I hadn't seen my ex-wife for nearly two years. Not since we sat together on a low concrete wall outside the courthouse after the divorce proceedings. Even then I hoped things could be turned around, a miracle performed, that her heart could be turned back towards me. Now I see how foolish I must have seemed to her. I see how my timid accommodations and surrenders must have looked like yet more evidence of my "lack of backbone," as she was fond of telling me. Somehow she ended up with the house while the few thousand dollars compensation I received vanished in lawyer's fees. ("Really", she said, "you must understand the house isn't worth as much you think it is. It's best this way."). After the divorce I tried to keep in contact with her but eventually the unanswered emails piled high enough even I could see that she wanted me out of her life. She remarried.
And yet on an ordinary Thursday evening, in a local bar, she sat perched on a high stool, her elbows resting on the tall round table, peering intently into the depths of her phone. Beside her was a half-empty glass of red wine.
As the fights escalated at the end of our marriage she denied having affairs, ridiculing my accusations, demanding evidence, mocking my "paranoia." The truth was that I had no evidence, only my suspicions, her small lies and omissions, and my gut feeling. Her only stumble was when she denied being here in this bar with someone, and yet her credit card clearly showed she had paid a bill here -- a bill too large for a single person. The fight became about me "going through her things" and she refused to talk about it again, saying I had violated her trust.
I watched her prod her phone angrily and then rapidly swallow her remaining wine. She dropped a ten dollar note on the table and then swiftly exited the bar. I was in her field of vision as she left but she didn't see me. I was nothing to her. The thought she might have been stood up was a small compensation.
Back in my small rented apartment that night I lay sleepless, listening to the ancient heating pipes clang. My insomniac thoughts returned to the weathered paths of the cuckolded husband. I dusted off suspicions and reexamined evidence. I felt again the familiar metal-tipped spike of jealous pain. My thoughts ran on in familiar hurtful circles until I was struck by something entirely new. I sat up in bed, suddenly alert. This time I was not the cuckold, her new husband was. I had been witness to a failed assignation. She was a cheat and now I had evidence. Not proof, just evidence, of a sort.
My friend George was blessed with looks but spared the burden of too much intelligence. He was married and a well-known philanderer. His wife was a wispy creature whose presence in the world seemed entirely accidental. He had, on occasion, let me know he found my ex-wife attractive. In fact, he had been extremely crude in his description of her on one drunken occasion. I both resented this and yet found it arousing.
I wrote to him and explained my plan to which he cheerfully acquiesced. The plan was to get her to meet George for a drink. I wrote the first email to my ex-wife for George, not trusting his spelling or his ability to tempt her away from her marriage. She knew George slightly and also knew his reputation. To accept an invitation from George would not be innocent.
George sent me her replies and I continued to write on his behalf. She was hesitant at first but I managed unlock her natural flirtatiousness. I expressed, on George's behalf, a concern that perhaps her husband would object to their meeting. She quickly responded that George need not worry about "him." Eventually she agreed to a meeting when "he" was away on business. I had once been the "he" and the "him".
I tutored George before the assignation -- tread softly at first, let her talk, complement her, ask her about her work. Most important of all, have her drink vodka and not wine. She would be much easier to handle after three or four vodkas. George took his task seriously, even taking notes on his phone of useful conversation topics -- her cat, her college experience, her love of clothes shopping, and so on. The next step was more difficult -- getting her to invite him back to her house (my house). I told him not to be too blunt but to offer to make sure she gets home safely.
Date night arrived and I sat in my car across from the bar with a clear view of the tables inside. George arrived first and my ex-wife was her usual ten minutes late. She walked unknowingly passed my car in her green leather jacket, a yellow scarf I recognized, and a pair of black ankle length boots. When she shucked off her jacket in the bar I registered her tight skirt and black stockings. As instructed, George took a table close to the window and I snapped the first of several photos.
