Swingin' on a Star

In frustration, I threw my phone across the room and screamed. My mom immediately came into the room just as the baby started screaming. She picked him up and began rocking him in her arms.

"It's okay, Teddy," she cooed. "Mommy's not angry with you. She's angry at herself."

Then she looked at me. I was in tears. I sank to the floor and assumed a near fetal position in the corner.

"Honey, what are you so frustrated about," she asked while still rocking my son.

"I can't get Ted even to talk to me," I pouted. In less than two minutes, she had my son back asleep and got Ted on the phone while she did it.

"Hi Ted," she said. "Remember back at Christmas when I told you that you were my favorite son in law, and you said that I was like your second mom? Well, your second mom needs to burn a favor." She paused for a couple of minutes. I assume she was listening to him.

"I know how bad that has to hurt, Honey," she said. "But I really believe she thought he was yours too. She even named him Ted junior for Christ's sake. Ted, she is devastated. So could you just sit down and talk to her? I mean, Honey, this is a terrible situation for both of you. The two of you loved each other so much. It's really hard for me to believe that all of this happened so fast."

She paused again and frowned. "But Ted," she whined, stretching the single syllable of his name out to at least three.

"You're a stronger person than she is. So you can do this. Just do it for me, okay?" She waited for a few moments and then hung up the phone.

She turned and looked at me. "Six o' clock, tonight ... Texas Roadhouse," she said.

I dressed as well as I could. I still had a lot of weight to lose before I was back at my pre-pregnancy weight. I dressed conservatively and got there early. Ted came in exactly on time. We ordered and sat there looking at each other.

"Ted, what the hell happened to us," I asked.

"That's an easy one," he said. "You cheated on me."

"No, I mean, we had almost gotten over that," I said. "You went away to think. I know that you went on a cruise with Samantha. I hated it, but I had the idea that we had a chance. But somehow when you came back you just disappeared and ..."

"While I was on the cruise, you just couldn't resist it," he said. "You fucked Mickey again. That ended any chance of us. I was just waiting around to find out what I owed you in child support. And I wanted to make arrangements for regular visitation with ... my son. However, I don't have a ..."

"But you can," I told him. "No one has to know. I named him after you. You can be his dad, and I swear our next one will be ..."

"No more lies," he spat. "You made your choice, now ..."

"My choice was you," I hissed. "I have a problem. It's like being a drug addict or an alcoholic. Most of the time it's under control. In all of our time together it only happened a few times. I have never chosen anyone or anything over you. Even after you found out about Mickey, you were my choice Ted. I was pregnant and horny as hell, but I resisted, because I chose YOU. You were fucking Samantha every God damned day. It was driving me crazy. Don't you see it? It was her. She was throwing it in my face as much as she was Mickey's.

I know it was her who came up with those tickets for that fucking cruise. Just the thought of the two of you there on the water, it was driving me crazy. I ... I couldn't help it. Ted just forgive me, one more time."

He sat down in his seat. Everyone in the restaurant was watching us. He threw some bills on the table and gently took my arm and pulled me out of the restaurant.

"Elaine, I forgive you," he said. I breathed a sigh of relief.

"You're going to be a great mother," he said. "I'm sure you'll have your big house, more kids, and all the things you've always wanted ..."

"I know we will," I said.

"That's just it, El," he said quietly. "This has all been too much for me. I can't take any more. Maybe ... no, not maybe. The way that Sam and I chose to punish Mickey ... And I guess you too. It was wrong. It got out of hand. It got to the point where I could barely stand to see Mickey. The pain on his face still haunts me now. I don't think I could ever be strong enough to put up with what he did.

We were all wrong. You and Mickey were wrong. All of our friends were wrong for picking on Mickey for all of those years. Their wives were wrong for fucking Mickey. Samantha and I were wrong. There are no heroes here. We all need some sort of counseling. It's just a huge fucked-up situation. The only way out of this is a fresh start."

"Can we have our fresh start together?" I asked. "I love you, Ted."

"And a part of me will always love you too," he said. "But there's just been too much pain between us. And there's no trust left between us at all and ..."

"And WHAT," I sobbed.

"And I've moved on," he said. "I've met someone. She's ... well she's a car nut just like me. She just has incredibly bad taste in cars. She drives a Camaro. I think it's my mission in life to set her straight."

"I don't care about some slut you're banging or what kind of fucking car she drives," I screamed. "Are you out of your mind? We can still make this work. You just stop fucking her, today ... Now! And we promise never to touch anyone else except each other, ever! Okay?"

"Nokay," he said. "I hoped that maybe you, and I could be friends someday, like Sam and me, but ..."

"Kiss my ASSSS!" I screamed. "I love you. I don't want to be your God Damned friend! We are going to make this ..." I was so angry I started jumping up and down. "Do you hear me Ted? We are going to make this shit work! You are going to be Ted junior's father. And you're going to adopt him to make this fucked-up situation legal. And starting tonight you and I are going to be fucking night and day until you get me pregnant again. And this time we're going to do it right! Do you understand me?"

I heard two things. The first was the sound of a very high-powered motor, revving up in the parking lot nearby. I recognized that motor. It was Ted's Mustang. I turned and saw him pulling out of the parking lot. He never looked back.

The second thing I heard was the sound of a child and her parents walking by me. "Daddy is that lady crazy?" she asked.

"Don't look at her honey," he said pulling his child closer to him. "Whatever she has might be catching."

* * * * * *

Ted

"A penny for your thoughts," said the woman beside me, a few months later.

We were looking at a barren stretch of I-75. It was fairly deserted at this time of night and was one of our favorite places to meet.

"I want to up our bet," I said.

"Do I get a bigger head start?" she asked.

"What," I asked in mock shock. "When you upped the bet from dates in nice restaurants to sex, I gave you the head start. So why don't we get to go back to even starts when I up the bet?"

"Your shyness was ruining our relationship," she spat. "Mountains move faster than you do. My pussy was drying up. Even now, I have no idea what our status is. Everyone I know knows we're together, but we have yet to put any kind of handle on it. Besides, we've been to almost every restaurant in town. We have to save a few nice places for special occasions, Ted. Anyway, what's the bet?"

As she spoke she moved even closer to me. She wrapped her arms around me and pressed her boobs against me.

"When you do that, I can barely think," I said. She took my arms and wrapped them around her. I pulled her even closer, and she sighed, barely stifling a moan.

"You don't need to think, Ted," she cooed. "Just say what's on your mind."

"We're racing to Belle Isle. The first one to get there wins. However, to make this interesting, it's not enough to get to the island. Just as you come off of the bridge, there's a fountain that a lot of people take pictures at. In the first trash can you come to from the road, there's a White Castle bag. Whoever gets the White Castle bag is the winner," I said.

"What do you get if you win?" she asked.

"You have to rent a Mustang and drive it for a week," I said. "What do you get if you win?"

"You have to call everyone you know and tell them I'm your girlfriend," she said.

"On your marks!" I said. The giggle beside me told me she was already running towards her car. I took off too, but something seemed weird. She got to her car, and as I reached for my keys, I noticed that she had during the hug, taken mine from the pocket of my jacket.

I heard the sound of her engine starting and then the clink of my keys as she dropped them out of her window. I ran over just as she took off, blowing me a kiss as she drove away.

I grabbed my keys from the ground and ran back to my car. In seconds, I was after her. Her head start was probably twenty to thirty seconds. I screamed down the road seeing her lights ahead of me as we tore down the deserted freeway. We flew through the curves before the Oakland Mall with me gaining seconds due to my Mustang's track pack and better handing. Once we passed fourteen mile, there was a long straightaway and we were both doing over a hundred and forty miles per hour.

She slowed down for a fraction of a second as she took the curve near twelve mile. There were relatively few real curves between there and eight mile. She was pretty fast, but I passed her before we hit the Detroit city limits. By the time we passed seven mile, I was ahead by a full car length. It was two car lengths at six mile, and by the time we hit the exit for West Grand Blvd. I was almost out of sight.

I suddenly remembered that I didn't want to win so I slowed down. I made it interesting. I slowed so gradually that she thought she was gaining on me. We hit the exit at East Jefferson, neck and neck with me just a bit ahead and laughing my ass off. I had to be really careful from there because there were a lot of cops downtown. She could easily get out of a ticket being a cop herself. I couldn't.

So I kept her near me and kept an eye out for cops. We hit the Belle Idle Bridge together, and God help me, I couldn't do it. I thought of all of those people in Mustang clubs all over Facebook and the planet. I put the hammer down and left that Camaro in my dust.

I could see the "What the fuck," expression on her face as the distance between us widened in a fraction of a second. I drove to the bridge and got out of my car. I walked slowly towards the trash can as she pulled up. She drove past me up onto the sidewalk stopping only a foot from the trash can.

"I won," she said pulling the bag from the trash can.

"Did you really," I asked arching an eyebrow.

"Oh alright," she pouted, throwing me the bag. I threw it back to her.

"You already ate the burgers," she said. "I don't want your trash."

"Look in the bag, dummy," I said. She pulled out a couple of slider boxes, and then a small velvet covered square box. She sucked in a huge breath and looked at me.

"Is this a joke?" she asked. Her eyes were already tearing up.

"Open it," I said. Just as the ring sparkled in the moonlight I asked her.

"Katie Marquez, will you please marry me and spend the rest of your life losing races to me?" I asked from one knee.

Her answer was to kiss me and wrap those arms around me. "I'd have married you if you'd asked me the first day we met," she gushed.

"You mean back when you made that illegal traffic stop on me?" I asked.

"I didn't stop you," she gushed. "You pulled over voluntarily. And you should talk. You've been fucking me ever since. It's about time you made an honest woman of me."

"I had to pull over," I smirked. "You never could have caught me in that MOPAR garbage you were driving."

"That's my work car," she sputtered. "My SS runs rings around that thing."

"SS stands for Super Slow, right?" I quipped.

"Yep," she said. "And GT stands for Giant Turd."

"My car's not a GT," I said. "It's a five point Oh."

"Wow," she gushed. "They named the car after your IQ."

"Yeah but I'm smart enough not to let you get away," I said. And then I kissed her.

* * * * * *

Elaine.

After the meeting with Ted in the restaurant, I went a little crazy for a while. It was at least two weeks before I did more than grunt acknowledgement when anyone spoke to me. Both of my parents were getting fed up with me. My mother was taking care of Ted Jr., and she was getting tired of it. My father, on the other hand, was just plain tired of me.

"It's her life," he told my mother. "She has a perfect right to fuck it up, and she did. That does not give her the right to fuck ours up though. She needs to get off her ass and do something."

"What do you want her to do, Henry," asked my mother. "She just lost the love of her life. She needs time to get over it."

"That's the way YOU see it, Martha," said my dad.

"How do you see it, Honey," she asked.

"She had a great life ... Good guy, everything she wanted. The works. She had a brain fart. Just like back when I wasted all of that money sending her ass to college. She started fucking some nerd with a huge dick, and Ted found out. She threw her life away; she didn't lose it. If I have a hole in my pocket, and my keys fall out while I'm playing golf ... I lost them. But, if I take my keys out of the pocket and chuck them into the fuckin' river, you can't say I lost them. That is a conscious act, and therefore, I deserve to have to either find them myself or walk my ass home."

"But Ted started having a lot of sex with that woman next door to them," said my mom. "That should have made them even. If they both had sex with other people, why couldn't they just let bygones be bygones?"

"Because the time for that was bye and gone once your daughter got herself knocked up by that walrus," yelled my dad. "Of all the nerds in the world, she had to go and find herself one who can't get a job. What kind of shit is that? Nerds are supposed to be smart. Trust my daughter to find a dumb nerd."

Listening to their conversation made me realize some things that I had forgotten. I realized then that all of it. Everything that had ruined my life was Mickey's fault. Like Samantha said during our meeting to try to resolved things. Mickey had no reason to include me in his revenge. He had just wanted me. He'd always thought that I was beautiful and decided that he had to have me, even though Ted and I had never treated him with anything but kindness.

Yes, it was Mickey's fault. So Mickey needed to fix things. He had to get Ted and I back together. And he also had to support his child. I decided to go and talk to him.

When I got to their condo, I noticed that Samantha was sitting on our porch talking to another couple. From the look of things, someone already moved into our condo. It was just another sign that my life with Ted had been ruined. Everyone except me seemed to have moved on.

Samantha got up when she saw me and came over.

"Elaine," she said. Her voice was neutral. Her expression told me that she was ready for whatever I threw her way.

"I'm not here about Ted," I told her. "I'm actually here to see Mickey."

"Oh good," she said. "He needs to see a familiar face. You know Ted got him a job, but he isn't making any friends at work yet. I guess it takes a while for people to warm up to him."

"What about those two," I said, pointing at their new neighbors.

"They hate him," she said. "They're yuppies. Mickey started out on the wrong foot with them. They're into that whole tree-hugging thing. Mickey told them about the coolest car he had ever seen ... Ted's Mustang. He told them about how Ted always claimed that the breeze from his wake was strong enough to tip a Prius over. Six Prius jokes later, we found out that they own a Prius and things went downhill from there."

"So he has a job now," I asked.

"Yes, thank God, or really thank Ted," she said. "My Mickey is a fully functioning adult who is contributing to society. Let me get him for you." She stopped for a moment. "You aren't going to try to have sex with him are you?"

"Of course not," I said. She nodded and led me into their house.

I saw Mickey sitting on the sofa. He was watching one of the Highlander movies. I recognized it from the swordplay.

"Mickey, I need some money," I said before he had even noticed me.

"What's that got to do with us," asked Samantha.

"Because it's for Ted Jr." I said.

"That's still not our problem," said Samantha.

"Maybe not yours," I said. "But since it was Mickey, who got me pregnant, I'll be going to friend of the cunt ... I mean court, and having him served for child support."

"But ... H ..." sputtered Mickey. I guess he was in shock over finding out that he was a father.

A few days later, I got a check. It was delivered to my parents' house. After that, I got a check once a month. It was never late and often early. I used that money and my salary from returning to work to get a place for myself. It was the smallest crappiest place that I had ever lived in, but it kept me from having to listen to my dad's constant whining.

My life sucked. I worked five days a week and a half day on Saturday. I spent my free time cleaning and taking care of TJ. I had to wake up early to take him to daycare and then go to work. I picked him up and drove home after work. I had no life. I even had to get up to feed him on Sunday. My life was hell.

And then almost by accident, I got a break. Mickey and Samantha had seen a new type of car seat on TV and had bought one for TJ. Samantha decided to bring it by. Neither of them had seen my apartment nor the baby. Samantha had immediately been taken by him and he with her.

She had stayed playing with him for nearly an hour and had him cooing and making sounds that I had never heard from him. "Elaine, do you think that Mickey could ... Well I mean ... He's paying his child support, and that usually means he's supposed to have ..."

I laughed at her. "Samantha, are you and Mickey Volunteering to watch TJ for me sometimes?" I asked.

She just nodded. "From what I've heard two weekends a month is customary," she said. "Would that be ... too much?"

"How about every weekend," I said. "I mean like you said, Mickey has been very good about paying his child support. And I have him the other five days of the week. It's only fair." The look in her eyes was amazing.

I just didn't understand it. But I had to make sure she didn't try to get out of it. "Samantha, we have a deal right?" I asked. "You won't change your mind when you and Mickey have kids of your own, right?"

Over the years, my feelings about Samantha had gone through many stages. I had started out feeling sorry for her because she was so big. Then I had considered her a friend and a very close one. Then I'd taken a look at her and realized how pretty she was and had been a little afraid of her. After seeing her in a swim suit and seeing the way a lot of the men looked at her, I became jealous of her. Then she had practically taken my husband from me, and I had begun to hate her.

But seeing her burst into tears had me feeling sorry again, I wondered what I had said to make her cry.

"Samantha, I'm sorry," I said. "What did I say?" I was really afraid then. The thought of having someone to watch TJ, so I could have a couple of days of free time every week was like the promise of Christmas.

"Mickey and I will never have children," she said. "I ... I can't have any." I cried with her and did everything I could to make her feel better. The following weekend she came to pick up TJ and kept him for the entire weekend. I went out with some of the women from work on Saturday night. We went to a bar and drank and danced and had a good time. I slept in on Sunday and by the time that Samantha dropped TJ off; I was in a really good mood.