Living with the Lie

"Gerry, pull over!" said my passenger suddenly.

She was pointing to the shoulder of the road where a couple of cars had pulled over. There was a tow truck talking to a couple of people.

She got out of the car and went over to the truck. I followed her and noticed why she'd wanted me to stop.

One of the drivers waiting on the tow truck was Laci.

"No wonder you couldn't pick me up," Mrs. Martin told Laci. Laci hugged her mother in law warmly.

"Hi Gerry," she said equally warmly. "Is this your rescuing damsels in distress day?"

I nodded nervously. And she laughed. Our eyes met and it was as if she could read my mind.

"Oh come on Ger, even she wouldn't expect you to leave me stranded," she smiled. "I'll sit in the back; my mother in law can have the front seat." I started laughing.

"What's so funny?" she asked.

"It's a good thing you're tiny," I said. "I don't think my back seat was designed for fully grown human beings."

Less than twenty minutes later, we pulled into the parking lot outside of the Boar's nest. I had to help Laci out of the back seat. Mrs. Martin walked over to Dean's car. I think the ride was a bit intense for her. Laci told her she would send Dean right out. I hugged Mrs. Martin and went into the bar to find Miranda.

I knew something was off as soon as I stepped into the room. Laci was standing in front of the door to one of Porky's private rooms. "If he's in there with some skank it's over," she screamed. She started banging on the door. After a few minutes Dean opened the door.

The look on his face told me that he'd been caught and he knew it. I felt like laughing at him, but I didn't. Deep inside, I felt glad that the bastard was about to get what he had coming to him. Surely Laci would divorce him this time.

On the other hand I felt a surge of fear. If things were over between the two of them, would he go after Miranda?

Laci was crying and screaming at Dean at the same time.

"Nothing happened Lace," yelled Dean trying to ward off the tiny woman's blows. Some of them had to hurt because as small as Laci was, she'd always been really strong. Cheerleaders have to be strong to do all of those leaps and flips.

Laci suddenly got behind Dean. "Come out of there you whore," she screamed at the woman who was cowering in the room. She suddenly stopped and her mouth dropped open in shock.

She turned and looked into my eyes. The look on her face was weird. The rage and pain that she had shown before gave way to sorrow and sympathy.

I wondered what was going on in the room. All of the pain I'd felt the week before was dwarfed in the second that Miranda came into view.

Dean looked at me and smiled. "I hope it was worth it asshole," he smirked. "I don't even care what the two of you were doing, because I got even. I told you last week what would happen. I think I got the better end of the deal as usual. Laci isn't even that good in bed. She really doesn't enjoy sex. Miranda on the other hand ... You're a lucky man. She just loves to f ..."

Before he could finish another word, I was on him. His size meant nothing compared to my rage. My first punch nearly took his head off. He staggered away from me trying to get his mouth to work.

"Ger ... Sthop ...was jes ..." he mumbled as is began beating him anywhere I could reach. He tried to get his hands up to protect himself but his guard had no effect on the punches I rained down on him anywhere I could reach.

"Fuck it," I said. "You're not worth it." I looked across the bar and saw Miranda. "She's not worth it either. You can have her."

* * * * * *

Miranda

I have no idea what had been on my mind. Well maybe I did. In fact it was the same thing that's always on my mind when I'm angry or jealous. It was pure rage. I hadn't been thinking clearly when I let that idiot Dean talk me into his plan for revenge.

Dean had been convinced that he had cheated once or twice too often and Laci had decided to get back at him. He was also sure that she was going to get back at him with Gerry. Once we heard about the two of them getting into a car together our imaginations had run wild. I guess it was a dumb plan to begin with. On further reflection, it seemed like something a high school kid would come up with.

How the hell was making Gerry jealous going to help my marriage? I was an idiot. I would never again try to make any decision while angry. But seeing those two faces sobered me up so fast I couldn't believe it.

First I saw Laci. I mean I really saw Laci. The first thing I noticed by looking at her without the lens of jealousy and my own self doubts is that she really IS just as pretty as everyone says.

The second thing I noticed is that she reminds me so much of Gerry in some ways. There was no guile, no conceit and no traces of evil in her. She was just a woman, like me. As I saw her, my mind replayed all the times over the past four years that she's reached out to try to be friendly with me. I suddenly realized that she wasn't the one playing games; I was.

Laci and I could probably have been great friends, but my own jealousy and insecurity had ruined it. I had come to this town to try to rebuild the mess I'd made of my life. Instead of giving myself a real chance at a fresh start, I'd carried all of my petty insecurities and mental problems with me.

I had thought that in a town as small as this one, I would simply walk in and have my choice of all the men in town. In the larger city that I'd come from, I was an also ran. It ended up getting me into a lot of trouble. There were a lot of really catty women living there who tried to paint me a certain way because of the way I was built. I ended doing some things I shouldn't have done with a man I shouldn't have done them with and ended up in trouble.

It was clear that he wasn't going to marry me. I was also not ready to be a mommy, alone. He paid for the procedure but as much as I tried to keep things quiet, within a few days everyone in town knew about it. I had to leave town to get a new start.

I moved here to live with my aunt and apparently became just as catty as the women in my old town. I somehow remade myself in the image of my enemies.

I wanted then, to reach out to Laci. I wanted to apologize to her and tell her the truth, but there was no time. My eyes as usual sought out and locked onto Gerry as soon as he came into my line of sight.

His face made my stomach churn. I got weak in the knees. The previous week, Gerry had gotten angry at me. He had hurt me by not speaking to me. The reason behind this whole stupid mess was to make him jealous. The plan had backfired. Gerry was beyond jealous.

I couldn't believe what he was saying or doing. Gerry was enraged and beating the shit out of Dean. Too many years of belittling and condescending had sealed Dean's fate. Suddenly, Gerry stopped. He said that Dean wasn't worth it. Then he said the words that nearly killed me. He said that I wasn't worth it either and Dean could have me.

My heart was beating so fast that I couldn't breathe. Gerry was walking away from me and things were far worse than they were before.

I looked around the room and suddenly noticed that every face in the room was on me. They all bore the same look of disgust and recrimination that had chased me out of my last town.

There were a couple of waitresses trying to help Dean up. Both of his eyes were blackened and his face was a mask of bruises. He looked right past me at her.

"Laci, baby, wait!" he wailed. "You don't understand!"

"That's just it, Dean," she said coldly. "I finally do understand. I understand that I already did wait. I waited too long. All this time I've been waiting for something that never would have happened. Goodbye Dean." She pulled her wedding ring off of her finger. Doing it was painful for her. It wasn't physical pain, but an emotional one. She threw the ring at Dean's feet and followed my husband out of the bar, calling him.

I grabbed onto my own finger then, protecting my wedding ring. I got up then and ran after them. I was too late. As soon as I got to the doorway I heard the sound of Gerry's powerful Mustang leaving the parking lot.

Tears began streaming from my eyes. Gerry was my life. My jealousy and anger may have just cost me my marriage.

Suddenly I felt a hand caressing my shoulder. I turned to the person and just started crying. She hugged me as if I was her child and patted my head until I got my tears under control.

Dean tried to get up and groaned loudly while doing it. The woman patting my head suddenly stopped.

"Dean, baby, what happened to you?" she cried. I looked up and noticed that the woman trying to take care of me was Mary Martin, Dean's mother.

"It's a long story, mom," he said. "I decided to teach an asshole a lesson about messing with married women and it kind of backfired. He didn't react the way he was supposed to."

She just looked at him. "And then before I could explain things to him, he just started beating on me."

"So who was this asshole?" she asked. "And this doesn't have anything to do with the rumors I've been hearing about you cheating on Laci, does it?"

"It was Gerry, the idiot I went to school with. He's always been jealous of me," spat Dean. "Your precious daughter in law is probably having an affair with him. She's the one who's cheating. Just tonight the two of them were off screwing in that car of his and ... why are you laughing, mother."

"Because there's no way anyone could screw in that car. There's simply no room. And once again you're making a fool of yourself. Gerry drove me here, dummy. We picked up Laci on our way here. Not even you would have wanted him to leave your wife stranded out on the road. He was afraid to even pick her up; I think he was worried about what you and Miranda would think. But it's pretty dumb. He sat in the front seat and she sat in the back. They barely spoke to each other, I was there. There's nothing going on between them. The only thing they even have in common is that they're two of the nicest people I know."

I started screaming then, I had ruined my marriage for nothing. Dean looked as if he was going to throw up.

* * * * * *

Laci

I ran to catch up with Gerry. Surprisingly, I wasn't even upset. It was as if I'd known deep inside that Dean just wasn't capable of being faithful to me. On some level I guess I always expected him to cheat again. The only surprise was the person he cheated with. I'd always been sure that Miranda loved Gerry too much to cheat on him. Sure, she was jealous to the point of being homicidal, but that was just it. I always figured that she was much more likely to kill some woman for flirting with him too hard than she was to cheat on him herself.

As we reached the car, I knocked on the window and Gerry unlocked the door.

"I can drop you wherever you'd like, Laci," he said. His voice was shaky and I could tell he was barely holding it all in.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"I have no idea," he said slowly. "I guess just away from here."

"Hey, that's where I'm going," I smiled. He shrugged his shoulders and pointed the car down the road. For a while, he said nothing. But I could tell what he was thinking.

"It's not you, Gerry," I told him. "It's him. Dean could be a great guy. But there's just something inside of him that makes him forget that he's just another person. It makes him think that he doesn't have to wait his turn, or ask permission to borrow other people's belongings. He thinks he has a right to everything he wants.

And I can't begin to know what motivates, Miranda. I tried over and over to be friends with her, but she doesn't seem to be interested in anyone except you. She gets really angry when any other woman even looks at you. At the same time, she makes it really clear pretty damned quick that she isn't interested in any other men too. Have you ever seen what happens when a guy she doesn't know tries to flirt with her?"

"Yep, I've seen it a time or two," he smiled.

"That's why this is so weird," I told him. "I really believe that Dean somehow talked her into to doing it while she was really pissed off, thinking that we were doing something."

"It doesn't matter," he said. "She DID it. The reasons and the conditions are unimportant. I've heard a lot of stuff about Dean. But I've never heard he was a rapist. Miranda made her choice. I'm pretty used to picking up the pieces and making something work. I'm just sorry for what this does to you."

"Aren't we in the same position?" I asked. Again he looked at me. There was kind of a wry smile on his face.

"I'm used to working my ass off and still somehow coming in second," he shrugged. "But you're ..."

"But I'm ...?" I asked.

"You know ... You're Laci. You're it!" he said.

"Gerry, I wish people didn't act like that," I spat. "Do you know that up until I was sixteen and all of his friends wanted to date me, my brother told me I was ugly every day? And I've always envied the way you set a goal and work really hard for it. Gerry for most of my life I've pretty much just sat on my ass and waited for things to come to me. And Dean is the same way. The only difference is that he can usually talk his way into things that people don't want to give him."

As I looked out the window, I suddenly knew where we were going. He drove up a driveway and through an open gate into a beautiful yard. I saw a small but really beautiful swimming pool that was surrounded by well trimmed grass. There was a peripheral wall of blooming plants surrounding the pool on every side except one. That side had a set of stone stairs that led up to a spectacular redwood deck.

I got out of the car and looked around in awe. Surrounding the yard was a six foot privacy fence that was covered by Ivy and growing plants. There were several hanging plants in fence hangers at equally spaced locations all around the yard.

There was a two person hammock on the grass beneath a weeping willow tree. Up on the deck two lounge chairs sat side by side with small end tables on the outsides of them. It was an unusual arrangement and it took me a second to figure out why it was done that way. It would be cheaper and much more common to have one small table between the two chairs. But the person who'd designed the space clearly didn't want anything between the people occupying those chairs.

There was an umbrella table on the deck with six chairs around it. A nice gas grill sat near the table with an outdoor bar only few feet away from it. It wasn't the yard of my dreams, but only because my dreams weren't this good.

The arrangements of flowers and plants alone would have taken a few years to develop. Most were perennials so they'd come back every year, but planting them and maintaining them would have taken a lot of time and love. That was it. The main thing I felt in that yard was love.

The whole God Damned place was put together by a person who loved spending all of his time with the person he loved.

"I love what you've done with your yard," I said as we headed for the house.

"Miranda did most of it," he said. "We built the deck together and put up the fence, but all of the plants the furniture and the overall look of everything is all her."

If I thought the yard was beautiful, the house was another level completely. It looked as if it should have been in one of those magazines dedicated to interior design.

I'd heard from a few of my friends about the house, but seeing it was another thing. It just didn't make sense. Anyone who loved her husband enough to do something like this would never cheat on him.

Everywhere you looked there were small groupings with two of everything. Everything she'd put together was dedicated to the two of them. I wondered what would happen if they ever had kids.

While I looked around Gerry dashed up the stairs and rummaged around for something. He came back down with a suitcase and a duffle bag. We were clearly leaving.

"Your place?" he asked.

I had no idea of what he was asking.

"Gerry, can't I stay with you for a while?" I asked. "I don't want to go home."

"You're still going to need some clothes and a few things to make it for a few days," he said. "We should grab them before they decide to go home. I came here first because I figured Dean will need to take his mom home first."

We drove to my place next and to be truthful, I was embarrassed for him to see the place. Our yard! Shit even our condo looked like hell compared to his house. After seeing that house, I would probably rather live in Gerry's garage than my own home.

"I'm not sure how much time we have," he said. "I'm going to park down the street, so he won't notice me. If he comes back and you decided to stay, flash the lights off and on. If you decide to leave, just come out the back way and we'll leave as soon as you're back." I nodded and ran into the building. It was really hard to resist the urge to kiss him. But somehow I sensed that he wasn't ready for that yet.

As assured and confident as he seemed, I had to remember that this was a first for him. It was the first time in his life that he had been cheated on. I'd been through it many times. So many, in fact, that I was used to it. But this time was different. This time felt final. And this time instead of just telling Dean how angry I was at him and stewing for a couple of days or a week, I was doing something about it. I had left him.

As I packed a few outfits, I wondered how much of this was really me leaving and how much was just me following Gerry. It felt right. After all, didn't I deserve more than a man who cheated on me every time he felt like it? And hadn't I told Dean that waitress was his last time to cheat on me?

In the back of my mind something was going on though. I think that on some level I wanted Dean to show up. I wanted for him to see me leaving him. I wanted him to feel the pain of watching the person he cares most about walk out the door with ... Or choose to be with someone else. I wanted him to hurt the way I did every time he cheated on me.

But on another level I sensed that it wouldn't have mattered. Dean was a cheaTER, he would never accept being the cheaTEE. I had forgiven him many times, but I think if it came down to it ... If I ever cheated on him, he would move on. Dean had too much ego to accept something like that.

As a matter of fact, I was pretty sure that at that very moment he was probably trying to find a reason to justify the fact that a smaller guy had not only kicked his ass but obliterated him in front of all of his friends. And from what I'd seen other than trying to put his hands up Dean had not been able to mount any type of defense.

All in all I'd have to call that encounter a tie. Dean had fucked Miranda, but then Gerry had fucked Dean. I have no idea how Dean had treated Miranda, but Gerry had made Dean his bitch.

As far as my hope that Dean would witness my departure went, it was a fruitless hope because he never showed up. I was in and out of the condo in less than ten minutes.

Gerry seemed to have a plan in mind because he headed straight for the freeway and seemed to have a destination in mind. I settled into the thick, soft, buttery leather and tried to go to sleep. Gerry didn't seem to be in a talking mood.

I awoke to find us zooming down the freeway. The Mustang's engine growled menacingly as we ate up the ground. Gerry was listening to talk radio. It seemed to be a show about sports. The hosts were debating the odds of the Lions winning or even going to the Super Bowl.

I looked out the window and sat up in my seat as I noticed that we were driving around the edges of a very large lake. Gerry smiled at me as he noticed that I was awake. I yawned and smiled back.