Chapter 5
Sheryl began her story, and I listened with great interest as she told me all that she knew. Claude and she met at a party thrown by her boss about one year ago. Sheryl worked as a secretary for a realtor, and the realtor threw the party to celebrate the opening of a housing development. Claude apparently attended the party as a friend of one of the investors. Sheryl described their meeting as a love at first sight kind of thing. He was French, and his accent delighted her and every other girl at the party, but Claude soon made his way to her table. Before the end of the night, the pair was hopelessly in love.
They courted for a very brief time and were married within three months. Sheryl shook her head in disgust as she recounted the events. Her mother warned her against marrying him until she knew more about him, but she said she was swept away by the emotion and the moment.
After their marriage, things started to fall apart. Claude suddenly became very jealous and secretive. Prior to the marriage, Claude indicated that he was in the French Foreign Legion, but that he was retired because of an injury he had received, and that he was in the process of negotiating his stipend with the French government. After the marriage, however, he became defensive and hostile whenever the issue of the stipend came up. In the meantime, he wasn’t bringing home any money, and, according to Sheryl, he was living off her income.
The situation continued like this only a short time before Sheryl blew up and demanded some answers. Rather than answer her though, he left on a trip to France, supposedly to deal with the stipend. While in France, Claude’s jealousy became even more oppressive. He would call her at work every other hour and demand to know who was in the office with her and when they would be leaving. I asked Sheryl why she didn’t just leave him there and then. She answered that, at the time, she still loved him and she thought he still loved her.
While Claude was still in France, several other things occurred that adversely affected their relationship. According to Sheryl, she began receiving medical bills from the hospital for operations performed prior to their courtship and marriage. Because her husband was in France and wasn’t contributing to the couple’s bank account, these bills became a huge burden. A burden she felt she had to carry out of conjugal duty, if not out of love.
The other problem was that of trust. Claude, as I said before, called Sheryl to the point of pestering her, but apparently he refused to give her his number so that she could call him. This lack of respect infuriated Sheryl, but she still remained faithful.
I don’t know why I found this story so compelling. Somehow I felt it was central to the occurrences of the evening. Sheryl did not share my feelings however.
“John,” she insisted, “Claude was a jerk, but he was definitely not violent in any way, shape, or form, and I don’t think he had any friends here in Las Vegas outside of my family. I don’t know how he would even know any of those guys tonight.”
I wanted to blurt out, “The French Foreign Legion. Hello?” but I refrained.
“I’m sorry. You’re right. So how did you finally break up with Claude?”
“Well, it was pretty much that I got sick of his lying. He finally came back from France, but when I pressed him about the hospital bills and the stipend, he said I wasn’t being very loyal. You know, I think he has a girl in France. I’m almost sure of it. He went back there about six months ago and I basically told him not to ever come back, and that’s it.”
She said it so matter-of-factly that I didn’t know what to say. The story still sounded pretty fishy to me, but then again, she knew Claude, and I didn’t.
I noticed that it was about 4:30 in the morning so we called it a night, or rather a morning, and decided to go to bed. This, of course, brought about another series of complicated circumstances. Despite my excitement over being with a beautiful woman, I didn’t think it appropriate to sleep with her, especially under the false pretenses that had been established. Subsequently, I suspiciously developed a monstrous headache that required me to spend a long time in the bathroom and then the kitchen. Thankfully, Sheryl quickly fell into a deep slumber, and I retired to the front couch. As I stared at the ceiling once again, I found only the energy to sigh.
posted by Cool Dad @ 12:08 PM
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