Secret Shopper (11 page)

“Promise you won’t be mad first.” Rachel pleaded.

“I. Promise.”

“I wanted to make sure there were armed men between us before I told you this, but I gave Thomas your number and he should be calling you by the end of the day if he’s your true love. Love you! Bye!” Before I could register what Rachel told me, I heard her cackling like a mad woman. Then, silence.

Chapter 6

Enter Sandman

I paced the parking lot, but the cool morning air couldn’t calm me. I looked at my phone again and a rush of nervous energy coursed through me. Rachel played cupid and with a possible call from Thomas today and the return of my soon-to-be ex-husband in two days, I bolted. I jogged up and down the water way, but the exertion didn’t assuage my panic. I tried to enjoy the heavenly sunrise, I really tried. I stopped, I breathed, but Thomas and Bradley’s faces entered my mind and all I could see were their silhouettes in the sky flying towards each other i
n battle like a martial arts flick.

I ran back to my car and pulled out my work folder to check Thomas’s schedule for the month. He was off on Fridays. He was off
today
. Butterflies procreated and threatened to burst out of my belly. Maybe I’ll just shut off my phone. Simple. What the hell would I say to him? “Hi, I’m Nix and I’m almost divorced and I used to be a fatty and brunette and yes I’m from Guam, but I live here and yes I did an evaluation and you were my target and yes, I think you’re hot in an Edward slash Robert sort of way who I’m mildly obsessed with.”

I was going to kill Rachel the next time she was within striking distance.

To clear my mind I drove the long way home. Silver Strand was gorgeous, so I pulled into a small parking area. I blocked the impending doom of talking to someone I may or may not have a crush on out of my nervous mind. I decided that now was a good time as any to call my parents. It would be almost ten at night, but I knew their routine enough to know that they would be,
damn
, leaving Bradley’s parents house on a Friday night after an evening of playing cards. One of the many activities retirees do. I tried the house phone first and Pharaoh answered.

             
“Hey dork. It’s me.” I greeted him in my usual fashion. Pharaoh sounded tired. “Did I wake you?”

             
“Hey, Nix, no. I just got back from training, watching T.V. Is everything okay?” He always thought something was wrong when I called, and this time, it really was. When I thought of it, Pharaoh and Bradley, being brothers-in-law weren’t as tight as I would have liked. That didn’t matter now. Pharaoh was concerned when Bradley and I decided to stay in California after college. I invited him to try stateside life, but Pharaoh was too much of an island boy. His reputation was growing in the mixed martial arts realm and he enjoyed where he was rooted.

             
I took a deep breath, watching the waves roll in. Then, I told Pharaoh nearly everything, using him as a test audience of this news, before my parents would hear of it. He was quiet and listened as I gave him the abbreviated, sanitized version of things. I didn’t want to bash Bradley. I really didn’t.

             
“What the fuck happened?” Pharaoh seethed, I heard him breathing. “Nix, what did Bradley do?”

             
“Why do you assume it’s Bradley’s fault? It’s just irreconcilable differences.” I lied.

             
“That’s bullshit. Bradley must have done something stupid. Did he cheat?”

             
I never took my brother to be so concerned or intuitive. At our wedding, he just wanted to know what was on the menu and how long he had to stay at the reception. I decided to divulge the major highlights, uncensored, since he was an adult, just proven.

             
“Yeah, he’s decided he likes someone from his office more than me. It’s done. We’re done. We’re going to look for a military lawyer to do a clean straightforward divorce.” I kept my voice even.

             
“Good. That motherfucker better not cross my path because I’ll destroy him.”
Tell me what you really want to do,
I thought. This MMA stuff gave my brother an extra pair of balls apparently.

             
“Does this mean you’re moving back home?” Pharaoh asked, suddenly sounding like a little kid.

             
I sighed. There were so many reasons to go home and many more reasons to make a life in California work. Before I could give him a definitive answer, my mom’s loud voice pierced my inner debate on Guam versus California. But, it was my dad’s booming voice on the line first. “Phoenix, everything okay?”

             
I told my dad and had the same angry reaction as Pharaoh, minus all the curse words. Dad wanted to be sure I was okay. He wanted me to fly home. I told him in a few months. After I told him Rachel had spent a few days with me, he calmed down. He seemed to register my sureness of the divorce. I was so glad he didn’t tell me to “work it out.” That was something I was positive my mom would tell me to do. After offering me money, I declined and told him that I had enough in savings and would try to pick up more work. My mom’s grumbling told me she was waiting in the wings and wanted in on the conversation. Her loud voice on the line now.

             
“
Fee-nux
. You getting a
da-bors
?” I really missed hearing my mom speak. The nuances of some words and the slaughtering of others were uniquely my mom’s.

My one big regret was not learning Korean. It would have made conversation with mom easier. It would have also made my mom proud. I hated when other Koreans shook their heads or clicked their tongues when they found out I couldn’t speak the language. Talk about feeling like you let an entire country down.

              “Yes,
omma
.” I gave her the details of what led up to the problem. She was uncharacteristically quiet. I expected her to interject, question, berate, but her silence was new.

             
“I
ne-va
thought that my
daw-tor
would go through what I had to go through.” What the hell was my mom talking about? 

             
“Nix, mommy was
da-bors
too.” I heard Pharaoh in the background. This was obviously a surprise to him too. Then I heard Dad send Pharaoh out of the room. Mom explained that she was once married to a Korean man. She was only seventeen at the time. When she lost her first baby in a late term miscarriage, a girl, she found out that her husband was already married in another province. He had daughters and a matchmaker-fortune teller said that mom would be a guaranteed bearer of a son. Once she didn’t fulfill this for this man, he dumped her. Abandoned at the small hospital, mom swore off men. She found work at a restaurant. After many years alone, an Army G.I. aka dad, swept her off her feet and married her. Mom made her journey to Guam and never looked back.

             
The weight of the fact that dad was mom’s
second
husband pressed on me. How would I have coped if who I thought was my loving, caring husband was a fraud? Bradley. Was he a fraud? Was our marriage a fraud? The sorrow I felt for my mom back then and the anger I felt now having to dredge up these memories made me burn. I didn’t want Bradley to get off so easily like the bastard who left my mom at the hospital. Yes, we wouldn’t be alive if that first marriage panned out for the best, but mom’s first husband’s actions were cruel. What I was going through now was mild compared to my mom’s relationship battle scars.

              Bradley tore apart the institution of us and the ripple effect began. I knew he didn’t tell his parents about the divorce. I wondered if he just wanted to continue with Barbie leaving everyone on Guam in the dark. After many more reassurances to my family, I called Bradley’s mom and dad. I didn’t shed a tear with my family and I wasn’t going to start with Bradley’s. They didn’t do anything wrong to me, but they needed to know that I was no longer cast in the role as dutiful daughter-in-law. I would let Bradley clean up the mess my news would bring. I wasn’t going to go crazy on good old Brad, but I needed to know my rights. Now that I dropped the news to our families, my next step was military legal. I needed to arm myself.

              I discovered that with this divorce, Bradley would have to pay alimony, especially if it was proven that he wanted to dissolve the marriage. I often heard on the news—well, celebrity news, of women suing the mistress for isolation of affection or some crap like that. I wanted nothing to do with Jem and as much as I hated her, she could keep the trash I was about the chuck out.

             
Bradley would only have to pay for the last year we were married, about half of his pay. What about the previous almost ten years I endured what I thought was a loving relationship? The three years we were married? I wondered for a split second if what I had, emphasis on had, was ever true love. Were our vows before God true in his heart? Were they true in mine? Did we just do what was expected of us? I could never really say Bradley was my best friend or my soul mate. I didn’t feel it to my core. And, suddenly, I was strangely relieved by this realization.

.

              With time alone, I reviewed my evaluations for the week. Before shutting down the computer, it dawned on me that I didn’t bother to check Bradley’s emails from the night before. I clicked on the earliest one. Blabber about picking him up in case I didn’t get his text.
Delete.
The second latest one was dated three days ago. Rachel and I were doing our salsa class and sweating when he wrote this I thought. He seemed a bit more desperate in this one, wondering what I was up to huh?
Delete.
The one dated yesterday threw me a curveball.

              Nix I got yr txt about pckng me up Thnk u I’m not sure if your even reading these mssges I miss you, alot I’ve been thinking about us lately All this trning and being away from you has made me refocus Can we talk about it please sorry I love you Bradley

              I skimmed over the terribly written e-mail. The death of the written word was on our horizon and I was terrified. Sorry, was he? Where did Jem fit in all this? I wondered. The e-mail should have sparked something in me, that desperate me of just a few weeks ago seemed to be dead. I felt numb, immune to Bradley’s latest ploy. How could he undo what’s already done? He cheated and that was fact. It was marked in the history books.

             
I didn’t bother with any social networks and toyed with the idea of deleting them. The possible phone call from Thomas was in the back of my mind all day.

The condo was quiet now that Rachel was gone. It would be another twelve hours before she landed on
Guam. She was due a royal verbal smack down for giving Sir Thomas my number, and how the hell was I going to explain that my name wasn’t really Monica? I kept my Blackberry in hand and placed the ringer on the loudest setting. Maybe, just maybe, I was a bit giddy about the possibility of Thomas calling.

             
I headed to the bathroom and checked my reflection. The blonder hair made me panic. Would Bradley think I did this for him? I did initially think that it would win him over. I wondered if getting my hair dyed back to brown tonight would make it all fall out. Wasn’t I supposed to wait like six weeks minimum between dye jobs?

Just as I dropped my new
Victoria
Secretions
undergarments in the hamper, my Blackberry rang. I was ecstatic as well as totally naked. If that was indeed Thomas, he picked a very auspicious moment to call. I rushed to my nightstand and saw an unknown local number. I glanced at my blinds to make sure they were shut, then I grabbed my phone. The Hello Kitty alarm clock showed that it was 7:30, a respectable time of night for him to call.
Answer it already,
something animal in me growled.

             
“Phoenix speaking.” What compelled me to use my full real name was beyond me. Perhaps it was that I was stripped down and exposed, but my best shot at being anything to Thomas was to start with the real.

             
“Oh, I’m sorry. I must have the wrong number.” Thomas’s silky voice entered my head and I felt dizzy. He paused, like he was checking the number written on the napkin from the karaoke bar Rachel probably gave him. “I was actually looking for, um, Monica.”

             
“Thomas?” I decided to make this easier for us both.

             
“Yes!” He sounded relieved and confused at the same time. His voice was more melodic and deeper over the phone and my heart skipped. Would I have our entire conversation naked? Feeling modest, I grabbed my robe.

             
“Yeah, my friend Rachel gave you this number. She also said I was Monica, but I’m not.”

             
“But, you’re the girl who was singing at the bar right?” 

             
“Yes. My name is Phoenix, not Monica though.”