Save One Bullet

My mind was wandering and I was thinking about the upcoming evening with Rick, when one of my students barfed all over her dress and the floor, causing the child next to her to gag and vomit also. Janitor time. I had to call the office and herd the class out of the room until it was cleaned up.

With the two ill kids at the nurse's office and on their way home, and the floor clean, we took our seats again to the tune of, “Man! Did you see Jenny’s puke fly out of her nose?”, “Gross! I can still smell it. Ugh.”, “Do we have to stay here the rest of the day?”

I did open a few windows, despite the below-freezing temperatures, just to let them think the smell was going to get better. It did not.

We were all relieved when the bell for the buses rang. I broke speed limits driving home to get into a hot shower. Scrubbed from head to toe, I warmed up a quick heat-and-eat meal for Brenda and nibbled on celery and carrot sticks before heading back to the hotel for my last rendezvous with Rick before I reluctantly sicced Marcia on him. Be still, my heart! My palms were sweating, and my foot kept slipping off the gas pedal as I shivered all over, thinking of how much letting Rick go was going to cost me. It was making me sick to my stomach thinking of Rick and Marcia together, which reminded me of the vomit in my classroom. Ugh, now my stomach was flipping violently, and I almost had to pull over to the side of the road and open a window.

Fortunately, the nausea passed, and I pulled into the hotel parking lot in time to see a heavy-set woman with frizzy, bleached blonde hair step out of an enormous SUV and stomp toward the hotel entrance. Whoa, someone was in trouble!

I drove around to the back entrance to avoid running into this pissed-off person. Unfortunately, she and I both got into the same elevator, and she pushed the same floor that I had pushed. I tried to not make eye contact by checking my phone the entire trip to the third floor.

When the elevator doors opened up, she flew out, like buckshot from the barrel of a rifle, and pounded down the hallway, in the same direction I happened to be going in. Al, the night desk guy, had warned me about Rick and his angry women. Not wanting to take any chances, I walked to the ice and soda nook around the corner from the elevators, then peeked out just as Miss Angry Pants got to Rick’s door and began banging furiously on it. Holy shit. Too bad I didn’t bring popcorn. This was going to be good.

“You sleazy son of a bitch- open this door or I’ll kick it in,” she shrieked, alerting all the bored travelers on this floor, who opened their doors a crack to get some free drama.

“Jesus, Marybeth. Calm down. What is wrong? Come inside before you get me kicked out of here,” a flustered Rick called out as he pulled her inside the room, with a hurried glance in either direction.

The acoustics from the vending nook weren’t very good, so I crept closer to the room. All right. All right. So I crept right up to the door and put my ear against it. I almost wish I hadn’t.

“You liar! You said I was the only one. Now I have to explain to my husband how I got Chlamydia. How many other women are you sleeping with?” The woman raged.

What I heard next froze my blood. In a mocking, icy tone, Rick replied, “So, you’re a married slut. How do you know you caught something from me? How many other women am I sleeping with? Do you want me to tell you, or do you want to keep living in your little fantasy world?”

Even though I couldn’t see into the room I could feel the woman’s face collapse and the tears running down her cheeks, “I, I’m not a slut. I love you. I’m not sleeping around, damn it. I’m in love with you, Rick!”

“Listen, wherever you picked up your STD, take it back to him and leave me the fuck alone,” he spewed at her viciously. “I’m tired of your whining and crying all the time. We’re adults, Maryanne. We had sex. Period. Do you think I would ever fall in love with someone who looks like you? Come on. Get real. You’re fat, you’re ugly and your pussy is so big I’m afraid I’ll fall in and get lost. Go home to your prickless husband.”

The blood left my face, and I feared I’d faint right there if I didn’t get away before the door opened. I imagined that speech being hurled at me if I annoyed him. You know what? Marcia could have him. Oh, my God. This man had ice in his veins. I ran to the elevator before the woman left his room.

I drove over to Denny’s restaurant to sit and catch my breath before going home. I ordered dinner and thought about the conversation I had just heard through the door. That poor woman. All of us poor women whom Rick had used and fooled. What was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he just get laid without playing games? Millions of men do it every day. It’s not that difficult. The great lengths he went to in pretending to be the good guy and pulling women into his game made no sense.

It was difficult enjoying my hot roast beef sandwich, imagining Rick accusing me of being fat and ugly, and God only knew what he’d say about my vagina when he got tired of me. I shuddered as I choked down my dinner, thinking of the chilling voice he used to make fun of that woman. We meant nothing to him. It was all a game to him to see how many women he could trick into falling in love. It was to feed his ego. Nothing more.

As I paid my bill at the register, I noticed a commotion at the intersection up the street from the hotel. Flashing red lights, police cars, a fire rescue truck, and finally, an ambulance. Wow. Someone was having a worse night than I was.

Hating to drive past accidents and gawking, I was uncomfortable but had to drive that way to get home. As I slowed for the officer directing traffic around the accident, I almost plowed into a police car when I saw who was being loaded into the ambulance. Although her bleached blonde hair was now matted to her skull with clotting blood, I could still tell it was Marybeth, or MaryAnne. Whatever her name was. Certainly, Rick didn’t know and didn’t care.