Ex-Terminator Life After Marriage (3 page)

S
ylvia stood in the middle of the room, her reflection cast on the hardwood floor. Her audience seemed captivated as if she was on display at the Louvre museum, although she had yet to utter a word. Their eerie silence left her speechless wishing the spotlight were somewhere else instead of on her. Most of the ladies were friends, but serving your soul on a platter for everyone to judge took more than a little bit of courage.

Clearing her throat, Sylvia looked into the eyes of the eager faces. “Hi, I’m Sylvia St. James, and I’ve been an
Ex
for seven months.”
There, it was out
, Sylvia thought. All of a sudden she stepped into her role and felt her self-confidence return.

“I’ll tell you, this has been a wild day. I was trying to get to the hairdresser so I could look fabulous for you ladies tonight, and before I got out of the house, I lost my keys and tore my stockings, and when I finally got in the car, I broke a nail. Everything that could go wrong went wrong this morning. And it wouldn’t have been so wild if I had Adonis—my Ex—here to remind me every five seconds to check and make sure I had everything. I’m not used to thinking for myself. My Ex thought I was dumb and stupid, and I have more credentials than he does.”

The ladies snickered.

“Go ahead and get a good laugh in,” Sylvia continued. “I’m sure you’re saying to yourselves, ‘No wonder he left her.’”

More snickering.

“But it’s okay. It is…really okay. I’m here, and I’m glad you all are here. We are going to become very good friends. We are going to be an alliance of sistahs coming back from the divorce courts with our steel-toed shoes on. Yes, we are straight-from-the-divorce-court sistahs looking for healing—emotional healing, sexual healing, some kind of healing.”

“Yeah!” the ladies shouted in unison, raising their fists.

Her voice a tad bit softer, Sylvia continued. “We all have a common trait: we are Exes with an Ex-File. It’s time to clean up our Ex-Files and close them forever.”

“
Yeah
!” Rachel screamed.

Sylvia gazed out of the corner of her eye at Rachel. Rachel’s nerve had been pricked. She was the loudest one in the room. Sylvia smiled.

“How are we going to purge our Ex-Files? We will purge our hearts and souls, our minds, our anger. We will come ready for an extreme makeover. In doing so, we’ll have to ask ourselves some very uncomfortable questions…questions about our exes and ourselves. The only way to heal is to purge those old feelings and keep walking straight ahead—run if you have to—never looking back and risking falling back into the clutches of the Ex-demons that constantly tell you that you’re no good, you’re too fat, I don’t love you no more, you can’t live without me, nobody wants you.”

Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap
.

“Let’s close the Ex-Files,” Rachel sang out.

“Yeah, Ex him out!” Claudette screamed at the top of her lungs.

Sylvia looked around the room at the four women who were assembled there. Though they were from all walks of life, they all had something in common. They all had an
Ex
. If they could go back in time, they would probably tear their Ex’s heart out and jump on it to assuage their grief.

Sylvia realized she needed these women, maybe more than they needed her. She needed to reach out to someone—a shoulder to lean on. If it was four sets of shoulders, all the better. She needed to expose her files. She needed to get rid of her anger. She needed help…a crutch, and this meeting was just the thing.

Just as the applause subsided, Sylvia began again.

“We all seem to have the same objective—liberation, freedom, freedom to move on, freedom from being bound by the drudgery of our divorces, freedom from our Exes. You’ve got to leave your burdens on the table before your shackles can be loosed. And this is our aim, our goal. Are you ready?”

The four women applauded again, and Sylvia joined them. Their claps intensified. They sounded like six thousand women at a T.D. Jakes “Thou Art Loosed” convention. Finally, they fell silent again.

“So what I want you to do tonight, if you feel comfortable, I want each one of you to tell us as much as you would like to share about how you got here. You have to shake it off; you have to release it in order to move on.

“You might say, what can a support group do for me? You know, I think about the blues. I think about B.B. King—my man done left me and gone. But I’m going to tell you all right now: I’m not going down like that. I don’t need a man to survive, I’ve got myself.”

“YES,” the ladies said in unison.

“I ain’t goin’ down like that!” Claudette Beasley roared, her blonde braids swinging about her face.

“I don’t know about y’all, but I need a man,” Mona interjected. “I’ve got to have a place for my twins to cuddle up to at night.” Mona held her breasts in both hands. “But that freedom you’re talking about, Sylvia, I’m all for that.”

“Hmmph, she’ll smother the poor fellow with those silicon implants.”

“I heard that, Claudette,” Mona said as she touched the tip of Claudette’s nose with her pointed finger. She removed her finger and caught one of Claudette’s braids in her hand and looked at it a moment. “You think blondes have more fun? My twins have more than their share of fun.”

Claudette rolled her eyes. Sylvia glared at both of them before continuing.

“I woke up that morning in a peaceful, tranquil mood. I remember the day so vividly; it was a couple of days before Valentine’s Day. When I focused my eyes, I found him staring at me from the foot of the bed—like something was on his mind but he didn’t have the heart or the balls to tell me. I watched him as he continued to stare, then dropped his head and grabbed his chin as if the matter was too complex for even him to comprehend.

“I sat up and asked, ‘What is it, Adonis? Why are you staring at me like that?’

“‘Just thinking.’ The two lone words fell from his mouth as if someone had slapped him on the back and forced them out.

“I knew I was in trouble; I had seen the look before. But I, with all the education and the good sense God gave me to know right from wrong, good from evil, I had no earthly idea how much trouble I was really in. The kind of trouble that makes you go and grab a gun and kill someone because if it wasn’t for them, you wouldn’t be in any trouble. The kind of trouble that makes you curse out everybody and use words you’ve never uttered in your life—and in the morning you can’t remember a thing and wonder why in the world no one can stand your ass.

“But Adonis didn’t release his troubled mind that morning. He kept it bottled up and left my brain twisted in agony because I just wasn’t getting the clues he laid out for me. I would have done better playing
Jeopardy
.

“You all asleep? It’s so quiet in here.”

“No,” Mona said, shaking her head in a continuous motion.

She, Rachel, Claudette and Ashley sat glued to their seats. They had become transfixed, drawn into Sylvia’s Lifetime movie that played from the pages of her broken heart. Mona’s pumps lay on their sides and her bare toes kneaded the carpet, while the others laced their fingers together ready to brace at the moment of discovery.

“Continue,” Rachel encouraged. “You might have to get me a blanket and a bowl of popcorn. I’m in the room with you, girl. I’m waiting for Adonis to drop the bomb on you. We’re ready to dance on his ass because we know that the news is gonna be bad.” The others nodded in agreement. “So what happened?”

“He said, ‘I’ve got to go to work.’ And he headed out the room without his usual kiss good-bye. I screamed, ‘
Adonis,
come back here.
Adonis
, come back here.’ A few seconds later, his body framed the doorway. He had a severe frown on his face like he didn’t want to be there. He said he was going to be late for work, but I told him he started this mess and he wasn’t leaving without giving me a reasonable answer.

“Y’all, he looked at me as if I didn’t belong there…like I was some kind of stranger that he didn’t know how to tell to get out of his house. His nose was twisted up like I had some kind of stench.

“It was horrible the way he kept looking at me, and then all of a sudden, as if someone took the cork out of his mouth, he said, ‘I want a divorce.’ Then I heard myself pleading and begging while he told me that he didn’t want me anymore…that I was too fat…that I was too stuck on myself…that I spent way too much money…that I this and I that. I wanted to slap that smug look off his face, but I kept begging and he walked out the door.

“But what I didn’t know until later was that he left me for his sorry ex-wife, Veronica. They were married three years before I met Adonis, but they weren’t even married a year before he found her in bed with someone else. I fell in love with him, and we got married two years later. And to think he went back to that stank ho after all these years.”

Sylvia’s hands flew to her face. Rachel went to her side as the tears began to flow. She waved her off, wiped her face and looked into the faces of the other ladies. Rachel sat back down. Sylvia sniffed.

“I’m going to be all right, now.” Sylvia started waving her hand in the air. “I vow that I will never look back. From this day forward, I am moving straight ahead. I don’t care if my
Ex
marched in here right now, declaring his love for me, and told me he wanted me back. I don’t care if he was crawling on all fours, I will never go back. I have been hurt by love. I’m through. I’m closing this chapter of my life. I need you ladies to help me. I need you to be there for me because I want to make it.

“The pain is there, and it’s okay to grieve. It’s time to get it out of our systems. It’s time to acknowledge where we are, then move on.”

All was silent. Each person looked at the next and finally Rachel rose from her seat and embraced Sylvia. Rachel stood and faced the others while they looked back at her expectantly. She hoped that she didn’t have anything on her teeth and that she didn’t look as scared as she felt. The way they were looking at her, she wasn’t sure.

She cleared her throat and closed her eyes, trying to control her nervousness. The moment of truth had arrived, and she was willing to tell her story to this now-intimate group of women because she was ready to get on with her life.

Ding, dong.
For a moment, everyone’s attention was diverted toward the hallway.

R
achel stood with her head bowed and waited for Sylvia to return. Mona and Claudette chatted with each other, while Ashley drummed her fingers on her glass. There was conversation in the hallway, then Sylvia’s light laughter. Footsteps from more than one person approached the group, and there next to Sylvia stood a tall, handsome gentleman with a well-trimmed mustache.

Mona immediately jumped up from her seat before Sylvia could introduce him.

“Ladies, this is a friend of mine, Marvin Thomas. He is the CEO of Thomas Technology Solutions, TTS for short.” Rachel thought she saw him blush. “He’s recently divorced, so I invited him tonight…that’s if you ladies don’t have a problem with a man being in our midst.”

“Noooooo,” everyone said in unison barely listening to Mona but sizing up the new member of the group.

“Well, he’s an Ex and has every right to be here,” Mona said.

“Thank you, Mona,” Sylvia said. She introduced each lady to Marvin and brought him up to speed.

Rachel’s mind wasn’t on what she would say or that she would be the center of attention in a few moments. Her eyes were fixed on the man in the Armani suit. His cocoa-brown skin was a chocoholic’s downfall and his dreamy hazel bedroom eyes almost made Rachel lose her balance, but she noticed that he still wore his wedding ring.

When Rachel came up for air she realized that everyone was looking at her.

“Why are you all staring at me?”

“Why were you looking as if you were lost in space?” Sylvia asked.

Rachel was embarrassed and dared not look in Marvin’s direction. She shook her head, cleared her throat again, and stood still in the middle of the room. She wasn’t sure she could share her pain with the group now that Marvin had arrived. He made her off-balance. Why? She wasn’t sure. Rachel’s nervousness returned, but she needed to move on.

Rachel’s hair swung as she surveyed the group. She avoided looking at Marvin but felt his eyes on her. Eyes remote, Rachel took in a deep breath, stroked her top teeth with her tongue and began.

“Hi, my name is Rachel Washington, and I’ve been an Ex for three months. In fact, I’m an
Ex
for the third time. I guess I can’t keep a man.”

Rachel heard grunts in the audience, but when she looked at Marvin, he was staring straight through her soul. She shifted back and forth and clasped her hands together in front of her. If she was going to get through this, she had better do it now. Every eye was on her—waiting for her tale of woe, her tale of deceit, abuse and finally eviction from a marriage that was doomed from the start.

“Reuben and I met on my birthday, Christmas Day, four years ago at my second ex’s girlfriend’s house. I’m not going to even try and explain to you why I was there because it’s not even important to this story. The main thing is that I met Reuben. He was very nice to me, and when he heard it was my birthday, he turned a Christmas Day celebration into my birthday celebration. Imagine me and Jesus celebrating together.”

Rachel was silent for a moment, searching for words, lost in a former place and time.

“Reuben was so attentive and charming; he made my day so special.” She held her head down, remembering.

“He asked to see me again, and I agreed right away. I thought what a wonderful birthday present. A new friend, possibly a new relationship, and who knows what else? It was the latter that I’ll never forget.

“After four months of dating, Reuben asked me to marry him. I had reservations because I had recently been delivered from an abusive marriage and didn’t think I was ready to carry my baggage to someone else’s house. I enjoyed dating Reuben. We went to plays, dinner, movies, and football games—he was a serious Atlanta Falcons fan, at least he appeared to be—and he always brought me flowers. He introduced me to his mother, which only proved that I was a special friend, but I never figured him for marriage.

“We stole away to Vegas and became man and wife. We had four absolutely fabulous days there. What I didn’t know was that when the honeymoon ended, which I thought could have lasted a lifetime, so did the marriage. I was so enamored with the idea that I had finally found my soul mate, my true love, that I never saw the signs that were there from the very beginning.”

Rachel paused again, trying to build up confidence and the will to continue her story. Marvin was no longer a concern, only the desire to purge the demon that made her a prisoner in her own body.

“I was so blind, a year passed before it became clear to me that the man I married was using me. I provided the roof over his head, the food he ate, the clothes on his back. I was his drug dealer, I was his whore. I gave him everything he asked for without ever questioning him with the where, what, when and especially the why. And when I didn’t comply—” Rachel looked down at the floor, then looked up into each person’s face in turn—“he beat the hell out of me. The sad thing is I allowed it to happen.”

There was a gasp from the group—each person covering their mouth, except Marvin, with their hand.

Rachel coughed and scratched her head. “Do you mind if I sit down? I’ve got to get this out now that the iceberg has melted.”

Sylvia pulled up a chair, and Rachel fell into it. She crossed her legs and leaned to one side, caressing the arm of the chair.

“I didn’t know Reuben at all. I should have known that birds of a feather flock together. Didn’t I meet him in the company of my second ex, Charles? I only went to Christmas dinner because my girlfriend Sherry, Charles’ new girlfriend, had begged me to come. Reuben and Charles probably belonged to the ‘men who abuse women’ society.

“When we got married, all the dinners, flowers and movies ceased to exist. I was so stupid and naïve that I wasn’t aware that Reuben neither owned nor rented the place he was living in—he was house-sitting for a friend in the military who was stationed in Germany. I never even thought about it until the divorce, when he had to tell the truth about his assets—or lack thereof. It never occurred to me that when we married and Reuben moved into my house that I was supporting a freeloading, didn’t-have-a-job junkie.

“I don’t know where the courage to leave Reuben came from. Someone somewhere was praying for me. I never shared any of this with my parents because they were done with me. They said I was wasting my life on the first two husbands, and time proved them right. And now I know it was best that they didn’t know about number three.

“It was a rainy day in September. I had a terrible cold and left work early so that I could go home and nurse myself back to health. I remember when I drove up in the driveway, there were a couple of strange cars parked in front of the house. I cursed because not only did I have a terrible cold, but a migraine was threatening, too. The last thing I wanted to deal with were Reuben’s freeloading friends up in my house.

“Woooo,” Rachel sighed. “The key was barely in the lock when the front door flew open. Some crazy lunatic rushed past me. I looked on in horror because in the middle of my living room floor on my expensive Chinese rug were these three women and three men bouncing around on each other like monkeys…”

“You mean they were having sex?” Ashley gasped.

“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean,” Rachel said, a little annoyed. “Only they were all twisted and tangled up…you know…an orgy.”

“Eewwww,” Ashley, Mona and Claudette chorused. Ashley crinkled up her nose in disgust. Marvin looked at Rachel longingly.

Rachel pointed her toes straight ahead. She dropped her elbows to her knees and rested her head in the palms of her hands.

“And Reuben, well, he was sitting in a corner with a high-as-a-kite eighteen-year-old freebasing like they were taking medicine for the cold that I had. I was so mad. I was freaking
mad
.”

Rachel jumped out of the chair. Her hands flew left and right, then around in a circle to prove her point.

“I was soooooooo mad that I started swinging. I hit Reuben upside his head, and the stupid girl he was with started to cry which made my head hurt worse. And when your head hurts, you’ve got to hurt somebody.

“Yeah, they thought I was crazy. I hauled off and hit a home run on that girl’s head. ‘That’s Mary’s baby,’ somebody said, ‘and I said I don’t care whose baby it is.’ She had to get up out of my house. In fact, all of y’all get up out of my house. I laid some cussing and swinging on those folks, and before I could count to ten nobody was left in the house but me and Reuben—he wasn’t gonna be there for long.

“I snatched whatever I saw of Reuben’s stuff, opened the door, and threw it to the wind. You know the nig…I mean the brother had the nerve to try and raise up on me, pointing his finger all up in my face and shouting obscenities at me in
my
house. But yours truly pushed his ass through that open door, closed it, and wiped my hands of him. I know some of you didn’t think gullible little Rachel had it in her, but it took a whole lot of being used, being walked over, pretending that it wasn’t so, pretending that our marriage was real and denying what everyone was trying to tell me…that the man I had married was a no-good drug addict and I was his meal ticket for all his vices before I sent him packing.”

Rachel took a deep breath and put her hands on her hips. She was exhausted, emotionally spent. She took another deep breath and placed her hand across her chest.

“I tried,” Rachel cried. “I tried to be a good wife. All I wanted was for someone to love me.”

Sylvia was at her side as Rachel wept openly. Another group hug was in order—even Marvin joined in.

The room was silent. When Rachel’s sobs subsided, Sylvia helped her back into the chair. Rachel looked up, her head moving from side to side. She took another deep breath and sniffed.

“I didn’t tell anyone; I knew they’d find out soon enough. And the streets proved me right. I know that I’ve been called everything from crazy to stupid to don’t have good sense, but that was the old Rachel. Today, I’m taking my life back. I’m going to close my Ex-Files for good.”

“Good for you,” the women shouted.

And then there was this handsome man sitting in front of her named Marvin who had come to join their group. Rachel wasn’t sure what the look on his face meant, but she wasn’t going to be sidetracked by a friendly smile, a seductive wink or even a well-maintained body. She wasn’t going to put up with any more crap from any man. Sylvia’s voice brought her out of her daze.

“It’s time to take a break. Let’s close the Files for a moment. We’ve got a long way before they will be completely clean. This is a start. Now let’s eat up. I’ve got plenty in the kitchen.”

“I’m starved,” Claudette said, “and I need a cigarette.”

“Me, too,” Ashley chimed in, “but I can do without the smokes.”

“I know something smells good,” Mona said.

“You ready to eat, Rachel?” Sylvia asked. “It might be a little messy, but I’ve got ribs.”

Rachel shook her head no. She closed her eyes for a second. When she looked up, Marvin was standing in front of her offering his hand.

“I think if you eat a little something, you might feel better,” came his baritone voice.

Rachel’s hand shook like a palm tree in a hurricane as she tried to take his outstretched one. She wiped her eyes with the back of her other hand and said, “Okay.”