Save one Bullet

Chapter 15

I was back home, trying to sort out my confusing week after learning about Tom's cheating, losing Mom, and then, meeting Rick when I was at my weakest point ever. I had never been so vulnerable in my life.

“Tan, don’t ever think you have to go through these things alone. I’m here for you. Always. Don’t you know that?” Tom said convincingly. He was, after all, the salesman of the year at his company. After twenty years of being married to this guy, though, I knew better.

“The hospital had me sign off on the coroner’s papers and they transported her to the funeral home where Dad was. My book club is arranging a reception after the funeral. But I don’t know how long it will take for the funeral after they get the body. I wish I’d paid more attention when Mom was arranging Dad’s funeral,” I sighed.

“You know what? You don’t have to worry about any of that,” Tom assured me, “You get some rest, take care of yourself and I’ll call the home and make the arrangements, okay? You’ve done more than enough.”

Shocked, I looked up at him. “Really? You’ll do all that?”

“Of course, I will. Seriously, I’ll bring you some toast and whatever I can dig up in the kitchen for breakfast and you just go back to sleep.” With that, Tom came over to the bed and knelt down beside me, running his hand over my cheek. “Tanya, I love you. I will always take care of you.”

After the week I’d had it wouldn’t have taken much to break me down. I held it together through the discovery of his cheating, Mom’s accidents, and her death. But this was too much, and I began blubbering like a toddler in a candy aisle with a mean mommy. I wanted so badly to believe him. So, so bad. How could I ever trust him again, knowing what I knew?

He stood there lying to my face about loving me and always being there for me when he spent more time with his receptionist than he spent with me. Would he even have contacted me to see how my week was going if I hadn’t texted him? Was he having a lover’s quarrel with his girlfriend, and I was an easy replacement until they made up?

Most of the tears were from sadness over losing Mom so suddenly. The rest of the tears were being shed out of anger. Anger at the man who knelt at my side lying to me and trying to convince me he was someone who really cared about me. Instead of taking comfort from his assurances, my heart turned bitter and hard, erasing the warmth I felt for him last night when we were making hurried love.

I rolled over on my side and pretended to fall back asleep. Anything to get him to leave me alone with my thoughts. Now I couldn’t wait for him to leave the house so I could take a shower and wash his betrayal off my body. My mental voice repeated his promise in a whiny, man-child voice, ‘Tanya, I love you. I will always take care of you.’

Did he honestly think I was that stupid? ‘A promise is only as good as its keep’, my mother used to say. I never understood her until just now. She was a wise woman, who got her PhD in humanity through trial and error, mostly error.

I lay in bed, antsy and uncomfortable, counting the seconds until Tom went on about his womanizing way. I needed someone right now who really cared about me. Someone with nothing to gain by comforting me. Rick’s face kept flashing through my mind. The way he listened. How he sat up with me waiting on the news about Mom’s death and his sincere, comforting words, and gentleness. He was who I wanted now.

Tom did this to himself. He did it to me. This was not a result of my looking for someone else. This was a happenstance meeting because of what Tom had done to me. Perhaps it was fate because I sure didn’t go looking for Rick.

What I would have given to have Rick’s arms around me now, holding me until my heart was sewn back together. In a few, short days with that man, he had taken hold of my imagination in the way Tom used to before he became busy with his job, his friends, his other woman, or perhaps that was his other women. Who the hell knows what and who he's been up to all these years without my knowledge?

It seemed to me now that the insurance company had gone through at least a dozen front desk secretaries over the years. Maybe the reason for their quick turnover was that the owners couldn’t keep their peckers in their pants.

Tom made one more hasty visit to make sure I was sleeping, then he quietly showered, dressed, and left the house. Thank God. I thought he’d never leave. As soon as the car pulled out of the driveway I dug through my purse on the floor and retrieved my cell phone. I stared at it for a few moments, unable to catch my breath or focus on the screen. With a nervous gulp, I found Rick’s number in my contacts and hit the call button, not sure what sort of reception I might get.

“Yes, Hello? Tanya?” Rick’s deep voice rumbled, quickening my pulse and sending shockwaves into my core.

“Um, hi, Rick. I hope this isn’t a bad time to call you,” I blurted out quickly, sort of ashamed of my neediness.

“No. No. Never. You can call me anytime. I’m so glad you did. I’ve been thinking about you,” he said, relieving some of my guilt over bothering almost a perfect stranger.

“I, I’m just, you know, having a hard time today and you seemed like the one I wanted to talk to,” I confessed awkwardly.

“Well, that’s good, isn’t it? I’m glad you feel like you can trust me. I’m humbled, really. Would you like to get together for lunch? I can be in Syracuse in an hour and a half,” he offered.

“Oh, that’s a long way for you to drive for lunch. I couldn’t ask you to do that. I, uh, I just wanted to hear your voice,” I explained.

“There is nothing I would rather do than spend the afternoon with a beautiful lady who needed to hear my voice. Name the place and time and I will be there,” he promised.

I asked Rick to meet me at a small diner in a part of town where I was unknown. Shaking, I ended the call and wondered what being in Rick’s arms might feel like, running my palms slowly over my breasts. Those blue eyes of his. I couldn’t get them out of my mind. I could almost feel them on me, enjoying the view of my full breasts topped with tidy, pink nipples. I shuddered at that thought and something primal, deep inside of me convulsed. Unfortunately, in order to meet Rick in time I would have to skip a more thorough exploration of my body and grab a shower.

As I was blow-drying my hair the mirror did its creepy thing again. Frosty spiderwebs crawled across the bottom of the shiny glass, and the unseen finger spelled out, ‘The devil you don’t know’.

“Oh, yeah? Well, I’m going to find out exactly what is going on with this devil I don’t know, mirror!” I whispered belligerently to my reflection.

Choosing my scarlet lipstick and a lavender shade of eyeshadow I made myself up for a night on the town. I shaved everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING, just in case. Because, you know, every time a woman shaves her legs and doesn’t get laid, a unicorn somewhere dies. Heaven only knows what dies when a woman shaves her down yonder and doesn’t get laid. Probably some endangered species.