SURPRISE!

                                                                            

                                                                            

When I read that Barney was coming to Detroit to do a seminar I tucked away the problems with Charles.  Through the years I became very adept at compartmentalizing problems that I just could not deal with at the time. There was enough for me to worry about without my throwing what to do about Charles into the mix.

The three weeks between when I found out he was going to be in town  days  seemed to drag by so slowly that that I thought his arrival would never happen.  It wasn't that I didn't have anything to do or that I had time to worry about seeing Barney again after more than three years.  My friend, Claire, had talked me into making custom after-five dresses for her wealthy friends.  One with thousands of hand sewed sequins had to be finished.  There was a baby girl due to be born and her room with miles of ruffles certainly could not be late and it was time to make sample costumes for two Ice Show costumes I had no idea of how to make. Actully busy was good.

If I was going to surprise Barney by just showing up at the seminar I needed to get enrolled.  This one was to be at the Renaissance Center in downtown Detroit.  This a group of seven connected skyscrapers built in 1977 on the Detroit River and very upscale. He had definetly moved up in the world with his speaking engements from the small hotels and conference centers he used to be booked into.  Lucky for me he had given me a free pass years ago so I sent it in using the very silly fake name of Kelly Green.  My confirmation and registration forms arrived the day before the event.

I have to admit that I am the world's worst shopper.  If the economy depended on me to keep it afloat it was certainly out of luck.  I had no idea of what to wear, certainly did not have time to go look for something or make something for myself.  A typical Interior Designer I was not.  Most of them dressed to the hit, drove around in expensive cars, wore a lot of jewerly and proposed very expensive decorating to their clients.  I showed up at a new customer's house in my Bronco II usually in jeans and looked like I was ready to work.  Maybe the way I dressed was the reason I had so much business as they realized they would have to pay a "gold-bangled decorator" more money.

When in doubt about what to wear you should always wear something you love and something you feel great in.  My closet did not have too many things that were sort of dress up to chose from.  As silly as it sounds I picked out my favorite outfit which was a Liz Clairborne red print western skirt and blouse and a pair of boots.  I must admit I got lots of interesting looks when I walked into the RenCen but I felt like a million bucks.

I turned in my registration papers with some information about myself and why I had chosen to come.  The only things on the papers that were not totally true was my name and and why I was interested in investment stratagies. If Barney looked over the registration papers before he started the siminar and saw my real name it would ruin my surprise.  I also chose the least conspicuous chair in the room not that all that worked out so well.

Wow!  When he walked out to the podium after a very glowing introduction it felt like the first time he walked up to the table when we were in college.  He was still as handsome as ever with that beautiful smile and the voice I heard in my head often.  The only thing different was a slight graying in his hair that only made him look more dashing.

To my total dismay the very first thing he did was to call to on everyone one at a time to introduce themselves to the group of about fifty people and state why they had come.  I tried to listen to everyone he called on to see what they had to say so I could come up with some reasonable excuse to be there other than to just see him.  Somehow when he called out "Kelly Green" I almost did not stand up because I did not remember I had used a fake name. Finally after he called my name a second time I stood up, said I was Kelly Green and wanted to learn what investment stragies were since I had no idea. Everyone laughed and he literally could not stop laughing or smiling.  I breathed a sigh of relief as it was obvious he recognized me.

After I sat down he managed to carry on in a very professional manner but there were probably more smiles than he usually flashed during many of these presentations.  He would also stop and ask Kelly if she understood things he was telling us.  I always replied in a positive manner with a smile.  Finally there was a break for refreshments.

I wandered out into the hallway and got a cup of coffee.  One woman came up and asked where I had gotten my darling outfit and not wanting admit I had ordered it from Speigel's catalog I told her it came from Saks.  Always wondered if she went looking for it.  Barney was conversing with several of the other people but kept inching his way closer. I managed to put some distance between myself and the other people and when Barney walked up I just said SURPRISE!  He told me that was an understatement and that he was having a hard time getting through all his speeches.  He also said he had planned on trying to find me the next day and not to jump up and leave when the seminar was over.  I told him I had gone to all the trouble to get there and would stay although I did not think I was learning anything. 

When it was over I hung around looking at brochueres and chatting with some of the people.  One man who appeared to be making a pass told me what a pretty name I had.  I think I got rid of him by being not very friendly and that I was just lucky my parents did not name me Chartreuse.  Barney walked up just as that gentleman made a quick exit. He wanted to know why I used a fake name and I just told him it was all part of the surprise.  He also wondered why I had not called since I had all his information from the ad in the paper. Now what fun would that have been to which he answered that it was difficult to keep lecturing and figuring out that it had been three years, four months and six days since we were together in Philadlephia. 

By the time everyone had cleared out it was really getting late.  I had to decline a trip down stairs to the bar and a trip upstairs to his room.  There was probably a limit as to how late I could come home from an Interior Design seminar. I did wholeheartly agree to a late breakfast the next morning and spending the day with him since his plane did not leave until 4:00 that afternoon.  With a kiss and him saying it was more than he could really hope for in my showing up I drove home wishing I could have stayed.

But there was tomorrow.

Something I Really Should Have Known

Wonder what the odds would have been for me picking up the newspaper that particular evening and actually looking through it and seeing the ad for Barney's seminar?  It had been three and a half years since I had heard from him.  Even that letter took a year to arrive and by that time his contact information had changed.

Needless to say our relationship was perhaps a little different.  It was probably a good thing that we had not communicated in three and a half years as it gave me the time and the space to divorce Dennis and start a new life for myself and the boys.  Things I needed to do by myself without a third party involved.

All of Barney's contact information was in the story about the seminar.  He was still in California but in a different town than the last one I knew about.  It would have been very easy to pick up the phone and call him but maybe a heck of a lot more fun to surprise him. Hopefully it would be a happy surprise if I showed up at the Seminar.  I had three weeks to decide which seemed like an eternity. 

Perhaps I need to digress a bit here. Things had become interesting between Charles and I over the course of the last several months.  My fault for not paying attention or for not admitting that there was a lot I had failed to see before I jumped into a relationship without knowing at least some background.  I knew some basic facts about Charles like how he grew up poor, his business, his children and his ex-wife.  I knew the only vacation he had ever taken out of the country was to Columbia which I thought was strange.  I also knew that he smoked marijuana but figured that was just a habit left over from the 70's. I had actually never tried marijuana, Afterall I grew up in Muskogee. I did once with Charles, got sick, did not like it and never tried it again.  He never smoked it in front of me or the boys.

Charles always had plenty of money.  I surmised that his toupee shop must have done very well as he and his business partner lived very well.  We had a lot of $100.00 dinners at the best restaurants in Detroit, took weeklong ski trips in Northern Michigan and lots of flights back and forth to New York. He was very nice towards both Wes and Wally.  Roller skating together a couple of nights a week and meals at home with the four of us plus Wes's assorted girl friends were always fun.

We had been dating about a year when Charles bought the house behind Wally and mine and it just seemed logical that we should move in with him. It was the late 1980's and everyone was living together.  I guess I was stuck in the 1960's as I really did not feel comfortable living together and not married.  There were times when I would hear Wally stumble in trying to explain to his friends who Charles was.  Usually he mumbled something like "my Mom's friend".  I did not feel like The Mother of the Year in those moments. 

There is really nothing I can complain about in the way Charles treated the boys or me. He decided that Wally needed a bigger bedroom and I needed a sewing room so we were building those in his huge basement. He bought $9.00 a pound cheese for Bowser, our dog, which made the dog adore him. He was a very sharp dresser, extremely neat around the house and a pretty decent cook although nice restaurants were his thing. To make myself feel a little better I actually paid half of his house payment without being asked. But as hard as I tried there were several bothersome items.  His daughters were not overly happy with me being with Charles even though they were grown and lived else where. The house did not feel like home as it was his and decorated in his minimalist style.  But there were other things.

 There was the Corvette. Charles decided to buy a red Corvette but to pay for it he made three $9,000 payments - in cash.  He explained to me that if you paid cash for something over $10,000 it was reported to the IRS.  I let it go at that as I had never seen him use a checkbook except at the shop. But slowly I began to think about the amount of money he and his business partner seemed to have and things were not adding up in a reasonable manner.  The question of where the money came from nagged at me.  I could not see how his toupee shop made the kind of money I was seeing.  Why was the only real vacation he ever took without the family was to Columbia. Drug dealer was the only thing I could come up with.  I didn't think drug dealers liked art museums, snow skiing or any other things we did.  Guess I watched too many movies or television shows where they were really bad looking dudes or I was just my usual naive, stupid self.    

It is much easier to get into a bad situation  than out of the relationship.  Being the most non-confrontal person on the planet there was no way I could just ask him or acuse him. I guess it is always easier to get myself into a mess than to get out of one.  It was also easy to do the Scarlett O'Hara bit and put off thinking about troubling things until tomorrow. I think through the years I had become a master at that.  But I did have a good business even though I never charged enough, a couple of very great friends, an awesome dog and a two pretty cool boys. Life is never all bad.  There are always bright sides to everything. Until now there were only a couple of people who ever heard this story. It was not one of my proudest moments and showed how easily I could fall into really stupid situations.

When I read that Barney was coming to Detroit I could stop worrying about what to do about Charles and enjoy the time I would be able to spend with him.  There was no doubt in my mind that he booked the seminar in Detroit in hopes of us finding each other just as we had several times over the last twenty-three years.