My wife loves vacations. Loves, loves, loves them. We had taken a several vacations before I found out her secret.
It is a long drive from Ohio to Florida. That year, we decided to make the trip in the car, planning to stop in Atlanta along the way to have a good night's sleep. So, what else to you talk about on a long car trip? We had exhausted the subject of the neighbors, our family and our jobs. We moved on to the greatest subject, sex. Or, not exactly, but close to sex.
"Yeah, I dated some girls in high school, even though I was shy. I remember one of them had a thing for me and a buddy of mine. Her name was Bev and she was one of those brick houses men like to talk about. She had a solid body, maybe a few pounds too many, but I loved the way her she walked, head held high with a walk that said she had a purpose in life. She really was very pretty, but she wasn't the most popular girl in school. She was curvy and had really big boobs. She also had a sweet face, one that said she was kind.
"She had been dating a buddy of mine, but they fell out. So, I and that buddy, Doug, were out one night, just driving around and getting slightly high, when we ran into Bev. We were at a restaurant, getting an early dinner.
"Now, I had been dating Bev, but I may have failed to mention it to Doug." My wife, sitting in the passenger seat, caught the hint of what we called "A Good Story," something I liked to tell her while we were making love. She had shifted in the car, turning her body towards me and putting her back to the door.
"Why haven't I ever heard of this Bev?"
"Oh, it was just casual, even if she may have wanted it to be more. We each wanted different things. I was going to go to college. She was going to stay at home and have babies. But I liked her, a lot. We shared similar values and she had a great sense of humor. And, she was a looker.
"I took her out. We watched some movies, walked in some parks and double dated a time of two for her friend, Alma."
A semi passed, slightly pulling the car into the other lane because he was driving so fast. Or, I realized I had dropped my speed in order to concentrate on what I was saying. I did a mental downshift and got into the right lane of the Interstate. If I was going to tell, "A Good Story," I didn't want driving to get into the way of the story too much. But I still wanted to be driving, so that I didn't have to look directly at my wife. Some of this was going to be embarrassing. But I didn't think it was going to shake our marriage, going on 10 years now.
"Doug seemed glad to see Bev and he put his arm around her and brought her to our table in this restaurant. We invited her to join the two of us and she agreed, leaving behind her other friends. I think it had been a "Girl's Night Out" and Bev was going to be the topic of discussion for the rest of the group as she was being whisked away by two men.
"This seemed to be the appropriate moment to tell Doug that Bev and I had been seeing one another. He seemed a little miffed, but he didn't own anything here. Bev and I had been friends all through high school and a dating thing, now that high school was over, was none of his business.
"Doug was on leave, home from the Navy. I may have failed to mention that. I had the night off from work. Bev, it seemed, was between jobs, and so the three of us had nothing to get in the way of us making a day of it. And we did.
"Bev got the best of it, I think. We paid for her meal and Doug and I took turns having her on our arms, showing off our date. After lunch, we went to a mall and walked around, people watching and talking. We informed each other of what we had been doing. Bev, it seemed, had been seeing a guy we both knew and she was maybe going to marry him. Maybe.
"That didn't stop us. We knew the guy and wished him luck, but this day was our day. And there was competition there, too, so Doug and I tried to outdo the other in paying attention to Bev. She was eating it up, laughing, smiling and shining 'like a National guitar,' to quote Paul Simon.