Preserving a Bad Apple, Part 1

(This post is dedicated to the most authentic man I know.  Today is his birthday, and October is a special month for us. He is my bad apple, my faithful partner, and my equal yoke.)

I love romance novels.

There. I said it. My apologies to the dark, dystopian, doomsday zombies out there; but I assure you, if you don't like hearts and roses, birds singing, and the smell of fresh-cut grass underneath a picnic blanket, you are not going to like the happily-ever-after ending of this series of posts. Period. Stop reading.

I simply adore Regency romances, which are a sub-genre of romance novels set during the British Regency or early 19th century. Regency romances are a distinct genre with their own idealistic and chivalrous plots and suitable period customs, conduct, and conventions. I appreciate the extensive research, hierarchy groundwork, and descriptive imagery that elevates the historical setting and family pedigree. But mostly, I just love the formulaic story line. The hero starts out as a tormented or misunderstood rogue, meets the one woman who tames him and makes his life complete, marries the strong-willed heroine, and pledges life-long fidelity to her. I refuse to read romance novels in which the hero (or heroine) is unfaithful. He might possess pure masculinity, a brooding temperament, and unbridled sensuality to the core of his being, but he is not adulterous. If he is a cheat, he is no hero of mine.

Cynics of this genre have one major complaint. They whine that the stories are unrealistic; however, I disagree. I sometimes reply that hunger is not a game and the dead do not walk; but, usually, I say nothing. No arguments satisfy the haughtiness and indifference of a literary dystopian snob. The novels I read might be considered fictional fluff, but my own romantic story line is not only similar, but true. Thirty years ago ~ on March 29th of this year ~ I married a rake, a scoundrel, or more specifically, a bad apple. Today is his birthday.

We first met on a cool October night in 1984; however, our story began in the spring of 1983. I was employed as the 24-year-old managing editor of a weekly newspaper in the county where I was born and reared. (Another one of my Regency novel requirements ~ appropriate use of the English language. Pigs are raised; people are reared. Apples are picked; candidates are selected. I reject the complete disregard of fundamental vocabulary usage in today's literary offerings; however, I digress.) Even though my personal life was a total mess during that period of my life, my professional life remained above reproach. I took my job (and my editorials) seriously. During that infamous spring, I wrote a scathing and zealous editorial about a group of high school seniors who vandalized the principal's home. The damage was severe, as they broke a window, placed a water hose inside the shattered pane, and flooded the principal's home. Not only did they thoroughly soak the carpet in the living room, they pulled down the front porch swing and threw it into the deep gully behind the house, along with lawn chairs, patio furniture, and the kids' swing set. As I recounted the mischief and wreckage, I added my own opinions about the group's misconduct. I entitled the editorial A Few Bad Apples. By my choice of words, the group of seniors had achieved their notoriety ~ their infamy banded them together, and their disgraceful deeds followed after them.  From the date of that publication until now, they were and are known as The Bad Apples.

On a Friday night during the month of October ~ almost a year-and-a-half later ~ one of my most supportive friends asked me to ride with her to a rival county football game and then accompany her to a party at a local attorney's lake house. I should not have gone with her to the game or the party. I should have made sure the newspaper's sports reporter was covering the game, and I should have stayed home. Then, I could have slept in my king-sized bed with my daughter, watched cartoons, and enjoyed our Saturday morning together; but I didn't.

         

Instead, I called my mother after the game and asked if my two-year-old could spend the night. I explained to her that I was going to an after-party with the friend who had driven me to the game. I could tell by the tone of her voice that she didn't approve. Her exaggerated sigh, followed by the "I guess so" response, reminded me of when I was a teenager. That particular response was an intuitive foreboding of bad things to follow ~ an omen that left me with a sinking feeling which I usually did my best to ignore ~ almost as if she were reading my palm and predicting catastrophic events. At that moment, I should have kindly backed my way out of the invitation; but I didn't.

Continuing to wallow in my own personal quagmire of being recently divorced, my only reason for attending the party was the promise of alcohol and lots of it. Once we arrived at the party, I began to drink. I poured myself a plastic 16-ounce cup of spiked punch from the ten-gallon galvanized wash tub in the middle of the kitchen floor. I sat alone on the back porch steps and after a couple of refills, I finally started to relax. I shed my designer blazer, untucked my starched white oxford, and kicked off my red high heels. Feeling a little more at ease, I heard the screen door slam and a familiar voice behind me. I recognized the voice as belonging to the husband of a good friend. I instantly knew that my reputation as a newly-divorced single mother had preceded me when he knelt down behind me and stealthily shoved his hand down the front of my shirt. Even if I drank that entire tub of punch, I would have never wanted his hand anywhere near any body part of mine ~ covered or exposed. His pregnant wife was probably sitting at home trying to decide on a theme for the baby's room. I was repulsed, but I was also careful not to make a scene. I can't imagine, to this day, what he was thinking when he made an asinine move like that! His forceful and uninvited grasp had assured me of two things: I did not belong on these steps with this obscene excuse of a man or at this party with this far-too-friendly group of people.

I jumped to my feet, advised the bottom-dweller to go home to his pregnant wife, gathered my blazer and high heels, and stumbled out into the pasture where all the cars were parked. I was trying to find my friend's car, when I noticed a beautiful red Corvette with T-tops. (Absolute truth.) The car was shining like a delicious red apple in a fresh market fruit stand. For one unguarded and vulnerable minute, I was lured out into the open field ~ just one bite. So I placed my foot on the front bumper of that tempting and forbidden fruit and asked, "Who drives this car?"

A muscular young man who didn't look old enough to drive walked up and said flatly, "The car is mine." I will never, ever forget that moment...even in my tipsiness. He, too, wore a crisp white shirt tucked into tight Levi's with the jeans securely shoved into knee-high cowboy boots. The brightness of his white shirt accented his dark-tanned skin and shoulder length, jet-black hair.

I responded, "Take me for a ride." He smiled and obliged.

Today, as I recall the series of events following the unexpected encounter, I am grateful to be alive.  For some reason, probably alcohol-related, I had petitioned a nineteen-year-old boy to take me for a ride in his 1981 model Corvette. Even more threatening, he said yes. Maybe he was thinking to get lucky with an experienced older woman who was mildly drunk. Maybe he did not want to humiliate a ridiculous-acting female. Maybe he was just being nice. Whatever the reason, the young driver of the car opened the passenger door for me as he waved a thumbs-up sign to the group of buddies he left behind. They were all toasting him with their Pabst Blue Ribbon beers and Marlboro cigarettes. I assumed by his swagger that he was relishing his conquest as he was sure to score an easy mark. I was wrong.

With the t-tops removed, I enjoyed the cool autumn wind and the loud eighties' music. He drove deliberately and said very little until we turned down a narrow dirt road that led to a wide open field with a single oak tree located dead center. The ominous setting looked like the kind of place where the Ku Klux Klan might have hung a black man for whistling at a white woman. Amazed at my expeditious ability to sober up, I carefully assessed a few important unknowns. I didn't know where I was (at all). I had just met the young man in the driver's seat, so I didn't know him (at all). And, I didn't know how to get back to the party, to my friend, or most importantly, to my home. As we parked under the massive oak tree, his motive became crystal clear. He wasted no time before he asked, "Do you know who I am?"

Before I could respond, he defiantly answered his own question. "I am a bad apple."

A bad apple? I had to think for a second. Then, like Chicken Little, I knew in an instant that the sky was falling. Every curse word known to man reverberated inside my head. I looked at the oak tree, and all at once, I expected headlights, tar, and feathers. Quickly, the thoughts inside my head took on more biblical proportions. Oh, Dear God,  I inwardly prayed, I am either going to be tortured or gang-raped or strung up from that tree. And what’s worse, no one ~ absolutely no one ~ knows that I am out here in this godforsaken place. Forgive me of my sins. And with that simple prayer, I prepared for the worst. As horror replaced confusion, I watched him turn off the car engine and open the glove compartment. Thinking he might be reaching for duct tape, a knife, or something even more sinister, I was surprised when he pulled out a quarter-folded newspaper.

A few bad apples...the editorial, the senior boys, the principal's home. Because of the editorial, the mayor made an example of the graduating seniors. Because of the editorial, the newspaper received embroiled letters to the editor (namely me) ~ mostly from parents who considered the malicious and destructive deeds to be nothing more than senior shenanigans. Boys will be boys. They compared throwing rotten eggs inside the principal's home to rolling his house with toilet paper. One parent even threatened to sue the newspaper and demanded that I be fired as editor. And, because of the editorial, I made seven enemies for life out of seven high school seniors. I sat in silence as I waited for a circle of headlights to appear around us. Slowly, he unfolded the slightly worn newspaper, turned on the overhead light, and began to read the editorial. I identified the house by the principal's surname ~ the Steverson house. The malevolent recklessness of the misguided seniors had given the house notoriety ~ a history ~ a name. The principal did not return to the high school the following year (who could blame him); however, from that point on, the unassuming light gray cottage-style house would be known to me and to this group of seniors as "the Steverson house." His family only lived there four years.

Evidently, four years of high school with this principal was enough for the bad apple who had introduced himself only as David. After he read select parts of the editorial, I grimaced at how profoundly affected the young man had been by what I had written. I mean, who carries around a copy of an old newspaper in the glove compartment of his car? So I did what all good editors do when they are backed into a corner; I apologized.

"I am sorry," I said quietly and somewhat sincerely by my own standards. "I don't know what else to say. I am an editor. I write editorials. The words are merely one person's opinions. It's what I do. It's my job." I offered him every pat excuse I had ever used in my short career. 

He threw the newspaper on the back seat, started the car engine, and said, "That's all I wanted to hear. That's all any of us wanted to hear ~ an apology from somebody. I know what we did was wrong and we made it right, but you made it worse than it had to be. You made it all complicated by blowing everything out of proportion. We knew that we would have to pay for the damage and replace the stuff we ruined, but you turned a bunch of drunk guys having fun into a band of criminals who go around destroying personal property. You made it public. You branded us with a label. Plus, you only knew one side of the story. You saw what you wanted to see, and that's what you wrote."

Still fearing an act of retribution, I didn't reply. Actually, all I wanted to see were the four walls of my rental house. Then he broke the awkward silence, as if he read my mind, "You just moved into the Faircloth house about two miles down the road from where I live. Do you want me to drive you home?"

Once again, I was totally spooked. This guy knew where I lived. Had he been watching me? Had he known I was at the party? Had I been attracted to his shiny red sports car as Eve had been to that one taste of temptation? I tried to keep my wits and think like a newspaper editor who had been kidnapped by a spiteful weirdo, so I graciously answered yes.

Neither one of us spoke a word from the pasture to the driveway of the Faircloth house. He listened to his loud rock music, and I looked out the window thinking about what the young man had said. That's all any of us wanted to hear ~ an apology from someone. I repeated the words over and over in my head. Bad judgment usually led to destructive behavior that sometimes yielded a tornadic end. How did I, at the young adult age of 24, wake up to find the pieces of my life strewn all over the place from Mississippi to Florida and back again? How did a bad situation get so blown out of proportion that starting over was never an option? I wondered if I was the one who made it worse than it had to be? Did I complicate matters by seeing only one side of the story? Instead of just cleaning up the debris, one little piece at a time, did I simply seek out someone to blame? And, even as an enterprising editor, had I been the one exposed ~ sensationalized and scandalized like that front page editorial? Was my private life on public display to everyone in the county ~ a frayed existence that I had somehow tried to define as normal? Had I acquired a stench for everyone to smell and a tattoo for everyone to see ~ one that was also labeled 'bad apple'?

What I now consider to be the most comedic punch line for the night’s eye-opening experience was that I actually fabled myself to be some kind of prize ~ a five-foot-nine bottle of fine wine. I thought that this unrefined young man was now the big boy on campus simply because I was the lone passenger in his car, imagining that a night with me must be considered a rare exotic fling. I perceived that he saw a sexy older blonde with a fading Florida tan and a YMCA body in size six Chic jeans. I considered myself fine dining ~ the gourmet appetizer; all the while comparing him to a fast food burger and fries. Now I know that he had only one agenda, and I wasn't even on the menu.

When we finally pulled into the driveway (after what seemed like an eternity), I opened my car door and reached for my purse. That's when I realized I had left my purse and keys in my friend's car. Anyone who knows me at all will laugh out loud at this point in the story. I had no way to get inside the house, so I decided to sit on the front porch swing and wait until my friend returned with my purse. I really didn’t care if I had to sleep there all night; I deserved it. Then, in an unexpected show of kindness, the bad apple offered to climb through a window and unlock the door ~ something I was sure he had done at least once or twice for less than decent reasons.

I should have declined his offer to help. I should have slept on the front porch swing. I should have done everything differently that night.

But I didn't, and my life would never be the same.

To be continued...

Dianne ;)