Paired Spares

Dearest Rachel –

I don’t know if you’re familiar with the trope of the married woman who has a dream about her husband cheating on her, and proceeds to hold it against him once she wakes up. In some versions of the story, she takes it out on him physically, immediately upon waking up, much to his bewilderment; in others, she just decides to get ‘revenge’ on him by cheating on him in real life. I don’t think you ever had one of those dreams, now that I think about it – although I think there was one time where you confessed to finding yourself in a ménage à trois with a second guy and myself, only to be quite disgusted with it all when you woke up. In any event, you consoled yourself with the fact that, after all, it was only a dream; I was the only one for you, and I was the only one you were waking up to.

I’d like to think that I would react to a dream like that with a little more equanimity than the wives in those old stories; not unlike you and your relief to find that your own version of the dream had been just that. Unfortunately, now that I’ve had the chance to put that thought to the test, I don’t even get the reassurance of waking up to find you next to me, to remind me that it was nothing more than a dream.

If you were to cast your memory back far enough (and to be honest, I’m surprised I’m able to do so, myself), you might remember Rick and Wendy. They were key members of the singles group at church after we got married (and unlike us, they were legitimate members; Wendy, in particular, would attend in tandem with her roommate Danielle – I think they had been roommates in college prior to moving in together after graduation). Wendy was part of the church drama team, along with myself, and we would occasionally perform skits opposite each other. Not that we were cast necessarily as peers; the one major performance, for Christmas 1995, had her playing my younger daughter, while Rick filled the role of the neighbor boy who was sweet on her.

I can’t remember if working on that program brought them together, or if it simply brought an already budding relationship into a higher gear, but it wasn’t terribly long afterward that the two of them were an item, and they ultimately married and moved out of the area. To the best of my knowledge they’re still together.

But somehow, in my dream last night, their wedding was scheduled concurrently with our own – absurd as that may be, since we didn’t meet either of them until well after we’d been married and settled (back) down up here in suburban Chicago. And a week before both of them were supposed to take place, you absconded with Rick, leaving the two of us with a situation not unlike that Tonio K song:

In fairness, Rick was blessed with a sort of matinee idol good looks; tall and well-spoken, with a cleft chin reminiscent of the hero of any bygone melodrama. His were the sort of looks that, while I’m no expert, should have attracted the girls by the handfuls. The fact that he only had eyes for Wendy – and even that took a little bit of time, as those of us on the outside seemed to see them as a ‘cute couple’ even before they were a couple – says something about his own focus on a single relationship. In short, what was transpiring in my dream was out of character for both you and him, although from a surface level look at him, one wouldn’t necessarily blame you for falling for him.

Really, every one of the principal players in this story were acting well out of character – except possibly for myself; I leave you to be the judge. But I still need to get to that.

With the two of you literally out of the picture thus, it was left to Wendy and me to presumably make the best of things. The show must go on, it seems we mutually concluded, and we wound up combining the two wedding arrangements into one, and going forward as a pair of spares. Hey, the question directed to her was “do you take this man?” not “do you take Rick?” or “do you take Randy?” For all intents and purposes, I was just a placeholder, and for whatever reason, I was going along with it. Maybe I was just numb.

The main scene from last night, however, was the weirdest. As part of her attempt to ‘get over’ the whole situation, she brought back the, ah… ‘entertainers’… from her bachelorette party the night everything fell apart. She had resisted the temptations they had offered at the time, unaware that Rick was, at that very moment, heading off to parts unknown with you; had she known, she might very well have given in. Again, bear in mind that all this is wildly out of character – the fact that you would run off (or be persuaded to run off) with someone else ought to be sufficient proof of that.

But still, it was a weird feeling, to be sitting on a bed in a very pink room – evidently her childhood bedroom – waiting for her to get out of her wedding dress (while, having presumably returned my tuxedo to the rental place already, I was sitting around, dressed in relatively casual clothes), while being flanked by a couple of guys who were all but naked, who were going to take their turn before me, at her insistence.

For what it’s worth, while I don’t recall the actual words spoken between us, the men were surprisingly professional (given their profession). To them, it wasn’t really as if they had anything personal toward or against me – although, upon hearing the story of what happened to the both of us, offered a certain measure of sympathy, and weren’t entirely sure of what to make of her insistence that they ‘see to’ her before I was allowed a turn; I hardly needed to be told that, even if she were to remain faithful to me for the rest of our lives together, I would always suffer by comparison to this moment. I mean, how could I compete against seasoned professionals?

And, as I said, it wasn’t as if I could wake up and realize that no, you hadn’t left me for Rick – although I think I knew that it was all a dream even as I was within it, it was so surreal – because you aren’t there by my side when I would do so. The only real proof that it wasn’t real was that Wendy wasn’t there either – although, with a start as auspicious as this one, what marriage would still be lasting at this point? An empty bed would be what I could expect by now – probably long since, in fact.

As always, I have no idea where this came from and what, if anything, it might have meant, but if you felt the impact of a metaphysical pillow for this imagined betrayal, now you know why. I tried to keep it light, as I know it’s so unrealistic, but I figured you ought to hear about it, in any event; it would have been interesting to know your reaction.

Anyway, keep an eye on me, honey, and wish me luck. I’m going to need it.