Say What You Mean, Mean What You Say

I have always taken pride in my appearance. My marriage to Killer allowed me to take it to a different level, but not because of him.  His requirement was that I had to wear dresses and no trousers, oh excuse me, slacks. 

Men wore trousers, women wore slacks and don't ever refer to them as pants as that is what you wore underneath.  Killer had so many idiosyncrasies they were hard to remember and keep track of, but he kept you in line. 

His mother, Mimi, was a woman's whose style I admired. She was not very tall, but she would put a hat on and it would just change her whole demeanor. As well, when you went out in to the public, heads turned as women did not wear hats.  Ball caps, but not going to church hats. I loved hats, but never really wore them because of my curly hair.  I had to find the right style or I appeared to look like Bozo the clown with the curly gobs of hair hanging out from under my head bonnet.

In my travels with the hospital association I wore hats often as I called on clients.  Once, while in Traverse City, I couldn't have been  more than 25 when I pulled into a Shell station for gas.  I was dressed in a black suit, pleated skirt, black patent leather heels, nothing shorter than three inches, a wide brim black hat and black gloves.  I probably had on black and gold earrings and a scarf of an accent color.  I walked into the station to pay for my fuel and the attendant was in awe of my beauty.  He couldn't have been much younger than I was but he said, "You are so beautiful, you look like you just stepped off the cover of Vogue. Are you a model?"  Do you think it was a pick up line? Regardless, I was a woman and I'd take any compliment, turning from the counter, I returned to my model shoot in my little bubble.

My twenty seventh birthday was just around the corner.  I really had no desire to celebrate it as I knew I would be faced with a dilemma. My pleas for time to think fell on to deaf ears.  The green eyed monsters continued to beg me to "pick them." I did not want to pick anyone. I just wanted to be alone to heal my heart.

I signed up for courses at Lansing Community College.  Perhaps I  could go this time without Killer driving me and watching my every movement.  And it would give me a night or two that I would be busy without having to come up with an excuse that was acceptable by them for not being available to see one another.

At work, I started writing a training manual to use in my future classes that allowed me to give them a syllabus that we could adhere to as we move through the course work.  

Roger would not give me any support so I did the work myself.  It was not a requirement of mine, I just did it to make the training easier and it gave the adjusters a guide to take back to their desk to use as a reference.  I spent weeks writing this, putting together examples, developing tests so I would know if they were capturing the information or just sitting in a chair and watching my finely coordinated clothing and notebook.

Roger was impressed when I would be able to tell him exactly where each employee stood at the end of the course work so the supervisor could pick up and work to improve the areas they needed work in. But he was still a strong supporter of Julie.

About this time, Michael lost his job.  I do not remember if he told me the details or if I even asked, but this moment became pivotal in our relationship as an idle mind is known to be the Devils workshop.  Here I stood now with not one Devil, but two, who would not take their pitch forks and move on.

I became Michael's full time job. He now had time to watch my every movement.  We had decided to go to the Detroit area for my twenty seventh birthday and do what we always do, fly by the seat of our pants and find some thing fun.

Michael planned the weekend and I was fine with that.  Having been married to Killer all those years, I was the one that managed every thing and planned every thing.  So I welcomed the opportunity to let some one else make all the plans. Michael was one of two men who could buy me clothes that I absolutely loved.  They were things that I would have never picked out, but they knew they would look nice on me.  As you recall, I did mention there were only two men who took longer to get ready than me, well, this other man was also the man who took hours to get ready as he could not break his routine.

Do you think there is a coincidence there? Men who take forever to get ready are very good at picking out women's clothing? Probably not, but interesting that these two were the only ones who could do that.

Michael had purchased some clothing for me.  Fun clothing. I didn't have much in casual wear as Killer did not believe in wearing casual clothes. You had very nice work clothes and yard clothes.  When I married him I tried to get him to update his tennis shoes, but Killer didn't wear tennis shoes and at the time refused to pay more than a couple of dollars for them.  It took me a while, but I did get him to wear tennis shoes once in a while, but he didn't wear shorts or jeans out in public so tennis shoes were not feasible with trousers.

I was looking forward to just having fun on my birthday. The last six birthdays had been spent doing the same thing, getting dressed up, going to The Knight Cap, having a before dinner drink that I didn't want, a steak dinner and an after dinner drink that I choked down every year because that is how Killer rolled.

We jumped in his car. He had lost his company car as well and he bought a 1985 Oldsmobile Toronado. It was beautiful, white with red leather seats and bright chrome spoke wheels. 

As we headed toward our night of celebration he started talking about how much he loved me and wanted me.  It was the same thing over and over.  Two hours in this white shell that I could not escape as we traveled down the road toward Detroit. I just kept focusing on the destination and how much time needed to pass before I could catapult myself out of this  living hell.  But it was not to come to fruition, he just kept driving and begging me to leave Killer.  Five hours in this car, driving around the suburbs of Detroit, listening to this broken record go on and on about how I needed to make the right decision before it was too late.

Too late? He threw the jealousy gauntlet down. He stood back wondering if I'd snatch it before it got away. He told me that he would not wait forever for me, I had to make a choice.  Had he and Killer been lunching together as this was the same words Killer used on me.

I sat there for a long time and didn't say a thing.  I rather enjoyed the silence of our drive back to Lansing. I no longer wanted to celebrate my birthday, someone had blown all my candles out and licked the frosting off my cupcake, I just wanted to go home.

He pulled into his condo community heading toward his condo.  He had picked me up at my little piece of heaven across town.  I did not have my car. I wanted to go home, alone.

I told him to take me home.  He reminded me it was my birthday and he had baked a cake for me, we should have a piece.  Thanks but no thanks, I think I'll pretend this birthday didn't exist.

He took me home. As he pulled in, he started to exit from the door, I reached across and touched his forearm, "You might want to stay here, I can walk myself to the door." He looked at me searching for an answer as to why I did not want to spend the night together.

I had been begging for time alone, if he wanted to threaten me with seeking someone else to make me jealous, I needed to let him go, I had no desire to be in a committed relationship with either of them. I told him I'd be over to pick up the few things I had kept at his condo within the next few days.

I was hurt.  My birthday, that I had looked so forward to celebrating with having some fun, had been everything but.  And now, he decided to push the envelope and suggest that some one else was out there if I didn't make a decision. He wanted to know why I would be picking up my things.  "I don't think your new lady friend would appreciate my things stored at your apartment, so I'll get them so you can move on to that person waiting in the wings..."

He said he had been kidding.  There was no one else.  He only wanted me. Well, silly man, you should have thought of that before you threatened me with another woman.  I didn't say a word, I just got out of the car and walked to the door.  He sat there for some time before leaving, but the next day, my phone rang off the hook, messages were left that I was the only one for him, why couldn't he be the only one for me.  I wish I knew the answer to that one.