"What? What did you just say?" I asked, as the tears began to well in the corners of my eyes.
"I want a divorce."
Then Tyrone had the nerve to tell me that he had met somebody, and that he was in love with her. "Well, I didn’t just meet her. She’s an executive with the company we just acquired. We’ve been working very closely on the deal, and it just happened."
I couldn’t believe my ears.
"I know this is sudden, and I’m sorry," Tyrone said, and walked away.
"That’s it?" I yelled through my tears. "You waltz in here and tell me that you met somebody and you want a divorce. What about me? What about how I feel?"
"If it’s money you’re worried about, you know you’ll be taken care of. You’ll never have to worry about that," Tyrone said coldly, and left the house.
Before we got married, Tyrone asked me to sign a prenuptial agreement, and I agreed, but that wasn’t the point. I loved and needed Tyrone, not his money.
I ran to the door behind him. I wanted to stop him—try to talk him out of it. Even though I didn’t love him when we got married. I thought maybe it was for the money, but over the years, I had come to love and depend on him. I opened the door just in time to see him pulling out of the driveway, with some blonde in what was my spot.
I slammed the door and ran upstairs. I threw myself across the bed and cried until I had no more tears. Once I had cried myself out, I fell asleep, praying that when I woke up, it would be morning, and this would have all been a bad dream. But when I woke, Tyrone wasn’t lying next to me, and I knew it was all too real.
I spent the better part of the day crying and drinking. That day, I wanted to get drunk. I didn’t want to feel a thing. But after a while, when the bottle was empty, I began thinking about what I was gonna do. I didn’t really read the prenup before I signed it—a foolish move on my part. But when Tyrone said that he loved me, and would never even think about leaving me, I signed the paper.
It was then that I decided I needed to get away for a while. So I called my travel agent and booked my trip. The rest of my life began that morning, and I was going to have to begin living it.
* * *
Chapter Three
Devin
When the Captain made the call to board the ship, I got my gear and followed the other men onto the ship for a day of deep-sea fishing.
As the ship headed out to sea, I took a moment to marvel at the fact that things had played out exactly the way I hoped they wouldn’t. As soon as we got to the hotel and checked into our room, Taye started trippin’.
The bellman opened the door, brought in our bags, and put them down. "Will there be anything else?"
"No, everything is fine," I said, and handed the guy a tip.
Taye stood in the doorway. "This is totally unacceptable," she said, looking at the queen-sized bed.
"What’s wrong, baby?"
"The bed. I requested a king-sized bed."
The bellman apologized and left the room promising to do what he could to rectify the situation. After thirty minutes, I wished that I had left the room with him. Taye spent all of that time complaining about everything: from the size of the room to the color of the drapes; from the view from the balcony to the fact that we hadn’t seen any other black people since we got off the plane. "And what the hell is taking them so long to find another room," she fussed. She immediately picked up the phone and started blasting the front desk clerk.
As for me, I sat quietly in a chair by the sliding glass door to the balcony. I thought the view, which overlooked the pool, was excellent. And I enjoyed watching all of the well-tanned female bodies lounging by the pool.
Before I left New York, I had resolved myself not to buy into Taye’s mood swings, and to have a good time regardless of what was going on with her. However, my hope was that Taye would let go of some of the things that seemed to constantly stress her out, and relax for change. She was always so uptight. In my mind, I pictured us having fun at the beach. Holding hands while we took long, romantic walks together. We would once again share little jokes that nobody understood but us. I really hoped that we would rekindle that magic that we once shared.
I looked at my wife as she wandered around the room, bitching and moaning about everything, including the fact that she should have gotten a pedicure before she left. And I knew in my heart, that was not going to be the case. I needed this vacation, and I be damned if I was going to allow Taye to ruin it for me.
Once we were taken to our new room with a king-sized bed, things got no better. At dinner that evening, she complained about the service and that her food was cold when it arrived, and kept it up throughout the meal.
"Really, baby? My food is fine," I said with a smile.
"What are you smiling about? I don’t see anything funny here," Taye answered.
I put down my knife and fork, and then wiped my mouth with the napkin before placing it gently on the table. "Did you ever think that maybe, just maybe, if you hadn’t given the waiter such a hard time, that he might have taken the time to re-warm your food before he brought it out?"