This one might be just a touch, a tad, a jot, an iota over the top. The answer to that stereotypical LW cliché, that trite meme -- is not that the best revenge is a life well-lived -- it is a life really, REALLY well-lived.
Enjoy.
(BTW, if you recognise the accent -- it's not from there!)
RAINE, ON HER PARADE
"Damn, you're a hard man to track down."
I grunted. I didn't look around -- I didn't need to: she still wore the same perfume.
Not knowing quite what else to do, I continued attaching bait to my hook.
She settled down not quite next to me, dangling her shapely legs over the edge of the pier.
"So how are you doing?" she asked.
I reached over and turned off the cheap radio that I took with me while fishing. I shrugged. I was holding two hooks between my lips and didn't really want to start gabbing while they were there. I'd caught one of those in my earlobe before, back when I was starting out at this sea fishing business, and knew what a bastard it was to try and get them back out again. It almost made me feel sorry for the fish.
"So this is what you do now?" she asked, looking around.
I could understand why she didn't look impressed. The pier was used by the fishing fleet, and their debris and detritus lay around in heaps and mounds of tackle and equipment. I'd watched the fleet set sail as the sun came up. I liked to watch them leave -- and usually gave them a wave for luck. At least I thought it was for luck; they might have thought differently and been cheerfully shouting for me to fuck off when they waved back. I couldn't hear anything over the thumping noise of their engines.
I removed the hooks for a moment. "Pretty much. I like fish."
She looked at me with sympathy. I didn't want her sympathy, but it didn't bother me as much as it might have at one time.
"Jake," she started, but then had to pause as I cast the line out with a flick that dropped it just into the elbow of the pier, where it crooked to the west. The fish liked the shadows it cast at this time of day.
"Jake," she started again. I rummaged in the old army kit bag that I used for fishing tackle and odds and ends. With a grunt of pleasure I drew out a flask and two plastic mugs. I poured coffee into them and handed one to her. I didn't like the bitch, but my mama didn't raise boys who were impolite to visitors.
Raine took the cup, trying not to touch it with more than her fingertips.
"You din't used to be so finickity," I commented.
"Well, if you don't have to roll in the mud, why would you want to?"
"Thought you kinda enjoyed rollin' in the mud. Far as I saw, anyway. Seemed like you were lovin' getting down and dirty with fuckface, muddying up my bed and all."
Her face had gone white. I wondered why. After five years, what difference did it make?
"You saw us? You knew?"
I nodded, drawing the line in smoothly.
"I never meant for you to find out that way," she said. She sounded sincere, but then she was a cheating bitch and lying was a way of life for her.
"What way you prefer me to find out you a cheatin' skank?" I asked, genuinely curious.
She brushed at her skirt as if she had spotted a few crumbs on it, while she thought what to say. I grinned. I wasn't going to tell her that she had sat square on the dried remains of the innards of the catch I made yesterday. I always gutted them right there and threw the entrails back to feed the fish that had been too wise for my tempting bait and hook. The blood and gore, I left to dry in the sun. You couldn't see the mess against the black tarred surface. I figured ten minutes of her body heat should cook those remains right into the back of that fancy skirt of hers.
"Well," she started. "I was hoping we could have had a conversation. You and James and I, together."
"You really thought I'd a sat down nice and comfy with that son of a bitch?" My genuine astonishment must have been evident. She frowned.
"We could have had a civilised conversation and worked things out properly."
"He woulda had to work my boot out his ass first," I offered. "That polecat's a complete whoresome cunt! By preference, I wouldn't breathe the same air as him. I'm mostly shamed that we both breathe oxygen."
"Jake!" she sighed. That sigh was so familiar. It had usually presaged a plea for me to be reasonable, or a long silence to teach me some or other nonsense.
"What? That slimy eel took 'vantage of my generosity and greased my wife up and slid her right under him, and my family right alongside her. Then he done oiled my company right out from under me. He's a cunt -- a diseased, poxed-up slimy ol' cunt. And you thought we coulda sat and drank tea or somethin'? Did he steal yo' brain as well as yo' promises?"
I shook my head.
"Shit. Now you got me all antsy. Five years I bin pretty happy. Then y'all turn up again. Fuck! Wadda you want, Raine? I ain't giving you money! I ain't givin' you shit! You already took everythin' I had. You spent it, now you can suck it up."
She looked at me pityingly.
"Jake, I didn't come to ask you for money. I mean..." She waved her hand at the surroundings, and me sitting square in the middle of them, as if in explanation.
"So why y'all here?"
"Jake, you just ran off. I didn't know where you'd gone, or why. You didn't even leave a note, or anything. You took a few clothes and odds and ends and that was it."
Clothes and a few odds and ends. She had that right. Odds and ends. Better odds than she thought.
"No, I din't just run off, as y'all so nicely put it. I considered my options, decided what I wanted to do and did it. Weren't no runnin' involved. You make it sound like I was scared or someone run me off. Shit, I din't like it, but with you out of the picture, I only had to think on what I wanted.
"Thought about leaving a note, but I guess it woulda just read 'Dear Raine, you're a cheating, lying, thieving slut. Have a shitty life. Bye.' But I din't really wanna waste that much paper."
"I was never a thief!" Raine declared indignantly. I sniggered how she didn't deny the rest of it. Well, I'd had the proof of that. After he had shafted me and stole my company, I had gone out and got somewhat smashed in my outrage and pain, while he had gone to my house to fuck my wife in celebration. When I had discovered them in the act, a sense of bitter absolute rage had fought with overwhelming dismal defeat and I had simply walked away. The alternative was two graves and a life sentence, or the chair.
"Yeah? Then how come you and fuck-knuckle now own my family's business? A business I worked and sweated in for almost twenty year. Weren't never yours, and yet somehow it ends up in yore hands. Must be fuckin' magic!"
She had the grace to look embarrassed.
"I wasn't involved in that," she said. "That was James. It was just business."
"Nope. It weren't any business I woulda been involved in. He had secrets. Secrets that only two people knew, and I was one of 'em. You were the other. So before you go on about how it had nothing to do with you, why don't you get it explained how he got to know about those secrets just in time to ambush me at the board meeting and vote me out. You were the only other person who knew. Shit, they were yore votes he used."
She had gone pale again. It didn't suit her blond good looks. It made her look pasty and ill.
"Look I didn't come here to talk about that," she spluttered, trying to retain some dignity.
"No, don't imagine you did," I said calmly. There are few good things about being cheated on and deciding to just walk away. But there are a few.
First, you get to say when enough is enough, and seeing her humping and dumping under that greasy little fuck was more than enough for me. The other thing is, sometimes you get a long time to think about things before they get shoved in your face. I'd had five years before she turned up on my pier, plenty enough time to get things straight in my mind. I imagine most couples faced with the same scenario, without any time to think, end up shouting, crying, spluttering and searching for the right words -- interspersed with long silences as they try and control emotions enough to not strike out physically. I'd had the benefit of silence and solitude for a while.
"So why you here?" I asked. There was a shudder through the line and I struck, feeling the rod suddenly come alive and enjoying the swoop of excitement that ran through me. That was the part that non-fishermen never understood -- the joy of going after a twelve pound fish on a line with a six pound breaking strain and having to play the fish back and forth, winding in the line and letting it run out again when needed, to tire the creature enough to bring it ashore. That, and being left alone with your thoughts -- which was something I wasn't getting right now.
"What are you doing?" she yelped, as I leapt up and began playing the fish, the rod jerking violently as I tried to steer the catch left and right. She got to her feet, and out of the corner of my eye I saw her skirt stick to the grunge on the ground for a moment. She smoothed it down over the back of her thighs and felt... stickiness. Then she was twisting and turning, trying to see what was on her skirt.
I ignored her antics and concentrated purely on the battle. Okay, that's not strictly true: I had fished this dock for five years and usually took a decent catch by the end of the day, so I was operating on muscle memory alone. That gave me time to ponder.
I could imagine the fish beneath surface, being drawn in a direction it didn't want to go, instinctively fighting, until the inevitable exhaustion and surrender.
I think Raine would have made a good fisherwoman. She played me throughout our marriage, and she was back to try and do the same thing again.
She had her metaphorical rod up in the air, knew exactly where her fish was hiding and was about to launch the bait into the water.
"It's about Carrie and Jon," she said, almost conversationally. Never let the fish see a sudden movement. Simply dangle the bait and wait for the strike.
"What 'bout 'em?"
"Jake, they miss you, your children miss you."
"Can visit me here, they want." The look she gave my clothes and surroundings explained that this was not an option she cared to contemplate.
"They want you to be a bigger part of their lives," she continued, as if I hadn't spoken. So this was a prepared speech then.
"They need more stability, and they need you around. But if you can't play as big a part as you might wish, then we have to find a different way of providing that."
As I continued fighting my fish, I could almost taste the bait, hook carefully hidden within it, in my mouth. It was a surreal moment.
"And what might a 'different way' be?"
"We were thinking that James could adopt them; and before you go off the deep end, think about it. It makes sense. He's there for them every day, and together he and I are the parents they need. This is about the children Jake, not you and me or James and me. This is purely about the children. Trust me. I'm their mother and I only want what's best for them."
"What grade Carrie get in science last term?" I asked. It seemed to be a non sequiter after the bomb she had just dropped, but I had reasons enough for asking.
"What?"
"You bein' her ma and so close and everythin'. Thought you might wanna brag her marks up to me some. Show me what a good job y'all doin'."
"Look, I don't want to talk about the children's schooling. They're both doing very well. So you needn't worry."
"Naw, I ain't worried. They smart kids. They'll get by with a little help."
"Yes, that's what I'm talking about. But what would help, would be for James to adopt them and take over the tedious part of looking after them."
