First off, I have to tell you I love Angela. Honest to God, I really do. I've told her this a million times. And I kind of understand her outrage and why she's doing what she's doing. I wish she wouldn't but I can understand it. God, I wish she would stop and be mine again.
Okay, maybe that's not the best place to start. Maybe the beginning would work better.
I met Angela at a party some college friends of mine were giving. It wasn't anything special, like end of finals or someone finally graduating, just a get together where we chatted about what's going on and who's doing whom. It was college, so someone was
always
doing whom. A little friendly gossip. Some of the guys actually liked word getting out that they were finally getting laid. Like I said, college.
I mingled with some people, saying hi to the ones I knew and checking out the girls I didn't know. There was this one girl, a leggy blonde, who was getting a lot of attention. Guys were pasted to her like wallpaper and she seemed to be enjoying the attention. I watched her for a while and decided she was just trying to figure out which one of the hunks was going to get her pussy that night. I wasn't in the running.
After musing over the dynamics of that group, I wandered around and spotted a girl with dark hair and a bemused smile. She seemed to be looking at me, so I sauntered over.
I looked at her without speaking for a while. I was normally pretty shy and would struggle to strike up a conversation with a woman, particularly one that was drop dead gorgeous. This one was very pretty, but fell just a little bit short of tongue-tying beautiful. I decided I would try "smooth," not that I had any chance of pulling it off.
I smiled at her and she smiled back. "Okay," I started, "it's clear something is amusing you."
"Yeah," she said, "it's a little bit funny."
"Care to fill me in?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.
She pointed her chin at the blonde surrounded by the dragging tongues. "I'm just wondering how long it will take her to make her decision."
"What decision?" I asked.
She shrugged. "Which one she'll take home to fuck."
I was taken aback by the directness. "What makes you think that's what she's trying to decide?" I asked.
She smiled. "I've seen her before. She'll go to this party or that, hang around for a while, then drag someone off and we'll never see them again for the rest of the evening."
I turned to look at the group. "Ah," I said, "so
that's
what she's doing. I would never have guessed." She and I both laughed.
"The thing is," she said, "she's a nice girl, really sweet. It's just that she is insecure about herself and uses men to make her feel better. It's too bad, but it never works. After she screws someone, she always feels worse."
"You know her?" I was surprised.
"Yeah," she said, "I went to high school with her. She had problems then, too, but it seems like they're worse now. I try to talk about it with her, but she's still in denial. It's a real shame, because she deserves better than what she's getting." She sighed. "Maybe she'll wise up after a while. Maybe."
We stared at the blonde and her groupies for awhile in silence. I finally put out my hand and said, "Brad, in case you were wondering."
She smiled as she shook my hand. "Angela. Glad to meet you."
Not much happened that night. I chatted with her until it was time for her to go. We talked about school, of course, and some of the things we had had time to do when we didn't have to study. I found out she liked to go to plays at small theaters. There were a number of them around and she said she really liked the Odyssey. I had never been there and said so. She suggested we try it out sometime. She said she could give me a call when a new play she wanted to see was going to be there. I practically broke my hand grabbing a pen to write my number down.
I didn't hear from Angela for a couple of weeks. One night, when I was trying to figure out some phase space problem that, as far as I could tell, was unsolvable, my phone rang.
"Hey, Brad," a voice said, "how are you? It's Angela. Remember me?"
"Of course I do," I said. "What's up?
"I was just wondering what you were doing," Angela said.
"Oh, sitting around by the phone, waiting for you to call," I said.
I could almost hear her eyes rolling. "Well, a good thing I finally did. You must be running out of food right about now."
"Yeah," I laughed, "I'm down to the last can of cat food. At least now I can go out and get some real food, like ramen or something." Students are always broke and laughing about how they eat cat and dog food, but I've never actually seen anyone do it. Well, except for Raymond, but that was a joke.
"So," she said, "up for a play?"
"It depends on when, but yeah, I'm up for it. What, where, and when?" I asked.
"The Odyssey, eight o'clock Thursday, and it's called Simple Pleasures. It's a story about a guy who slowly figures out that bigger isn't better and excitement at the expense of contentment isn't a good trade. Want to go?"
"Sure," I said. "I'll meet you there."
********************
I showed up in front of the playhouse a little before eight and saw Angela walking toward me.
"Hi," she said with a smile, "glad you could make it."
"I wouldn't miss this for the world," I said. She took my arm and we walked in.
It was a good play and we had a great time. Afterwards, I bought her a burger at a little burger shack down the street that was known for good, unhealthy food. We talked about the play and what it meant. She was smart, clever, and kind, laughing at my jokes even when they weren't funny. I was smitten.
So was she, it turned out. I was stunned when she called me up again for a date. After a while, I lost my shyness and started calling her, but it was clear to me from the start that she was interested. We always had a great time, no matter what we did. Sometimes it was nothing other than studying together. Of course, sometimes studying together was fun because we were studying each other. We were really good at that. I'm sure that if there were a test on that, we'd both get A's.
It surprised no one when we got married. It was a big affair, with her parents and mine pooling their money together to give us a good start. I don't remember much of it now, except how people were starting to laugh when we danced the first dance as husband and wife. I was dancing backwards with her, her head on my shoulder, and I turned around just in time to see that I had almost danced into the table with the wedding cake. That certainly would have been memorable.
We both got jobs right out of school and were lucky they were close together. We picked a place that was more or less between our two jobs so each of us had pretty much the same commute time. We got comfortable in our jobs and we got comfortable with our lives. It was good.
And maybe that was the problem. It was comfortable. It wasn't crazy, it wasn't exciting, it wasn't a surprise every minute or two. It was comfortable.
We had been married for twenty years. There were no children, not by choice, exactly, but we accepted it. I guess we fell into something of a rut. It's easy to do. You know what your partner wants, you give it to her, or she gives it to you, and everyone is happy. Not deliriously so, but happy enough. I thought.
But it bothered me. I felt like I was missing something. I didn't know what it was, but something was just off, you know? I tried to figure it out but couldn't pinpoint what wasn't right. Didn't Angela give me everything I wanted? Of course she did. She'd make dinners for me, tell me about her day, ask about mine, make jokes about how everyone in the world is crazy except us, then run upstairs to make me come in her arms. What's wrong with that?
I didn't know, but I knew
something
was.
*****************
Every summer, my company hires interns. These are usually college students looking to get some work experience. They are generally not that useful, but the company gets a chance to see how they work, how enthusiastic they are, and how much knowledge they have. In short, it's a trial period for people the company might like to hire.
Sure enough, Patricia, the HR lady, came by with a couple of kids from college. She introduced them to me. Laura was a nice looking girl, with long blonde hair and an engaging smile. Susan, on the other hand, was more attractive and had a smile that was puzzling. It was a Mona Lisa smile. I couldn't quite make out what the feelings were behind it. I shook hands with both of them, welcomed them to the company, and told them I'd probably have some work for them in a day or two. It would take me that long to come up with something for them to do, although I didn't tell them that. Patricia explained that Laura would be working in another department, but Susan would be assigned to mine and that I should feel free to make use of her however I could; the company was paying them, so it would be a shame to waste the money. We all smiled at that.
At first, I didn't have anything for Susan to do, so I just sent her off to chat with others. Eventually, someone gave her some filing to do and that kept her busy for a while. I was glad, because I quite frankly couldn't think of anything for her. I am generally self-sufficient, doing everything myself. I figure I'm the best man for the job, so I don't think about handing work out to anyone else. It's hard for me to delegate. And it's really hard to delegate to some kid not even out of school who won't have the first idea of what to do. Still, the company would like to hire her, otherwise she wouldn't be an intern, and it was expecting me to size her up. Ugh.
********************
One day, Tom dropped by to chat. Tom is a friend of mine at work. He's a good guy, about my age, married to a lovely woman named Jennifer. Jen is crazy about Tom, from what I can tell, and he's crazy about her. He tells me about some of their escapades. He laughed about having sex in some weird position and almost passing out when he came. He would have dropped Jen on her head if he had, he explained.
"Hey, Brad," Tom said, "got time for a beer after work?"
"Sure," I said, "let me call Angela and let her know I'll be late." I called Angela at work and told her about my plans. I asked if we could have dinner an hour later and she said sure. Angela's great about stuff like that; any sudden change in plans and she never bats an eye.
After work, Tom and I went to a local bar that has some pretty good beers. I prefer a porter and got a nice, rich one; Tom prefers lagers. I kidded him about being a wimp and we sat down at a small table to chat.
"So how's it going, Tom?" I asked.
"Great!" Tom said. He had a smile a mile wide.
I looked at him for a while with raised eyebrows. "Okay," I said, "spill it."
