My Worst Year Chapter Three

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That Sunday was the most agonizing afternoon of my worst year. First the strain of my business troubles, then Katie’s infidelity in full color DVD. I felt as if my world was crashing down around me.

Late in the afternoon Katie phoned to tell me she would be staying one more day to finish her installation. She said she should be back by dinner tomorrow. Ten minutes later the phone rang again. It was Alicia asking if Kate called.

“Yes, just now, how did you…” I said before being cut off.

“Phil called me to tell me he wasn’t able to return home until tomorrow, so I thought I’d check to see if Katie did too”, She said, “Did you say anything?”

“No, I didn’t want to deal with it on the phone”. I said.

“Good,” And you, how are you holding up?

“OK, I guess. Well no, actually, it’s been a tough day.” I confessed.

I occupied myself by making a great bouillabaisse for dinner tonight, but since Phil isn’t coming home…perhaps you would like to come over for dinner.

“Is it arsenic free?” I teased.

“Yes, yes.” She said laughing, “ I could never poison my own bouillabaisse.”

“What time?”

I don’t know why I went to the Gladford’s house that evening. I had been content to wallow in my misery until Katie returned to find her broken husband. I was determined to confront her right away. There was something compelling about Alicia and the miserable secret we now shared, but I wasn’t ready to cheat on Katie.

As soon as Alicia opened her door I knew I was in trouble. She was back to her exotic looking self, simply dressed in an over-sized cotton sweater and brown silk pants. Her long straight black hair was twisted up behind her head. In her heels she was as tall as me. Her mood had elevated as well.

While she was finishing her meal preparations we started in on the bottle of white wine she had chilled and by the time dinner was over we emptied a second. In between we managed to cover a lot of ground, discovering how we each met our spouses, why we didn’t yet have kids, our heritage and our histories. She grew up in Hawaii. Both of her grandmothers were from Hong Kong, one married an American serviceman from Iowa, the other an Afro-American from Atlanta. Her mother fell in love with her father while attending the University of Hawaii where he was a basketball player on scholarship. He was from Los Angeles and was the product of a struggling Swedish actress and a struggling black actor. It turns out Alicia was as well blended an American as I was. The sense of discovery we had with each other was exhilarating and encouraged us to open up further to each other. I found myself growing enchanted by Alicia long before the course of the conversation veered toward revenge.

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"One man's vulgarity is another's lyric."
-- John Marshall Harlan, Supreme Court justice, 1971