Not This Time
15
Betrayal
BRUCE WAS RIGHT. I was only nineteen. I wasn’t forty-two or forty-three or whatever. Even the memories I had of future history were more like déjà vu than foreknowledge. I knew there were big things coming up in the next few years. But what I considered big was what had been important to me in the last life and didn’t include things like who won the Kentucky Derby or the World Series. If I was going to get rich, it was going to be by being savvy in the real estate market, not by betting on the Super Bowl. I knew the technology stock bubble would burst right after the turn of the century. Terrorists would fly planes into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. The real estate market would take a dive in 2008 because lenders had been giving money to underqualified buyers and their mortgages were suddenly more than the value of their homes. When I was done exploiting the condo market, I could make a bundle flipping houses as long as I had everything in guaranteed funds by 2008. But even with market foreknowledge, that was a risky business.
Who was important in the stock market? I was lucky to remember who was elected president. Each morning when I read the newspaper, I was filled with a sense of remembering a little detail or something that came next in a sequence of events. But never far enough in the future to make a difference to me or anyone I knew. I’d made my mistakes in my former life. I guessed I’d just make different ones in this life.
The four of us moved into a nice apartment in the old hotel across Franklin from my fourplexes. Loring had just started renovations on it when my building was complete and they weren’t all done yet. It was a grand old residence hotel and I put a bid on acquiring the first condo conversion in it. Jim wasn’t sure he wanted to sell out that building, but I convinced him by pointing out that this would be a hot seller because of the new work. When I set my original projections of 500 units, that was only a quarter of the total Loring inventory, but those were the buildings that were recently enough updated that we could sell with minor work. The other units were showing enough wear and tear that they’d need more updating before they could be sold.
The upshot was that I got a prime three-bedroom, two-bath condo for about half what it would sell for in two years when the building was finished.
Lily, Bruce, Emily, and I moved into the unit the first of July, but I owned it on a contract for deed. They paid me rent, and I kept it fair for them. We tallied up the expenses for the condo including utilities and split it all four ways. I suddenly realized that I was the major breadwinner. But since it would be Emily’s and my home no matter what happened to the other two, I was content to bear half the expenses.
Money was tight in the housing industry at the moment. Interest rates for single family detached housing were at ten percent and holding. Condos were two percent higher. But Jim was pretty savvy when it came to financing property and when I suggested that he start carrying the paper, he was pretty pleased. You couldn’t earn a 12% return on many investments and as long as I could keep him from getting greedy and over-qualifying people, he’d make out fine on five-year contracts with a balloon.
So far, he was being pretty conservative and I liked that.
By the end of August, I had two sales people and a receptionist. Bruce had landed a nice job teaching theatrical design at a private college on the north side of St. Paul. He had a bit of a commute, but he said he didn’t mind it and his old Fiat was still in good shape. The toughest part, of course, was his schedule with productions, rehearsals, and having to build the sets. He had a lot of late nights and slept late in the morning.
Lily had her job at the University and worked eight to five. I worked like a maniac on Friday through Monday, putting in long hours. Then I went to classes on Tuesday through Thursday.
Opportunities for the three of us to be together doing something loving were infrequent.
I guess that’s what started the trouble in paradise.
I wasn’t feeling all that great, but I had a showing and went in to work on Saturday as usual. Lily would be home and taking care of Emily. I knew that Bruce had Saturday shop hours when students were supposed to put in their time, just like I’d had to for the opera. They were preparing a show called Lilies of the Field, which I thought was pretty humorous considering we had our own Lily. They’d made a movie of it years ago, but the only thing I remembered of it was Sidney Poitier leading a bunch of nuns in singing ‘Amen.’
I got through my showing and told the other two salespeople that I was going home.
The sounds coming from the bedroom were not those of a happy baby. Oh, they were happy sounds, all right. Just not baby sounds. I stood in the bedroom doorway unable to believe what I saw. Lily and Bruce were fucking.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I screamed. Emily answered my scream with a startled baby squall coming straight from her sleep.
“You’re home early, baby,” Lily said. “Come join us.”
“Yeah! I guess you weren’t expecting that, were you! How long has this been going on?” I was beyond rationality. My boyfriend and my best friend were fucking. How could I have been so stupid.
“From the morning after my graduation,” Bruce said. “You were there.”
“I’m taking my baby and going for a walk. Get out of my house! Both of you!” I grabbed Emily out of the crib and her baby bag from beside the door. We ran out of the condo as fast as I could go. How could they do this to me? Fucking behind my back! I was furious.
I walked with Emily in my arms for half an hour, going no place special. I thought about stopping at di Napoli restaurant but I didn’t want people to see the tears streaming down my face. I felt so betrayed. I made one more trip through the park and around the Art Institute then went back to the condo. Emily had been fussing the entire time we were out and I needed to check her diaper and feed her. There was nothing left to be done but go back to my empty home.
Only it wasn’t empty.
Lily was in the kitchen and the smell of onions sautéing filled the air. I stormed toward her and she met me halfway across the dining room. I didn’t get a word out. She kissed me. I loved that so much! And I hated it! I pushed her away.
“I told you to get out. I don’t want you here.”
“You can’t just throw us out. We live here. Bruce just went out to get some wine for us for dinner.”
“Then I’ll leave.”
“What has gotten into you?”
“You were fucking my boyfriend!”
“I was making love to our boyfriend. We’ve all been having sex together for three months. What…?”
“All! Together! That’s what you told me. Never without me.”
“I don’t believe this!” Lily said. Her voice went up but it wasn’t quite a yell. “Do you mean to say we’re not allowed to have sex unless you are in the middle? When did that become a rule? It can only be a threesome? What was it that you and I did Wednesday after you got home from school? Is Bruce supposed to be upset because you and I made love?”
“That’s different! We’ve always… We were lovers first.”
“I get it. You can make love with me. You can make love with Bruce. We can all make love together. But Bruce and I aren’t supposed to do anything without you. No way! I love Bruce as much as you do. I love him as much as I love you. The world doesn’t revolve around you in the middle. I know you made love to Bruce while I was at work before he took you to class Tuesday. How upset am I supposed to be? This isn’t two couples and a trio. It’s three people who all love each other in any combination or it’s doomed. How can you be so selfish and self-centered?” Now she was approaching enough decibels that it was disturbing Emily again. I finished changing the diaper and shoved my baby’s face against my breast.
“I thought… I didn’t… I’m such a fuck-up!” I couldn’t believe that I’d misinterpreted our relationships so completely. I thought of Lily as my girlfriend and Bruce as my boyfriend, but it just didn’t connect that they were boyfriend and girlfriend, too. I thought they just accepted each other to be with me. I really was selfish and self-centered. I collapsed on the sofa with Emily at my breast and sobbed as I rocked back and forth.
“Oh, God, honey. Don’t break our family up because we’re acting like a family. We weren’t cheating on you. We both love you. Just like we love each other. All three of us in any combination. And all three of us love our baby. Don’t you see that?” Lily cried as she sat beside me. I let her put her arm around me and leaned against her. What was so different about Bruce and Lily making love with each other than about me making love with either Bruce or Lily? It made perfect intellectual sense.
“I just… I didn’t know… It hurt!” I moaned. “It just hurt.”
“Oh, my poor love. It never even occurred to you, did it? We should have talked about this at the very beginning,” Lily said. “I understand. A little. I was jealous at first. Jealous that you wanted Bruce more than me. Afraid that I’d be the one always left out. The maiden aunt who just hung around but wasn’t included. But you made me believe that I was still your love and your lover. We should have talked.”
Bruce came in at that moment and saw the tableau. He put the wine down at the door.
“Can I join you?” he asked. I was pretty sure he was clueless as to what was going on. He’d come in plenty of times while I was nursing Emily and Lily had her arm around me. He was a man. Of course he was clueless.
“Come cuddle up,” I said. “Let me apologize and try to pick up the pieces. I really don’t want to lose you. Either of you.” He scooted in close on the other side of me and put a hand on my thigh. Now that we were all on the couch, Emily settled down to serious sucking.
“What happened?” he asked. See? Clueless.
“It never occurred to our darling lover that we loved each other like she loves us and we love her.”
“You’re kidding,” Bruce breathed. Clueless. “You mean you thought I just tolerated Lily so I could be with you?”
“I figured it was a little more than that. All men want two women in bed,” I said a little caustically.
“That idea never occurred to me until you pushed it,” he said. “That’s the truth. But now… Jesus! I can’t imagine it any other way. I love you. I love Lily. I love Emily. How many times do I have to say that?”
“All the time,” I said. “I didn’t realize how insecure I was. I was off selling houses and starting a business, and going to school, and raising a daughter. I didn’t realize how insecure I was about love.”
Damn Jesse! I know I wasn’t always this way. I remember being enthused about love when Jesse and I started dating. And he pounded it all out of me. I couldn’t even tell my lovers why I was so insecure. Oh yeah, by the way, I lived another whole life and was sent back in time to relive the worst parts forever. Sure.
Only they weren’t the worst parts. Or not just the worst parts.
Sure, I woke up the morning after I was drugged, raped by my boyfriend, and got pregnant. But my choices had mostly been better than the ones I made the first time around. If I could keep from alienating two of the three people I loved most in the world. The past ten months had been wonderful. I had my little girl. My business was successful. I had a best friend for the first time in my life and I loved her. I met the man of my dreams and fell in love with him. And I was still hauling around emotional garbage from my first time around. I had to get over this.
“Um… I was kind of stupid and I said some things that I don’t really mean. I don’t want you to leave. Either of you. I want to love you both and I want you both to love each other like you love me. I had this picture in my head that doesn’t make sense. You were right, Lily. I was being selfish and self-centered. I was making everything revolve around me and I wasn’t being considerate of you. I’m sorry I reacted like I did. It was stupid and immature,” I said. I shifted Emily to the other breast. She was really hungry and emptying me out as fast as she could. I hoped my milk didn’t turn sour with the emotions I’d experienced.
I kissed my lovers. Lily went back to cooking. Bruce opened the bottle of wine and poured us each a glass. He might have poured a little more in my glass than I usually drank. But it was a cinch that after the dinner she was putting down tonight, Emily would sleep for hours. I saw Bruce glance at Lily with a raised eyebrow.
“Hey, you two!” I called. “Kiss each other. I’m sorry I interrupted earlier.” They both glanced at me and then he pulled her into a deep and sincere kiss. It was a thing of beauty.
Do I look like that when he kisses me? When she kisses me? Is it so beautiful as that? Does it make them jealous?
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