Chapter Twenty Six - Louis Berry's Novel - Erstwhile

Chapter Twenty-Six

 While Richard was hunting, Susan sat in her chair on the beach. The cool gulf breeze seemed to whisk away the torrent of her life. She sat sideways with her back against one arm and her legs dangling over the other. It was a bit cool for her taste. She and Richard had allowed the summer to pass without enjoying the benefits that came with living with the gulf just outside their back door. She wore a pair of khaki shorts, a sleeveless t-shirt and a printed blouse, unbuttoned. Her flip-flops slapped against her heels as she flexed her toes. The sun was low in the sky as it made its annual migration toward the southern hemisphere casting elongated shadows onto the sand. Susan watched the silhouette of her feet dance across the ground beneath her. A few old dance steps from an aged ballerina effortlessly graced the beach. After she had gone through all the steps she had ever learned for the third time, she leaned her head against the wide arm of the chair and closed her eyes. It was one of the loneliest times she had ever experienced. This was not her home. It was not her great aunt’s store. Nothing about her life seemed to fit her circumstances. Ralph and Courtney were familiar and made her happy, but they could not satiate her needs the way cocaine could. She removed the plastic baggy that Emma had given her from her pocket. Its contents were sparse and she scraped the tiny silver spoon against the sides and bottom to fill the bowl. She inhaled, but the drug was not as effective. Unpleasant thoughts still clouded her mind. Her desire for more exceeded that which was readily available. Emma wasn’t at home and she had nowhere else to turn, so she stayed on the beach and continued to search for the remedy that would make her whole again.
With her consciousness drifting to decades earlier when Susan was in fifth grade. She noticed a group of girls in one corner of the playground at school and was hurt that she had not been asked to join them. So, she boldly walked over uninvited. When she approached, she realized what they were doing. They sat in a circle. Each girl wore shorts and took turns pulling back on the legs of their pants, exposing themselves to the others. Over the years she had taken pride in the fact that she was not invited to participate because, as one of the girls told her later, she was a good girl.
 When she entered puberty and began to transition into a beautiful woman, people began to treat her differently. Boys gave her more attention and her girl-friends gave her less. Lifelong friends did not want her around because they didn’t appreciate how their boy-friends looked longingly at her. She couldn’t even es-cape being outcast in her own home. Sally, her portly older sister, wanted nothing to do with her for the same reasons. While she enjoyed the benefits of being a physical beauty, Sally trained her mind so successfully that she had been awarded advanced degrees in Physics and had become a tenured professor at Cal-Tech. It never occurred to her that after graduating with a Bachelors degree in Early Childhood Education she went to work as a cocktail waitress because she saw herself as a beauty and nothing more.
 She struggled to justify so much time spent at dance class when she could have been better preparing herself for life. Susan dedicated herself to the discipline, taking lessons from the age of three until she was sixteen. A slipped disk in her back dashed all of her dreams of appearing on Broadway. It was a blow that set her back emotionally, until she tried cocaine for the first time. After that, her happiest moments included being placed in the company of men. Her dance for Richard on the beach was the last time she felt fulfilled. It was not only a performance for him, but them all. She wasn’t sure what that meant for their future together.
She never had a steady boyfriend, and hung out with the same group of people, usually at some secluded spot. They had things to do in which no one else could be involved. Susan worried that she may have done things while she was in an altered state that she did not remember. Most of her high school days were spent on the fringe. Why couldn’t she share these things with Emma? Surely her friend thought Susan was some sort of square-peg.
The cool fall afternoon breeze and the warmth of the Florida sun offered a pleasant contrast, as the affect of each ebbed and waned, never overpowering the other. Susan closed her eyes behind her sunglasses. The steamy hot days of summer with a beach filled with people had given way to a more desolate landscape.
Susan’s only other serious relationship with a man had been with Courtney. It ended when she found out that he had been cheating on her. The ring on her finger then, and the one now, meant something to her. She had taken each commitment very seriously, whether it be to dance or to partners. It became clear to her that nothing was meant to last forever.
She reached into the coin pocket of her shorts, removed the ring that Courtney had given her eighteen years earlier and slid it onto her ring finger, covering the two that Richard had given her. Why had she kept it all these years? Did she honestly hope that one day they would be reunited? She had offered to give it back to him, but he insisted she keep it. Maybe he hoped they would be together again, too.
The breakup was an ugly one. A single mother, Karen, who was in the young couple’s circle of friends, became pregnant. Something deep down told Susan that Courtney was the father. Maybe it was something he said. Maybe it was the manner in which he doted over Karen during her pregnancy. All she knew was that he spent a lot more time with Karen during those nine months than he did with her. What a fool I was. Susan recalled how she attributed all the attention Courtney gave their friend in need to his generous and caring nature. After all, he was the one who convinced Susan that she needed to place herself in rehab. He was just looking out for those in need. Yeah, right!
It was Richard’s turn to trample her heart. Was he sleeping with Talitha? The vision of her husband sleeping with that beautiful young girl gave her visceral pains. She always appreciated the care he took when making love to her and could not stomach the same attention being given to another woman.
 It was not the first time Susan felt he had neglected to care about what she was going through. Not long after they met, she knew she needed to tell him of an incident that happened during her teen years. Her date forced his intentions upon her after she politely refused his advances. Richard listened and calmly sup-ported her and asked if there was anything he could do to help her deal with the emotional stress of that night. The fact that he supported her was not important, she was filled with anger and wanted him to be angry, too. He just did not care enough to understand how that night affected her.
“Hello,” a man’s voice startled her.
She opened her eyes and sat up in her chair. Standing before her was a young man, a handsome man. “Hello,” she said.

He wore a baggy bathing suit and an unbuttoned white linen shirt, revealing a well-developed abdomen, and had equally muscular legs. Susan appreciated how his thighs tapered down and around his knee-caps, as did his calves to his thin, athletic ankles. The young man walked over to Richard’s chair and removed the carryall that contained towels, sun block, reading material and other beach essentials. “Do you mind if I sit down?” he asked, as he sat down.
“Not at all.”
“Do you live here?”
“Yes,” Susan replied, avoiding pointing to the house behind them.
“My name is Charles Coleman.”
“I’m Susan.”
The man looked out over the gulf waters. “I just love this time of year. The beach is deserted and it’s so uncluttered. It’s almost as if you have it all to yourself.”
Susan nodded. “Do you live here?”
“No. I’m from Birmingham. I always come to Erstwhile some time after Labor Day to take advantage of the serenity.”
Susan shifted in her chair to face Charles. “Are you married?”
“No. I have too much life to live to tie myself down like that.” He stared at her. “Has anyone ever told you that you look just like Susan St. James?”
She blushed. “No, but I’ve heard Andy McDowell, before.”
Charles nodded and smiled. “Yeah, I can see that.”
Susan volunteered, “I had aspirations of a career on Broadway.” She was not sure why she was so quick to open herself to this man, but something about having a personal conversation felt good.
“You certainly have the looks and the physique. Why didn’t you pursue it?”
“I slipped a disk in my back that ended my dance career.”
“That must have been hard on you.”
“It was. Without dance to occupy my time, it wasn’t long before I began getting into trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Oh, nothing really bad.” Susan thought better about revealing her weakness to him. “You haven’t asked me if I was married.”
Charles shrugged his shoulders. “It doesn’t real-ly matter, does it?”
“In the grand scheme of things, I guess not,” she said, giddily as she began to acknowledge her primal attraction to this man.
“Tell me, what’s missing in your life?”
Susan drew a deep breath. Fear caused her to retreat from the position in which she found herself. “I can’t think of anything. I’ve got it pretty good.”
Not deterred, Charles employed a new tactic. “Well, I’m not sure how your husband feels about you, but I can tell you that I am in awe of the woman I see before me. I can tell that you have a strength about you that allows you to make your own decisions in life. I bet your husband is afraid of you, isn’t he? I’d also bet that he tries to spend as much time away from you as he can because you have effectively emasculated him.”
“He hasn’t been around much lately,” she con-ceded.
The door to a carnal experience opened. The two sat and talked for hours, drawing emotionally closer to one another as time passed. Although Charles was young, she thought he was wise in the ways of the world, and he knew how to communicate just what he could do for Susan. She needed to and wanted to feel like the woman she once was; the woman she was for Richard, Ralph and Courtney.
They stood and walked over the dunes to the house. Charles followed closely behind her, grinning with satisfaction at another conquest. Susan negotiated the first couple of steps leading from the beach to the deck and removed her over-shirt, exposing her shoulders and back. Charles’ curiosity was piqued. He was a little nervous, because he wanted to perform well for her, but his overriding sentiment was of the conquest and experiencing someone new.
Susan reached into her pocket and removed the key to the house. She unlocked and opened the door. “Come on in,” she said, playfully.
He followed her inside. She stopped briefly in the middle of the living room, unsure of whether decorum would allow her to simply walk straight into the bedroom. She turned, faced Charles, and tiptoed to reach up and kiss him. The two kissed for a few minutes, but both knew they were not fooling the other. Their embrace was meant to create a feeling of history together.
Susan pulled away, took Charles by the hand and led him into her and Richard’s bedroom. Suddenly, the argument the couple had in their bedroom came to mind. She stopped, turned and led him back across the living room and into the guest room.
They entered the room and Susan turned on the light. Charles walked around to the far side of the room, removed his shirt and tossed it across the back of the chair in the corner. He picked up the picture of Susan and Courtney as he lay down on the bed. “Is this your husband?” he asked.
“No,” she replied, realizing at that moment that Richard must have seen the picture. Susan had not thought about it since she placed it on the bedside table months ago.
Charles laughed. “You’re my kind of woman. Just get up in his face,” he held up the picture, referring to it, “and rub this in it.” He laughed again as he placed the picture back down.
For the briefest of moments, Susan had doubts about Charles, but no more doubt than she had about her relationship with Richard. She went with what she knew would make her feel good.
It did not take long before the experienced couple was naked and in each other’s arms. Lovemaking with Charles was enjoyable, but clinical. He stimulated her here and there, each time waiting for a reaction to assess his performance. It lacked the feeling that Susan craved when making love. When he was done on top, he rolled her over. When he was done from behind, he rolled her onto her back. The rhythm was harsh and lacked sensitivity. His touch had no feeling; he groped and grabbed her everywhere. It seemed to be more about physical accomplishment than emotional climax. The void in Susan’s psyche grew.