LITMIR.BIZ

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go off like a firecracker and start complaining that Charlie had no ambition, that his friends were boring and ignorant, that Shoreville was no place to live, and on and on. One day Charlie had finally had enough. He looked at her and said, “Enough, dammit! Look Mary Jo, why in the hell did you marry me? You have known me since high-school. You knew my parents. You know all these people in Shoreville just like I do. You must have known I had no intention to leave this place just to suck up to a bunch of people I don’t know. If I had a good reason to move to Wilmington, I would do it. But I don’t think being around what you call the ‘right people’ is a good reason for moving and I can tell you right now that I am not, read my lips, not going to do it. So quit the nagging. I’ve tried to understand your ambition. I’m ambitious too, but I have limits. You don’t Mary Jo. You want to use people to satisfy some sick need to lord over others. That is not my bag now and it never has been and you, of all people, should know it.” He calmed down and continued, “Look Mary Jo, I’m doing just fine at Shaw. I’ve been promoted twice. I’m perfectly satisfied with the pace of my career. Nobody is telling me I should ‘show up’ more and change my lifestyle. You’re making enemies for yourself, Mary Jo, and unnecessarily. We’re not competing with anyone here. Relax.” Charlie was being as accommodating as he felt like being and his patience had worn thin.

      Mary Jo responded to Charlie by simply saying “Humph” and stomping off to bed. Charlie stayed up and watched TV for a while and when he got to bed, Mary Jo was either sound asleep or pretending to be.

      After that evening, Mary Jo started going over to Wilmington to go shopping as often as she could. She ran up credit card bills that after pleading with her to “cool it” Charlie would pay with reluctant chagrin. She took bridge lessons and joined a woman’s bridge club in Wilmington. She joined a gym in Wilmington and started hanging around with some of the wives who went there. She was trying to advance Charlie’s career in spite of him and she was not succeeding. The corporate wives she met were more interested in their own husbands’ careers. They sniped at Mary Jo behind her back and began to avoid her.

      The inevitable happened when Mary Jo met a recently divorced attorney at a Wilmington restaurant. It was just what she thought she wanted – an ambitious successful husband and she started an affair. The lawyer, none too smart, fell for Mary Jo’s ambitious plans for her life. She went home one evening and told Charlie she wanted a divorce. Charlie was shocked and asked her if she had found somebody else. She denied it but Charlie thought otherwise. He said they could talk about it the next evening after she had a chance to think it through. He never got the chance. While he was at work the next day, Mary Jo packed up and left. The divorce papers arrived the next day. He didn’t have to pay alimony because Mary Jo thought she had found financial security with her new victim. She wanted out as quickly as possible so Charlie gave her the divorce and started a new life in Shoreville as the community’s newest bachelor.

      Charlie stoically endured the outpouring of sympathy, both genuine and feigned. He refrained from speaking ill of Mary Jo in spite of his anger and disappointment. In retrospect, he knew the marriage was over even before it had really got started when Mary Jo had begun to voice her ambition. He had tried to placate her more from a sense of obligation than from agreement. But he saw the clouds on the horizon and knew that the storm would eventually hit. The rest of Shoreville, however, would have liked to have crucified Mary Jo.

      As Charlie refused to attack Mary Jo and feed the gossip mill, people eventually stopped talking to him about her perfidy. But the wives of Shoreville started trying to get Charlie married again. He was suddenly deluged with dinner invitations and at each dinner there was some single or divorced woman who had been invited for Charlie’s “inspection”. Since everyone in Shoreville knew Mary Jo, he was not comfortable dating her old friends and neighbors. At one of the regular softball games he appealed to his male friends, “Hey guys, how ‘bout talking to your wives and telling them that I am not interested in getting married again right now? I appreciate the concern, but I am OK, really. I know the ladies in this town and if I want a date I can arrange it myself. I know your wives mean well but I really am not interested in another marriage right now. I’m fine just the way I am for the time being. Know what I mean?”

      “Yeah Charlie” said Bob Simms, “I’ll tell Diane to lay off the cupid stuff. She’s been trying to get you married ever since Mary Jo left. She talks about it all the time at home. I’m getting a bit tired of it myself.”

      “Thanks, Bob, I appreciate the concern, I really do, but I’d kind of like to chill out a bit, you know?”

      Charlie’s buddies agreed that they would talk to their wives. The dinner invitations didn’t stop, but they slowed a good bit. To make sure he was not around on weekends when he would be invited to meet Shoreville’s “availables” he started going up to Philly to see some of his old college friends. That’s when he had looked up Joey Esposito and went to the trattoria where Joey had introduced him to Gina.

      Charlie smiled to himself. Meeting Gina had been a stroke of luck that Charlie had not planned on. Maybe my “chilling out” days are over, he thought. He acknowledged to himself that he had grown tired of the “singles scene”, weekends in Atlantic City or Cape May (if he wanted some peace and quiet) and wondered if he had not let himself get caught in a rut.

      His reverie was interrupted by the arrival of his subordinates, so he sat up in his chair, directed his attention to the papers on his desk and got back to work. But he was sure that somehow his life was about to change.

       VII

      Charlie’s week dragged by even more slowly than usual. He was anxious to see Gina again, especially after his conversation with Joey Esposito. He figured Joey was right about simply taking it easy and appreciating his relationship with Gina for what it was – a pleasant and relaxing experience that might or might not turn into something.

      Fred Perkins had been his usual irascible self the entire week but Charlie barely paid attention.

      Saturday morning he went to softball practice with his team. They were headed for the finals and everybody wanted to get in some practice. Twice Charlie had let a good pitch slip by. Tony Mazza launched a friendly barb, “Hey Charlie, that was a double you just missed there! You could have knocked that one way out in the middle of center field. Ya dreamin’ or what?” Charlie had been concentrating on Gina and his plans for the evening and the pitch had gone by without so much as Charlie even seeing it.

      “Sorry Tony, I read the pitch wrong” Charlie yelled back. He hit the next pitch well into left field just to prove he could still hit and that he wasn’t dreaming. But he was, in fact, daydreaming. When practice was over, the team went out for pizza and beer. Charlie said he would catch up later but he had some stuff to do immediately. That was not Charlie’s usual habit and the team commented later. “What’s buggin’ Charlie?” Art Samuels asked. “He usually hangs around after practice. Today he’s got somethin’ to do? What the hell is there to do in Shoreville on a Saturday afternoon? Anybody know what’s goin’ on?”

      Bill Gallagher was the first to chime in, “I think it was just the divorce, guys. Sharon says he needs to get married again. Maybe she’s right. She sure talks about it enough. Let the poor guy work it out. He’s our buddy and maybe he just needs to be by himself for a while.”

      The team all agreed and the matter was closed over a few pitchers of beer and some pizza.

      When he got home Charlie took a shower and then wandered around the house trying to find something to do before heading off to Philly. He reorganized his book shelves, moved pictures from one side of a credenza to another, tried to read a magazine. He tried to read a book then watched some TV, but his mind was already in Philly and the evening awaiting him. He went back into the bathroom and shaved. He checked his closet for what he was going to wear. He hadn’t done that in years. “Mullins, you’re acting like a fool you know” he thought “this isn’t the first time you’ve been on a date. Snap out of it!” He smiled to himself and decided to take a short nap. That, too, didn’t work and he just laid there, half awake until it was time to get ready to go to Philly.

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