I wasn't trying to solve world hunger or settle the conflict in the Middle East. I was attempting to do something a lot more important, to me anyway. I was trying to figure out why or more so how the love had gone out of our marriage. I thought it would be a simple task to figure out the how or why and just reverse it and make it all better again. Well, that's the phrase my little daughter Kim uses when my wife puts on a bandage when she gets a cut or scrape. But, making it all better again between my wife Sue and I was going to take more than a bandage with little red balloons on it. However, I was going to give it my best shot. I didn't want to join the statistical group of one in two married couples divorcing but it looks like we're heading that way. Well, not if I can help it.
To look at us we were the typical Ozzie and Harriet couple. Married almost eleven years with two kids. Our family consisted of Kim, six, Danny, eight, and a two year old golden retriever named Rusty. We live in a McMansion, as I call our oversized big box house that Sue just had to have, and much to my dismay we have the big McMortgage to go along with it.
Sue works for Spencer and Thomas; a large accounting firm based out of Atlanta and was promoted to junior partner in January of last year. She's smart as hell and a workaholic when I don't watch her too closely. Me? I do custom paint jobs on motorcycles and cars. My work isn't seasonal like Sue's but it's usually feast or famine. A lot of weekends I put my tent up at either a car or bike show and grab jobs that way. Most of the time it seems word of mouth brings in much of my new business. When one of my paint jobs takes a trophy in a show, everyone always wants to know who did it. The winner directs them my way or gives them one of my cards. So, I go through a million custom painted business cards a year and although they're not cheap, they're well worth the cost.
Shortly after Danny was born we came to the realization that Sue was going to be the main breadwinner in our family. She had a higher earning potential and it just made good economic sense for me to be home more often with the kids while she furthered her career. Did it hurt my pride or did I feel less a man? Hell no. At that point, I only wished Sue could make even more money.
When our second, Kim, was born, I took over a bunch more duties especially when tax time rolled around. I became the chief cook and bottle washer not to mention maid and school mom. When the kids started grade school I always took the time to drive them and soon found I was picking up a couple of other kids in the neighborhood to boot. I didn't mind one bit. I just changed the hours of my business to open a half hour later and it was a done deal. The way I looked at it, marriage is a partnership and with both parties doing their share it ran like a well-oiled clock, or was supposed to anyway.
Don't get me wrong, Sue worked hard especially after being promoted. She normally works from seven thirty in the morning and hardly ever gets home before six thirty in the evening. A lot of times I would feed the kids and have them ready for bed when she'd drag her butt in the door after seven or even eight o'clock at night. With a glass of wine and a kiss chaser, I'd warn up her dinner and sit with her while she ate. Afterwards I'd put the kids to bed while she wound down. I didn't look at myself as a martyr; this is what two people who loved each other do in a marriage.
Did we have sex all the time? Not a chance. Hell, show me a guy who says he's getting enough and I'll show you a liar. If a guy gets it two to three times a week he wishes he could do it four. A guy who's getting it five times a week will still wonder what it would like to do it once a day. And a guy who's getting it seven times a week? Well we both know that's a fantasy and doesn't happen in the real world, especially to a couple that have little ones. I just say be thankful for what you're getting and take advantage of it when the opportunity arises. So our humble life went on.
Things between us got strained and out of hand, starting with the night of Sue's promotion dinner. It's been a year since that night and I'm still angry about her attitude towards me from that night forward. I feel I'm kind of being taken for granted. It's like she believes she is superior and that being married to a lowly blue-collar man is now almost beneath her. If it wasn't for my two kids I would probably say the hell with it, but I'm not quite there yet. Driving back from a show in Atlanta I decide I'm going to give it one last shot because I know there's still something there that can be salvaged, that is if we both work at it.
I start to think back to when we first said our I do's. I was twenty-two and she was twenty-three and a half; I always told her she robbed the cradle when she married me. She was out of college and working for an accounting firm in town. Me, I was running my own business painting cars and motorcycles. I was working out of my parent's detached garage, or what use to be their garage. I knew that I wasn't college material from the get go so I took all the auto paint courses the technical college offered. I learned not only the standard painting techniques but also the art of airbrushing. I was living hand to mouth, but was pretty happy with my life back then. I enjoyed going to car and bike shows because there were always great looking machines along with women who could stop traffic. That's where I met Sue.
She was going with some guy named Kenny who was showing his car at one of the regional events. To him, on that particular day, it was all about the car. Sue was there to give him support, because isn't that what girlfriends do? However, with the show getting ready to start and him polishing and buffing like crazy, Sue was nothing more than an after thought or an imposition. I hadn't done her boyfriend's paint job but had painted two others that I thought stood a good chance to take it all. I was just standing back, away from all the madness watching, when she walked up along side of me.
"Boys and their toys," she said louder than just a normal speaking voice sucking on some type of soda.
"Excuse me?"
"Kids, look at them. They're spending thousands of dollars on what? A pretty paint job that'll never see the light of day outside one of these swap meets."
I corrected her. "Car shows, they're called car shows."
"Whatever. It's just that it's not practical, that's all."
"If you're not interested in the cars, what are you doing here?"
"You see that greenish colored Chevy over there? That's my boyfriend's. We trailered it here behind his custom truck. Boys and their toys, I'll never understand it."
"And let me guess, he doesn't treat you half as good as he treats his car, right?"
"If he paid me one tenth of the amount of time he spends polishing that car of his, I'd be the happiest woman on earth. So, I'm here today to support my man; well that's what he told me I'm doing here anyway. What time does this thing end?" she said looking at her watch.
"Well, the judging starts in about an hour and it'll probably take at least two and a half hours based on the number of cars entered. Then there's the tallying of the votes. Hell, you should be out of here in about four hours give or take a half an hour."
"You're shitting me right?"
"Sorry." I answered. She pulled out her phone, dialed someone and started yelling into it.
"He told me a couple hours. No way in hell I'm going to wait around here all day even if he's going to take first place."
"Just to let you know, he's not going to take first place either."
"How do you know that? Are you one of the judges or something?"
"Nope, but I painted two cars in the competition that look a hell of a lot better than his," I smiled at her tooting my own horn. She didn't appear impressed.
"And pray tell, how much did you charge to paint those cars?"
"Four to five thousand," I replied.
"Each?" she now sounded a little more impressed.
"Yes, each. Why are you so surprised? I even gave them ten percent off if they'd plug my shop and hand out my cards if they win."
"Like I said, I'll never understand boys and their toys." She slurped down the last of her drink and put her big ass sunglasses on the top of her head, showing me her big brown eyes. Looking bored and disgusted, she then took off her sunglasses, tied up her shoulder length light brown hair into a ponytail and stuck her sunglasses back into her hair.
"By the way, I'm Steve Moore," I said holding out my hand.
"Sue Williams," she replied giving my hand a weak handshake. "Well, I've got to find my doofus boyfriend and tell him that I'm going to the mall while he does his male bonding thing. I'll be back to see how he does, I guess I owe him that much. Maybe I'll see you around."
"Here, take one of my cards." I dug one out of my top pocket and handed it to her. "When he loses to me you can give him the card and tell him I predicted it. Maybe he'll want me to repaint his car for him." Sue looked at the card, front and back, before slipping it into the back pocket of her jeans.
"Well, I guess I'll see you at the trophy thing." Sighing quietly she walked off.
Not a bad looking booty but her breasts were way too small for my taste. I kind of snickered to myself, watching her walk away thinking about how she looked better walking away than coming towards me. Cute. Nice face and a killer ass. If she were a guy, they'd say she looked like a tall drink of water because she must have been all of a hundred and ten pounds and at least five foot eight inches tall, which was mostly leg. She was braless and I could just make out her tits through her designer tee shirt. She had nipples attached to bumps on her chest that reminded me of a high school girl who hadn't started to develop yet. Oh well, she was her boyfriend's problem; I had bigger things on my mind right now.
It was a long hot afternoon. There weren't too many clouds in the sky and by late afternoon my shirt was sticking to me. It was wet from sweat. I could feel the sweat beads trickling down the sides of my face and down the center of my back. I took off my red ball cap, wiped my brow with the sleeve of my tee shirt and chuckled when I thought about what would happen if a summer rain shower came through. Sue was right; most of these cars never saw the light of day. They were either parked in some plush trailer or garage, only to see the sunlight at a function like this one.
