Chapter 19
Vegas Vacation
I had been a bit melancholy these last few days as the ten year anniversary of my divorce just passed. I really hadn’t wanted to get married again right away as I didn’t want to deal with the blended families that would be involved. However I guess I really didn’t picture myself being single for this long either. Quite the enigma, really, wanting to be married again and yet not wanting to commit to a relationship all at the same time.
My relationship with my ex-husband, Walter, has been in divorce as it was in marriage, quite the bi-polar experience.
The first year I was divorced the ladies and I traveled to Las Vegas for our annual pilgrimage. We were in my room indulging in the pre-dinner martini fest the first night of the trip when the phone rang.
“Hello,” I said.
“Lucy?” Walter asked. In my present state of euphoria sharing drinks with my best friends in Vegas his voiced sounded like fingernails on a chalk board.
“Are the kids all right?” I asked.
“The kids are fine,” he assured me. “Although I must say they’re kind of hungry.”
“Hungry?” I inquired?
“Yes,” he said, “they’re hungry.”
“So, feed them,” I said, wondering what this had to do with me as I was 2,000 miles away from them and it was his weekend to take care of the kids.
“I would feed them but I’m calling from your house and you didn’t leave many groceries here,” he said.
“Let me get this straight,” I said. “What you’re telling me is that you’re standing in my kitchen running up my long distance bill while you call me in Vegas to complain that I didn’t leave enough groceries for you to steal from my home?”
“Well, you don’t have to get huffy about it,” he said. “And you don’t have to be such a cheapskate, either. They’re your kids and you could have left some food for them. That’s all I’m saying.”
Am I the only one who sees the irony of this man calling me a cheapskate?
“Walter,” I said trying to remain calm, “you shouldn’t even be in my house.”
By this time Joye, LeAnnie, and Kim are listening to my end of the conversation looking fairly concerned.
“The kids asked me to come in and get some food for them. Josh used his key. I have to tell you that they were sorely disappointed in what little you left.”
“Did it not occur to you to go to the grocery store to get food for them and not my home?”
“Our home,” he said.
I wanted to tell him what an ass he was being and that they were his kids too and to keep the hell out of my groceries and my home! I just wanted to let him have it, but he sounded so pitiful. The divorce was hard on all of us. I could hear the kids in the background. I’ll make a better plan for my trip to Vegas next year, I thought.
“Walter, we’ve been divorced for over a year and you are in MY home. Please just resolve your own grocery dilemma and let me enjoy my vacation.”
“Here,” he said, “Jessie wants to talk to you.”
“Hey mom,” Jessie said.
“Hi Jessie,” I replied.
“Do you miss me?” she asked.
“Of course I miss you,” I reassured her. “Do you miss me?”
“Well, duh! Are you having fun with your friends?”
“I’m having a great time! Are you having a good time with dad and Josh?”
“Yeah, we’re having a good time, but we’re hungry. How come you didn’t leave any food for us?”
“Because I knew you’d be with your dad and that he’d have you covered.”
“But he doesn’t have any food at his house.”
“Well, then, you’re lucky because you guys can take a trip to the store with him. I know you love to help pick out groceries.”
I could hear Walter talking in the background telling Josh just to take what he wanted and they’d make do with that. He then explained to Jessie that they couldn’t go to the grocery store because he wouldn’t get paid until the following Friday.
“Oh well,” Jessie said. “I’ve gotta go, Mom. We’re going to the movies and then out to dinner.”
How could I explain to my daughter who was only 8 years old that the money they would spend at the movies and going out to dinner would cover groceries for the three of them for the entire weekend? She just did not need to know these things yet and I certainly wasn’t going to enlighten her and spoil the fun she’d be having with her dad.
“Have a great time, Jessie,” I said. “I love you.”
“Love you too mom,” she said.
I hung up the phone and faced the ladies. I filled them in on the parts of the call they hadn’t heard.
“What were you thinking not giving him a piece of your mind?” asked Kim. “He needs to know what a jackass he’s being. It’s just not fair that you have to provide everything essential for the kids and he just gets to have fun. He’s not even paying child support, for God’s sake!”
“I just don’t have the strength to face that conversation yet,” I admitted. “I still feel guilty about the divorce and leaving my kids in a broken home.”
“Well,” LeAnnie said, “get over the guilt and get on with your life.”
“I’ll drink to that!” Joye said, and proceeded to mix another round.
“I have a gift for you,” LeAnnie said, “and this is the perfect time to give it to you.”
She handed me a photo album titled “The Unniversary Album.”
“What’s this?” I asked.
“The last time we came over,” LeAnnie said, I ‘borrowed’ some of your old photo albums. I’ll return them when we get home. I scanned some of the pictures and took some Photo Shop liberties with them. Take a look.”
On the cover I recognized the wedding picture that had been on the cover of my own wedding album. There I stood looking quite stunning in my mother’s wedding gown and next to me stood an ass wearing Walter’s gray tuxedo with a burgundy bow tie and cummerbund. Literally an ass. The head of a donkey had been Photo Shopped onto Walter’s body and looked just as natural as Walter’s own face had in the original. She had even superimposed Walter’s neatly trimmed beard onto the chin of the donkey.
I turned the page and recognized Walter’s hairy chest and Hawaiian swim trunks topped off quite nicely with the profile of a shark’s head, complete with the creepy, lolling eye and fleshy bits of his lunch protruding from his teeth. The caption read, “Oops! Walter forgot to floss again.”
The next picture showed a sloth sporting Walter’s face and holding a beer perched in a tree in my front yard. It watched with slovenly interest as I shoveled about two feet of snow in the driveway.
In keeping with the animal theme the next picture showed a pig’s head on Walter’s body as he cut the Thanksgiving turkey. The caption read, “After dinner he’ll wallow in the Lazy Boy and then visit the pumpkin pie trough. That’ll do, Pig.”
The animal depiction I enjoyed the most, though, was drawn from the far reaches of Africa. It was a picture of the back side of a baboon. Over its bulbous, red tail the top of Walter’s face with his reading glasses was perched. Beneath the red tail Walter’s smile would remain forever. The words below read, “Enough said.”
On a page labeled “Walter the Manly Man” was a picture of my ex-husband with a prized buck he shot. In the photo Walter’s face now belonged to the buck and the buck’s face was expertly propped on Walter’s neck, antlers in full view seeming to grow right out of Walter’s bald spot. Walter’s body sporting the deer’s head stood proudly with his shotgun lording over the buck with Walter’s face, the poor dead animal’s tongue hanging to the side. The caption read, “What nature truly intended.”
The next picture had been taken on a cruise. In the original Walter looked wistfully into the sunset from the deck of the ship and I looked at him with newlywed love written all over my face. Thanks to Photo Shop
, though, the head of a carp protruded from Walter’s face. A thought bubble over my head asked, “Would you like a Tic Tac?”
Another photo showed Walter in the hammock in our yard. He looked every bit the tourist wearing a floppy straw hat, a Hawaiian shirt, and the latest in fashion statements, purple zinc on his nose. He drank from a tall glass with a paper umbrella protruding from the frozen drink inside. A short distance from the hammock I can be seen wearing old cut offs, a bandana to collect the sweat from my forehead, and a tattered tee-shirt that said, “I wish I was in Jamaica.” I was pushing a lawn mower and the caption read, “This photo was not altered in any way. This is a true depiction of Lucy’s sad, sad life as a married woman. Viewer discretion is advised.”
In the final photo I could be seen sitting by a lake surrounded by majestic mountains that appeared to be on fire with brilliant fall colors. They had given me the Photo Shop gift of Jennifer Aniston’s body. I wore her turquoise bikini and her perfect hair framed my face. They gave me her lovely skin too but left my eyes and mouth so it was obviously an “enhanced me.”
I held a fishing pole which was bent at an arc and emerging from the crystal clear teal water at the end of my line was Harrison Ford. He was looking deep into my eyes with that crooked smile that could make me warm and tingly all over.
The caption read, “Oh, the possibilities after divorce. So many fish, so little time.”
I closed the “Unniversary Album” and said a silent prayer of thanks for these friends who could help me laugh through any of life’s catastrophes.
The following year I planned ahead when I met the ladies in Vegas. The day before I left for the trip I had the locks changed on my doors and did not leave a key with the kids. I received a call from Jessie that year, from Walter’s phone, at his expense.
“Hey, Mom,” she said. “How come our keys don’t fit the locks anymore?”
“I had the locks changed,” I said.
“Why’d you do that?” she asked.
“I read an article that said that you should change your locks periodically just to keep your family safe.”
“Oh,” she said seemingly happy with the lie. “Well, dad had to hock his guitar to buy groceries this weekend.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said.
“That’s OK,” she said. “He says we can still go rent some go-carts and go out for dinner.”
“I’m glad you’re having a good time,” I said. “I love you.”
“Love you too, mom.”
****