The Calling Card

The Calling Card

What is it that compels a mistress to leave behind clues when in the marital home of her lover? Is it the same compulsion that drives girls in their teens to leave their mark on bathroom stalls? Or those that desecrate monuments and other cherished landmarks with graffiti? Is leaving clues for an unsuspecting spouse the Holy Grail of, “I was here?”

When Samantha first found the little black book under the couch one day while vacuuming, her first thought was that it must have fallen out of her wife’s briefcase. It was black after all and Pat always used black journals and a black fine tip pen to conquer her work day. This was different though. Soft. Supple. Inviting.

She couldn’t resist. Her days had become so routine, so boring. Since being laid off six months prior, she filled the daylight hours with online job searches, housework and cooking. She clicked off the vacuum and sat down on the couch instinctively knowing that this was not a business journal but rather something personal. Laying her palm softly on the cover she slid her fingers under the black elastic holding it closed and loosened the book, unleashing a hell she could never have imagined.

The inside cover was blank but using her thumb to flash through the pages like a deck of cards she could see it was filled with sketches; some in charcoal, some in pretty pastel colors and pages of what looked like poems on the thick ivory pages. Intermittingly tucked between two pages she saw a restaurant cocktail napkin, a completed scorecard from their golf course and two ticket stubs from a hockey game. The scorecard showed two players for a round of nine. No names at the top, just an X and O. The napkin was from a well-known oyster bar downtown that they had never dined at. Pat couldn’t draw and this was not her handwriting. The whole book was too feminine. Girlish almost.

She could feel her chest tightening and her breaths exhaling with a quiver. She turned back to the beginning and saw the first entry was dated six months prior.

Babe,

I will never forget our first kiss.

How strong and forceful your lips were when they met mine.

I want more of your kisses and all of you.

XO

The next page was a sketch of Pat’s profile. Her Pat. Cheating on her. With whom? She began to frantically turn the pages looking for a name or a reference to shed some light on who this woman was. The rage boiled up within her as her frustration mounted when nothing jumped out. She screamed the pain of all scorned women and threw the book across the living room as she sank to the floor in shock and disbelief. How had this happened? Why? Why would she do this to me? To us? Our life? Our families?

The thought of anyone in her family finding out about this made the bile rise in her throat and gag. She fled to the bathroom and heaved repeatedly with the tears streaming down her face. Her hands were shaking as she tried to hold on to the cold porcelain bowl to keep from floating away. Slowly, Sam’s breathing returned to normal and she knew she had to go back and read it all. Every. Sordid. Detail. She had to discover who this was so she could fix it. Make it go away. Force this bitch to walk away from her wife. Leave them alone. Surely, she had seduced Pat. It was this woman’s fault.

With grim resolve she picked up the journal and went and sat at the kitchen table. It now felt cold to her touch. She read every sickening detail. The dates when Pat had supposedly been working late. The times they screwed in Pat’s car. At this woman’s house and then of course, here in her home. Her beloved safe haven that she made a home for them in. Apparently, they had started out using the beds in the basement bedrooms and then they moved into our bed while she had been away in Vegas with her sister. She remembered Pat encouraging her to go on the trip. “You deserve it honey. Go have some fun. I just can’t get away or I would join you.”

Groaning Sam pushed herself away from the table and paced through the kitchen imagining them here. One of the entries talked about how they had laughed at her stupidity in assuming a pair of black golf shoes she found in the basement had belonged to Pat’s Aunt. When she had shown them to Pat she had kindly offered to take them to work and mail them back to her. “Been to the post office lately? LOL!” was written on the bottom of that page in the journal. She remembered that at the time she thought they were a little too tacky for Aunt Betty as they had rhinestones on the sides, but they had to be hers as she was the last guest to stay in that room.

Then she remembered the small stud earring she had found in the shaggy carpet that laid at the end of their bed last week. God, how stupid could she be? She had thought it belonged to Pat and put it in the leather watch box that laid on top of her dresser. The box had been her gift to Pat for their third wedding anniversary.

All of these clues that she was too secure, naïve and stupid to see for what they really were. Like some Victorian calling card, it was the ultimate, “I was here.” Left viciously for the sick thrill at the thought of her finding them so their truth, their love affair could rule.

Then it all clicked into place. She was a member at their club. She knew she had seen those shoes before but had not made the connection when she saw them in the basement that day.

It was at the season opener fashion show at the club house. She remembered how Debbie Meier had gone on and on at the table about having just bought those same shoes the one model was wearing. Debbie was one of the most annoying members at the Club. She lived off her Daddy’s money. Had never worked a day in her life. Loud, drunk and always in everyone’s face trying to make friends. Desperate and pathetic was how Sam had always thought of her. Last season there had been rumors about her and one of the golf pros.

She forced herself to sit back down and continue reading. Apparently Debbie had even cooked Pat meals in HER kitchen. Using her cookware, eating off the china they had picked out before their wedding. That almost offended her more than the sex in the bedroom for some reason. It was too invasive. She felt defiled. Nothing seemed safe anymore. Nothing remained unscathed. If you can’t take comfort in your own home, where can you go?

Deep down she knew in her heart where she needed to go. Home. To her family, her friends and the city she grew up in. Her marriage was over. How could she ever trust Pat again? Or anything she said? Pat had shattered their lives. It was supposed to be different this time. Instead of just partnering up as they had each done in the past, they had taken the monumental step of actually getting married in a church with all of their friends and family there to witness their commitment to one another. They had been so in love. Pat was the light that made her shine as she was to her.

The debris field would be wide. The collateral damage devastating. A warzone of despair for families on both sides. Debbie’s marriage blown apart too and the impact on her son’s lives. “Guess what kids? Mommy is gay now.” Good lord. It was all so sordid. Nasty.

The confrontation that night was calm after the initial denials. No apologies, no begging to forgive. Very little emotion in fact. Just an acknowledgement that yes, she had been seeing Debbie for about six months. Pat said she didn’t love her…she was just “fun to party with.” Pat slept in the basement that night and moved out the next day into a long-stay hotel that Debbie booked for her.

The first thing Sam did that day was have the locks changed which made her feel a little safer. Then she went to see her friend Doug who was also her lawyer with the little black book in hand.

With some inner grit she didn’t know she possessed, she lived through the humiliation and grief of losing her true love and best friend while announcing to the world her marriage was over., Her girlfriends had the house packed up and thirty days after finding the book, she was safely wrapped in the loving embrace of her sister’s home, surrounded by friends in the city she loved best. Her loved- ones helped her heal and restart her life, step by painful step. At first it was just remembering to take the next breath, then it was just getting through the next hour, the next day and month.

Shortly after arriving, her best friends encouraged her to bring the book to their cabin one weekend. They got her royally drunk that evening around the campfire. Sam ripped the images and the love notes out of the book and burned them. They curled in on themselves as if withdrawing from her before smoldering and blackening to a crisp pile of ash. Over and over, page by page she destroyed the story of their love affair.

Sam started her own journal as a symbolic gesture to replace the evil with good. It was teal, not black but it was the exact same brand as the one she had found. She wrote as a release from the anger, the remorse and the pain. She wrote about how it felt to see Pat again in person for the depositions, then at the arbitration. Those eyes she used to melt into and see her future in were now just cold blue. A stranger’s eyes.

Eleven months later the separation agreement was made. Pat and Debbie had moved in together. Two marriages destroyed, families rocked, kids in counselling and lawyers made richer. Sam received the first alimony payment as a lump sum to cover the last ten months. $20K with more to come monthly for the next 36 months, which was half the duration of their marriage. Debbie was paying it because Pat had lost her job amidst all the scandal due to drinking.

“I was here” indeed. How’s the party now ladies?