[2013] Note to Self- Change the Locks Read online

  Peeking over my shoulder at a slumbering Simon, I drew the bedazzled nightmare off of the hanger and took a deep breath.

  Over or under? Which way would be easier? Untying my robe, I opted for under and stepped into the dress. I tugged at the fabric, trying not to disturb my bed guest. I managed to get it as high as my hips before I ran into a problem.

  The dress was stuck. In my haste to get it on, I had forgotten to unzipper it and now I couldn’t get it up or down. I attempted to contort my body to reach the zipper, but it was to no avail. Instead, I felt a spasm in my lower back as I pulled a muscle.

  “Shit!” I yelped and then slapped my hand over my mouth. Simon was stirring in the bed. He opened his eyes sleepily, glanced at me with my robe open in the front, dress around my hips and my completely bare breasts and then closed his eyes. Three seconds later, they snapped open.

  “What the hell—”

  I dashed over to the bedside and clamped his mouth shut with my hand. My left breast hit him in the head in the process.

  “Shhh! Austin’s here.”

  Simon nodded with understanding and I unhanded him. Shyly I covered my chest. I was beginning to think I had been naked more in front of Simon in the last few months than I had been when we were actually married.

  “That’s an interesting look,” Simon murmured hoarsely.

  “I can’t get the zipper unstuck. Can you help?” I asked. Simon nodded and I turned around, allowing my robe to fall to the floor. Simon grunted slightly as he struggled to prop himself up. “I’ll come closer,” I told him as I stepped back, the bottom of my butt touching the edge of the bed.

  Simon fumbled with the seam, blindly searching for the zipper. His left hand rested on the small of my back as he tugged the resistant metal with his right. My skin prickled underneath his touch and the tingle radiated to the front of my body. I inhaled sharply.

  You’re just sucking in your gut, Elizabeth. Simon has absolutely no effect on you. This is just your ex-husband zippering up your dress. There is no attraction here, my reasonable persona was stressing as the throbbing reached my pubic area and started to feel an awful lot like being turned on.

  Simon’s hands slid around to the front of my body, pulling up the front of the dress. His fingertips brushed my nipples in the process causing goose bumps to erupt on my bare flesh.

  Keep telling yourself that sweetheart, interjected my devious self. You are melting from his touch.

  “All done,” Simon announced as he flopped back down on the pillow. I spun around hesitantly, trying to control the shuddering. Sweat trickled down Simon’s forehead, plastering his hair to his brow. You would have thought he just ran a marathon.

  “Thank you. You look beat,” I whispered, a twinge of sympathy rising in my chest. He really had to be sick. If he wasn’t that sick, wouldn’t he have tried to take advantage of the situation?

  “Have fun,” Simon croaked as he flopped over on his side.

  “Thanks again.”

  I slid into my shoes and had my hand on the doorknob when Simon murmured from under the covers, “You look gorgeous by the way. Even with all that eye make-up.” I smiled to myself as I yanked open the door and nearly collided with Austin.

  “Are you ready?” he asked wearily.

  I nodded nervously as I closed the closet door. How long had he been standing there?

  “Let me grab my purse.” I scurried into the kitchen as Austin headed to the front door. I grabbed the purse, my heart pounding loudly. Please let’s get out of here before he notices something amiss.

  “Were you on the phone?” Austin asked casually as he held the front door open for me.

  “No, why?” I asked, trying to cover up my anxiety as I stepped into the hallway and pulled the door shut.

  “I thought I heard you talking to someone in your bedroom,” Austin explained as he pushed the elevator button.

  I gulped and felt the tips of my ears burning. Control your breathing! Relax!

  “Yeah, I didn’t tell you? Nora crashed here last night. She came over and got really wasted and she could barely walk, so I tucked her in and she was just waking up.” I exhaled the breath I had been holding.

  Austin’s eyes gleamed. “She slept in your bed?”

  I nodded affirmatively as the elevator doors parted. “Yeah.”

  “Did you guys get it on?” Austin inquired with an inane grin.

  Confused, I asked, “Get what on?”

  “You know, did you and Nora…” He then proceeded to make an obscene gesture with his fingers and tongue.

  I slapped his forearm as hard as I could. “Ewww, no! You’re disgusting. Nora’s my friend, you pervert.”

  Austin shrugged. “Hey, sometimes it happens!” His expression changed to serious as he draped his arm across my shoulder. “I’m just saying if it did, I’d find it in my heart to forgive you. As long as you videotaped it or something.” He cracked a broad smile.

  “That’s real nice, Austin. Sim.. uh, Nora is sick,” I reminded him.

  “So if she wasn’t sick…” Austin teased.

  “Oh, yeah, definitely,” I joked with a smile. But I certainly wasn’t thinking about Nora. And I wasn’t sure if I was joking either.

  Sixteen

  I really need a manicure. I stared at my ragged cuticles as the organ droned on with the seventeenth or eighteenth song. I lost count somewhere in the second hour. This had to be the longest service I had ever been to in my entire life. Growing up Catholic, I was used to being able to predict where the mass was going. It was all spelled out for you in the convenient prayer book in each pew. We Catholics even threw in some exercise for good measure. Up, down, kneel, up, down.

  At least my butt never got numb like it was now. I really wanted to get up and jump around, but I had a feeling that Austin’s mother, who was delicately dabbing her eyes with a dainty handkerchief, would frown upon such behavior.

  Austin and his father also appeared engrossed in the service. In fact, everyone around me seemed riveted. Apparently, the minister knew Austin’s cousin Laura and her fiancé Mark from college and was going the extra mile to give this wedding a personal touch.

  Thank goodness we’re being married by some random pastor I found on the internet. Although, that thought made me slightly uneasy, too. When Austin asked about the arrangements for the actual wedding, I told him I had taken care of it. He responded with, “As long as you’re happy, it’ll be fine.”

  Watching the way his family was at this wedding, an inkling of doubt crept into mind. Did he assume we were being married by a priest from my church? Was he thinking my family was as religious as his was?

  Little did he realize, my family was what we jokingly referred to as “Cafeteria Catholics”. We basically pick and choose the parts of the religion that suits us. For example, we go to church on Christmas and Easter and give up meat on Fridays. And make a big deal about getting ashes on Ash Wednesday. That was about the extent of our “religion”. My brothers and I didn’t even go to CCD or anything as kids. In fact, I wasn’t even married by a Catholic priest the first time around.

  Oh yeah, and that tricky little tidbit that I was married before. That precluded us from getting married by a priest this time, anyway. And I still had not mentioned that prickly fact to my husband-to-be yet.

  I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, a combination of the unnerving thoughts racing through my mind, having my bladder expanded to the point of nearly exploding, and the fact that the sequined dress was sticking to my sweaty legs which were now imprinted with the outline of the tiny little circles. Austin glowered at me and I shrank back in my seat. I never would have worn this dress in a million years if I had known I was going to be a permanent fixture in this pew. Or bench or whatever these Protestants called it. And I certainly wouldn’t have drank so much coffee this morning.

  “I have to pee badly,” I whispered in his ear.

  He put his fingers to his lips. “It’s almost over,” he hissed. I c
ertainly hoped so as I bounced my legs up and down. I had to pee, wake up my butt, and restore blood flow to the rest of my body. And soon, before I went into a coma.

  More than ten minutes later the priest, er, minister announced, “I now pronounce you…blah, blah, blah” and I leapt to my feet. Certain that there would be a line, I wanted to be the first to the bathroom. How could there not be a line? We were sitting in church for the duration of a millennium.

  “Where are you going?” Austin asked as he pulled me back down next to him.

  “I told you. I have to pee.” I stressed the urgency with a slight whine.

  “Just wait a damn minute until the bride and groom pass by,” Austin growled. I wasn’t sure if he was being a complete jackass because he really thought I was being rude or that he was worried about what his mother would think if I dashed off to the bathroom. I wanted to point out that since she was a woman, she would probably understand the urgency of being the first in line.

  Arms folded, I sat. And waited. Tapping my toe the entire time. Austin shot me dirty looks but I didn’t care. If I was going to be miserable, so was he.

  The bride and groom casually ambled up the aisle, waving and stopping for pictures along the way. When they passed us, at the rate of “snail”, the receiving line formed and Austin tugged me to my feet.

  “Oh thank God,” I mumbled, trying not to leave any spillage from my bladder on the seat.

  I started speed walking to the bathroom when I heard, “Psst! Elizabeth!” I spun around to see Austin urgently motioning to me. He jerked his head in the direction of the bride and groom. “Receiving line,” he muttered through clenched teeth. Groaning, I stormed back over to his side, coming precariously close to wetting myself with each bounding step.

  Seriously, it would take me ten seconds to pee at this point! Since when is Austin concerned with etiquette and protocol? He certainly didn’t seemed concerned with it for our wedding.

  That’s not fair, Elizabeth. You’ve never given him any indication that you want him to be more involved. And besides, he’s so busy, on the road all the time. I shook my head like an escaped mental patient in attempt to quiet the quarrel my brain was having with itself.

  Finally we reached the front on the line. I hugged the happy couple, gave them air kisses and the obligatory pats on the back. Then I retreated for the bathroom at a breakneck pace. My heels clicked like a family of woodpeckers in a furniture store as I raced to the single stall at the rear of the church. I skidded to a halt as I approached the door. There were no less than ten people on line. I groaned audibly.

  A weary middle aged woman was jostling a crying toddler on her hip at the back of the line. She turned to me and remarked, “The guy who’s in there now has been in there for five minutes and is groaning every few seconds. Sounds like he’s in for the long haul. If you don’t have to wait, I would go somewhere else.” She held up the diaper and package of wipes in her hand. “If Junior here didn’t have an exploding diaper, I’d be in the car myself.”

  Groaning, I hobbled back toward Austin. I could barely feel my legs at this point; they were so numb from holding it. Austin was still standing where I left him, being clapped on the back by his father and his uncle, Pat. They were all throwing their heads back, laughing in their ridiculously loud booming voices. I wanted to punch Austin in the face.

  I staggered over to him and stood there, waiting patiently, willing the pee not to steam down my leg. Finally his father remarked, “We better get going. There will be a lot of traffic on the LIE this time of day.”

  Uncle Pat nodded and added, “See you at the reception,” and with that, the older men dispersed.

  Austin turned to me, stupid, dopey grin still plastered on his face. My face, on the other hand, was emblazoned with a scowl and my eyes flashed with impatience. Austin, taken aback by my demeanor, jerked his head back. “Whoa, what happened to you?”

  “The line for the bathroom is twenty people deep,” I barked. Okay, slight exaggeration, but I was in pain here.

  Austin shrugged indifferently. “Okay, no biggie. The reception place is only twenty minutes away.” Reaching for my arm, he added humorously, “I’ll try not to hit any potholes.”

  I pulled away with a snarl, “It’s not funny, Austin. You’re a fucking jackass.” The acoustics in the church were slightly louder than I anticipated and I found everyone within a fifty foot radius staring in my direction.

  “Shhh!” Austin hissed while turning red. “Okay, okay. Let’s get going then.”

  “No. I’m mad at you. It’s your fault. I told you and told you that I had to go and you told me no…” Tears were running down my face. Austin glanced around nervously, obviously mortified by my sudden emotional outburst.

  “Shhh,” Austin whispered again, this time with his finger to his lips as if perhaps I didn’t understand the first time. “Come on, there’s a coffee shop across the street.” He draped his arm over my shoulder and led me out of the church and onto the crowded sidewalk. Wordlessly, we crossed the street and he steered me into the coffee shop where I dashed into the bathroom.

  I slammed the empty stall door with fervor as I simultaneously hiked my dress up and my underwear down. The Spanx rolled up with the dress. Without lining the seat like I usually did, I hovered and relaxed my muscles, allowing the flow to leave my body.

  “Ahhhhh,” I moaned in ecstasy. There was nothing quite like the feeling of emptying a bladder just prior to it actually bursting from exceeding capacity. It was better than sex and I was almost as wobbly when I got to my feet.

  I quickly washed my hands and peeked at myself in the mirror. My mascara had started to run a bit from my tears. Okay, so maybe I overreacted slightly, but Austin didn’t know that having to pee was practically a life and death situation for me. Okay, maybe that’s also a bit of exaggeration, but I had been hospitalized as a kid because of my peeing issues. It was all because I strained my bladder from holding it too often.

  When I was in Girl Scout camp, I refused to use the port-a-potties and I would hold it all day until I could creep out of my bunk at night and crouch in front of the cabin door.

  After three summers of that routine, I found myself with the embarrassing problem of not being able to hold it without extreme effort. At age thirteen, not only was I was wetting the bed at night, I couldn’t cough or sneeze without an accident.

  At first, I was scared that there was something seriously wrong with me, like a tumor. Like any good hypochondriac, I spent hours at the library, researching cancer and lupus and kidney failure. (I swore I felt left flank pain all the time.) I walked around in a melancholy daze, convinced I was dying.

  One morning, my mother found me stuffing my sheets in the washer for the third time that week and confronted me. After weeks of hiding my fears, I found myself sobbing into her apron about what was going on. She patted my head and assured me I wasn’t dying. I was not convinced, so Mom took me to Dr. Calvert. The doctor seemed sure this was not a life threatening condition, yet she was concerned all the same.

  After a battery of tests and overnight stay at the hospital on two different occasions, it was determined that my bladder had lost elasticity, which was why I couldn’t hold it. Armed with knowledge, medication, and kegal exercises, I’ve been able to keep the bedwetting at bay on most occasions, but I still am leery to sleep anywhere but home. And…Austin and I have never slept in the same bed.

  I swung the bathroom door open to see Austin leaning up against the bakery case. He shoved off into a standing position once he saw me approach. “Are you ready now?” I could not mistake the irritation in his voice.

  I nodded and followed him back to the car as he strode at least six steps ahead of me. He was peeved by my outburst and I guess I could hardly blame him. As angry as I had been at him, it was partially my fault. I hadn’t disclosed my problem to him. How was he supposed to know I had incontinence? I told Simon about it on our second date—we went to see a comedy at the drive in and
I peed myself laughing. We chuckled about it and I peed myself more. I couldn’t figure out why I never told Austin, though.

  Because you’re too embarrassed to tell him. You’re afraid he’s going to reject you because you’re not perfect, Conscience number one piped up.

  Stop it! Conscience number two screamed at me. This war in my head was getting a little old. It almost felt like I had that notorious devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other. Except I couldn’t figure out which one was supposed to be which.

  Austin loves you despite your imperfections. Tell him now!

  I doubled my steps to catch up with Austin, who was now unlocking his Prius with his key fob.

  “Um, Austin,” I called out as I click clacked on the pavement. Damn, it was hard to move in this boa constrictor of a dress.

  Austin, who usually held the car door open for me, was already sitting in the driver’s seat and starting the car when I reached it. For a second I thought he was going to drive off without me. I grabbed the door handle and pulled at it. The door didn’t open. Austin was cranking up his radio, oblivious to me. I rapped frantically on the window until he acknowledged my presence and unlocked the car door.

  I slipped into my seat and started to buckle up as Austin screeched out of the parking spot, causing me to press my palms to the window so I didn’tt smash my head on the dashboard.

  “Austin, slow down for a second! It’s not a race!” I called out as I snapped my belt.

  “Oh, not a race now? Sorry! Before I wasn’t fast enough for you and you acted like a two year old,” Austin answered with disgust.