Unlucky In Love

UNLUCKY IN LOVE

BY

CARMEN DESOUSA

Unlucky in Love

Copyright© 2016 by Carmen DeSousa

Smashwords Edition

ISBN-10: 1-945143-00-2

ISBN-13: 978-1-945143-00-7

www.CarmenDeSousaBooks.com

PO Box 253

Delmont, PA 15626

U.S.A.

Cover Design:
Suzana
Stankovic at LSDdesign

This is a fictional work. All characters and
events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public
domain, are solely the concepts and products of the author’s
imagination or are used to create a fictitious story and should not
be construed as real. Any resemblance to real persons, living or
dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may
be used or reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form by any means, without the prior permission
in writing, except in the case of brief quotations, reviews, and
articles.

For any other permission, please email Ann at
[email protected].

Some lucky women meet the man of their
dreams and live happily ever after. Some lucky women focus on a
career and make their own happily ever after. And then some women
wake up after fifteen years of marriage and discover that their
luck just ran out … right into the arms of another woman.

Jana Embers isn’t one to sit back, though.
The first thing Jana realizes she needs to do is empty the joint
bank account, then she’s thinking she might take a tire iron to her
soon-to-be-ex-husband’s truck. After that, she’s not sure what
she’ll do … Maybe she’ll adopt a cat.

UNLUCKY IN LOVE

To love oneself is the beginning of a
life-long romance.

– Oscar Wilde

Temporary insanity, I thought as I swung the
tire iron I’d plucked out of my Toyota Tacoma against the
headlights of my husband’s four-wheel-drive Tundra. I felt bad for
hurting such a beautiful truck, but I’d done everything for that
lying, cheating, two-timing son-of-a-bitch, and this was the only
way I could think of to hurt him.

Certainly, even a fresh-out-of-college
attorney could get a jury of my peers to understand why I had to
take revenge against Dick Embers. And since I didn’t have the
stomach to pull a “Lorena Bobbitt” job, a “Carrie Underwood”
meltdown would have to suffice.

Maybe that would be my defense …
She’d
been listening to the radio, Your Honor,
my
attorney
would plead on my behalf
, and well, the next
thing Jana Embers knew, she’d come to with a tire iron
—

“Jana!” my husband’s shrill tone hit me just
as I smashed in the second taillight. “Oh, my God! Are you
insane?”

I looked up at my soon-to-be ex-husband and
forced a smile. “As a matter of fact, I am. Meet your creation,
Dick!” I swung the heavy steel rod down on the lip of the tailgate,
leaving an indentation that no dent-remover tool in the world would
ever be able to pull out.

Dick Embers pressed his clenched fists to
his head as he assessed the damage, but then stopped gawking and
chased me as I ran to the front of the truck. “Give me the tire
iron, Jana,” he said as calmly as I’d ever heard him speak.

I swung the heavy metal against the hood.
“Fifteen years! I’ve given you everything within me for fifteen
years. And you repay me by getting some bimbo pregnant.”

Dick raised his hand as though he expected
me to hand him my weapon. “It was a mistake, Jana. I didn’t mean
—”

“A mistake?” I swung my makeshift bat into
the chrome grille as though all the bases were loaded and I was
going for a
home run
. “Wearing different color
socks is a mistake.”
Whack
. “Sending a text to the wrong
person is a mistake.”
Whack
. “Sticking your penis in the
wrong woman isn’t a mistake,
Dick
!”

He dropped his head. “I’m sorry —”

“Sorry?” I jabbed at a piece of dangling
metal that hadn’t fallen. “Sorry because you got caught? Sorry
because you didn’t use a condom?” My eyes on him, I backed up to
the driver’s door, hopped up on the running board, and then bashed
the windshield with all my might. “I made you who you are, Dick
Embers. If it wasn’t for me, you never would have been promoted at
that stupid car dealership. I handled all of your
follow-up calls for your work
and still found time to
wash and cook and clean. I changed all the diapers, handled all the
discipline for our son …” I continued to bring down the iron rod on
the front window over and over, aggravated that the safety glass
refused to shatter. “We had sex all the time, as often as you
wanted …”

Dick took a step toward me, so I jumped off
the side step and held the tire rod on my shoulder, ready to swing
it
against
his head if he came near me.
Self-defense
, my
attorney
would call it.
Mrs. Jana Embers was in fear
of her life after she’d gone temporarily insane
.

“Please, Jana,” Dick whined.

“Please, what?” I screeched.

“Please forgive me.”

“And have to share you with a woman for the
next eighteen years while the child the two of you adulterers
created grows up? No. Uh-uh. Not this woman, Dick. I gave you
fifteen years. I’m certainly not stupid enough to give you another
day.”

I walked backward in the direction of my
Tacoma, surprised to see that every corridor of the apartment
building where Dick had moved into this week had people standing in
the doorways.

Ignoring the surrounding stares, wondering
why no one had called the police yet, I raised my chin to Dick as I
opened the door. “Oh, I’ll be filing for divorce first thing in the
morning.”

The crowd cheered, some whistled, one woman
called out, “Atta girl!”

Surprised, I twirled my weapon as though it
were a baton and curtsied. I skipped to my truck and hopped inside,
feeling the most alive I’d felt my entire life.

***

Shaking too violently to avoid spillage, I
used both of my hands to lift a cup of coffee to my lips, wondering
when the police would show up. The adrenaline from my crazed attack
on Dick’s Tundra had worn off, replaced with the fear that I might
be spending the next sixty days in jail.

I’d called my cousin on my way home in case
I needed someone to drive my fifteen-year-old son to
school
and then be available to bail me out of jail. Now
we just sat across from each other, staring in silence, fearing the
rap on the door that would surely come at any moment. I’d never
been incarcerated before. I wasn’t very large. So how would I
defend myself in jail? I wondered briefly if the arresting officer
would let me take my tire iron. Probably not. Especially since it
would be marked as exhibit
A
on the evidence table.

Angela reached for my quivering hands. “I’m
so sorry, Jana. Is there anything I can do? Is there something else
you need to handle? Not that I can beat up a truck or
anything.”

A laugh burst out of my mouth that quickly
turned into a sob. “No … but … thank you. Before I went on my
rampage, I went online and transferred every penny out of our joint
accounts, which sadly wasn’t as much as I’d hoped. I dumped every
penny into Eric’s account, since it was the only account that
didn’t have Dick’s name on it. Then I called all our credit card
companies, reported the cards as lost, and ordered new cards. I’m
not sure what else I can do.”

“So this is really happening?” Angela
asked.

I swiped at my tears. “What else was I
supposed to do, Ang? Not only did he cheat on me,
but
he also didn’t
use protection. God only knows what type of
disease that woman might have … or any other woman he might have
been screwing.”

Angela blew out a long breath. “You’ve just
been together so long. Heck, you’ve been married since I was in
grade school. I’ve known Dick almost my entire life.”

“Yeah … me too,” I said
on
a sigh. “Since I was nineteen.
Believe
me, I didn’t plan to be a single mother at
thirty-four. And what will I do to make money? I have a B.A. in
business, but what good is that when I haven’t worked outside the
home in fifteen years? I’ve spent nearly half of my life helping
him make it to the top. And then he —” I burst into tears again, as
I’d been doing for the last week. It surprised me that I had enough
water left in my body to shed any more tears.

Angela got up from her chair and wrapped her
arms around me. “I’m so sorry, Jana. I really am. I wish there
was
something I could say or do that would
make you feel better.”

I sniffed and looked up at my cousin, who
also happened to be my best friend. “Ever think about contract
killing?”

Angela laughed. “No, and I’m going to forget
that you asked that.”

“Okay, so if you won’t kill him, the least
you could do is help me figure out how to get back at him. And give
me some suggestions of what I can do to make money. I did a budget
last night, and even if Dick continues to pay the mortgage, and I
scrimp and scrape every dime, I have enough savings to pay for the
utilities and food for about a year. After that, I’ll have to hit
the streets.”

“From what you told me last night, I think
you already got back at him.” Angela sat back down, then picked up
her mug, smiling over her steaming hot latte. “You still look
pretty good, too. I’m nine years younger than you and I have more
gray hairs than you do. Maybe it’s the dark shade you got from your
mom, whereas I got the light hair from your father and my dad’s
side of the family. I bet you’d do rather well on the streets.”

I rolled my eyes, then swiped at my tears
again. “Not funny, Ang. Seriously. It’s not like I can go back to
cocktail waitressing. Who wants to see a thirty-four-year-old mom
in short-shorts and a tank top?”

My cousin jumped up from her chair. “I got
it! Remember when I told you about Jenny, my friend from college
who’s doing so well, the one who started that couponing
website.”

I dropped my head into my palm, rubbing my
temples with my middle finger and thumb, trying to massage away a
headache that was forming from lack of sleep … and stress … and
probably because I hadn’t eaten anything in days. Not to mention
that the continuous waterworks had more than likely left me
dehydrated. “I don’t even like clipping coupons for myself.”

Angela waved her hands as she paced around
my kitchen. “It’s more than that. It’s not really about the coupons
as much as it is about the products she displays on her website.
She’s an affiliate for several major websites. And get this,”
Angela leaned across the counter in front of me, “she makes up to
ten percent when someone from her site buys a product, any product.
It doesn’t even have to be the item she’s advertising.”

I
sniffed,
then cocked
my head. “Go on …”

“Well, you just have to find something you
love, and then start blogging about it. From there, I guess you can
add all the links.”

I huffed out a breath. “What do I love? I’ve
never done anything. I know how to be a wife and mother. Other than
that, I don’t even have any hobbies. I’ve been too busy raising
Eric and taking care of my stupid unfaithful husband.”

Ignoring my complaint, Angela slid onto a
barstool, then rested her head on her folded hands. “There’s gotta
be something, Jana.”

“I like wine …” I ventured, thinking a tall
goblet of Merlot would taste really good about now, but Angela
would probably start to question me if I pulled out a bottle of
wine at five a.m. “You and I have always enjoyed going to those
wine-tasting events. And I’m great at picking out the most
expensive.”

Angela nodded, then shook her head. “You
are, but I don’t think that’s a good idea. You know, with your
mother’s history … and Aunt Heidi.”

I didn’t want to think about my mother. Not
that I knew her anyway. She’d been dead since I was in diapers. My
aunt, on the other hand, had been the closest thing to a mother I’d
known. But in the last year or so, I’d only seen her a handful of
times. Angela and I both knew she had a drinking problem, but it
seemed to have gotten worse lately.

Not that I was an alcoholic, but with the
history of drug and alcohol abuse in both of my parents’ families,
it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to take up a hobby that
required me to drink on a daily basis.

“Yeah … I guess you’re right,” I said.

“Oh!” Angela jumped up again. Even pregnant,
the woman had more energy than my son, and that was saying a lot.
“Reading! You love to read!” she exclaimed with conviction, as
though my love of reading would solve all of my problems. Truly,
reading had helped me cope when I was a teenager, but I doubted I
could disappear into make
believe
as I’d done
when I was an adolescent.