Is This What I Want? by Patricia Mann Read Free Book Online Page B

pushed her back down. Jill didn’t react.
    Finally, Marlene started to answer her own questions out loud. She seemed crazed as she began to explain the situation.
    Jill became more animated as she told me this part of the story.
    “So then she starts pacing back and forth, saying things like, ‘This doesn’t mean anything. It was just one time. People make mistakes. We’ll get through it.’”
    Jill and Kent continued to sit in silence.
    Marlene walked up to Jill, who pulled the sheet up higher and braced herself in case she was about to take a blow.
    Looking into Jill’s eyes, she pleaded, “It was just this one time, right? It didn’t mean anything, right? It was just sex?”
    “I figured she’d tell Connor she found us together and everything would all come out anyway, so I looked right back at her and told her the truth.”
    “No. It wasn’t just this one time.” Jill looked to Kent. He disappointed her by not looking her way. He was staring out the window, which seemed very odd. Still, she went on.
    “We’re in love with each other. We have been for over a year. I’m sorry, Marlene. We never meant to hurt you.”
    Marlene fell in a crumpled heap on the floor and sobbed into the sleeves of her dark blue business suit.
    Then Kent surprised Jill by shoving her clothes in her face and saying with force, “It’s time for you to go.”
    “But Kent, we talked about this possibility. We agreed…”
    He cut her off. “I said it’s time for you to go. Now.”
    That was the end of Jill and Kent.
    Jill couldn’t help but wonder if it was just the free ride Kent didn’t want to part with. Marlene was the breadwinner and Kent was the kids’ caregiver. It was the same situation with Jill. Jill hadn’t worked since she had kids and never went to college or had much of a career to speak of prior to having kids. So how could it ever work for the two of them to leave their spouses and be together? Jill was willing to consider figuring something out, but Kent wasn’t.
    “For a while, I thought she decided not to tell Connor. Then one night he came home and I knew something was different. He told me Marlene had called him while he was driving home from work and told him everything.”
    “How did he react?”
    “Not too badly, actually. He understood.”
    She seemed so nonchalant. It didn’t make any sense to me.
    “Did you go to therapy?”
    “No, we worked it all out ourselves.”
    “Already?”
    “Yeah, in fact, it’s brought us closer.”
    “Closer how?”
    “We realized we both wanted something more and now we’ve found it.”
    “Found it where? How?”
    For a moment, I actually hoped she was about to report something I hadn’t heard or thought of yet, something that could provide a magic solution for Rick and me.
    “Well…” she checked to make sure the kids couldn’t hear.
    “We have a great new, um, group of friends, a new community that we’ve connected with.”
    Images of pyramids and dollar signs popped into my head. Oh no , I worried, she’s going to tell me I have to invest $300 in a bunch of cleaning supplies that I can start selling to friends and family and ultimately make millions if I just join her team.
    But when I looked into her eyes, I saw something mischievous. It felt similar to the day at the park, months ago, when she confessed her affair with Kent while Jack and James played in the sandbox.
    “Okay, Jill, just tell me. What are you talking about?”
    She took a large gulp of her margarita and bit the inside of her lip before answering.
    “We’re swingers.”

C HAPTER 5:
F IRST D AY OF S CHOOL
    STANDING IN FRONT of the full-length mirror in my bedroom, I studied myself in my nude bra and underwear, amazed that I was reasonably happy with what I saw. A pile of rejected outfits lay in a heap on the bed. I tried each one on again as my mind went back to the day at Jill’s pool two weeks earlier. The extra-strong margaritas she fed me buffered the shock I should have