“I’m starting to feel like I know you a little,” Beverly said when they were finished telling about themselves and a silence ensued. “I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”
“It is what it is,” Bill said. “It’s neither good nor bad.”
“If we stays as friends.”
“Yup.”
“Or friends with extras. Ever had that?”
“Actually, I have,” Bill said. “Her name was Arlene and we got to be friends because we had things in common that had happened to us in our lives.”
“Think your wife knows you cheat?” Beverly asked.
“Think your husband knows you know?”
“Don’t think he has a clue.”
“Same,” Bill said.
“Don’t you feel guilty?”
“Sometimes.”
“Aren’t you ashamed?”
“Sometimes.”
“Well?”
Well, Bill wasn’t giving anything up. He sat there next to Beverly having told her what he’d told her and listened to what she said. She had an ax to grind. He didn’t have anything invested here except maybe a budding friendship. They’d shared some fun and if that’s all it ended up being, then that was all it would be.
“Well what?”
“Do you care about me?” Beverly asked.
“In what way?”
“In any way?”
“Sure I do. I care that your feelings are hurt and you’re unhappy and you’re undecided about which way to make a move. I care so much that I’m trying not to influence you or push you in any directions. You have to do what you have to do, whatever that is, for yourself.”
“And you?”
“Me? I came up here to Cleveland hoping to get away from the extracurricular activities. I came up here swearing that I wasn’t gonna fool around anymore. That went far.” He laughed, more to himself than anything else. Then he thought about it a moment.
“Maybe it don’t mean shit to a train,” he said. “Maybe it means everything. I never thought I’d be working in kitchens. I never thought I’d be desired by the opposite sex. In college I couldn’t get any. In high school I didn’t get any. I had a girlfriend and we did just about everything but. Then I get to the kitchen and boom, it’s like everyone and their grandmother want me. Go figure.”
“You’re a good looking guy. You’d be a catch if you weren’t married. Waitresses just want to say they did the cook and maybe get a steak every now and then.”
“How’d you meet your husband?” Bill asked.
“Old story. We met in grade school. He pulled my hair and I punched him. I stuck my tongue out at him and told him I hated him.
“We were in the same classes all the way through middle school. We made out twice in middle school, both times at a party when they played kissing games, first time when we had to go into the closet and stay there together for five minutes and kiss the whole time.
“We went out in high school. One night he had beer and we got a little drunk and while I can’t say he forced me, I can say everything just came together for him. He wanted to get laid, I wanted to lose my virginity and the rest is history.”
“Fill it in for me. How do you go from losing your virginity to getting married?”
“I wasn’t an easy girl. I wasn’t giving it up. He knew that. Really, he was okay. And then he hit me in the heart. He said that day he pulled my hair way back when, he already loved me and he never stopped.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. Wow. So we started being serious and enjoying each other, and then bang, I got pregnant and we got married.”
Bill thought about curves. He thought about how life continually throws curve balls at you. He thought about the curve balls in his life. He saw the one Beverly told him about. Then he wondered why her husband was having an affair, but as he wondered it, he knew the answer.
