Kisses & Lies

Kisses and Lies

by

Meredith Morgan

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2010 Meredith Morgan

All Rights Reserved

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Chapter 1

Let me make sure I understand this. My oldest and dearest friend is a backstabbing liar and cheat. My other best friend and favorite colleague is a skirt-chasing bastard who, for years, encouraged people to believe he was screwing me to enhance his reputation as a lady's man. What is more, my kind, wonderful husband is a mean, hateful son of a bitch.

Mary Jo stretched out on the double chaise, where she lay with her husband beside their backyard pool, enjoying a lovely late-summer afternoon. She looked up into his eyes, grinning, So tell me, what else don't I know about my life?

Frank smiled back at her and stroked her cheek, I think that's most of it. The most important thing you have always known.

What would that be?

That I love you and I want you to be happy.

She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in the hollow place at the base of his neck. The certainty of his love and his support were sufficient for her. With that, she would be able to deal with all the rest.

At least, she hoped she could.

Why didn't I see this coming?

I would like to say it is because you're pure of heart and you never see any malice in the people you love. You automatically make excuses for us when we deviate from the wonderful images you hold of us. That's what I have always believed. And, I think there is a lot of truth in it.

I hear a 'but' coming.

He nodded, But, I don't think that's the whole truth. I think part of it is that you quite simply get so wrapped up in what you are doing, most of the time you're oblivious to what is going on around you.

You mean like 'denial'?

No. I mean as in obliviousness.

Or, clueless-ness?

Those two things are not exactly the same, in my opinion. Clueless people are those (women and men) who are too stupid or shallow to understand their circumstances. You, my love, are oblivious not because you are stupid or shallow; you are neither. What you are is ... sort of self-absorbed.

You say that as though it isn't a totally bad thing.

He shrugged. I don't think it is necessarily a totally bad thing. Your ability to focus on a given task and to block out distractions made you an exceptional student and has brought you to the brink of being a great lawyer. In the case of your relationships, however, your focus on your career allowed you to miss some significant warnings in your personal life that ended up causing you a lot of heartache.

Maybe. Maybe not. I think there was more 'denial' going on than you want to believe. She reached up and tweeked his nose, You like to make excuses for my weaknesses and failings, too, you know.

She closed her eyes and went on, I think there was a part of me that knew or suspected some of the crap that was going on. I chose not to acknowledge it because I didn't want to deal with it. Instead, I buried my head in my work and in my relationships with you and our daughter and kind of hoped all the rest would sort itself out.

She looked at him with tears in her eyes and said, You never liked Christian or Annette, did you?

He rubbed the back of her neck and paused for a long time before speaking, weighing his words carefully. Let's just say, we got off to a rough start and never managed to get past it.

Will you tell me why?

I will tell you what I think about all of this, but first, you tell me your version of the story.

Starting when? Why?

The beginning might be a good place to start. You are not a very introspective person; telling your story out loud to me may force you to consider some things you have not thought about before. Who knows? We might both learn something.

Mary Jo shrugged and snuggled closer. He was right. She was not an introspective person. She lived her life facing forward, and rarely thought about the past. It took her a while to get started. Frank's relaxed body and stillness told her he would give her all the time she needed. The way he held her tight and the insistent look in his eye told her he was not going to let her off the hook.

She sighed and began to talk.

Chapter 2 - Mary Jo's Story

I met Annette on our first day of Junior High. My family had moved from Indiana to Cincinnati during the summer after I finished the sixth grade because my dad's family's farm in Indiana was not making enough of a profit to support all of us. Before that we lived with my grandparents. My uncle and his wife lived in a separate house on the property. My grandpa, uncle and dad worked the farm while the women all worked in town. Gram was a cleaning lady in the high school, Aunt Lil was a hairdresser and Mom was a practical nurse who worked at a clinic.

We moved to Cincinnati so Mom and Dad could find better paying jobs. The idea was that their salaries would support our family and, hopefully, we would have extra money to help with the farm expenses. Dad found work in plant that made plastic products. Mom got a job as a nurse in a long-term care facility for severely ill and terminal patients.

None of us was happy about moving away from our home. The first year after the move was probably the worst period in my parents' marriage. They were both unhappy and they took it out on one another. I was unhappy about the move and, even worse, I was frightened by discord in our home. I was afraid they were going to get a divorce after uprooting us all to this strange place. It was a difficult time for all three of us.

Within a year, however, we had settled in well and we all eventually came to love it here and we all now consider Cincinnati to be our home. That was later. During our first few months here we were all homesick, miserable and very worried about our future. I was scared to death all day nearly every day about everything imaginable. I try to think of that time as little as possible.

Add to that the the ordinary anxiety about matriculating to Junior High and you can imagine what a horrible summer I had. I was a total wreck by the first day of school.

I met Annette in the home room period that day. I took a seat half-way back in the first row by the door. The other students talked among themselves. It seemed to me that they all knew each other. I felt alone and out of place. I thought everyone would think I was some kind of country bumpkin hayseed, which is precisely what I was. I started to shrink into my own personal protective zone when a beautiful girl sitting in front of me turned around and said, Hi. I'm Annette Summers. Are you new to the district, or did you just go to a different elementary school from me?

I said, My family just moved here from Indiana. I went to elementary school in Milan.

Annette said she thought that was cool. She told me that she had lived her entire life in the same house and had only been past the Indiana state line once or twice. She said she had never really met anyone from someplace else. I thought that was kind of funny. Milan, Indiana, was only about 50 miles from where we were sitting, and Annette talked about it as though it were another country. Nevertheless, she didn't make fun of me for being a hick. I was grateful for her kindness. I needed a friend. So, I didn't tease her for being so parochial.

It turned out that we were in nearly every class together. We moved from class to class and sat next to each other. We ate lunch together and Annette introduced me to the people she knew from her elementary school. I didn't think it was odd at the time, but she seemed to have very few friends. She wasn't exactly shy, but her social skills were not very good. She was kind of outspoken and opinionated. I later learned that the kids didn't like her very much.

She was nice to me, and that was all I cared about. I wasn't interested in being popular, so having a friend who was not exactly Miss Congeniality was not a problem for me. If anything, since I was kind of a brainiac nerd with opinionated tendencies of my own, we seemed to be natural best friends. We were kind of the two odd-duck females in the school who clung to each other because nobody else wanted to hang out with us, and because neither of us was willing to do what we would need to do in order to be more popular. Think Romy and Michelle, only smart.

It turned out that Annette lived within walking distance of my house, that is if you climbed a fence and cut through a neighbor's garden. Going by way of the street was a relatively easy bike ride, as well. Proximity that did not require parental transportation allowed us to be virtually inseparable. Annette became an extra member of our household. I was sort of a hanger-on at her house as well. We spent more time at my house because Annette came from a very large family. Their house was like a bus station, with people coming and going and a lot of hollering and racket.

My house was quiet. Mom and Dad both worked long hours, so Annette and I typically had the place to ourselves after school. We would do our homework and then start dinner. Most of the time, Mom would have meat thawed and potatoes peeled in the fridge. Annette and I would put the food on the stove or in the oven. When Mom got home from work, all she had to do was add the finishing touches.

Annette ate most of her evening meals with us. I am not sure anyone in her family ever missed her. There were so many of kids in her family, I was never sure Mrs. Summers noticed when a few were missing. She was a very nice lady and a good mother, but she was very busy and exhausted all the time. I don't know how the woman functioned.

Annette and I were inseparable through high school. She was kind of a jock. She played volleyball, basketball and softball in their respective seasons. Her family supported her, en masse, with great cheering and yelling. I went to all her games, too, and became a sort of auxiliary member of the Summers Cheering Section. Sometimes, usually for really big games and championships, my parents came, too, because they had sort of adopted her as a second daughter in our family as well.

I was a very serious student. I didn't play team sports or socialize very much, although Annette did shame me into joining the track team for the exercise. I totally sucked as a competitive runner, but the experience caused me to develop good exercise habits.

My main social outlet was hanging out with Annette's family. When it came time to go to school dances or other date-like events, Annette would enlist one of her brothers who wasn't busy to be my escort. Half the time she got another brother or one of their friends to take her since she didn't date any more than I did. Smart girls and female jocks were not exactly the most sought-after dates in our high school.

I certainly didn't care, and don't think Annette did, either. Getting involved with boys, especially local boys from the neighborhood, did not factor into our plans, or at least it didn't factor into Annette's plans. I didn't really have a plan or any real goals in life. It was as though each day gave me so much to think about and to do I never had time to think about the future.

Annette went to nursing school at Mount St. Joseph College after high school. I did not plan to go to college immediately after graduation. My parents could not afford to pay for my tuition because they were using a significant percentage of their income to help support the farm, but they made too much money for me to qualify for financial aid. As you are well aware, I have the farm-kid's terror of borrowing money, so I did not want to take out school loans. I decided to get a job and work my way through college.

Initially, I planned to study nursing, because my mother was a nurse, Annette's mother had a nursing degree and Annette was in nursing school. It seemed a natural and safe choice. I really did not like to be around sick people very much, however, so I was in no hurry to get started. Can you imagine me as a nurse? God have mercy on any poor schmuck who might ever have me for a care-giver!

Anyway, after high school I got a job working in a husband-and-wife law office. At first I was supposed to be a receptionist and file clerk. They quickly added duties because I caught on very quickly. I had all the makings of a cracker-jack legal secretary, and I liked that idea just fine. Nobody in my family had ever gone to college. I didn't need to go to college to be a legal secretary. I already was one. I thought I was set at least until I got married. I don't know how on earth I thought I would ever get married because I didn't know any guys my age and I never went anywhere to meet any, but in my world girls worked for a while until they got married, so I thought that's what I would do, too.

My bosses had other ideas about my future, however. He was both a lawyer and a CPA who did taxes, wills and probate work. She specialized in family law. She is still the best divorce lawyer I have ever met. She doesn't make enormous amounts of money, but she mediates marital disputes with amazing skill. In some ways she is more like a counselor or minister than a lawyer. She tries to keep marriages together. When that fails, she shows her fangs and goes for the jugular.

They turned me on to the idea of becoming a lawyer. Correction: they pushed, shoved, cajoled and badgered me into it. Since I still didn't have any other plans, I went along. Besides, I liked school and I really did want to go to college. Becoming a lawyer would get me out of becoming a nurse. It seemed like a win-win situation.

They let me adjust my work schedule around my classes while I was in undergrad school and the first year or so of law school. When it was time for me to get a job as a law clerk, instead of working at a big law firm, Marilyn got me a job in the office of a judge in common pleas court. I learned so much about civil procedure it was amazing. I learned that I did not want to do criminal or family law, but I did want to be a litigator. In that job, I got to watch a lot of courtroom goings-on both from the gallery and inside the judge's chambers. Even today I tend to draw on that experience when planning how to argue certain motions or how to handle difficult witnesses.

Annette started college in September right after high school and went to school full time. I didn't start undergrad school until the second quarter of that year and I only went to school part time. It took me almost a year longer to finish undergrad school. I did very well in college and was accepted to the law school at the University of Cincinnati.

The company my dad worked for offered scholarships to kids of employees. I applied for one of those scholarships and won it. The scholarship paid for all of my law school tuition. All I needed to pay for were my incidental expenses and books, which doesn't sound like much until you price legal text books. Fortunately, my bosses had a decent law library, and a lot of texts of their own. What is more their son had recently graduated from the law school at Ohio State. I managed to get away with borrowing a lot of my textbooks from them. With a scholarship paying the tuition and my bosses' help with books, I managed to go to law school full time and work only part time. As you might expect, going to law school full time and trying to work even a few hours a week put big crimp in my already non-existent social life.

By then, Annette was a nurse at Cincinnati General Hospital. I still officially lived at home, but she had a tiny studio apartment in Clifton near the hospital. Her apartment was only a few blocks from the law school, so I ended up sort of unofficially moving in with her at least during the week when I was essentially closing up the law library every night. I slept on the floor of Annette's apartment in a sleeping bag.

I went home on the weekends because Annette dated and partied a lot. She appeared to be making up for all the carousing she did not do in high school. I had neither the time nor the inclination for that kind of thing. I did not fault her her lifestyle. She never invited me to join her. I attributed that to her knowing I was too busy, but somewhere deep in me I felt that she didn't invite me to join her because she didn't want me to come along. It's very stupid and petty I know, but I was a little hurt by that slight. I'd like to have been invited to join her crowd at least occasionally. I've never said that out loud before. I don't like how it sounds. That doesn't make it any less true.

I met Christian Davis at the beginning of my second year of law school. Even before we met, I knew he was the son of a prominent local attorney. Since I was not really plugged into the politics of the legal community in Cincinnati or the society scene for that matter, I was too ignorant to be impressed by his pedigree. Frankly, even if I had known the details about his family I probably would not have been all that overwhelmed because society was (and is) an alien world to me, and, frankly, I'd be happy to keep it that way.

I did not know or care about his background, I simply thought Christian was a nice guy. He was quiet and polite. He was a very serious student, as was I. He should have gone into academia. He was and is an intellectual at heart. He never really had the heart of a litigator. He only pursued that avenue because it's what his father had done and his overbearing, demanding witch of a mother expected him to follow in his father's shoes whether they fit him or not.

Sometimes I think Christian and I are the only two lawyers in America who enjoyed law school. He loved the intellectual stimulation of trying to cram all that information into his head. I quite simply thrived on the competition. My limited experience at athletic competition in high school was sort of a disaster because I stink at sports, but it will come as no surprise to you that I was and am extremely competitive. I didn't really have much academic competition in high school or even undergrad school for that matter. I loved going head-to-head with really bright students and professors in law school. When I started law school, I set myself the goal of being on the law review. By the end of my first year, I had learned I wasn't a good enough writer for that, but I was competitive and fast on my feet. I got involved with moot court and, as they say, the rest was history. Apparently I was a natural born litigator.

When Christian and I met, he was ranked first in our class and I was a very close second. I was determined to beat him out for the top spot. He was determined not to let me. You would have thought that would have made us enemies, but it turned out to be more fun to compete with one another up close. Christian became my friend, but we were always competitors as well. In the end, we both ended up with nearly perfect grades. He beat me out for the top spot in the class by less than one GPA point based of some arcane formula wherein his work on the law review weighed more than my moot court victories. At the time, that seemed very important and I was very pissed off. Now it just seems silly. I think both of us did better in law school than either of us would have done without our friendly rivalry.

Christian was smarter, more stable and, it seemed to me, he had more marital potential than the interns Annette was dating at the time. It turns out I was apparently wrong on that latter point. Christian's career appears to be stalled – and maybe even destroyed – whereas most of those drunken, over-sexed interns Annette dated back then are now prominent doctors. Perhaps I should have butted out.

In any case, I introduced Christian and Annette to one another during the Christmas break of our second year of law school. They got married the following summer. Annette moved in with Christian at his very nice apartment. I sold my car and sub-leased her studio apartment. I thought I had