My Friend Screwed up my Relationship with his Wife
He was a guy with whom I worked. I thought I knew him pretty well after a couple of years.
I worked with Charles, he asked me to call him Chuck.
I met his wife Laura soon after meeting Chuck.
After finding out I had recently split up after a 10 year ill advised marriage, they gave me a “mercy dinner” on a Saturday evening in March. They were as gracious as they could be.
Laura had prepared a truly epicurean dinner for the 3 of us..
Every once in a while, you experience a couple that aren’t on the same track. They put on a good show, you can tell they’re trying hard but the fact that the effort is apparent — is telling.
Chuck dominated the dinner conversation talking mostly about himself. Laura and I listened. For me, it was a novelty, I’d not heard his stories before. For the long suffering Laura it must have been less so. I had the feeling she’d heard the same stories many times before.
One of Chuck’s revelations was that he was a standout all-league basketball player for B.C. (Boston College — Atlantic Coast Conference). I couldn’t help but be impressed. He seemed a bit undersized to be a Division 1 basketball player, much less such a standout to have made the All-ACC team.
To her supreme credit Laura sat there, being supportive and listened. Not an eye roll all dinner.
In recounting my dining experience that evening, when I awakened at 2:00 a.m. and couldn’t go back to sleep, I realized what a lucky guy that Chuck was to have such a beautiful supportive wife.
Although, a friend, he’s no prize!
She may be!
During the following year Laura, Chuck, I and usually my date du jour saw each other frequently. Our get-togethers were usually over dinner at home or a restaurant in Center City, Philadelphia.
There always was that undercurrent of tension between Chuck and Laura but she managed to keep things together.
Faking it, until making it?
My respect and admiration for her grew.
Chuck and I still went out for an occasional beer but we saw each other less and less as two guys and more and more as two couples, me with dates most times.
The constant became Laura, not Chuck or me!
One week later that year, I noticed that Chuck had an inordinate amount of appointments at work. That usually meant less time in the office more time out in the field.
On Thursday evening around 8:00 pm, right when I was settling down to watch a 76er’s game on television, my cell phone rang.
I didn’t recognize the caller ID but I answered it anyway.
“Hello, Brian?” a sweet, somewhat familiar voice wafted though my cell’s speaker.
“May I speak to Charles?” the pleasant but firm female voice asked.
Charles?
Wrong number?
“Who is this please?” I demanded wanting to get back to the game.
“Brian, it’s Laura. Charles said he was going to be staying with you this week. We felt it better to spend a little cooling off time. We’ve been having a rough patch.” she confessed.
“He’s not answering his cell! I’m worried something’s happened to him!” she said in a voice trembling with concern.
WTF! He never mention this shitty ruse to me.
I truly didn’t know how to respond!
“Laura, what can I say? He’s not here now.” leaving the possibility that he may have been here at sometime (which he hadn’t).
Laura, too sharp for that lame game, “ Brian, has he been there at all?”
“Huhhhhhhhhh, I don’t know where he is,” I said honestly.
I didn’t add, I hadn’t seen him at work either.
“Let me tell you something,” sweet Laura said.
“He played basketball at Bloomfield College in New Jersey not Boston College like he wants everyone to believe. He was no star, either!” she pronounced in an elevated voice.
“And you’re horrible too!” she added.
She cut the connection.
That’s the best she could do. Some people just can’t be nasty even if they want to be.
What a sweet soul!
The next day at work, I asked the cute young receptionist if she have any idea whether Chuck was coming in to work this week? Not at all versed in the deception of infidelity, she said,” I’ll ask him when I see him tonight.”
This story was self published 1/6/22
