“Let me guess. You’re going to run back to Destiny’s. You’re probably fucking that ho.”
“She could probably do a better job than you.”
Patrick’s face became contorted as his anger rose. “You know you love this big dick.”
“If I didn’t have another dick to compare it to, it might be a big dick. Magnum, my ass.”
I was bent over putting on my shoes when Patrick grabbed my hair and flung me back on the bed.
“Who have you been fucking? Whose dick have you been comparing mine to?”
I smirked, even though it felt like he was ripping my hair clean off my scalp. “That’s too much for you, isn’t it? The thought of me giving up my pussy out of both sides of my drawers to another man. You can’t handle it, but you expect me to handle everything you dish out.”
Patrick let go of my hair and sat up. “I’m sorry if I hurt you.”
“No, you’re just plain sorry.” I slid on some shoes and left the bedroom, slamming the door behind me. “A fuckin’ sorry-ass bastard!” I yelled as I headed down the hallway to the front door.
As I drove out of the garage in my car, the tears started to flow.
What are you doing, Brooke? What the hell are you doing?
I waited for someone to answer, but no answer came.
Damon
December 3, 2007
CARLEIGH dropped by my office to see how I was readjusting to being back at work. She was a welcome surprise … at first. Then things quickly turned ugly, when I shared with her what I thought was good news.
“I registered a new domain name today!” I told her once she was seated across from me at my desk. She didn’t comment, just looked down at her hands, so I asked, “Want to know the name?”
Carleigh sighed. “Can you tell me over lunch? I’m starved.”
“Sure. We can go downstairs to the cafeteria.”
We had a great cafeteria in our building. It put most of the restaurants in the vicinity of the office to shame. That was not good enough for Carleigh though.
“You know how I despise cafeteria food. Can you have your secretary make us a reservation at La Ferme?”
“That’s all the way out in Bethesda.”
“And?”
“And it’ll take a good forty-five minutes to get there in traffic.”
“And?” Her voice was dripping with heavy sarcasm.
“And you just said you were starved.” I sighed and tapped my fingers on my desk. “How about B. Smith’s? You love the food there.”
Carleigh rolled her eyes at me. Say what! “I’m in the mood for some French food.”
“Then I’ll have her call Brasserie Beck. They’ve got great duck.”
“I want to go to La Ferme.”
“Then I can’t go,” I said vehemently. “I’m not driving all the way out there for lunch; not today. We didn’t even have plans.”
“I wasn’t aware that I need to make plans with my husband.”
“You do when I’m in the middle of a workday.” I got up from my desk and paced the floor for a moment, intentionally keeping my back to Carleigh. Then I turned and faced her. “Listen, I’m going to grab a sandwich at the cafeteria and then eat at my desk. I don’t feel like playing this game with you today.”
“What game, Damon?”
“You have an attitude and I’m not going to be your willing victim. You pretended to come here out of concern, but obviously your panties are in a bunch because of something.” I thought of the date in my head. “It’s not time for your period.”
Carleigh rolled her eyes again. “Why do men always try to put a woman’s emotions off on her period? As if we only have emotions for part of the month.”
“At least that would be an excuse, but it looks like you don’t have one,” I stated. “I wanted to share some good news with you since you popped up, but forget it.”
I sat down on the leather sofa in my office. Carleigh got up from where she was seated, came over, and plopped down beside me.
“Crandall and Dee want to go biking across California again in the spring.”
Crandall and I had attended college together. He and his wife, Dee, short for Demetria, lived in Los Angeles. Carleigh and I had gone on motorcycle excursions with them for the past three years in a row. We would fly out and then ride motorcycles up and down the coast. Harleys. The best of the best. Crandall collected them.
“Sounds great!” I said.
“Great?” Carleigh looked like I had slapped her. “What are you talking about, Damon?”
“Tell them we’ll go; just like we do every year.”
“They didn’t know about …” Carleigh stared at my arm. “About the accident.”
I slapped my thigh. “Things have been so crazy that I haven’t had a chance to even shoot Crandall an email. I’ll call him.”
“Call him and say what?”
“That we’ll narrow down some dates in a month or so.”
“You can’t ride a motorcycle,” Carleigh said. “And I’m not getting on the back of one.”
I glared at her. “Why not? Because you think I can’t ride with one arm? Rarely do I ever hold both handlebars anyway.”
“I’m quite sure that if you ran this past your doctor, he’d think you were a fool, too. Driving a car is one thing, Damon. Riding a fucking motorcycle is something else.”
“Don’t curse at me,” I said, getting loud. “Don’t curse at me and don’t talk down to me.” I shook my head in dismay, then changed to a nod. “This proves that I’m on the right track.”
“On what right track?”
“My news is that I’m starting a new website called Able Minded Dating, for people with disabilities.”
Carleigh gasped. “Tell me you’re joking.”
“I’m not joking. I’m dead serious, Carleigh. I’m going to continue running the Last Good Men site, but I’m also going to do this one.”
“So now you’re going to set up poor women in wheelchairs to be run over by four-legged creatures!”
“Your low opinion of men is astounding.”
“I don’t know why you’d find it astounding when most men are pieces of shit. Besides, most people with disabilities don’t even have sex.”
“That’s not true, and how can you make such a blanket statement about other people’s lives? I’m technically disabled, even though I disagree, and we have sex.”
“But you’re not confined to a wheelchair and you don’t have a spinal-cord injury.” She sighed. “Are you talking about people who are cuckoo, too?”
“What the hell do you mean by cuckoo?”
“You know what I mean, and now you’re cursing at me, so watch it.” Carleigh was really testing my patience. “I mean, people who can’t even think straight.”
“Do you ever listen to a word that comes out of my mouth? I said it is called Able Minded Dating. Obviously I am not suggesting that someone take advantage of a person who has dementia or Alzheimer’s. You’re trippin’.”
“No, you’re trippin’ if you think that nonsense is going to work for five seconds. How long have you been doing that Last Good Men crap? I went on there the other day and the women on there are pissed off.”
“We’ve had half a dozen couples get married after meeting on my site. I know that for a fact. Why don’t you read the testimonials we post, instead of feeding into all the negativity? You’re the most negative person that I know.”
“Then why are you married to me?”
“Why are you married to me?” I asked back. I immediately reached out and took her hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I love you, Carleigh.”
She yanked her hand away. “I’m going to go to La Ferme for lunch by myself.” She stood up. “Jordan and I are hanging out tonight. It’s her birthday.”
I didn’t realize witches had birthdays, I wanted to say. “That’s nice,” I blurted out instead. The mere mention of Jordan’s name still stirred me the wrong way. “What tim
e will you be in?”
“When we’re done celebrating! I came over here to spend some quality time with you this afternoon so you wouldn’t feel neglected tonight, but we both see how that turned out.”
I stood up. “If you really want to go to La Ferme, I’ll go. Let me clear a couple of things off my schedule for this afternoon.”
“No!” Carleigh walked toward the door. “Do your thing. I’ll tell your secretary to go get you a turkey club sandwich on my way out. You do still eat those, don’t you?”
“Yes, of course I do.”
“Just checking. You’ve changed a lot lately.”
Carleigh left without saying another word.
“No, you’ve changed a lot lately,” I said, after she had closed the door behind her.
That evening, I was sitting in my study, going over the initial concepts for Able Minded Dating. My mind wandered to Brooke and I wondered what she was doing. It was late, close to midnight, but I decided to take a chance and give her a call, hoping that I wouldn’t interrupt quality time with her man. She answered on the third ring.
“Hello, Damon. Is something wrong?”
“No, nothing’s wrong. Sorry to call you so late.”
“Oh, it’s no problem. I’m awake.” I could hear her trying to mask a yawn on the other end of the line. She was so sweet, telling fibs to accommodate me. “What’s up?”
“I decided to start a new website today.”
“That’s great! What’s it called?”
Wow, she actually cares! “It’s called Able Minded Dating, for—”
“That’s wonderful! For people with disabilities?”
“Yes, exactly.”
“That’s so wonderful, Damon. You’re such a compassionate person. Is there anything I can do to help?”
I found myself grinning from ear to ear. Someone once told me in a seminar that the world is full of dream stealers and reality stealers. The man giving the lecture stated that if you tell ten people close to you about a new business venture or life aspiration, eight out of the ten will say something negative. The other two will be happy for you and ask if they can do anything to help. Brooke was refreshing, and I was not surprised that she was in the positive 20 percent. Carleigh was in the negative 80 and had always been.
“Sure, I would love your help,” I told Brooke. “Maybe we can meet for lunch tomorrow.”
“Oh, I have to work tomorrow, but I work the late shift on Thursday. Can we meet up then?”
“That’ll work. I’ll give you a call to confirm on Wednesday.”
“I’ll be waiting. Meanwhile, I’ll do some brainstorming and try to come up with some ideas.”
“I appreciate that.”
“I appreciate you, Damon. More than you realize.” Brooke paused before adding a sweet “Good night.”
“Good night, Brooke.”
After she had hung up, I tried to focus back on the outline of the site, but I couldn’t. Brooke Alexander was invading my thoughts. So much so that it got to the point where I tried to turn in, but couldn’t get to sleep. I finally took a pain pill that I had left over and knocked myself out, but then she consumed my dreams.
Brooke
February 12, 2008
OVER the following months, Damon and I spent a lot of time together planning out Able Minded Dating. My admiration of him grew tenfold, and I couldn’t help but wonder what the hell was wrong with his wife, Carleigh. She must have been half-blind in one eye and unable to see jack shit out of the other. Damon was an incredible man, but whenever I brought her up, his entire demeanor changed.
Is that bitch being mean to you? I often found myself wanting to ask.
I decided to be there for him whenever he needed a friend. As much as he tried to pretend that losing a limb was no big deal, I would catch him staring at his prosthetic arm with a sad expression. A person with self-esteem issues finds it easy to recognize them in someone else. He was a beautiful man—handsome didn’t do him justice. Even though they say you should never call a man beautiful, that is exactly what he was to me. Not just on the outside, but on the inside as well.
I had taken him over to my parents’ place for dinner one night. They didn’t know what to think of the situation. Of course, they knew that Damon was the man who had pushed me out of the way of Lisa Grant’s SUV, but it may have come off as more of a date. Once during dinner I spotted Mama’s eyes glued to his wedding ring. She sensed that I was staring at her, and her eyes met mine. That’s when I brought up Carleigh and explained that they were trying to conceive their first child.
His having children was one of the main staples of our conversations. Damon told me about Carleigh’s taking birth control behind his back for the first four years of their marriage. I wanted to strangle her. But she was supposedly all happy-and-go-lucky about getting pregnant at present. I prayed for them to conceive, sometimes even with Damon out loud. We would pray about a lot of things together, but I didn’t attend church on the regular. That didn’t mean that I didn’t believe in God. The devil was a liar and I knew that God existed. He carried me day to day, and even though I may not have been front and center in a pew every Sunday, I loved Him and I was sure that He loved me.
Damon and Carleigh did attend church together religiously, no pun intended. They had attended a couples’ retreat for a weekend up in the mountains. I asked Damon how things went, and he seemed reluctant to respond. Finally, he admitted that while he and Carleigh had both put on pretenses for the other couples in attendance, and the minister, the tension in their marriage was still as thick as wool.
I felt like a schoolgirl with a kindergarten crush. Damon was everything that I’d ever wanted in a man, but he could never be mine. I understood and accepted that, which is why I was still seeing Patrick. Despite the disrespect and Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde personality that Patrick had going on, it was still a relationship. Not a great one, or even a particularly good one, but it was safe. He was there when I needed to be held and gave me the distance that I needed when I asked him for it.
Lisa Grant finally went on trial in January, and, of course, she was easily convicted. There were thousands of witnesses, including police officers, numerous victims, and their families. And high levels of drugs were detected in her system. It was what they call “a wrap” in Hollywood. Her public defender might as well have been a public-school teacher. No argument was going to shed a positive light on what she had done. She was sentenced to eight years, plus time served, in a high-security prison. I didn’t necessarily agree with the “high-security” thing. Even though she was a drug addict, her actions didn’t lead me to believe that she would commit an all-out violent act. Part of me felt bad for her. She would enter prison as a confused young lady and come out a hardened woman, more than likely continuously abused and molested by the other inmates.
The trial lasted for nearly three weeks, but I only attended one day, the day that I testified. Hank would have had five thousand heart attacks if I’d tried to take off to witness the entire trial. Patrick attended court with me, to make sure that I was not mistreated by the defense attorney. I told him that it would be senseless for the man to try to make me look bad. I was standing outside the Carter Barron, waiting for Destiny, when the shit went down. Still, Patrick was babying me and it was awkward when I introduced him to Damon. They spoke briefly, in hushed tones, in the hallway. I didn’t hear what they said because I was distracted by the prosecutor trying to prepare me. I am willing to bet that Patrick made it clear that I was his woman though.
Damon was there every day. His buddy Steve went with him. Damon testified on a different day from me, but he told me all about it. We traded horror stories of having to relive that moment. Honestly, I didn’t remember much, just the aftermath. Damon was apparently able to describe seeing the SUV careening through the crowd, headed straight for Carleigh and me. I was shocked when he told me that Carleigh had missed his testimony—the entire trial in fact—because she was trying to sell some houses
.
None of my business, I kept telling myself, but that was a difficult pill to swallow.
Some of the other victims decided to file civil lawsuits against Lisa Grant. That was pointless, in my opinion. The woman was more penniless than me and was about to do eight years. Even if they were awarded a judgment, where was the money going to come from? Out of her ass? Damon didn’t sue her either. Both of us wanted to move on with our lives and put it all behind us. What neither of us understood was the roller-coaster ride we were about to go on together—the one called life.
PART THREE
TOTAL ECLIPSE
Total eclipse—an eclipse in which
the surface of the eclipsed body
is completely obscured
Damon
May 3, 2008
MY big day had finally arrived; everyone was so excited. Everyone except Carleigh. She mysteriously had “other plans” and couldn’t attend the launch party for Able Minded Dating. She claimed that a new client insisted on viewing a few homes on that same Saturday and that rescheduling was out of the question. She stressed how much she needed to earn some commissions; I must admit that she had a valid point. However, my launch was only going to last a few hours, and her client should not have come before her husband. Then again, that was only my opinion; obviously, not one that she shared.
This was a once-in-a-lifetime event. When I started the Last Good Men website, there was no launch party or fanfare. Let’s face it, dating websites were everywhere, but not sites like Able Minded Dating. The few other websites for people with disabilities had not gotten much exposure; I was determined that mine would be different. When I thought of the concept of the Last Good Men, I was trying to capitalize on the huge internet dating trend. With Able Minded Dating, my motivation was completely different.
Having met so many people—during therapy and in my support groups at the hospital—who had faced many issues when it came to meeting new love prospects, I felt emotional about my new site. On the existing, bigger dating sites, I noticed that few people on them were in wheelchairs or missing limbs or deaf, etc. I did a test myself and joined a few—not looking for love but performing an experiment. Even with an attractive face and physically fit body, no women sent me a message or even flirted once I mentioned that I was missing an arm. Nothing.