Three is a crowd: Diane is a woman on a mission

(Continued from last issue)

David and Diane have been married for years; then there is Julie, the young secretary whose axis collides with the couple’s in ways none of them saw coming.

JULIE

When Kenneth was not pressuring me to rekindle our relationship, he was actually great company. I did not have friends; until David came into my life, I had had too many responsibilities to have the time to foster any relationships beyond those of my family, and since then, my circle of close-knit relationships had only expanded to include Junior and him.

Junior was obviously my number one priority, and he took up most of my time and energy, but as a baby, he could hardly provide the companionship of a friend or partner.

On the other hand, while David took care of all my financial needs, he was not around enough to take care of my emotional ones, and although I was confident of our feelings for each other, the truth was that there was a gigantic divide between us, and we really had very little in common.

He came from an upper class family, received the best education money could buy, and now had a great job with money of his own to match that of his other family members.

I, on the other hand, came from a single-parent home where each day was a financial struggle, had never been to university, and had been working as a secretary/receptionist, worrying about how my paltry salary could cater for myself as well as my family, when I met David.

Speaking of my family, they should have been the ones to provide that companionship and sense of refuge; after all, isn’t that what family is for? And yet, with everything that had happened, they were the source of my deepest pain.

I still could not wrap my head around Sandra’s betrayal, and my mother had only added salt to the wound with her judgmental reaction. Then there was Kenneth. While he too came from a higher-class family background than mine, it was close enough to it for him to understand financial strife.

And although he was a doctor, he was not ‘rich’, and just like I had when I worked, he worked hard and worried about making everything fit into a tight salary; so, we definitely had a lot more in common.

We did not agree on many things, but we understood each other, and talking to him was easy. There was no denying the physical attraction between us, but the lines I had drawn on that score still held; so, his company provided not just the friendly shoulder to lean on and unburden my thoughts to, but a tangible air of attraction and the excitement of the forbidden.

DIANE

As planned, I left the boutique at four on the dot; with all the stress and tension of the past few days, I was looking forward to cutting loose, letting my hair down, and forgetting all about David and his whore for a few hours.

Driving home, getting acquainted to the feel of my new car, with the radio and AC on, the windows up, and the traffic light for a Saturday, I felt light and happy, singing along to the music, and mentally planning on what to wear for the night out.

That was, until I got to our neighborhood and found the route I normally used blocked by a broken-down truck, forcing me to take the detour via the apartments where David’s whore lived.

I generally tried to avoid this route, but when I did use it, I could not help but turn and glance at the apartments. I did it reflexively, and did so again – and then blinked to make sure I was not imagining things.

For, there was no doubt about it, I was looking at David’s whore carrying their bastard son, smiling up at that doctor! The impatient hoot of the car behind me forced me to move on, and I did, my mind now racing as I tried to decipher what I had just seen.

I was not particularly surprised that she was still seeing the doctor and, therefore, cheating on David, for since she had no qualms about having an affair with a married man, it would not be a stretch for her to cheat on that married man too.

But I was surprised at how fast the turnover time between the two men was. David had only returned to the house yesterday, and today here she was with another man; I laughed at the poetic justice; David was cheating on me, and the person he was cheating on me with, was cheating on him as well.

Karma really was a bitch, I gloated wickedly. I, however, did not bask in the sense of my avengement by the universe for long, for my mind quickly turned to how I could use what I had discovered to my benefit. There was no point in me gloating when David did not know he was being cheated on; where was the satisfaction in that?

The light, happy, carefree mood I had started off the drive with quickly faded, and the evening ahead was no longer about relaxing and letting my hair down, but coming up with a plan on how to get the information I had discovered to David.

DAVID

The children and I got back to the house as it approached eight and immediately noticed the new car parked in Diane’s spot.

In typical childlike fashion, the children rushed to fawn over it without restraint, but although I privately wanted to get a better look at it too, I imagined Diane must have heard us arrive and might be watching us from behind one of the drawn curtains; so, I feigned indifference as I walked to the front door without so much as a glance at the car, and ordered the children inside, my tone snappier than it should have been.

Once inside, however, it was the maid, not Diane, who met us in the entryway.

“Welcome back, sir,” she greeted me respectfully. “Thank you; where is madam?” I asked, trying to sound as casual as possible. “Her friend picked her up this afternoon, and she’s not yet back.” “Which friend?” “The lady she works with.”

I realized she was talking about Tracy, and groaned inwardly; in my opinion, Tracy was a bitter feminist who was nothing but a bad influence on Diane, and with Diane and my marriage already in enough trouble as it was, the last thing it needed was a dose of Tracy thrown into the mix.

I, however, knew better than to give any outward sign of my thoughts to the help; so, I nodded like her answer was exactly what I had expected and no big deal, and then to emphasize that, smoothly changed the subject.

“Okay, upstairs and in the bathroom now,” I ordered the children, then turned back to the help: “You can prepare to serve them dinner in about twenty minutes or so.”

I then followed the children upstairs. Inwardly I was seething that Diane had gone out without so much as a text to let me know, but I was careful not to let my true feelings show, for I knew that the first rule to saving a failing marriage was not to show that it was failing.

margaretwamanga@yahoo.com