We met in neutral territory. That seemed best. We got as far away from the city as we possibly could, Paleto Bay. We both turned off our cell phones when we got to the place. We'd both decided that some time at a beach with none of the Los Santos influence was needed. We both agreed to eat before we got there. We would sit on the beach and that was all. It was going to be our last meeting as a fucked up couple. We reckoned and agreed that on the one hand, if we separated, we would not be a couple anymore. On the other hand, if we did stay together we would be considerably less fucked up.
I don't know what possessed me to wear a suit and leather shoes, on a hot and sunny day with no clouds, but I did. I got there first, and in the time I waited for her, I took off my black suit jacket and put it back into my car, next to the extra towels that I stole from my hotel, leaving me in the light blue shirt I decided to wear. She appeared a few minutes after I sat down again. She was dressed more appropriately with a big, floppy beige hat, sunglasses, a white sundress, and a pair of flip-flops. It was sexy. Wait… what? I hadn't said that internally or out loud to myself or to her in months. We sat on a bench that was about five feet from where the sand began.
"Michael," she started. "Whatever we decide here, I'm okay with it. But I don't want to throw in the towel. I don't think you do either."
"And how would you know what I want?" I asked wanting to know how she could presume anything, anything with me, as detached as we are now.
"You're here, aren't you?" She asked, whining a little.
"I think so. Sometimes I think that it's just a bad dream." Then I pinch myself and realize that I'm wide awake.
"I think it's a dream sometimes too, and then I pinch myself and realize that I'm wide awake," she said. What the fuck? Was she in my head? She started speaking again, "I've turned into an escapist, always dreaming of the good times way back when. You know when music was on cassette, when TV went off at night." She was making me think back to the days when we delighted in each other's company.
"I remember those days," I reminisced, "If, you'd told me back then that I could carry a telephone in my pocket that played music and that sent messages of text, I wouldn't have believed you." I laughed to myself, knowing that to be true. That seemed to be one of the things that changed the most, the telephone.
"Remember my hair. I had that terrible perm." I loved her hair back then. I used to give her the worst grief about it, but I loved it.
"And, so did I."
"No, that wasn't a perm. That was Chernobyl on top of your head." I laughed. It was a mess. I burnt half of the instant pictures, with that terrible hairstyle.
"But then the kids came along, and we both made bad choices."
"Look, Amanda, I'm sorry."
"Wha—"
"I didn't know about what that man did to you. I would have killed him and they would've found him in pieces all over the state. I wouldn't have made you have the kid either, though I know that it was your choice." Even I was aware of how grim my voice was.
"I… it wasn't your fault, it wasn't my fault, and I knee then that it wasn't the baby's fault. I lost a lot when that man did what he did to me. I lost my sense of security. I lost my sense of self. In a way I lost you too. I didn't want to lose the baby too. So, every night I prayed that the baby would come out and that you'd have the 'click' that fathers have with their children, especially their daughters. You did have that sappy look on your face when you held her for the first time and I was glad. I was really glad."
"I did connect with her. She was my little girl. She's still my little girl no matter how old she gets. We definitely have to talk to her."
"I already did, and she was never mad at you Michael. She's not angry with me anymore. She's just lost," Amanda said.
"They're both lost, but we were too. I rather have them lost in a way we can help them than the way we were. They're in their twenties. Most other kids their age are in college doing the stupid stuff." I looked at her as I spoke and she moved the sunglasses from her eyes and looked me in the eyes. I don't remember the last time she did that.
"But I want them to be able to do something with their lives and get the hell out of my house." She said.
We both laughed heartily. A seagull that was flying around above our heads seemed to cackle along with us. We both looked up at it, and at the partly cloudy sky it was flying in, then down at the waves crashing on the beach, and then at each other and started laughing at even harder. When was the last time we laughed like this? When did I get so soft? I mean I wasn't upset or nothing, but I was enjoying my wife for the first time in years. When did everything get so fluffy between us, and, if it ever was, when did it change? Why did I permit it to change?
"How are we going to motivate them, really?" The light tone was gone from her voice. She was serious, but not devoid of hope and enthusiasm.
"The more we push now, the further we'll drive 'em away. When they're tired of their prodigal living, they'll come back around."
"But how about Jim," she started a question. "He's drinking to excess and he'll end up needing his stomach pumped. Again… He'll kill himself, by the time he's twenty-five."
"I think that we can all intervene if we need to."
"We need to."
There, we fell into an awkward silence. I hated it. There should be no such thing as an awkward silence between us, not after all of these years. Maybe it was an awkward silence, but I knew that as much as the two of us could talk, we were both holding back. I don't know if I'd have felt any better with a 'comfortable' silence, but I knew one of us would say something. Any minute now. Yup… any minute now.
She spoke. "Do you remember when we used to bring the kids here?"
"We did, didn't we?" I'd forgotten long ago about our happy family days before the kids became… terrible.
"Yup… every 4th of July we'd come up here and watch the fireworks here. We'd hit the road at about noon and be here by three-thirty. The kids and I would stay on the beach while you would get us a room in that hotel. You know the one that used to be where that bank is now." She pointed behind us in that general direction.
"Now I remember. It was called the Come Inn. I would always make sure to get the room that on the top floor that faced north. It had the view of the beach and we would go out on the terrace."
"I remember the first year we got them a room to themselves and we were alone. I remember the way we looked at each other." She said, "I still remember that look on your face."
"I shut the blinds, because we didn't need any light for what we were about to do."
"That was a good night." She smiled at me.
"We SLEPT for the first time in years that night. We slept and slept and slept and no one could stop us."
She blinked twice really hard, as if getting back to the realities of the present, "Why did we ever stop going?"
I didn't remember, so I didn't answer. It made me realize that we changed. Or more correctly, this town changed us. We both took up this strange vanity that ran from the taps in this town. We stopped caring about each other and started caring only about ourselves. For me, that meant that I just created my own little reality in the back yard. Me and my bottle of whiskey. I guess for her it meant 'centering herself' and aligning with all off those yogi types. We both lost ourselves and now we were griping about how our children had no sense of direction. It's our fault, but I think we did better than our parents. I hope that they do better than us.
I heard her voice again, "I'm sorry for the cheating."
"I—" She interrupted me.
"No, I have to say this. I know this is going to sound childish and it is childish. I've come to learn that men and women cheat for different reasons. Men and women are both in it for some sort of satisfaction. Sometimes it's to be vindictive too. I just know that women cheat more for the emotional reasons. I did it because I wanted attention. You were always out making a living. Lord knows what you did, but you always made a living for us. I knew that you loved me and appreciated me, but you were never around to say it. So, I went seeking that validation from other men. By the time we got to when you were always around, it was habit, a sick habit. Now I realize that they would say anything to get what they wanted. They did and I fell for it easier and easier every time." She was looking down at the sand.
"I… we have both done our share of… we've both had our slip-ups and we're even now. Clean slate." I lifted her chin and wiped a tear from her face.
"So, it's gone, just like that?" She seemed almost a little frightened by the prospect.
"Just like that. Clean slate. Why don't we make a completely new life?"
"What?" Her voice lightened.
"I mean it. New house. Let's get out of the city too. We could find a house up in the hills by Franklin or get a place in Chumash. Let's start a new life in a new place."
"Again?" It wasn't a question full of derision or loathing. She was simply curious.
"Yes, money isn't the problem."
"It is—"
"Anyplace you want to move, we can go." I was serious. Fuck that town and all the people in it.
"How about right here, Paleto Bay." I raised my arm and moved it as if I was showing her something new and exciting, like a new car on the showroom floor.
"How about on the slope of Mount Chiliad, facing the ocean?" She asked, as she turned her head and looked at the large black silhouette of the mountain.
"Just say the word and we can do it." She didn't know about the amount of money I made from the UD and from those investments that Lester clued Franklin and thus me into.
"Michael," I don't remember the last time she said my name in such a loving way, "I think I might be falling in love with you again."
That made me chuckle a little. "Just sitting here on a bench by the ocean makes you fall in love with me. I wish I knew from the beginning that it was so simple."
"And that's how we'll be from now on simple." She said, "I promise that I'll try not to be so messy."
"Me too. That's why I want to get out off that hell on earth they call Los Santos and look out of my window and not see that brown smog."
"Why don't we give the kids the house we live in now?" She asked.
I, jokingly, laughing "How much money do you think I have?"
She cracked a cynical, but lighthearted smile and moved that smile about an inch from my ear, "About as much gold as the Union Depository can hold." She whispered, with the innocence of a schoolgirl.
"I don't know what you're talking about." I think the last vestiges of my Yankton accent came through.
Her mouth didn't move, but her tone became breathy. I felt her exhalations on my cheek.. "I'm sure you don't, but when I was watching that on the news," she started rubbing, caressing, my sleeves, "I recognized the big, strong arms of one of those, those perps." She put an emphasis, almost a sigh, on that last word. It made my cock twitch a little.
"Well, I have a family to provide for," I said, trying my best to keep my cool. It wasn't working in the slightest.
"Well, you are a good provider. There are some things about you that are more than sufficient." She, of course, wasn't wrong, but I don't remember the last time she said anything so forward, so pert to me.
"Oh, am—" I was mid-question, when I felt something strange. I felt a drop of water on my forehead. I looked up and saw that the cloudless sky that greeted me when we arrived turned into a menacing gray that produced downpours. I perceived another drop, this time on my hand. Then another drop… and another. And within ten seconds it was raining so hard that I could scarcely see my hand in from of my face.
The next couple of moments were a wet blur. I know that I must have grabbed Amanda. We must have made a mad dash to my car. Now she was sopping wet. There was water dripping from her nose, and her hat had lost its floppiness and clung to the sides of her head. I must have told her to take that sundress off. She probably wriggled it off awkwardly. She was nearly naked in my car and my body had its physiological response even through the layers of wet clothing. I took as many layers of clothes as I could. Stripping my clothes, ironically, did away with my boner. SHIT.
Now we were both freezing and dripping and half naked. We looked at each other and laughed together.
"I hope you remembered to put the cover and your convertible," I said.
"I hope so, too," she replied. We smiled at each other and we started cracking up.
"You wanna go home?" I asked.
"Yes, let's go to our home. Our broken, yelling, mess of a home, but home."
"Okay, then." That was my simple response. I didn't need to say anything else.
There was nothing more to say. I finally made a decision. I made a choice. It would have been foolish of me to rush to an option, but I'm sure I caused headaches for Franklin, Trevor, Lester, Jimmy, and Tracey. I, finally, decided to stay with my Amanda. For the first time in years I think that she's mine again. It took some thinking and crying and cursing, but I made a decision. I don't regret it, as I look to my right and watch her start to drift off into a nap with only a towel as her source of comfort and a cute grin on her face. I smiled and focused on the road ahead of me. I thought, 'This ain't like some job I had to put together. It was a question of if I loved her and it was all too spooky when I couldn't answer. Now I know the answer is yes, a resounding yes. I'm gonna try my best to have a happier wife for a happier life. I think that I deserve it.'
I do.
Well, that's all. Thanks to all of those who followed and reviewed. More stories are in the works, so keep an eye out.
-Wherenwhy