Just Old Friends

"Is forty really old?" I asked myself while standing in front of the dresser mirror trying my best to suck in those extra two inches. Glancing at the hair, there was no grey, not even a hint and except for just the slightest, tiniest crow's feet coming out of the side of my eyes, there were no wrinkles. Twelve ounce curls and Charlie's Barbeque once a week were the excuse for the two inches. I guess good genes kept the hair color. My Dad didn't go grey until his sixties if that was any consolation.

Charlene's excuse was that she was tired of growing old, tired of having an old truck mechanic coming home reminding her of what she thought she could have had in another life. At least that is what she complained about more often than not. She got so tired of it that one day I came home and half of our household had been moved to destinations elsewhere. It didn't matter where. It just wasn't here.

The papers came the day after and I can't say they were brutal. I got half the equity in the house, an equal split on savings and she didn't touch my shop. The house was actually paid for and I ended up talking an equity loan to buy her share. Since she made about the same income working as a loan administrator at a local bank, alimony wasn't in question.

We had built the house years ago thinking there would be a big family to fill it however that never happened once we found out there was a plumbing issue with Charlene. She seemed to take it well and we never considered adopting kids so we ended up with a four bedroom, three bath house on a tree shaded corner lot that just grew in value. She would get $200K out of it and I'd get another mortgage to start paying at nearly 40 years of age.

After getting the papers I didn't see her until we sat across from each other in my attorney's office.

"You are looking well, Charlene."

"You are looking as usual, Mike." She replied with a deadpan expression.

She was dressed well. I suppose she could afford it at that point. Being tired of one man after 17 years didn't keep her from getting energized with another. Apparently she found that elusive other life with a real estate broker who catered to broken middle aged dreams and sad sack administrators. Unfortunately, she started her new life a couple months before informing me of it.

I don't know why she wanted the meeting since I was willing to sign the papers as soon as I received them. I sure didn't want the divorce but I knew Charlene too. Once she gets something in her head, absolutely nothing stops her from moving on whatever is motivating her. So, the divorce was a done deal once she had the papers served.

"Mike, do you know why I'm divorcing you?" She asked, again with that deadpan.

I looked at her carefully. It had been three months since she served me and I just wanted to get this over with.

"Nope."

I looked at my attorney and hers and told her I just wanted to put my John Hancock on three sets of them and go to the diner for a burger and a beer.

"Well, don't you want to know?" The deadpan look was gone and concern was mounting.

"Charlene, at this point I could care less. Let's just sign and move on. You look happy as shit and I'll be damned if I'm going to waste a minute wondering why you do the things you do. I'm done."

My attorney pushed the copies over to me and I signed all three but Charlene wasn't done.

"I'm not signing until you hear me out. So sit back down and take it like a man."

"Charlene, maybe your new man will take that shit from you but you should damn well know your old poor truck mechanic of a soon to be ex-husband isn't going to give a rat's ass what you have to say."

With that I stood up to leave and reached for the door.

"That's fine. You can move in that whore right now if you haven't already."

Well, that stopped me up short and against my better judgement, I looked right at her.

"What in hell are you talking about?"

She didn't skip a beat.

"I'm talking about you and Colleen Whitmore. You have been fucking that whore for a year now. Hell, half the town knows it. That's the real reason I left your sorry ass. You thought you were slick and I didn't know shit. Well, you were wrong. Yeah, I was tired and bored but we could have worked through that. Instead, you took up with that bitch."

She stopped talking at that point with an expression of anger and sorrow pasted on her face and to be honest, I didn't really know what to say at first. I didn't think she knew anything about Colleen. I looked Charlene right in the eye.

"Charlene, you don't know the first fucking thing you are talking about."

She interrupted me and pushed a printed photo across the table. While still standing, I picked it up.

It was a picture of a small dark haired woman, about my age, with her arms around the neck of a taller man who was leaning down and kissing her on the forehead. The woman was Colleen Whitmore and the man was Mike Donaldson. That was me in the picture with the Donaldson Truck Services work shirt on.

I looked up at Charlene and glared at her.

"Like I said, Charlene, you don't have a fucking clue what you are talking about."

I threw the picture across the table at her.

"Charlene 'Whatever your name is gonna be', you are the only one in this marriage that fucked somebody else. You are the only one that lit it up for some strange. When you get home tonight and your new stud man is nailing your whoring ass, you remember that. You're the cheating fuck, not me.

In the meantime, you make sure you stay to hell away from Ms. Whitmore. She deserves a hell of a lot more respect than I'm getting. With that said, I'm out of here."

I looked over at my attorney who was a bit confused himself and I told him I'd call him in a bit. Charlene looked like a doe in the headlights as I opened the door and left the office. It was a quick walk to the diner and since it was close to lunch, I had that burger and beer.

I grabbed a window booth and watched Charlene and her lawyer leave the office across the street. They both hugged and Charlene stepped into a new Chrysler 300 and pulled out of the parking lot waiting for a break in traffic. She looked up through her windshield and right into my eyes in the diner. I don't know what I saw in her face but I didn't blink as she turned into traffic and headed down the street.

The Chrysler 300 belonged to Dickey Johnson, one of our esteemed sleazy Real Estate agents in town. He had a history with a couple married women before Charlene but that didn't seem to slow her down. Because she arranged the appraisals for many of the real estate sales in the area, Dickey was a familiar face at the bank and to Charlene. I always considered the little cheese dick a shady bitch of a man.

After 17 years it was done. In 90 days, I'd be officially divorced. After lunch I walked over to my old bank, Charlene didn't work here, and had my old friend Bill Peterson draw up papers for an appraisal and an equity loan for 25% of the value. I'd cover the balance out of what was left of my savings. Charlene had agreed to let Bill make the appraisal. He was an honest layman pastor in addition to being a banker and we both knew and trusted him from way back. In 90 days, Charlene would get her $200K. I called my attorney on the cell and explained what was going on with the Colleen issue and he basically told me what I already knew. Wait the three months and it would be all over.

Divorce is an odd thing because it affects so many people in so many different ways. I can't count the number of people I know in town who have been divorced, some two and three times. I guess I never expected it of my marriage because I thought most of the marriage was pretty good. That said, I can't say I was much surprised when Charlene left. We had been pretty downhill for the past couple of years. I don't mean rock bottom but slowly drifting off in other directions I guess.

That afternoon, the shop was slow so I headed back to the house and mulled about thinking over the earlier events. Charlene really didn't know what in hell she was talking about. Colleen was about the oldest friend I had. We were first introduced on the school bus while traveling to third grade a long time ago. All through school we were the best of friends and by the time hormones started kicking in we began drifting away from each other. Boyfriends or girlfriends interfered with our time together until we finally ended up going in different directions.

I met Charlene while I was going to Diesel School in Nashville and we hit it off right away. She was almost the complete opposite of Colleen in that she was brash, opinionated; mule headed and set in her ways when her mind was made up. But, for some reason I liked that in her. It meant I didn't need to waste time fighting to get my way. I knew better. We ended up getting married and settling back in the town I grew up in.

Colleen had gone to college and taken a teaching job on the other side of the state and eventually married some fellow she worked with. We would run into each other every couple years or so but even that fell off about ten years ago and I had never introduced Charlene to her, I guess because I never had the opportunity.

One day about a year ago, a Dodge Ram 2500 Diesel Quad Cab pulled into my shop lot and I watched this little tiny woman crawl out of the cab of that truck. She was wearing jeans tucked into a pair of cowboy boots with sunglasses on her face. I had never seen her before on the lot and when she walked into the customer service area she walked up to me at the counter and lifted the glasses off her face and our eyes met.

"Sweet Jesus ... Mike, it's you" was all she said.

"Charlene, you are looking real good. How are you doing?" I said in reply as I came around the counter to give her a big hug.

I brought her around to my office and got her a cup of coffee as we caught up on the lost years. She had moved back into her mom's old house up past the high school but hadn't settled in yet. Between wrapping up her job back in Knoxville and getting things moved over here, life had not allowed her to slow down.

"So, what brought you back to Cordova, Colleen?"

She looked a little sad for a moment.

"The big 'D' as in divorce, that and the need to just get away and with Momma's house just sitting there since she went to live with Aunt Marjorie; I thought it would be a good change. She gave me the house last year. Besides, I took a job at the Jr High School as Principal starting this fall."

"How's that little girl of yours doing?"

"Mike, she's not little anymore. She'll be 16 in a couple months." She beamed.

I remembered her when she was real little, maybe four years old. I don't think I ever saw her after that.

"So, do you need help getting moved in? I've got a couple trucks and at least two good men that can get it done."

She just shook her head and told me that's not what she was here for.

"I need somebody to go over the truck out there with a comb and fix anything that might be wrong with it so I can take it in and trade it in on something I can actually drive. I hate the damn thing."

I glanced at her truck out on the lot. With all the chrome and pin striping, somebody had to have loved that big beast. She walked me out to it and I climbed up into it and checked out the interior. There was a lot of custom electronics installed. The truck had a front winch and a heavy duty suspension and towing package on the back. The darn thing had to run at least $50 grand and one thing was pretty clear to me; this was a man's truck and not something I would ever picture Colleen driving.

I told her I'd go through it and let her know if anything needed replacing or fixing but I didn't think that would be the case. The truck was less than a year old with only 8,000 miles on it.

"How did you happen to find yourself driving this big boy, Colleen?

"Mike, the first time I ever drove it was from Knoxville to here and if I have anything to do with it, it will be the next to last ride I make in it. It belonged to Dennis, my Ex. The divorce was finalized last week and part of the settlement gave me one vehicle and didn't specify which one." She smiled.

"So, I had my attorney go with me last night to Dennis' apartment and I left my Honda Civic in place of his prized Pride & Joy. This morning, he went with me to DMV and with the court decree and registration, we got the title switched over to my name. Jesus, he is going to be so totally pissed.

That's why I want you to go over the truck. It's paid for and I'm going to trade it in as fast as I can. Dennis doesn't get back from his trip until tomorrow."

Well, I spent about an hour going over it and gave her the expected news; no problems.

"Come with me, Mike. You know about cars and stuff. Help me buy something I'd like."

So that's what I did. She climbed back up into the cab and I took shotgun and the two of us headed down to Spoke Chevrolet. I knew Ralph, the general manager there, and we worked out a deal. Colleen got $42K trade in and drove off the lot in a brand new Camaro 2SS Convertible. She had to carry a bit of a note when it was all done but we drove off the lot with a slate grey beast of a car with the top down and the biggest smile on her face.

By the time she got me back to the shop, it was quitting time. We made plans to have lunch later in the week and I headed home to my darling wife Charlene. Of course, she wasn't there so I ended up baking a frozen pizza and swilled that down with a couple diet Cokes. Charlene came in from wherever she was around 7PM, took care of her lady business and we ended up streaming something off Netflix.

The rest of the week was pretty much the same until I had lunch with Colleen on Friday, a couple days after she traded in for the Camaro. I was down at the diner and she wheeled right in front of the window booth I was sitting in. Jesus, she looked good, too. The top was down and the car had a deep rumble when she pulled to a stop. She might have just finalized her divorce but with a package like that and the ride, she's be drawing attention soon enough.

She got all serious when she slid in the booth.

"Dennis is so fucking mad he threatened to kill me when he finds me. I've never heard him so angry. I called my attorney and he just said there was nothing I could do unless he actually tried to do something."

"Listen, Collen, I'd be royally pissed too if that happened to me although I wouldn't threaten to kill anybody. Do you think he would actually harm you?"

"Mike, I don't know." She looked a bit scared at that point so I tried to assure her that everything was going to be OK but truthfully, I didn't know myself.

We finished up our lunch and I made sure she had me on speed dial if anything came up and I headed back to the shop. That evening, after Charlene and I had our customary Friday night fuck and grunt, my phone started going off and when I picked it up, it was Colleen and she was in a panic. After I calmed her down, I told her I'd be there in a bit.

"Charlene, I need to go out on a call. I'll be back in a bit."

She just mumbled something in her half sleep mode and I grabbed my run bag and my CC holster before heading out the door. It took me about 15 minutes to get to Colleen's and she was waiting for me on the porch with a Winchester pump in her hands. Her daughter Christine stood behind her.

"Colleen, tell me slowly what happened and why didn't you call the police instead of me?"

"Mike, we were just cleaning up the kitchen and getting ready to go to bed when he threw a brick through the living room window."

"Who was he? Did you get to see him?"

"I saw my old white Civic going down the road. It has a different shade lens cap on the back driver side tail light. It stands out like a sore thumb. One of my coworkers changed it out for free off a wrecked Civic but it's off a bit in color."

I got them both inside the house and sitting in the living room.

"OK, first, I think you should call the police and see if they can pick him up. Then I'll get this window patched up until we can replace it."

Colleen wouldn't have anything to do with the police but I had my own backup plan. Bobby Dyer was a guy we both went to school with and he was a lieutenant with the city police. I was going to ask him to look into it discreetly.

Once the ladies were settled down, I located some clear plastic and packaging tape that would work until morning. Once everything was cleaned up, I let Colleen know to call me if anything else happened but if it did to call the police first. She agreed and I hauled my ass back home for some needed sleep.

Charlene was snoring away when I crawled back into bed and she mumbled something and I just kissed her goodnight and fell asleep myself. The next morning I got the window fixed and had a talk with Bobby. Sunday night, I got another call.

Bobby Dyer and one of his officers had a drunk, angry Dennis Whitmore cuffed face down in the gravel with his pockets emptied out. The contents included an S&W.38, a six inch blade and a pint of Jim Beam. The S&W had two rounds missing and they were found in the wall of Colleen's living room. So much for Dennis' freedom. By the time it was over Dennis got 36 months if he behaved, 10 years if he didn't. The judge didn't take kindly to him shooting into a house with a woman and child in it.

After that Colleen and I started having lunch regularly and reconnecting as old friends. I got to know her daughter Christine pretty well. But, out of all that, we never did get romantic. It was always a matter of being good friends and being there when the other needed it. Over the course of the following year, Charlene never did meet Colleen and I never made anything more out of our friendship than having lunch or giving Christine a ride across town if she needed one until she got her driver's license and didn't need my lift.

Colleen started dating but nothing seemed to work out for her at the time. One day she came into the shop to have me look at one of her tires and when I was done, she reached up and put her arms around my neck and gave me a big hug before giving me a peck on the lips. I just smiled and kissed her on her forehead before setting her down.

"Thank you, my sweet Mike. You have always been there for me and if you weren't already hitched, I'd rope you myself."

She said it in a joking manner but there was a seriousness undercutting it. If both of us could have gone back 20 years, things might have been different but they weren't. I did still love Charlene and I didn't cheat on her but I could still be friends with that girl I met in 3rd grade.

So that was the setting for the picture Charlene slid across the table at me in the lawyers office. It was a completely innocent picture of two close friends and nothing more and it was a couple months before Charlene walked out, about the same time she started getting started with her new life.

About a month after the meeting at the lawyer's office I got a call informing me that Charlene's attorney had held off on filing the papers with the court. It seemed Charlene was getting cold feet on the divorce for whatever reason. I asked him what the consequences were and basically everything would stay as is unless there was reconciliation between us.

Since Charlene was tooling around town in Dickey Johnson's new Chrysler 300 every day and likely on the receiving end of his non-boring prick, I sure as hell didn't see any reconciliation happening in this case; not on your life.

A couple weeks after that, I got a call from Charlene.

"Mike, can we get together to talk?" She asked without even so much as a hello.

"What do you want to talk about, Charlene?" I asked waiting for the artful twist of words.