt guilt. Only a subtle joy.
I'll be brief, because you've probably met a woman like me, even if you didn't know it. My name is Helen, and I've been married to John since I was a senior in high school. Our wedding had a shotgun in tow. After I gave birth to boy number two, or for the last twenty years you might say, we entered into an open marriage. John provided for the family and I made money part-time while raising the children. Our sex life was entirely in the employ of other people. John enjoyed dalliances on business trips and I occasioned a co-worker or two (or fifteen) over the years. Because we chose a path of least resistance, we appeared on the outside as a clean-living, upper class, nuclear family. It was good for the kids. Everything, and I mean everything, I did...was good for the kids.
Despite those efforts, life had other plans. When he was sixteen, I lost my oldest boy to drug abuse. Unbeknownst to me, he was abusing prescription medication, and overdosed. Some people find their faith in those circumstances. I didn't. I don't want to talk about it any further.
When my youngest flew the coup for college two years ago, I was left seeking distraction. By then John had earned enough to land us in a McMansion laden community with great amenities located under the hot Arizona sun. For a couple who were barefoot and pregnant right after high school, we were proud to live in our master-planned section of luxury. Within a few weeks, I realized how much I loved to sit by the pool and waste the days.
It wasn't long until I befriended another housewife in her early-40s by the name of Tamyra. We eventually had a "play date" scheduled for 11AM every day. Sometimes we swam, sometimes we laid out in the sun, but we always talked (and drank). We definitely worked hard to keep our aging bodies in something that resembled bikini shape. We liked feeling "milfy" and we loved to talk each other up.
After awhile, I came to see that Tamyra's marriage was no picnic. And so, we mostly complained about our husbands and talked recklessly about how hot or cold we gauged the husbands (and sometimes adult sons) of our other neighbors. Before long we were a dynamic duo who practically owned every social event in the neighborhood, from Lady's Wine Night to the Fourth of July kid's parade. We knew everybody's business, whether they wanted us to or not, and it was a lot of harmless fun.
There was something so...homogenized about it all. It was like every street corner and front facade of our brand-new houses was wiped over with a sterile cloth every day. True, we had aspired to live in such a place in our twilight years, but I just didn't quite fit in with all these "clean" people. Wake up, work, feed kids, watch TV, sleep. Anything even slightly out of the ordinary, from a bad landscaping job to someone driving too fast through a stop sign, was a full-on scandal. Nobody ever seemed to...live...in this neighborhood.
And Rose. Rose was a poster child for the "clean" zombies living in my midst.
Rose first appeared at a wine night gathering hosted in my home. I hated her almost immediately. At the time I felt it was uncouth of me to hate someone so much for such superficial reasons, but later I understood why. Her eyes were so big, blue, youthful, and innocent. Her body was absolutely perfect, with a gravity defying chest and a wake-up-and-smile ass bolted to her petite frame. A shade of brown hair flowed down her neck. Everything about her glowed. She even had the slightest crook in her nose, which somehow made her face even more perfect since it was delightfully flawed. She had a light, easy going smile that she never seemed to put down.
Like chickenhawks, Tamyra and I pounced on her and asked for her life story. What I heard made me sick.
Born to two great parents in Nebraska, she met her husband when she was a cheerleader (and prayer leader) in college. It was love at first sight, and they married after two years in a lavish wedding her rich father paid for at top-dollar prices. Her husband found a great job in Arizona and they built their house in our community from the ground up to raise their two kids that she planned to raise as a stay-at-home mom. But it was only temporary. After their youngest hit five, they had a brand new, much larger house planned out. One with a pool and an outdoor kitchen.
The house my husband and I worked our whole lives to own was this bitch's stepladder. To top it off, I met her husband, and he just wasn't much. A typical beta male with a few redeeming features and a blase technical job. They were even the same height...and if she wore heels, he looked almost tiny next to her. They just didn't fit together without their youthful, "gosh golly gee" love story.
Over the year or two I knew them, they really truly seemed to be devoted to each other. They never saw life outside of their own marriage cocoon and they appeared very content. She had everything I wanted but never strived to find, wrapped in a youth and beauty I was never blessed to hold. What I felt surging through me every time I saw Rose was pure jealousy.
I would have nary said another word to her until she blurted out, with her trademark sheepish innocence, the one line that hooked me at that fateful wine night: "I'm kind of lonely. I don't know anybody."
After a prodding, roundabout route to getting her into our little poolside soiree, she agreed to join us. I knew I wanted to subversively hurt this poor girl. I couldn't tell you why, but I can tell you that I went too far. Sometimes she would say these diatribes, these ultra-positive little dittys...let me give you an example:
"I miss my mom's fudge so much! She makes it at Christmas and we all gather around this big oak table that my dad made years ago. Then we all pile in the new truck and go see the Christmas lights along the river walk...I just miss all that love, you know? Those good times."
Her pert little tits and white teeth would be on display as she jutted about, smiling. I would grit my teeth. I couldn't stand it.
-
Six months into our daily poolside chats, I felt that Rose trusted me completely. We had made her the new part of our "trio" and made her an equal partner in all of our neighborhood-management activities. The more I saw her with her husband, with all their happy musings, the more I hated her. The more she lamented about missing her mother, and how intimate their relationship was, the more I saw an opening. Where I was going with all my feelings...I wasn't sure.
Eventually she knew all of our darkest secrets, such as my affairs and Tamyra's occasional trysts, and my son's death. While she was initially reluctant, we eventually garnered her opinion on the "sexiness" of the various men in the neighborhood. Tamyra and I used the term "fuckability" quite often, but Rose refused. It was simply too vulgar! This made me irate to no end.
Our conversations sometimes turned to existential, ambiguous topics. Rose was certainly playing a role as a beacon of hope and light for Tamyra. I think she almost made Tamyra a full-on evangelical Christian at one point. While Tamyra seemed apologetic for her failed marriage, I acted as the devil's advocate.
"In some ways," I mentioned one day, "I love my situation more than if I was happily married."
Rose was so adorable, and curious, "How so?" she asked, "Don't you believe in true love?"
I shrugged, "Love fades. Passion fades. I've 'fallen' for a man many times where others have only enjoyed that experience once or twice. And when I fall back down to earth, and I'm done with the man, I just move on. Zero baggage. My husband gives me every other material thing I need and we're cordial. The rest of the time I feel deep, intense love for men over and over. I think it's almost liberating."
This was the first time Tamyra took issue with my view on life. I could tell merely from the look on her face. I think she still had some glimmer of hope she could have a nice time with her husband in her sunset years, something real, something repaired, something authentic. I had no such hope.
The conversation moved to other topics, but I saw the impact of my words on Rose's face.
Rose seemed captivated by my audaciousness. I made a note of it.
-
Steve came along at just the right time. It was perfect.
It had been a couple of months since I first noticed Rose liked to hear how "naughty" I was. I think she felt a little taboo talking to an older mother like me about infidelity while I drank a bloody mary. Seeing me as a symbol of success and leadership, while betraying a traditional path in life, titillated the young woman.
While I cultivated my newfound cult of personality, we gradually pressured Rose into drinking with us by the pool. Everytime she sucked down a mixed drink, I felt like I had planted a worm inside her throat that was slithering its way inside her perfect Christ-fueled life and poisoning her rock-hard body. It was petty, and untrue, but fun to think about.
Rose had informed us of a nasty fight she'd had with her husband over money. Something having to do with flying her mother out to visit and whether she would stay at a local hotel or in their home. Family versus her husband. A big, fat wedge. To top it off, she was at least half drunk.
We were talking about some kind of celebrity relationship gossip when the pool gate closed. Our heads turned to see a six-foot-and-change chunk of man with a body fat percentage that was a legal blood alcohol level. Immediately, we were speechless.
He had these round, welcoming brown eyes and this curly, unkempt dark brown hair that laid just above his shoulders. His beard was trimmed and yet his cheekbones punched right through it. He was like some kind of Olympian adonis. I didn't think him to be any more special than a hot guy you might pass in a mall or on the street, except he was in our pool and something to gab about.
He nodded our direction, and when he turned to enter the pool, we all cooed in glee quietly to each other. We watched him swim. And as soon as he left, we couldn't shut up about how hot the "new guy" was.
"Ten out of ten on the fuckability scale!" Rose exclaimed at one point during our mutual fawning.
That was all I needed to hear. The gears started turning.
-
Eventually Steve, aka "Pool God" according to Rose, was a fixture in our daily lives. The first week or so he only nodded, but eventually he we would shout out a quick "Hey!" or "Hello!" his way. Each day he'd do some laps and retire. When he was gone, we'd say outlandish things.
"Ugh, I wanna eat him with a spoon."
"I'd lick him like butter."
"I wonder what my boyfriend is up to today?"
So on and so forth.
Eventually he walked up to us, when only the four of us occupied the pool in the middle of the day.
"Good to see you ladies again today," he said in a deep, bruising voice.
We made small talk. His life story was ridiculous. Born and bred in Iowa, he moved to Arizona to complete his graduate work in health science. When his elderly grandmother passed, he was surprised to inherit a massive sum. Despite goading from our panel of eager beavers, he wouldn't give details.
"But that's why I'm here in the middle of the day. I just help train athletes part-time. Rest of my time is mine. I wanted a big, spacious house but I didn't want to spend a lot of the inheritance. That's why I'm in the neighborhood."
He worked for a charity. He loved windsurfing. He was rich, built, handsome, and perfect.
"What about you?" he asked Rose, standing above her, "What's your story?"
Body language is everything. Steve hovered above the casually seated Rose with his hands on his waist. Her barely clothed bikini bottom was a few inches away from his swim trunks, so I played an imaginary game of "connect the dots" as I glanced between their youthful crotches.
She tucked her wedding ring behind her drink. When Steve made a polite joke she laughed and sort of adjusted herself in her seat as she giggled, thrusting her chest towards him. Steve just smiled for days, never breaking eye contact.
He politely asked Tamyra and myself for our details, but every bone in his body seemed less interested than when he talked to Rose. That day, after he swam and left, Rose seemed less enthused about gushing over him than usual. She sort of frowned, and was mired in something.
