Keep tuscany, p.9
Keep Tuscany, page 9
I stare at the little dots waiting to see if that’s it. I run my fingers over the space where he should be writing to me and making me laugh. I hear the shower run, and it’s the sound of my real life. But what’s strange is no matter what all this texting was, now Colt’s actually my friend and I’ll get to miss him in a whole different way.
Colt: Thank you.
Maggie: You’re welcome.
I know what he means instantly, and that’s the thing about that damn man. He’s always made sense.
16
maggie
Thirteen years and five months since Paris.
Five Months since I ignored Colt at Mak & Tony’s wedding
Eleven months since a Colt text.
Damn, I’m so late. Running into my house, I hear grunting coming from the kitchen, and I’m afraid the refrigerator is on the frizz again. I giggle to myself because it sounds like grunting pigs. I duck into the powder room and change quickly into my cute outfit. I don’t love pickleball, but it’s another thing I do and organize to try to get our spark back. He has so many hobbies without me; I try to cultivate the ones with me. I’ll just grab my pickleball bag and hurry to meet them. I know they’re going to be pissed off. Hopefully, they started warming up without me.
I round the corner on a very loud feminine moan and see that they have indeed started without me.
My husband, the man who claims to love me, is eating out our mixed doubles pickleball partner, Elaine. What is happening here? I lean my head to the side, trying to decipher angles and logistics. And I think her husband is inside my husband. I do not understand. My husband is the grunting refrigerator who appears to be in the middle of them. I didn’t know he was this agile or flexible. He’s not usually good with multitasking, but he seems to be giving and receiving at the same time. The slapping noise is what makes my brain go offline.
My body is stuck and glitching out. I can’t breathe very well, and I’m sputtering. I turn my head, trying to make sense of the geometry of what’s happening on my kitchen island. Or up against it. It’s loud and complicated. They don’t see me or apparently need me for any reason I can come up with. I. I. I. It’s like there’s a computer error in my brain or the web page won’t load.
I blurt out the only thing I can think of as I drop my paddle and keys to the ground. They skitter across the kitchen floor.
My voice is robotic and unmodulated. “We’re going to lose our match time. We’ll be banned from the pickleball courts and lose our spots in the mixed doubles tournament.”
Their faces snap to mine and then Elaine comes. Like has an orgasm on my Italian marble kitchen island while my husband is doing a thing that he never does to me. I see it clearly, but I don’t understand it. Elaine’s husband seems to be really screwing my husband. Like really doing it, not like play acting, and all of them don’t seem to mind that I’m in the room. Ew to that part. That’s not me. I’m sure it’s fine for some, and that’s great for them. But I can’t help but feel weird that a woman wanted to be caught while climaxing with my husband. That’s not something I like. And don’t they need my consent to include me? Wow, my husband is getting his pickle balled.
I run from the room and out of the house. I sit on the driveway and wonder how the hell I got here in this stupid little skirt in a house I hate and didn’t pick out, waiting to talk to a man who apparently thinks he needs to finish up his business at hand. I’m not so sure he even likes me. And he clearly needs more than I can provide. Because first of all, I’m only one person. And second, I don’t have a penis. I pray Mak isn’t on rounds and answers.
Maggie: Kevin’s in our kitchen with our pickleball partners. The friends we play doubles with. Oh God.
Mak: Be more specific. Do you not like having these people in your kitchen? Did they eat all your good cheese or something?
Maggie: No. He’s like with with them. Both of them. There are four balls in my kitchen.
Mak: Pickleballs?
Maggie: Fleshy ones. Sacked up ones. Slapping against each other.
Mak: Back up. Your boring, hunter of a husband is with someone else?
Maggie: THEM. He’s with THEM. Or they’re with him or in him. I didn’t look to see how it was all slotted up other than him doing that thing to her that I always secretly want but never get.
Mak: We all secretly want to be eaten out all the time. But tell me you left.
Maggie: Well, I dropped my keys when I saw them and ran out of the house so I’m in the driveway. Because I can’t go anywhere, and I certainly can’t go back in there while they clean up. I’m going to have to burn the counter.
Mak: I’m in class. Tony’s coming to get you and bring you to our house.
Maggie: Thanks. And can he bring some Lysol wipes?
Mak: Margaret! You are not cleaning up after their lunchtime cheater fest. Make him clean up for once. Tony’s on his way.
The door flings open, and a red-faced, puffy, pale man who is now pretty much a stranger in jogging shorts calls to me.
I don’t move. I’m not numb just super fucking confused.
“Maggie. We meant to tell you. In fact, after we won the club championship, we were going to ask you to join us.”
I pop up on the balls of my feet. “How was that conversation going to go?” I take on a blustery voice, “‘Hey, Maggie, we have something to share with you. All our dicks and all of our pussies together in an odd mixed doubles pickleball champion stew.’” His eyes get wide because I rarely use the word pussy or dick, for that matter.
“Dickhead,” I say it just for the reaction. The more confused he gets the more a weird calm settles over me. I’m sure I’ll cry and scream in a minute. He stares at me, and my brain starts locking in on some things.
“You want that, don’t you?” I honestly want to know. “That was too choreographed to be casual.” His eyes crinkle around the corners as he squints into the sun, pulling together thoughts to answer me.
“Communication is key in that situation.”
“Just not with your wife? Glad you all have good communication.”
He turns in a circle and then says, “Maggie, we’re in love. We didn’t mean for it to happen.” And I side eye him completely baffled then run my hand down my ponytail and swish it to my back.
“Love? Like together? All of you together?”
“Yes. But we are open to talking to you about—”
I put my hand up and back away. “Yeah, No. That’s not how I’m built. And to be honest, I don’t even care that you want to throuple ever after, but the cheating is a thing. The lying is a thing.” I wave my head and hands around. Embarrassment prickles at the back of my neck that people knew. That people will know I was walking around thinking I was in a boring but salvageable marriage, and he was with them. There I was, dragging him to see art festivals, hot-air balloon rides. Taking up hobbies to create a life together, and he was biding his time to get back to them.
I’m thinking about all the excuses he’s given over the years to spend time away from me. He works at a car dealership so there were never business trips, but we had a hunting cottage in Oregon. I rock back on my heels and look up to the sky.
My mouth falls open easily as I form a thought. I’ve never seen a gun in our home. There’s no camo, gear, deer meat, or even like flyers about gun shops. I’ve never heard one shot story. I just trusted it was all a thing.
“Hunting? Do you even hunt at that cabin?” He shakes his head immediately. “Those dead things on our walls? Did you kill them?” He shakes his head again, and my eyebrows reach into my hairline.
“For years, you’ve been lying to me for what? To cheat on me?”
“Not at first. At first, it was to watch sports without having to answer all your questions about different games.”
“I watch baseball. I know more than you about it.”
“And that’s why I won’t watch baseball with you.”
“I’m either too knowledgeable or lost? And neither are acceptable?”
“Exactly. You’re too much.”
I snap and I’m never this person, but this bubbles up. “And you’re not enough.”
He shakes his head at me. “Can we return to your judgement of my lifestyle?”
“Okay. But that’s fucking low, given that I’ve had thirty seconds to even know that you had a lifestyle when I thought we were building a life. But sure, let’s get back to the circus act from inside. That image is burned into my brain now, thanks for that. Are you gay?”
“Bi.”
“Since when?”
“Since always.” I clasp my hands together, then ball them into fists. How can he not share something so personal with me, his wife? He’s lied to me from the beginning. When we got married, that wouldn’t have mattered to me. I was in love with him, or so I thought. Apparently, I didn’t even know all of him. That hurts the most that he felt the need to hide and deceive me when there was no reason to do so.
He continues, “I want to be with them. I’m in love with them, not just the idea of being with them sexually.”
“I get it. You want them spiritually, holistically, mentally, and physically.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re what? Faithful to them?”
“Absolutely.”
“Just not to me. You’re a piece of shit. Why not leave me ages ago so we could all have been spared this fucking betrayal?” I say.
“I loved you, and you were the kind of woman everyone likes.”
“And you made me stop texting with Colt, who is a friend, because you were jealous.”
“Emotional cheating is a real thing.”
“I did not take his cock up my ass in secret. I shared a recipe for roasted chicken and told you about it. Now go suck a dick. Elaine’s husband’s to be specific.”
Just then, a car pulls up and screeches to a halt. Bolstered by Tony’s presence, I stare at the man who I have spent way too much time with. I married and pledged my life to him for better or worse, but not cheating regardless of who was getting fucked by whom. I’m the one who’s left without a partner.
“Maggie, try to understand. Be more open-minded.”
“Nope, you’re missing the point. Your throupledom is not my issue. The moment your pickle and balls ended up in someone else’s mouth, yeah, that’s the moment you tell your wife!”
“I knew you wouldn’t be ready for a polyamorous coupling.”
I get right in his face and push his bloated chest a little. “How would you know? You didn’t give me the option. And stop hiding behind your perceived forbidden love with righteous indignation. There’s nothing wrong with being in love, not with one person or multiple, just maybe tell the person you pledged your life to, that it’s not with her.”
“We have a right to be together.” I thought I was the one who loses the thread of conversations, but this is getting annoying. I toss my hands up in the air and try a new tactic.
“Look, go screw a goat for all I care. Fall in love with that goat. Be true and honest to that goat. I’d accept that goat as your goat. But understand this, if you made sweet love to that goat while we were married and lied about balling that goat, that’s lying and cheating.” Tony chuckles from behind me. “It’s the lying and the cheating not who you’re lying with.”
I squat down and then pop back up again, trying to put all this rage and humiliation somewhere. He moves his hand to my arm and his touch makes me cringe. Tony is there in a flash and picks me up by the waist and sets me down ten feet from my husband.
I point around Tony’s body at him as I yell. “Everything. You give me everything and not because of your bi awakening, welcome, happy coming out, enjoy being your authentic self. You give me everything because you’re a lying, cheating piece of shit who just screwed two people on the counter we picked out together for our forever home.”
“You don’t love me.”
“That’s beside the point.” Shit, that might be true. “All that stuff of who loves whom needed to be figured out before you stuck your dick in someone else. Oh god. Did you use protection? We did it like a month ago. You said you’re faithful to them, but you were with me. I’m not sure you understand what that word means. Hope you’re better to them.”
“I am. And we do use protection.” He really doesn’t love me. Not sure he liked me. How am I this trusting?
“Well, now that I know, feel free to go barebacking all over the house you’re going to buy me out of!”
Tony snickers. “You done fucked up. I know a thing or two about divorces. I hope your couple is wealthy, because you won’t be when this girl is done with you. Come on, Mags. Where do you want to go? I’ll gas up the jet, and the three of us can be in Bora Bora by morning.”
I laugh as Tony says this to annoy Kevin, but he’s also kind of serious. I know my husband has always wanted to go to one place.
“Alaska. I want a five-star outdoor Alaskan adventure. And we can hunt for real.”
Tony high-fives me as my husband’s jaw goes slack. The front door opens, and I wave to Elaine and Laird.
“Better get going, your throuple awaits. Congrats to you all and fuck you.”
I jump into Tony’s Maybach, and he peels out down the street. We’re barely around the corner when I crumple into myself, crying for my wasted life and the sheer embarrassment that I can never go to that tennis club or anywhere in Reno or Tahoe again.
Tony puts a hand on my shoulder. “You okay? What can I do? Can I buy you something? Diamonds, champagne, Target sheets?” I don’t laugh, but I know he wants me to.
“Just being here. Can you take me to a hotel or something?”
“Under strict orders from the beloved that I’m to deposit you on the good couch in our living room, give you some fancy cream blanket I didn’t know we owned from the guest room and chocolate.”
I grin and then sob again while nodding.
“Get up.”
“No.”
“You didn’t love him.”
“I’m mortified. I can never show my face anywhere again. I have to go into throuple witness protection. Is there a federal program that will hide me from the people who see them at Whole Foods and whisper about their happiness? The weird part is they looked really happy.”
Makenzie says as she sits back on the couch and folds her legs up. “It’s hard not to look happy when you’re coming. I mean sure, we all have a face, but seriously what are you going to do?”
“Well, I have my wallet and a skirt. I don’t like that it matches my husband’s new shorts. We coordinated outfits for the championship. I have to get a book. I don’t know the terms and if I ever talk about it, I should know the terms for what he’s doing. I wonder if he’ll get a flag or what his parents will say. I always wanted a dog or something to keep me company when he went hunting and now, I don’t have a house for one. And he doesn’t hunt. Can Tony’s lawyer get me a piece of his fucking nonhunting cheater cabin too? I could get a small little cutie dog and carry it around in a purse, when I get a purse. I’d name it Cookie. Who doesn’t like cookies? I think Snickerdoodles are seriously underrated cookies, cinnamon and sugar---”
Mak rubs my legs and says, “Focus.”
17
maggie
I’ve spent two weeks hiding in either my parent’s house or Mak and Tony’s. I don’t dare show my face, and my parents have mostly been spending time at their Tahoe house. They invited me, but it’s easier to wallow alone than have someone point out that I’m being melodramatic.
I’m sucking on a Popsicle. That’s all that’s in the house right now. I won’t order out because I don’t know if the delivery people know about the Kevin situation, and I don’t want to find out if they do. My mom comes into the living room. She told me she was popping home to pick up some extra chairs or something for the lake house.
“You’re watching that movie again?” I grin and point to Diane Lane. Her highlights look so good in the Tuscan sun.
She claps her hands together and it draws my attention. She pulls her lips into a tight hot pink line. “Dear, your aunt reminded me you did not get married on the rug.”
“That mat thing?”
“The red little carpet, yes. Everyone in our family has been married on it except you and Kevin.”
“Mom, I’m not getting divorced because we didn’t stand on the red threadbare carpet mat.”
She shrugs, “Who’s to say, dear. Now, we’re trying to explain all this to your aunt, and I keep getting it wrong. It’s not a triplet, right?”
“Throuple.”
“That’s it. Sweetie, you have to figure the rest of this out you know? Are you going back to work?” I shake my head.
“I just feel like such a fool, and everyone will look at me with those sympathy eyes. And Kevin works too close to school. My TA has taken over, and they have it covered. I have almost two years of vacation saved up because I taught summer school for the last ten years and well, the district owes me a leave of embarrassment.”
My mom chuckles and pulls me up into her arms. “Your dad and I are thrilled you have a new opportunity to live a different life. I know a couple of things have knocked you down.”
“You mean a throuple of things?”
“Sure. What will heal your heart? Bring back that spark we know you have, Maggie.”
“I have an idea.”
“Do it.”
“Just do it?”
“Sure. If you need help to make it happen, which I suspect you won’t, you can do anything, but we’ll be here. Waiting for your brother’s baby, but don’t tell his wife we know.”
