Have you ever received an email, a call, a text or a tweet from an ex-lover that you
haven’t heard from in decades?
I did and it prepared me for a moment of monumental misery down memory lane. Once the shock factor eased to a lesser intensity, I couldn’t help but wonder why in God’s country this man would reach out to me almost a quarter of a century later.
It’s an unbelievable soap opera that dates back to 1987. It was the debut of acid-washed denim jeans. Trendy short skirts and cinched waists taxied down designer runways. American Idol judge Steven Tyler was banging out his Aerosmith chart topper Dude (Looks Like A Lady); while British gay sensation George Michael orgasmed to the tune, “I Want Your Sex”.
In Canada, it was a historical year on record as the Northwest Territories changed its name to Iqaluit. The Simpsons first appeared as a series of shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show, and it was the year that famed Elizabeth Ann Smart was born.
Flashes of 1987 popped in my head because that was the year I met an aspiring, legal eagle fresh out of Osgoode Hall and onto making a name for himself in the area of family law and divorce court. His name? Well - let's just call him Casey.
He had an insatiable appetite for law journals, pretty blondes, hot cars and even hotter sex. Did I forget to mention Casey was also a law-abiding womanizer and self-proclaimed cheat?
We met, by chance while I was employed as a public figure. The attraction was instantaneous. I – an educated, aspiring young writer. He – a well-heeled (father was a doctor) ambitious, young man balancing the scales of justice on his shoulders and in between his thighs.
But unlike those American Dukes of Divorce - Raoul Felder (Rudy Giuliani), Robert Stephan Cohen (Christie Brinkley’s lawyer) and Neal Hersch (Brad Pitt) - who went for the proverbial jugular in divorce court, Casey juggled more than one woman at a time – secretly, cunningly and while dating me!
Fresh out of divorce and blinded by love, I was clueless to his acts of infidelity. And I was naïve to a fault. I fell for the long-stemmed tea roses, the Sunday church services we attended, and the succulent scent of his Giorgio Armani cologne.
One summer, Casey and I vacationed to Manitoba’s largest city where he introduced me to his mother and the rest of the doctors and dentists in his Prairie family. He was as smooth as peanut butter and canola.
The family thought he was bringing his girl “home to mother” for her stamp of approval. Could it be? Shucks…it must be love, as I envisioned walking down the aisle with Casey. But I was gravely mistaken.
The frequency of our dinner dates and Sunday mass slowly diminished. Then one day he told me he had a confession to make because he couldn’t live with himself anymore. Obviously, I was alarmed. What could it be? Was he losing interest? Was I about to be dumped?
One evening after Casey left the halls of justice, he picked me up in his silver-chromed Audi and we drove to an Italian bistro. While I sat nervously across from him – palms sweaty – Casey never seemed under distress. Savouring my Fettuccine Alfredo in creamy, white wine sauce, he dropped the break-up bomb. But with a stomach-churning twist!
“I’ve been seeing someone else,” Ineda, he disclosed calmly and collectively, adding, “And she’s pregnant”. “WHAT?” I roared, choking on that cream sauce. “Who is she?” “How could this have happened?” “What were you thinking?” I shouted.
Mortified, I was oblivious to his charlatan ways. All along, Casey had lured me in like fresh bait on a hook. “But I’m not in love with her Ineda,” he declared, gazing at me with those big and blue puppy-dog eyes.
Like a juicy, soap right out of The Young & The Restless, he knocked-up a secretary in his law firm! I guess things really must have heated up by the water cooler. Could you imagine the gossip floating around that law office? If only I was a fly on a wall!
Sadly and stupid, I continued to see Casey while he emotionally-supported this unattractive secretary with child. For some odd reason I felt sorry for him, while his magnetism and affections pulled me in deeper and deeper. He had me at, “but I need to see her through this until the baby is born Ineda.”
Blinded by infatuation, I fell for it – hook, line and sinker! My maternal instincts began to coddle him with comfort and emotional support. I was oblivious to the fact that this low-lying, blood-sucking parasite of an attorney was a cheat, a liar and up to no good. He led me to believe that there still could be a future between us - without the legal secretary and her protruding belly. So when he asked that I support him while he revealed the truth to his parents, I agreed like Tammy Wynette in “Stand By Your Man!”
If only you could have been there. His mother – a doctor’s wife– beautiful, classy, and well-appointed – flew in from The Peg to hear her son’s master-minded confession. We dined in that Italian bistro again. Mrs. C sat across the table from us without a Chianti clue what was going on. As Casey poured us a second glass of vino, he started to tremble. “Mom, he said putting down the bottle, “I have something important to tell you,” he said sheepishly.
“What is it Casey,” she said, recognizing her son losing his lawful composure. “Mom, I don’t know where to begin, so let me just tell you the truth.” As the words to Paul Anka’s You're Having My Baby’ danced in my head, he shouted, “You’re going to be a grandmother!”
Casey’s Mom dropped her fork into her plate of seafood linguine and leaned over to give me a great big pregnant hug. “No,” Mrs. C, I shrugged. “It isn’t me. I’m not the one who’s with child. Go on Casey. You explain it to your mother.”
As the not-so-proud papa explained how he had a fling with one of the office secretaries, I watched his Mom shake her colour-treated brunette locks in disbelief. “I thought it was you Ineda," she said with disappointment.
The rest of that dark, northwestern night is a bit of a baby bumpy blur to me. But what I can remember is that Casey kept watch over the knocked-up secretary until her third trimester and onto the birth of their pint-sized daughter.
I spent a few weeks in solace because of that dagger to the heart. I was used, abused and deceived by that blood-sucking parasite of a lawyer. And I was angry at myself for allowing it to happen.
But it made me stronger.
So when I received a message from him yesterday on one of those online business networking sites asking whether I’d like to connect, I was partially-paralyzed from the mouse down.
“Why in tarnation would this scum of the Earth want to stay connected after all those years?" He also had the audacity to make a public appearance at my Father’s wake a few years ago. I barely spoke to him then. So why would I want to speak to him now?
And as the stomach turns, he felt compelled to marry the pregnant secretary after she gave birth. I do hope they're still happy.
No doubt, Casey played me and his mother like a jury back in 1987. But Like a slow,
debilitating cancer, emotional guilt can fester for years until it too, takes over. I committed no crime. But the verdict is still out on Casey – guilty as charged.
To life and living it,
Ineda
haven’t heard from in decades?
I did and it prepared me for a moment of monumental misery down memory lane. Once the shock factor eased to a lesser intensity, I couldn’t help but wonder why in God’s country this man would reach out to me almost a quarter of a century later.
It’s an unbelievable soap opera that dates back to 1987. It was the debut of acid-washed denim jeans. Trendy short skirts and cinched waists taxied down designer runways. American Idol judge Steven Tyler was banging out his Aerosmith chart topper Dude (Looks Like A Lady); while British gay sensation George Michael orgasmed to the tune, “I Want Your Sex”.
In Canada, it was a historical year on record as the Northwest Territories changed its name to Iqaluit. The Simpsons first appeared as a series of shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show, and it was the year that famed Elizabeth Ann Smart was born.
Flashes of 1987 popped in my head because that was the year I met an aspiring, legal eagle fresh out of Osgoode Hall and onto making a name for himself in the area of family law and divorce court. His name? Well - let's just call him Casey.
He had an insatiable appetite for law journals, pretty blondes, hot cars and even hotter sex. Did I forget to mention Casey was also a law-abiding womanizer and self-proclaimed cheat?
We met, by chance while I was employed as a public figure. The attraction was instantaneous. I – an educated, aspiring young writer. He – a well-heeled (father was a doctor) ambitious, young man balancing the scales of justice on his shoulders and in between his thighs.
But unlike those American Dukes of Divorce - Raoul Felder (Rudy Giuliani), Robert Stephan Cohen (Christie Brinkley’s lawyer) and Neal Hersch (Brad Pitt) - who went for the proverbial jugular in divorce court, Casey juggled more than one woman at a time – secretly, cunningly and while dating me!
Fresh out of divorce and blinded by love, I was clueless to his acts of infidelity. And I was naïve to a fault. I fell for the long-stemmed tea roses, the Sunday church services we attended, and the succulent scent of his Giorgio Armani cologne.
One summer, Casey and I vacationed to Manitoba’s largest city where he introduced me to his mother and the rest of the doctors and dentists in his Prairie family. He was as smooth as peanut butter and canola.
The family thought he was bringing his girl “home to mother” for her stamp of approval. Could it be? Shucks…it must be love, as I envisioned walking down the aisle with Casey. But I was gravely mistaken.
The frequency of our dinner dates and Sunday mass slowly diminished. Then one day he told me he had a confession to make because he couldn’t live with himself anymore. Obviously, I was alarmed. What could it be? Was he losing interest? Was I about to be dumped?
One evening after Casey left the halls of justice, he picked me up in his silver-chromed Audi and we drove to an Italian bistro. While I sat nervously across from him – palms sweaty – Casey never seemed under distress. Savouring my Fettuccine Alfredo in creamy, white wine sauce, he dropped the break-up bomb. But with a stomach-churning twist!
“I’ve been seeing someone else,” Ineda, he disclosed calmly and collectively, adding, “And she’s pregnant”. “WHAT?” I roared, choking on that cream sauce. “Who is she?” “How could this have happened?” “What were you thinking?” I shouted.
Mortified, I was oblivious to his charlatan ways. All along, Casey had lured me in like fresh bait on a hook. “But I’m not in love with her Ineda,” he declared, gazing at me with those big and blue puppy-dog eyes.
Like a juicy, soap right out of The Young & The Restless, he knocked-up a secretary in his law firm! I guess things really must have heated up by the water cooler. Could you imagine the gossip floating around that law office? If only I was a fly on a wall!
Sadly and stupid, I continued to see Casey while he emotionally-supported this unattractive secretary with child. For some odd reason I felt sorry for him, while his magnetism and affections pulled me in deeper and deeper. He had me at, “but I need to see her through this until the baby is born Ineda.”
Blinded by infatuation, I fell for it – hook, line and sinker! My maternal instincts began to coddle him with comfort and emotional support. I was oblivious to the fact that this low-lying, blood-sucking parasite of an attorney was a cheat, a liar and up to no good. He led me to believe that there still could be a future between us - without the legal secretary and her protruding belly. So when he asked that I support him while he revealed the truth to his parents, I agreed like Tammy Wynette in “Stand By Your Man!”
If only you could have been there. His mother – a doctor’s wife– beautiful, classy, and well-appointed – flew in from The Peg to hear her son’s master-minded confession. We dined in that Italian bistro again. Mrs. C sat across the table from us without a Chianti clue what was going on. As Casey poured us a second glass of vino, he started to tremble. “Mom, he said putting down the bottle, “I have something important to tell you,” he said sheepishly.
“What is it Casey,” she said, recognizing her son losing his lawful composure. “Mom, I don’t know where to begin, so let me just tell you the truth.” As the words to Paul Anka’s You're Having My Baby’ danced in my head, he shouted, “You’re going to be a grandmother!”
Casey’s Mom dropped her fork into her plate of seafood linguine and leaned over to give me a great big pregnant hug. “No,” Mrs. C, I shrugged. “It isn’t me. I’m not the one who’s with child. Go on Casey. You explain it to your mother.”
As the not-so-proud papa explained how he had a fling with one of the office secretaries, I watched his Mom shake her colour-treated brunette locks in disbelief. “I thought it was you Ineda," she said with disappointment.
The rest of that dark, northwestern night is a bit of a baby bumpy blur to me. But what I can remember is that Casey kept watch over the knocked-up secretary until her third trimester and onto the birth of their pint-sized daughter.
I spent a few weeks in solace because of that dagger to the heart. I was used, abused and deceived by that blood-sucking parasite of a lawyer. And I was angry at myself for allowing it to happen.
But it made me stronger.
So when I received a message from him yesterday on one of those online business networking sites asking whether I’d like to connect, I was partially-paralyzed from the mouse down.
“Why in tarnation would this scum of the Earth want to stay connected after all those years?" He also had the audacity to make a public appearance at my Father’s wake a few years ago. I barely spoke to him then. So why would I want to speak to him now?
And as the stomach turns, he felt compelled to marry the pregnant secretary after she gave birth. I do hope they're still happy.
No doubt, Casey played me and his mother like a jury back in 1987. But Like a slow,
debilitating cancer, emotional guilt can fester for years until it too, takes over. I committed no crime. But the verdict is still out on Casey – guilty as charged.
To life and living it,
Ineda
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