I was between marriages a few years back when my daughter and I moved into a new neighborhood.
She was a senior in high school and had an active social life, which meant all of her friends were either at my house or they were all gone, which meant I was either hosting a party or completely alone. No in between.
The neighborhood was filled with people like me. We jokingly called it Divorcee Acres.
Block parties were regular occurrences, and the gossip would fly about who was sleeping with whom. I got to know my neighbors intimately.
We were mostly in our 30s and 40s, all with similar stories, ugly divorces and crazy exes. My next-door neighbors were the exception. They were, as far as we could tell, happily married, no kids, both smart and attractive with good bodies and great personalities. They were fun to be around and the block parties tended to end up in our yards and on our back-yard decks.
I became good friends with Trish, better friends actually than her husband Bob, who was just a little too proud of his house, his job, his lawn mower, his golf game, and as I sensed from Trish, he took his marriage for granted.
I also sensed there was something they were hiding.
She was over at my house all the time for coffee in the morning, drinks in the evening and sometimes just sitting on our porches at night. He was always gone, an airline pilot who would be gone for days at a time. And I'm a writer. I'm always home. Trish sold real estate, but she didn't need to. She only worked a couple days a week and only a couple of hours a day.
We were the social directors in the neighborhood, and she playfully tried to set me up with other divorced wives. We playfully called her my wingman.
I noticed she started wearing skimpier clothes around me, sometimes going without a bra, sometimes wearing slinky tops that showed her breasts. She would even lay out on her deck without a top. I've seen her glimpses of her completely naked.
I wanted her, and she knew it. But I assumed she was just trying to spice up her life when Bob was away.
That all changed one night. And Bob was right there.
We were hosting a summer's end block party at both our houses. The kids were going back to school, and the neighborhood was buzzing with excitement. Music was playing, and kids were on their bikes, and the adults were sipping vodka tonics and cold beers hanging out at my grill, which we moved to the yard between my deck and Trish and Bob's.
We were all a little tipsy to start with and Trish was getting a little frisky with me as Bob got drunker. At one point, she looked at me and rolled her eyes. That's when I knew something wasn't right.
A few drinks later, he was getting really drunk and she was getting more than a little upset with him. That was when the storm hit, literally.
A wind came up and blew paper plates and napkins all over the yard. We hadn't even noticed the dark clouds gathering and heat lightning in the distance, but while people started yelling for their kids and some of them even starting to walk home, there was a loud clap of thunder and a bolts of lightning that suddenly started striking all around us. I was helping Trish clean up when the rain started, sheets of rain that poured so hard so quickly we were all drenched in seconds
I ran under Trish and Bob's porch, and he fell flat on his ass as he ran around the corner trying to get inside. We ran into their kitchen, soaking wet from head to toe. We were the only ones who ran into their house.
