Losing my cell, Losing my mind
It’d be funny if it wasn’t true
The next week he asked me to go with him to the beach for the whole day. This was the first time it occurred to me that I had a secret to hide.
As I’ve mentioned before, I have ADHD and all of the typical characteristics that go along with it. And that means I misplace things constantly, abruptly change the subject during conversations, and my car is always a mess. (There’s a lot more to it than that, but that’s a different book.)
On the day I was to spend ten full hours with the doctor, I had planned out a lie. This is not something I’d bothered to do with my other indiscretions. My concern for secrecy had dissolved along with the intimacy in my marriage. After years of nothing, it seemed silly to worry about him finding out about the director or the surfer. He had never been around. Who cared? After eight years of nothing, we had nothing to lose.
But something about this situation felt dangerous. I had purchased new clothes to wear to the beach; I cared about my hair and shoes. I’d purposely told my soon-to-be ex-husband and Jude a lie so they knew they needed to be around for Cooper the whole day. I had never had to create an elaborate story before.
Then that morning, I lost my phone and, consequently, my mind.
“No, no, no, this cannot happen. People will read our texts. People will know. This is a disaster!!” I screamed inside my mind.
I yelled at Cooper, and I yelled at Jude (my kids for you newcomers), insisting that they help me in the search. I called every store I’d been to that morning. I used the Find My iPhone app which sent me to a neighbor’s house, where I embarked to ask them if they had accidentally picked up my phone at the store or perhaps had a teenage child that was prone to theft.
Yes–I–Did.
When the phone was finally located in my garage, I ran to my room to collapse. What on earth was wrong with me? Why was this so scary or dangerous? Who cared if we were friends? Who would even care if we were sleeping together? Two unhappy people find sex, big whoop.
I reached out to him to cancel. I was done and clearly insane.
He texted back, calmly,
“Jackie, it will be OK.
Just get in the car.
Come get me, let’s go away.
Let’s see what happens.”
So though I was sure it would be an awful day, I got in the car, and we went to the beach. On the drive there, he spent the whole time laughing at the hijinks of my morning.
“You mean you spoke to them?” he asked as I maneuvered down La Cienega Blvd.
“Well, yes, I needed my phone, and the app did say it was at their house,” I said, a little embarrassed.
“Yes, but what, you just knocked on their door? What did you say?” he was shocked and amused.
“I said, look, I know you stole my phone fair and square, but I will be needing it back now so I can sneak off to the ocean with a parent of an ex-student who happens to be my doctor who also happens to be married like me, but is separated like me, so I guess it makes the whole thing OK” I retorted with a smile.
“OK, OK, we are getting into an ugly area. Pull into this lot.” The thing that people will keep from telling you about Los Angeles is that the beach is almost always cold…
© Jackie Dawes, September 18, 2023
Another excerpt from my memoir. Another piece to the puzzle.
More will be revealed in upcoming stories. Names have been changed. If you’d like to be notified when I publish something new, click here.
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