Day 16

“You’re an idiot,” she hissed at me, “I thought the point of having the last baby and adopting it out was to start a new life, not to develop a lifestyle like Momma’s, like a brood mare but for pay. You’re whoring yourself out to those people this time.”

People were starting to stare from the surrounding tables. No one expected to overheard a nasty verbal fight during their Sunday morning champagne brunch. “Hello! Pot calling kettle black,” I sneered back, “you go from man to man, you dance wearing almost no clothing at all and you have the nerve to call me a whore? At least I don’t spread my legs for half of population from Picayune to Pascagoula.”

Around us people were either looking at the starched linens of the tabletops of the Grand Imperial Palace casino dining room, or putting carefully bland expressions on their faces to pretend nothing was out of the ordinary. But a couple of glaring expressions were thrown at us.

Cynthia Rose bolted down her Mimosa in one swift gulp before ripping into me again, “And I suppose you’re still balling him, screwing your baby’s fake daddy silly every chance you get. So tell me, how does it feel to know you placed your first child in the home of a philanderer that cannot even be bothered to get his wife pregnant but isn’t above renting your uterus and your twat at the same time?”

By this time I was trembling with rage, struggling not to reach across the table and slap my sister until her skin turned red beneath her caked on showgirl makeup. I stared at her and wondered how she’d gone from a sweet faced young girl in a calico jumper and a long silken braid of golden hair to this hardened painted harlot that looked older than twenty four years old. Where was my real sister?

We didn’t get a chance to continue on our discussion because the maitre de came to our table to ask us to leave, too many guests were complaining that we were behaving like guttersnipes. He snootily told Cynthia to get her butt back to the dressing room because her shift was coming up shortly.

When I left the casino I was shaking, by the time I drove off their lot I was crying. So many things seemed to be going wrong in my life. Work was the only thing I didn’t struggle with. Even John had been calling less and our clandestine meetings had dropped to once every few weeks now. Everything felt like it was falling apart.

I wept all the way back home, wishing that I dared to call John or that my brother Jake still lived nearby. It finally hit me for the first time that I was actually alone in this world, alone save for Cynthia Rose but what good did that do when she was so angry with me.

By the time I’d managed to pull into the numbered slot at my condo development I’d stopped crying so hard, I was sniffling. But once I opened the door to the condo it felt as lifeless as a tomb, no matter how beautifully tricked out it was with the perfect furnishings. So I kicked off my sandals and left the back door, intent on taking a long walk on the white sands of the beach.

One thing I’d always loved about having an end unit is that I had less neighbors than most here. On one side was a an eight foot high double fence with a boardwalk allowing beach access to those poor unfortunates that didn’t live on the waters edge but it was rarely used. Just on the other side of the walkway was an abandoned one story condo development, much like my own. The local scuttlebutt was the builder had run out of money and that the property would probably be auctioned off one day to someone who could finish up the building.

On the other side of my home, sharing an adjoining wall lived a man maybe ten or fifteen years older than myself. As far as I could tell he lived alone. He was quiet, never making middle of the night racket or throwing wild parties. Like me, he seemed to go to work and come home with that being the extent of his existence. In the eight months I’d lived there we’d exchanged perhaps a few dozen words, usually banal pleasantries when we bumped into each other coming and going.

But today when I stepped out onto my stone patio and started to walk towards the closed picket fencing he was there, just on the other side of the fence. He kept looking at me and I knew that look. It was one I never enjoyed coming from anyone that wasn’t John, a look of interest in me as a woman. I looked down and shook my head, trying to indicate a no.

“You look like you’ve lost your last friend in this world.” my nameless neighbor said. This wasn’t what I was expecting, no come on, no double entendre and no flirting, just a concern for my emotional condition expressed in a voice that was warm.

I couldn’t help it, I moved towards him like a moth towards a flame and I looked up into his face. I’d never looked closely at him before. He wasn’t classically handsome like John, this man had very dark curly hair threaded with a few wiry grays, his eyes were dark and he had the type of windblown tan that had already left a few creases on his face. He looked like an aged cherub, his face was rounded but what struck me the most was the kindness in his eyes. This man seemed to radiate a goodness I’d not seen in a man in a very long time.

Before I knew exactly what I was doing I replied, “Well, yeah, I’ve been having some rather unusual circumstances in my life recently. I, I haven’t been myself.”

He seized my hand and I was surprised at the feel of his hand against my own, It wasn’t sexual, no tingle or thrill like I felt with John, but just something indefinable. “I just got back from a long walk on the beach and I’d like you to join me on my patio for iced tea. I’m not a psychologist but I am a good listener.”

At his statement I burst out in hysterical laughter mixed with tears, “That’s just the rub, I am a psychologist and I’m such a screwed up mess.”

For some reason unbeknownst to me I sat on this man’s patio and gratefully accepted the offer of a sympathetic ear and a tall glass of iced tea. Once I started talking, it came out, everything except the affair. At first I didn’t tell much, just where I worked, general talk but he drew me out, almost like a seasoned mental health worker would. I told him enough about my childhood for him to get a clear picture of what it had been like to be an extreme fundamentalist with an isolationist mentality. I told him that I was pregnant with triplets, unmarried and the babies were conceived via insemination for a couple that couldn’t have their own and that I was starting to have serious misgivings.

As the nearby gulls whirled and called over head he told me about himself, that he was an aeronautical engineer who worked in the Stennis Space Center. He’d lived and worked all over the world in his chosen field but a little over a year ago had taken this position and settled in Bay St Louis. He wanted a beach in his backyard so here he was.

His name was Judah Greenburg, but everyone called him Jude. Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York in a small Jewish family about as far removed from Amish country and fundamentalists as you can get. I laughed and teased him that my family seemed to think that Jews had secret horns and tails, which led to him telling about the anti Semitism he experienced when working in Moslem countries. Jude was thirty four and unmarried, not because he didn’t want a wife and kids but because moving every six months or a year didn’t lend itself to romance or dating.

He tells me he doesn’t suppose I date much, what with the pregnancy and I tell him no, I’m not very datable and I’m kind of ambivalent about relationships because I’m not fond of heartbreak.

What I don’t tell him is that this is a huge step forward for me, that I thought romance, sex and everything else involved in that nasty ball of wax was repugnant to me.

Jude and I connect, there is no other word for it. We’re both lonely in a place where we know almost no one. I make it clear I don’t want to date anyone but friendship isn’t such a bad thing. I need friends.

We sit there in companionable silence for a long time after we both run out of words, enjoying the sunshine, the fresh air and the beauty of a early May day on the beach, that time frame before an invasion of weekenders and tourists that sometimes crowd the beaches of the Gulf Coast.

“I believe someone is looking for you.” Jude finally says to me, indicating with a small movement of his chin that someone had come down the beach walkway and stood near the fence. I’d just been sitting there relaxing, eyes closed for a few moments. I open my eyes to take a look, and to my surprise John Collins stood at the edge of the fence.

John looked furious, “I rang your bell many times, Emily, why didn’t you answer? I knew you were home because I could see your car out front” I stood and glared back at him, “You should know I go out and walk on the beach when I can,” and I turned to say apologetically to Jude, “I’m so sorry but I must go. Thank you for listening and for your hospitality.”

Jude only nodded and I could see that concern creased his brow as I walked away. Under his gaze John followed me to the french doors at the rear of my home and followed me inside.

As I expected John exploded once I shut the door, “Who was that?”

I sighed, sank down onto my overstuffed divan and said calmly, “He’s my next door neighbor.”

It was easy to see that my answer only made John angrier, I could see his perfectly sculpted jaw muscles clench and he hissed out, “Exactly how long has this been going on?”

“What?” I asked, feeling my own temper rise. “I’m not allowed to have friends or talk to anyone but you? I just officially met him today, he’s quite nice and I don’t have many friends in this town.”

And it just escalated from there. We had a ferocious fight, a battle of the words so nasty and vicious that at one point I threw my crystal bedroom lamp at John’s head. But it didn’t stay that way, he overpowered me and suddenly we were in bed having insanely intense sex. Afterwards both of us forgot what exactly we’d been fighting about, murmuring sweet endearments, caught in a private world where only we and our feelings for one another mattered.

John traced the curve of my hip tenderly with his hand and whispered, “I came around the corner, saw you with another man and thought I’d lost you forever. Part of me knew I deserved it because I’ve barely come around here in the last month or so.. I didn’t want to, I wanted to spend every night with you but Annie is starting to act irrationally jealous about you carrying my child. I’m worried about her and I didn’t want to risk her finding out about us while she’s in this state.”

I whispered back, “I understand and I love you. That’s enough for me.”

But even as I was saying those words I knew I was telling a lie, this was no longer enough and the times between us getting together were getting lengthier and I wasn’t satisfied with these short encounters. I wanted someone to love me, be fully committed to me all the time. Not just when he could sneak away from his wife.

I remember standing at the door, tousled and sweaty from the sex in my satin robe, kissing John good bye. I felt such a deep sadness because I knew that he would never be mine. When I’d said I liked our arrangement I didn’t realize that as time went on I’d develop different needs, the strong urge for companionship and love.