I apologize if there’s some repeated material here. Still trying to get the chapters sorted….In any case, enjoy!
3
We paid for our groceries at the self-check-out lane, then made our way back out to the lot with our bags in hand. I was still giggling to myself over the shopping cart mishap with the tall man outside the coffee aisle. I’m not always the most attentive guy in the world, living inside my head the way I do. In my business, you must keep on putting out the content or you’re a dead man, financially speaking.
As it was, I’d been living on fumes for most of my adult working life. Oh, sure, there were periods when I had money, especially if a really nice advance came through for a new book my agent had sold or a hefty payment for a ghostwriting job. But usually, that money would get eaten up pretty quickly because of overdue bills and unpaid loans. What most people don’t know about writers is that even the seemingly most successful ones are all too often broke as hell. Writing was a labor of love, not financial freedom. Unless you were JK Rowling of Harry Potter fame, that is.
Money…cash…ching…call it what you want. That was the great thing about having Marty in my life. She had a secure and stable career in law enforcement. If we could somehow make our relationship work…if she could somehow find a way to separate herself from her ball-and-chain of a husband…we just might have ourselves a real nice life together. And, yeah, I’ll admit it, for me at least, it would mean a hell of a lot less worry over making the monthly rent.
But please don’t get me wrong. Don’t get the wrong idea. Money had nothing to do with the real love I was building for Marty. I’d always gotten by one way or another, and I was confident that I would continue to do so with or without her. But it’s just that she was so different from both my ex-wives. They had been so dependent on me for everything, from putting a roof over our heads to cash in their purses. One of them, the first one, nearly drove me to the brink of bankruptcy on at least two occasions. I hadn’t loved her like I loved my second wife. But unfortunately for me, wife number two had neither the desire nor the will to establish a stable career at much of anything. Which meant, I either sold books or else. And, when she became pregnant with our daughter, all hope for her going to work to lessen the financial burden was abandoned.
But nothing like that would ever happen with Marty. Marty was her own woman. Marty was independent. No that’s not right, she was beyond independent. God knows she didn’t need me in her life. I was a disrupting factor at best, and bad karma for her at worst. Really bad karma when you think about it. She was still married for God’s sake, and although I didn’t drag her into my world, I didn’t exactly hold off on my pursuit of her either. From the moment I first saw her studying from a big thick textbook at the bar, I knew I wanted her and that one day, she would be all mine. We’d enjoy a long life together, with nothing but good vibrations washing over us.
We were just a few steps away from the Jeep when I was somewhat startled by a voice. A man’s voice. Together, Marty and I stopped in our tracks and turned. It was the man I’d hit with the shopping cart. Like us, he was heading to his vehicle with his grocery bags gripped in both hands.
“Hey, you!” he barked, his voice loud and tense.
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