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  "Didn't make it to the gym, huh?" she asked, with more than a touch of sarcasm after our visitor had left. "So what kept you?"

  I was busted. Cheating for the first time in my life and caught, I realized lying would just create more problems. So I told her about Maria, who worked as an assistant for one of the elected county commissioners. While out for drinks a few weeks earlier, Maria had confided about her troubled marriage. One thing led to another, and we kissed. Then we went back to the courthouse and had sex on the couch in the commissioner's office. A couple of days late, she introduced me to a little motel just a short drive from the government building so we could enjoy tryst-breaks during the day. The place charged by the hour, and each room had a speaker that allowed the desk clerk to ask after forty-five minutes: "Do you need more time?" Maria had a troubled past that included the defrocking of a Catholic priest a few years before when she lived in the Rio Grande Valley on the Texas border. She said the experience ruined her faith, and I quietly wondered what it had done to the priest.

  Cindy listened patiently and responded without amusement when I suggested the fling had been an attempt at "source development" for news stories.

  "You want me to leave?" she finally asked. Although she appeared hurt, she wasn't destroyed. Perhaps she considered it cosmic justice for the cheating she'd done during her marriage and wanted some punishment to soothe her guilt. She also had no alternative living options, having become somewhat dependent on me in those last months of her college plan. I gathered, too, that this had been her first time to assume the position of cheated lover. She didn't quite know how to react, so the emotions were bottled inside.

  In that moment, however, several realizations emerged clear to me. First, I really liked Cindy and wanted her to stay. Second, Maria was history. But third, I couldn't be sure this would be my last time in the penalty box for extracurricular activities. I couldn't declare Cindy as the last woman I ever would fuck, particularly at the tender age of twenty-seven. I could, however, work harder at insulating her from the knowledge of any future transgressions. If it happens again, I promised myself, she never will know.

  So I made peace with my internal conflicts, and it did not seem that big a deal. Cindy and I both, at that time, fancied ourselves a '70s Boomer couple willing to experiment and push the role of sex as a boundary for relationships. Perhaps she was planning some extracurricular activity of her own, and like as not, she probably had some. But I was more interested in finding a way to disarm jealousy as a destructive influence in my life while discarding the equally destructive view that another person could be a possession. By demystifying sex to the level of a mere physical act, I found the more fundamental aspects of our relationship assumed greater importance. By turning my fears into fantasies, I found I could lick jealousy. I could even become aroused with the thought of some other guy giving her pleasure. My only objection might have been that she hadn't let me watch. She had my permission to mess around. Why shouldn't I have permission from her?

  Then again, maybe we actually should have discussed these concepts in greater detail. And, of course, things grew a lot more complicated quickly with her pregnancy and the birth of our first daughter. I never set out to seek adultery, but opportunities always seemed to come my way. It became the new manifestation of the charming rogue as those opportunities blossomed repeatedly after lying dormant while I had built my career and surrendered to the domestic life with Boop.

  By the time I had settled in with Cindy, it seemed the domestic, the rogue, and the professional had forged an uneasy truce. The rogue knew he needed the professional to survive and grow, while the professional understood the needs of the rogue. The domestic had his security blossoming with Cindy. So we agreed to release the rogue to prowl on special occasions, as long as he could be discreet. For several years, he succeeded beyond our wildest expectations.

  I recall the night before my ten-year high school reunion in 1975. Cindy and Little E stayed with my parents in St. Louis while I ventured out with some old pals. What have I been missing? I asked myself as I sat in an apartment watching them roll around on the floor having sex with women from their jobs. Of course, the gals had brought an extra friend who wasted no time getting her hand in my pants while rationalizing with complaints about her husband's unfaithful ways. The eight of us capped that night with an early morning skinny dip, scaling the fence at a local public pool for an encore.

  Then there was the time in New Orleans for Mardi Gras when I rendezvoused at Pat O'Brien's saloon with some friends. They had stopped on their drive south the night before at a college, attended some kind of fraternity bash, and left with a college girl asleep in the back seat of their car. She woke up and quickly embraced the spirit of this religious holiday. That night, the men stripped while she draped Mardi Gras necklaces around our genitals. For some still-unexplainable reason I was the only one who got laid. I guess in her heart she was really just the monogamous kind.

  During my 1977 sabbatical in St. Louis, I juggled care for my ailing dad and Little E with visits to the apartment of a woman I met while drinking with an old college pal. Ironically, her name also was Cindy and she had attended high school with my Cindy when she lived in St. Louis. As I rode my motorcycle back to my family's house in the early hours of the morning before everyone there would be awake, I couldn't help thinking to myself: What a small world this is, indeed!

  That year proved fruitful for extracurricular activities. Back at work for The Post in the Fall, I spent a month in Huntsville covering that sensational trial of the two Houston cops accused of killing the Hispanic laborer by throwing him into a bayou. While trying to concentrate on testimony from the witness stand, I turned my head to survey the audience of college students attending the trial from Sam Houston State University's school of criminology. One female student caught my eye when she opened her mouth to reveal her teeth and slowly rolled her tongue across the enamel. About an hour later, we were back in my room banging away. A few days later, I hooked up with another coed from the school, and we spent several nights on the water bed at her apartment.

  Although Cindy was just a month from delivery of Shannon, we traveled during Christmas of 1977 to St. Louis with Little E for a visit with my parents. I got out one night with the boys again, and that excursion ended at a massage parlor, where one of my friends vanished into the back room with the knockout blonde who ran the place. Instead of leaving, we hung around the waiting room at her invitation for about thirty minutes while she locked up. After breakfast at a Denny's, we adjourned to her condominium and took turns hosing her down while her two children slept in the next room. The next day, I went directly to the St. Louis health department for a venereal disease test and spent an anxious couple of days awaiting the negative results while finding excuses to delay having sex with Cindy.

  I could rationalize my behavior by differentiating between the nature of these one-time, special opportunity flings and the destructive potential of a full-blown affair that could threaten our family. I also knew that philandering occurs more as an ego builder than for the physical release, the male culture's version of collecting scalps. No one got hurt, and Cindy never knew. At least, she didn't know until that night in August of 1979, when I learned about Uncle Al. I wanted to lash back, and I also wanted to brag. So, out came a full accounting of the rogue's secret life. I stressed the difference between my flings and her affair, calling hers the extracurricular activity that destroyed our home.

  "And you never would have known about mine if I hadn't told you now," I said.

  "You say I didn't know," she replied. "But there had to be something telling me we weren't right."

  My three lives had converged to create a real mess. Our money was tied in the house, and I didn't have the cash flow to get my own place. I was dumped and driving a two-hundred-dollar car. I was sleeping on a couch at the home of a friend. And I carried my dirty clothes in a brown paper, grocery sack. I called it luggage by Kroger, and that bag ca
me to symbolize my existence during that time. I didn't know I hadn't quite hit bottom or that a special problem solver named Catherine Mehaffey lurked on the horizon. But pretty soon, despite all this mess, I soon would have only one true problem. Beyond her, I would recall the rest of this simply as bumps in the road.

  Part Three:

  A Fatal Attraction

  TWENTY-FOUR

  October 15, 1979

  I had no sooner tossed my jacket on the coat rack beside my desk in the courthouse press room to start the day when the phone on my desk began to ring. From the desk beside mine, radio reporter Jim Strong looked up from the morning paper to see who might be calling me so early in the day. I nodded and snapped my fingers when I heard Catherine's voice.

  "I guess you've heard about my case by now," she began. Strong drew closer to my desk with a grin on his face. We hadn't seen her in two weeks since that introduction September 28 at the party. He had left a couple of messages with her receptionist, and I had called once. I also had visited the courtroom briefly and seen her testifying in her case to win control of the Tedesco estate as the doctor's widow.

  "I just got in and hadn't heard," I told her on the phone. "But I saw you crying on the witness stand."

  She laughed out loud and said, "Some show, huh? That didn't even work. The things we do for juries!"

  I was more than a little stunned by her cavalier manner. What if I'd been taking notes for a story?

  "So, you have a verdict?" I asked.

  "They agreed I was his wife, but they didn't give me the estate. So, I lost. And it's worse than that. I guess if you came to court you saw all my old boyfriends sitting in a row. They were there to give me support."

  My mind flashed back three days to the scene I had watched through a window in the door from outside the courtroom, standing beside a lower court judge who knew her. He pointed out the gallery of old lovers that included a Houston cop in full uniform and laughed. He also told me his bailiff had testified against her for the family the day before, claiming she had confessed the Tedesco murder to him. He said he didn't believe that would be enough for an arrest. He also snickered at the idea of her attorney possibly handling this probate matter on a contingency-fee basis, as if it were some sort of civil damages case, and the lawyer should take a cut. "Yep," he had said, peering through the glass as she started to cry, "there goes the hanky."

  On the phone to me, she continued to joke about the case.

  "Weren't they cute? Even Officer Joe in his uniform. He sat right up there and professed his love. And now that I'm not getting any money, guess what? They won't have anything to do with me any more."

  Her attitude startled me, but I still had to laugh. She had certainly aroused my curiosity. Then she cut me off and came right to the point.

  "I need to put this behind me now and move on with my life. I'm so low right now I really need a change. And it looks like you are my last hope. I think you're a man who could show me the true meaning of love."

  Catherine laughed as she said that, of course, making it a tease. I winked at Jim and told her, "I'm willing to try. When should we start?"

  "Got plans for tonight?"

  "But I'm still estranged," I reminded her. "And you don't like the estranged."

  "That was before my boyfriends all left me. Why don't we have a drink tonight?"

  "I'll tell you what. I have to drive down to Galveston tonight and collect the rent on a beach house I own. Why don't you ride along, and we'll have something to eat somewhere?"

  "That sounds perfect. That's just what I need, to get out of this city for a while."

  So, about seven that night I was parking my two-hundred-dollar, 1973 Chevy Vega in front of a relatively new, ranch-style house on Houston's far west side for my first date with Catherine Mehaffey. She was renting a bedroom there from a long-time friend who owned it. She assured me their relationship was strictly business. The arrangement did sound a bit strange, but I figured I'd learn more when she wanted to share. As we started walking toward my car she broke out laughing.

  "What is that? Is that your car?"

  "I know it needs some work, but there is a story here."

  She stopped and pointed to a 1979, burgundy-colored Cougar parked in the driveway and asked, "Would you be offended if I want to take my car? You can still drive."

  Her invitation came as a relief. I feared the Vega would not even make it to Galveston, and her new Cougar looked pretty comfortable. I would have bet it even had air conditioning. I nodded and went to my car, taking the grocery bag of laundry from the back seat.

  "I need to store these somewhere," I explained. "I was going to do laundry later, and the car has no locks."

  "Your clothes? In a grocery bag?" Her laughter had the tone of a woman who had just caught her puppy trying to climb onto a table. She took the sack, placed it inside the front door, and said playfully, "Maybe we can run a load when we get back. We can't have you wearing scruffy clothes. How will you ever find any new girlfriends?"

  Of course, this all had been part of the courting strategy designed for her. I had hoped to generate pity, wash a load of clothes, and maybe even get laid while the washer ran. So far, I thought, she was falling into all my traps. While I started her car and backed out of the driveway, Catherine popped a new Billy Joel tape into the dashboard. She caught me peaking at one of her breasts, exposed behind her red blouse as she leaned forward to work the controls.

  "Don't wreck my car," she teased with a grin. "You can take a closer look later when you're not behind the wheel. It's still pretty new and about all I have left now. This probate case cost me plenty and kept me from working for a long time."

  We stopped for gas, and I filled her tank. Then we hit the freeway for the sixty-minute drive south to the island. The ride gave us plenty of time to get acquainted. She said she wanted to talk about me, but, somehow, the topic always shifted back to Tedesco and the terrible things people were saying about her. She was convinced the Tedesco family private eyes were following us down the highway and kept turning to look.

  "Now tell me," she said, "where did you get that car? You said there was a story."

  "It's just temporary. I bought it from another reporter for two hundred dollars after my wife burned up my other car."

  "She burned up your car? I'd like to meet her. Sounds like your divorce is more out of control than you say."

  "No, not like that. She drove it with a radiator leaking and ignored the red warning light. It warped the engine."

  "So that's why you left her?"

  My turn to chuckle.

  "The picture on you is becoming clearer by the minute," she purred. "Here you are, racing through the streets in a two-hundred-dollar car with your clothes in a paper bag, after confessing to eight affairs in fours years, and you're just trying to find out: 'What happened to my life?'"

  "It's actually an amicable split. We're even using the same lawyer."

  "Ah, yes, and don't a lot of them start that way? But the amicable divorces usually lose their charm. My advice is to get your own lawyer."

  "I already have one. She's using mine."

  "That will change."

  She sounded rude, but she had only voiced a thought I had harbored anyway. I was drawn to her dark sense of humor and the mystery of her questionable reputation. After working as a reporter for ten years, I had stopped judging people by their reputations. I always wanted to keep them in mind, of course, but I also wanted the facts and tried to approach everyone with an open mind. Aware that I knew more about her than most new acquaintances, she worked hard on the drive down to plead her case. Six feet tall and 200 pounds with dark hair and a full beard, I considered myself an attractive enough guy to merit some of her self-serving pitch. I figured she craved a physical relationship for the short term and didn't want to scare me off. From what I knew of her past, however, I also expected some secret agenda might unfold at any time and reminded myself to remain on guard. I wasn't foolish enough
to believe an attractive, intelligent blonde would view me as merely a sex object or trophy material.