Dancing With Devia (9 page)

Nothing there.
She shrugged
in frustration
.
What did she expect?
An entry that said
‘my sexy slut
?’
Even so, oddly enough she felt disappointed not to find anything.  Deflated even.  She quickly exited the phone, and crept back into the living room.
She put the phone back where she had found it and turned off the TV.  There she left him, gently snoring, and went to get ready for bed. 

Lying in bed later pretending to sleep with her eyes closed, thoughts were still going through her mind.  It was about three o’clock in the morning when Julian eventually woke up and got off the sofa.  He came to bed
,
creeping in quietly.  Laying down beside her, he snuggled in, his arm resting over her waist as he normally did when he hugged her in bed. She left it there, not wanting to let him know she was awake.

In the morning, the routine was the same as always.  She got up to get the kids ready for school and made their breakfasts.  Julian would make the coffee, then sit at the dining room table with them all.
W
hen the kids went to school they would both leave for work.  If she wasn’t working that day, she would clean the house and plan the dinner for the evening.
Today she called in sick again and spoke to her boss Devia who so understandingly gave have time off. 

Crystal put all the laundry in the washing machine and then was determined to continue her search for evidence.
It had to be here somewhere.
She just didn’t know where.
The frustrating thing was, Crystal didn’t know where else to look.
She had been through everything.
She had been looking everywhere, even in cupboards and boxes they hadn’t used for such a long time.
She had practically spring-cleaned the whole house.
She had gone through all of his clothes in the closet, his briefcases on the floor of the closet, the family suitcases
in
storage.
She had even gone through his
gym
bag, and all his shoes.

Suddenly, the buzzer sounded in the utility room, signalling the end of a wash cycle and the end of the dryer cycle that she had loaded earlier.
She went through and pulled the dry clothes into her ironing basket and reloaded the dryer with the wet clothes. She went into the living room and sat down as she sorted the laundry from the dryer.
She was sure that half of the clothes from Mary hadn’t even been worn.
The clothes had just been put on and taken off, as she changed her mind and left each item in the linen basket so she didn’t have to put them away again.
There was no way she could have worn three times as many clothes as the rest of the family.
She sighed and folded them up, then went through to the kid’s rooms and put the laundry away.  After picking up a few books and toys she went back into the living room to collect their own clean clothes to put away.  She put them into her linen basket to carry them to their room.

Picking up Julian’s folded socks and underwear from the linen basket, she opened the drawer and was just about to put them away when the phone rang.  Quickly she shoved them in, and ran to the living room to answer.

“Hello?”

There was no answer.

“Hello?” She said louder.

Still nothing. Silence. She heard a click from the other end as someone hung up.
‘Odd!’
She thought, and she returned to the bedroom to
finish
putting away the laundry.

As she was putting her clothes away, she suddenly realised why she might get a hang up call.
It was
her
, trying to reach
him
.
Her blood froze in her veins.
She started stomping around the house.
She was fuming.
The more she thought about it, the angrier she got, until she was in a wild rage.

The phone rang again.

“Hello?”

There was no answer.
Silence.

“Hello?”
She said louder still.
“Oh! Fuck off, you bitch!”
She screamed into the phone, now convinced it was
her
trying to reach him again.  The other person hung up.
Crystal was livid.
She wanted to smash everything in the house.
She stomped around the house furious with everything.
She went into her bedroom and started going through the bedside drawers like a lunatic.
She didn’t care what was in them.  She just pulled them out and emptied them upside down on the floor, their contents scattering over the floor haphazardly.  She dropped to her knees and sifted through everything.
Still nothing.

The phone rang, she ran through to the living room, and tore it from its cradle.
She screamed into the receiver.

“Oh! Fuck off, you bitch!” She was about to slam it down when she heard Julian’s voice.

“Honey?  Are you ok?”

“You bastard!”  She hung up.
Stomped back into the bedroom, and started pulling all the clothes out of the closet, throwing them on the bed and on the floor.  It didn’t matter to her.
She was in such a rage, she wasn’t even thinking any more.
She was just tearing things out, ripping them off the hangers, and throwing them everywhere.
When the closet was empty of their entire contents, she started on the drawers.  She pulled them out and up ended them, letting the contents tumble and pile on the floor.
By the time she had finished she had emptied twelve drawers.
Their entire collection of clothes, his and hers were heaped all over the room, every form of clothing was accounted for.  Including full outfits, jackets, trousers, pants, her underwear, her skirts, dresses.
Everything.
It looked as though they had been burgled.
She dropped to her knees, and fell forwards, and sobbed into the pile of clothes.

When her tears had subsided, she realised how stupid she was being.
She dried her tears and started to fold things up and put them away.
She felt as though she were losing her mind.
After all this, she still had no proof only her mind playing silly tricks.
She was going mad.
She would have to apologise to him when he came home.
Maybe she had imagined it all.
Besides, she had no damning evidence.

The room was almost tidy again when she started sifting through all his socks and underwear; it was then that she spotted a piece of white paper.
She picked it up at first, without thinking.
As she pulled it from the pile, she realised it was an envelope and not just a slip of paper.
She read the words
‘To my darling Juju, xxx’
and her hands started to tremble.  Time stood still.
The blood froze in her veins and her legs gave way.
She collapsed where she was.

When she came around, she opened her eyes, confused.
She wasn’t sure where she was, or what she was doing on the floor.
She sat up and looked down, and remembered.  The contents of the envelope had scattered on the floor and she picked one up.
There was photographic evidence of her husband Julian, with another woman.
Her heart went to her throat.  She felt she was choking and couldn’t breathe.  The pain she felt, went right through her.
She felt as though she had been punched in the stomach, very hard.
She couldn’t
breathe and
was hyperventilating.
She ripped through the pictures, in disbelief at what she was seeing.  Then she started looking at them again slowly, and she turned them over.
She nearly died when she read what was written there.

One was of Julian.
With a naked woman riding him.  She couldn’t see who it was from the back of her.
It had a telephone number with it.
She started looking at the back of the other photos.  She read.
‘
You are so romantic and so, so sexy. Can’t wait until the next time, D.’

Who was D?  She picked up the phone and dialed the number.

“Hello?”  She heard a woman’s voice.  A familiar voice yet she couldn’t quite place how she knew.  She hung up quickly, not knowing what to say.

She went through the envelope looking at the other photos.
There was a picture of him with Devia.
Her boss.  It didn’t make sense.
She turned over the photo. ‘
My darling man, thank you for such a fabulous cruise. Call me, whenever. Devia. Xxx.’
It was as though the floor had opened underneath her and she wanted to fall right through it.  She wailed like an injured and dying animal.

When her tears dried, she paced the floor until she could bear it no longer.
She called Devia.

“What the fuck, are you doing with my husband?”
She said as soon as Devia said hello.

“Oh my God! He told you?” Devia sounded incredulous and sorry, she paused. “I am so sorry Crystal.
I wanted to tell you ages ago.
But he…”  Crystal took a sharp intake of breath and tried not to faint.  Devia
began again
.
“I wanted him to tell you ages ago, I was trying to tell you myself, the other day.
But he said he would handle it.”

Crystal didn’t know what to say.
Her world had just ended.  The love she thought she had with Julian had evaporated like smoke on the air.
Only emptiness and a bitter hurt were left.
She still found it hard to believe, but with the proof still held in her shaking hands, she couldn’t even lie to herself and deny it.

“How long?” She eventually said, quietly.

“A year, maybe
a little bit
more.”
Devia lied.

“Thank you for telling me.” Crystal said, with as much dignity as she could muster.
She took a breath. “And just so you know. I resign, as of now, this minute.
I can’t work with you and I don’t want to see you, ever again.
You fucking bitch.”

“Oh, I am so sorry you are being like that Crystal, and being difficult about all this.
I had hoped we could remain friends.”

“Are you fucking crazy or something?
Friends?
I find pictures of you fucking my husband and you want me to be all friendly and nice?
What planet are you from?”

“Actually, it’s just as well you are resigning,” Devia said sweetly, “as they were going to
‘fire your ass’
next week anyway, for not coming to work.” She heard Crystal gasp. “I guess you will want me to write you a reference?
Don’t hold your breath,” she paused for effect, “as I will be too busy fucking Julian for the foreseeable future.”

“You fucking bitch!” Crystal looked at the phone in disbelief.

“Oh, don’t be like that!
You let yourself go.
Why would Julian want a fat cow like you anyway?
I mean, even you said you
used
to be a model.
Talk about wannabe’s, has beens and
never
ha
ve
beens…”

Crystal slammed the phone down.

Ten minutes later, the phone rang again. At first she wasn’t going to answer, but it just kept ringing.

“Crystal?” It was Merv, her boss.

“Yes?” Crystal said.
Merv sounded angry.
Maybe he didn’t want her to leave.
He wanted her to stay.
She would explain the situation and get Devia fired.

“You are fired!
Don’t you expect to come back here ever again, and don’t you expect any references from me.”
Merv shouted.

“But sir!
I…”  The phone clicked.
She looked at it, heard the dial tone.

She wanted to cry.
She realised that her marriage had ended because her husband was having an affair.  She had to leave him.  Consequently that meant she had no home, and now no job, with two kids to look after.  The kids had no idea what was going on of course.  The enormity started to hit her.
Her life was falling apart.
She was so angry that she was spurned into action.

She went into the garage and got
out
her suitcase
, ran back to her room
and started throwing her clothes into it.
Then she took a suitcase out for the kids and started throwing their clothes into it.
She put them all in the car. She made some pack lunches for the long journey and the moment the kids arrived home from school, she bundled them into the car and drove away.