Jolene

He dizzily sat up, grabbed the phone and fell back onto the bed, wincing when his head hit the pillow. The cell phone helped him get his bearings. It was 10a.m, a Saturday. He had 17 missed calls and texts, all but one were blocked communications from Becky. It was Paul's text that had interrupted his sleep.

Squinting painfully in an attempt to focus on the blurry cell phone console, Frank groaned audibly and with shaky fingers, texted back.

"In no condition to play. Cancelling."

He went to the bathroom to relieve himself and get a drink of water and by the time he came back he'd gotten another text from Paul.

"What? Where are you?"

Frank texted back. "Bad things at home. At Holiday Inn in Schaumberg. Don't tell Becky."

"Am coming to you."

"No, SOK."

"Coming now."

40 minutes and a short nap later and Paul was pounding on the door, making a noise that reverberated painfully in Frank's head, causing him to groan and swear. He staggered to the door and opened it wordlessly to let in Paul, who looked around the room with a mixture of disgust, surprise and mild amusement as Frank haltingly made his way back to the bed.

"Uh...Frank...what the hell? I called you at home this morning and Becky answered but I couldn't understand a thing she said. She was, well, hysterical. She said something about you leaving her."

Frank sat down on the bed, his head in his hands, looking at his feet numbly, one shoe on, the other off.

"I did."

"You did what?"

"Leave her." Frank kept on staring at his feet while Paul waited for him to continue, but Frank made no attempt to add to what he'd said, the only sound being the noise of the heater and the outside traffic.

"Uh...that's it? You're not giving me any more than that?"

"Any more of what?"

"Like, an explanation for why you suddenly leave your wife? Did you have a fight or something?"

"Or something."

"Shit, I feel like I'm conducting a police interrogation with an uncooperative witness here. Come on Frank, what the hell is going on?"

Frank sat up and stared off, without focusing, in the general direction of the half opened curtain and window. Finally, in a sad, robotic voice, he said, "She's been having an affair Paul. She's been cheating on me for a while."

"What? Becky? Really?"

"Really."

"You sure."

"Yep."

"You want to tell me about it?"

"Nope." Frank

"Let me rephrase. You are going to tell me about it right now."

Frank took in a deep breath, and slowly exhaled in an exasperated manner, looking with a kind of detached irritation at his friend, who was now sitting at the desk chair that he'd turned to face the bed.

"OK fine. Let me think for a minute." Frank chewed his upper lip, while sightlessly examining an empty beer can on the floor, before looking up again.

"OK. Remember I've been telling you how weird Becky's been acting? Acting guilty all the time. Hiding stuff. Being really bitchy. Like...at the Christmas party?"

"OK, so far sounds like every girlfriend I've ever had on any given day."

"Funny Paul." Frank gave him a look to indicate he wasn't really in the mood for humor. "Anyway, that was a huge change for Becky and then...then...well, remember I told you I felt like I was getting cut off?"

"What? The blue balls thing last fall?"

"Yeah. Well it didn't end then. In fact, it never really stopped. She just, I don't know, seemed to lose interest, completely. We've only been together, maybe, a couple of times the last few months. She's never in the mood and when we...do it...she's like a dead fish or something, I mean sometimes she'd start out like a tiger, but she couldn't ever keep it up. Like it was a real effort or something to maintain any sort of interest."

"What, you think she wanted to be with another guy or something?"

"I asked her what the deal is, but she was super evasive. Wouldn't talk about it at all."

"Weird, although..."

"Dammit, Paul, don't say your girlfriends do the same thing to you, because what I'm describing was just too odd, too different. Something was clearly happening with her and I couldn't figure what it was. Plus she essentially confessed she was cheating, confessed in writing."

Paul looked stunned. "What? She wrote you a letter or something?"

"No...not exactly. It's a little hard to explain, really." Frank chewed his lip before continuing. "Look, I don't know if you know this or not, but Becky has a tendency to...write things out when she's stressed...write it over and over. A kind of perseveration or something."

"Huh?"

"Look, it's hard to describe. But, here's an example. When she was playing softball in high school and she kept striking out on high pitches, I found, like 8 or 9 pages full of writing in one of her notebooks that said 'I will not swing at high pitches' over and over again. Or, a couple of years ago, when she thought she was getting a little heavy, I caught her writing 'I will run every day' all over a couple of pieces of paper. She was all embarrassed, but I didn't think it was a big deal, maybe kind of cute in a quirky sort of way."

"OK, so?"

Frank reached into his pocket and pulled out the sheets of wrinkled pink paper, waving them toward Paul.

"I found these, by accident, a couple of days ago, in the trash." He handed the papers to Paul. "Look, look what she wrote."

Paul took the papers from Frank and smoothed them out over the desk, turning the desk light on for a better look. Written all over the sheets, at different angles and sized letters and scripts was the same sentence, over and over again.

'I will lose my marriage if don't I stop this.'

"Stop what?" Paul asked Frank.

"Well, honestly, at first I thought maybe she was talking about her behavior or something. You know, 'I will lose my marriage if I don't stop being a bitch'. But, look at the other pages."

Paul shuffled through the stationary and Frank jabbed a finger at them when Paul reached the relevant pages. He looked at the writing for a moment and then, in a slightly detached and puzzled voice, read out loud..

"I will lose my marriage if I don't stop this...affair" He turned back to Frank, a stunned look on his face.

"Crap, Frank. Did she say what this was about? Who the affair was with?"

Frank made a sour look. "Shit, I don't know, but it came to a head last night. I was supposed to be working on the new rollout, but I came home early when the servers crashed and just let the NetSol people do their thing to get it going . I told her I'd be working really late, maybe all night, so I guess she figured she could cat around on me without getting caught. She didn't get home until almost midnight." Frank paused a minute to collect his thoughts, rubbing the side of his face nervously and taking a deep breath before continuing.

"And...and this wasn't the first time. She'd actually done something like this a couple of times before, coming home late from some fake function or project or something, but this was ridiculous." He took another deep breath before continuing.

So, anyway, when she gets home, she's all dolled up, wearing a really sexy dress and a lot of makeup, obviously fresh off a date. I had been thinking that I would just silently blow by her and leave when she got home, but her appearance just pushed me right over the edge, so I flat out confronted her. I mean I really pushed her hard to come clean, to tell me who she's been seeing."

"And?"

"The usual. She basically refused to answer. Wouldn't say who she was with or what she was doing or anything. I was so pissed, I just stormed out of there. Took off, got drunk. Here I am."

Paul sat down next to Frank who was sitting hunched over, face down, his elbows resting on his knees, his hands folded in back of his head. He patted Frank on the back a couple of times.

"Look, bud, what...what are you going to do now?"

Frank mumbled back. "Now? Now I move on. Now I amputate the gangrenous limb and try and remake my life." He sat up and looked directly at Paul. "I'm done with her. In every way. Forever."

Paul nodded his head in understanding. "OK bud, ok."

---0---

"You seem a little distracted a penny for your thoughts..." Jolene tilted her head and regarded Frank with amusement and curiosity. Frank looked back and smiled, a forkful of chicken hovering a few inches above his plate.

"I'm thinking that this chicken...is...not...good." Everyone at the table laughed some.

"Well, I'm thinking that Angie and I should raid the dessert bar." Paul announced as he pushed his chair back, helping Angie to her feet. "Anybody else?"

The other three quietly declined and Paul led Angie away from the table. A moment after they left, Jolene reached below her chair and grabbed her purse, then stood up and smoothed her dress briefly.

"I need to take a quick trip to the girl's room. I'll be back in a minute."

She exchanged a smile with Frank and turned to leave, her hourglass form undulating smoothly as she walked away. Bobby moved his chair closer and leaned in.

"A lot of moving parts there Frank. Very high quality moving parts..."

Frank smiled and shook his head. "Well, Bobby, I guess I would have been surprised if that had somehow escaped your attention."

Bobby laughingly nodded in agreement and then became somewhat pensive. He moved even closer to Frank.

"Hey...look, Frank. I'm sorry about that story. I..."

"It's ok Bobby. It's a funny story."

"Yeah, it is. I just...you know..." He stopped and took a sip of beer, swishing it absentmindedly in his mouth for a few moments before swallowing and continuing his apology.

"Look, it's none of my business I guess, but I heard about you and Becky and I just wasn't sure if you wanted me to bring up a story with her in it, especially around this gal Jolene...so, sorry. Sometimes I have my head so far up my ass that..."

"It's ok, really. Honestly, I don't think anyone caught on that Becky was the girl in the story, and even if they had, it's no secret that we had a pretty long relationship. "

"Yeah, ok, ok." Bobby was smiling and looking directly at Frank. Then his expression darkened, his forehead wrinkled and the smile faded completely.

"Frank. Again, it's none of my business, but I've always thought of you and...and Becky...as friends. And I guess I'd just like to know what...uh...what the hell happened?"

Frank pressed his lips together in a tight, uncomfortable grimace as he considered Bobby's question.

"Sorry, Frank, it's none of my..."

"Look, Bobby, I don't want to go into the details tonight, but Becky was...she was cheating on me."

Frank paused, expecting Bobby to express surprise, but his face stayed neutral, his mouth and eyes not moving at all, just nodding and listening, waiting for the next statement.

"And I tried...tried to get her to talk about it...for a while. But she wouldn't talk. Finally, I just had to leave. I didn't...I didn't have a choice, really."

Bobby pursed his lips thoughtfully, and looked down at the table, tapping his fingers, thinking.

"Uh, Frank." He started hesitantly, looking back up at his friend. "Look, it sounds like you tried...tried to get her to talk, before you left. But, have you talked with her since? Maybe, maybe she'll talk now."

Frank's face clouded over and his tone became tense, clipped, with a bitter edge. "Why Bobby? Why should I talk to her now? What difference would it make at this point? She ended the marriage. It's her problem. Why should I listen to her stories?"

"Well, hell Frank. You were married for over 7 years. You were a great couple at one time, great right from the start, everyone knew you'd get married. You must have put a hundred thousand miles on your car driving down from Northwestern every damn weekend while she was still in high school and then, as soon as she could, she moved up to Chicago and..."

"And so?" Frank questioned, almost accusingly. "Yeah, we were really close and devoted to each other for a long, long time. Or at least I was devoted to her. In the end...in the end that just amounts to a bigger kick in the gut, a more painful...betrayal."

Bobby shrugged, evidently conceding the point.

"Still, though, Frank, don't you think...I mean, with all that time and effort and...don't you think you ought to get some sort of closure or something?"

Frank snorted derisively. "Closure? That sounds like some sort of new age shit, Bobby. I've moved on. I'm doing ok. I don't need anything from her anymore."

"Maybe...maybe she could use it. Maybe for her." Bobby said with some hesitation, looking down toward the table nervously. Frank studied Bobby for a few moments and shifted in his seat, moving slightly closer to him.

"What is this about Bobby? What's going on?"

Bobby glanced up but didn't meet Frank's gaze, looking instead to a point just beyond his right shoulder.

"Uh, Frank...look...I..." Bobby was the easiest talker Frank had ever known and his difficulty getting words out was strange, so strange that it occurred to him that Bobby was up to something he wouldn't like, something about Becky.

"Has Becky talked to you Bobby? Has she put you up to something?" There was an insistent, demanding tone to Frank's voice and Bobby responded by looking directly at Frank, determinedly meeting his gaze.

"Frank, look, this is going to piss you off, but I felt like it was the right thing to do..." Bobby licked his lips and rubbed the back of his neck nervously, briefly breaking eye contact with Frank and then reestablishing it again. Frank waited, with a stern, expectant expression.

"Here's the deal Frank. I didn't come here alone tonight." Again a pause, but this time Bobby kept his eyes locked on Frank's. "I came with Becky. She's...she's sitting at one of the back tables."

Frank's face reddened, his nostrils flared and the muscles in his jaw started working his teeth hard enough to make a faintly audible grinding sound.

"What...the...hell...did you do that for Bobby? Are you trying to set up some kind of a scene? What were you thinking..."

"Frank, look..."

"...bringing that bitch here tonight?"

They stopped talking for a moment, both breathing as if they'd just run a race.

"Frank, I talked with her. Just a little on the phone last week. She didn't tell me what she did and I didn't ask. She just said that she'd messed up and that you'd left her. All she wanted to do was talk with you. All she wanted was a few minutes. She says she's tried everything. The phone, e-mail, texting, letters. She said she can't get anywhere near you before you bolt. Come on Frank, no matter how bad she screwed up, don't you think she deserves a couple of minutes to get some things off her chest at this point? Even if it's just to apologize? What could be wrong with that?" Bobby spread his hands apart and ducked his head slightly in supplication as he asked the last question.

Frank's face, maybe his entire body, seemed suddenly hard and unyielding. He leaned forward, close to Bobby and spoke to him in a hiss through clenched teeth.

"I'll tell you what could be wrong with that. She betrayed me. She stabbed me in the back after I'd given a decade of faithful years to her. I turned down so many women for her...Bobby, you have no fucking idea how many...and the first chance she gets..." Frank stopped and began taking deep breaths in order to stay calm. "...the first chance she gets, she sells our marriage out."

Bobby took in what Frank was saying, nodding nearly imperceptibly. "Even so, Frank, even so..."

Frank suddenly lost control, interrupting in a near shout. "I'm not talking to her Bobby, not here, not now, not ever!" Several people at nearby tables were jolted out of their conversations by Frank's outburst, looking over in curiosity and concern, while Bobby was so taken aback he held his hands up in a calming motion and slowly stood up.

"I get it Frank. I get it. Fine." He moved away from the table a few feet. "I'll get out of your hair now. I don't want to cause a problem."

He turned to go and saw Jolene who, while leaving the restroom, had been waylaid into conversation with several male coworkers. Bobby watched her for a second, how her beauty could attract men to her, like the sun pulling the planets toward it, forcing them into revolution, the planets having no will of their own but to obey the sun's imperative. Bobby turned back to Frank and gestured toward her.

"Frank, are you sure you aren't avoiding Becky because you don't want to risk what you've got going with Jolene? I guess I might not want to talk to my ex either if I had that on the line..."

Frank squinted angrily and sputtered. "Fuck you Bobby. Fuck you. That's not what this is about. It's not."

Bobby nodded. "No. Probably not, probably not. Sorry Frank. Forget what I said." He gestured back to Jolene who had disentangled herself and was now making her way back to their table. "Tell her I'm sorry I had to go without saying goodbye, but it was nice to meet her. She's a nice girl, really. See you Frank." Frank grunted in reply and Bobby backed away from the table, smiled and waved to Jolene, and then walked away quickly.

---0----

"Hey, man, we have to get going. What are you doing?"

Paul was dragging a trunk full of Frank's clothes down the hallway when he spotted him on the couch, leafing through a photo album.

"Yeah, yeah, sorry. I guess I just wanted to take a last look at..." Frank choked slightly on the last words and didn't finish. Paul came behind him and looked over his shoulder.

"Wedding pictures?"

"Yeah. I guess I'm just...reviewing. I thought it was a pretty good marriage. Maybe a great marriage. Hell, except for college we were inseparable for damn near 12 years. Just last summer, we were about ready to start a family and then, then it all fell apart. Still kind of hard to believe, really. Everything we did together, I mean ..."

Paul looked at the picture, Becky was in her wedding dress, looking up at Frank in absolute adoration as he waved to the well-wishers on the steps of the Church. He shook his head slightly in disbelief.

"Yeah, it is hard to understand how people change so much, but, hey, it happens, right? Remember I told you about my Uncle Mark? He seemed to be perfectly happy. Great marriage to my Aunt, or so everyone thought. And then, out of nowhere, he picks up and leaves for some slut he met at a convention in Baltimore. Almost no warning at all. My Aunt still can't get her head around it and she had some really bad years." Paul stopped talking and patted Frank on the shoulder in a gesture of consolation. "My advice? Move on. Let it go. My Aunt let it eat her up. You don't have to. You have lots of options."

Frank shrugged. "Honestly Paul, I'm really doing ok. It really doesn't hurt much at this point. I'm just sort of...numb about the whole thing, I guess. And it hasn't been that hard moving on. Hell, Jolene and I have been seeing each other so much, that there isn't much time to be angry and there's really no chance to get lonely." Frank smiled absentmindedly.

Paul shrugged and laughed. "Normally I'd tell you to be careful about a rebound relationship, but Jolene is...well, I don't' mean to be crude, but she's way too hot to be considered a rebound under any circumstances."

Frank closed the wedding album and broadened his smile. "Yeah, I guess I am lucky after all. Really lucky to have met her. Seriously, my big problem isn't loneliness or bitterness or regret, it's trying to keep my pants zipped up until the divorce is final."

Paul looked mildly surprised. "You're waiting for the divorce? How come?"

Frank folded his hands in back of his head and leaned back, looking at the ceiling for a moment before returning his gaze to Paul. "Seems kind of weird, huh? I mean she's..."