Laura Guerrero

Final Draft

“3:00 Appointment”

“I don’t know what to tell you first …” 

I knew after watching our wedding video, he must have felt forced to marry me or maybe in his mind he was doing a “good deed.”  I had watched our wedding video a million times and never noticed that he was shaking his right leg profusely as we were kneeling at the alter!  You know on the outside he seemed like a perfectly normal human being, but we are all blind when it comes to love.  We always try to find the good in someone from the inside no matter what they may look like on the outside especially that someone that we want to marry.  We all dream that love is supposed to be this knight in shining armor on some white horse.  You know, the typical Cinderella story.  We keep the fantasy in our heads and deny the reality of what is happening right in front of our own eyes.  At least I did.  I knew what kind of person he was, but I didn’t care because I loved him.  He was so charming; he could convince anybody to do just about anything, especially me.  You know, you always think you can change a person.  The reality is you have to accept them for who they are because people do not change.  I know that now.  Does love leave you home alone at night?  Does love tell you what a horrible person you are?  Does love yell at you when he got the smaller piece of meat?  No, right?  Why would I marry him, you ask?  Let’s go back a few years and I will explain.  

In the beginning he was really great, at least from what I can remember.  Before we had children we spent a lot of time together.  We would go out at times to dinner and a movie or even out for drinks with our friends. He loved when I dressed up.  His favorite dress was my little black dress.  You know, the one every woman should have.  I was a little on the heavy side when we were together, but he would always compliment me on how beautiful I was.  We were constantly going somewhere or doing something fun and exciting.  I thought I had found my soul-mate and we would be together forever. 

After we had children, we did not go out much, but that was normal, right?  I was ready to stay home and do family things, you know, settle down?  I wanted to be home with my husband and my children.  Wasn’t that normal?  I was over the going out all of the time stage.  Going out is so overrated don’t you think?  But he just loved to go out and I couldn’t stop him.  If I tried to stop him, it just pushed him further away.  Looking back, I think I was the only one that settled down, not him.  Why did he even want to get married if he did not want to settle down? 

I can remember- I would cook, clean, wash clothes, bathe the children and make sure there was dinner on the table, all before he got home from work.  I thought that was what I was supposed to do as a wife and a mother?  Now that I think about it, I really think it kept my mind off my tainted Cinderella story. 

Like the time dinner was on the table…  My children and I were all waiting for my husband to arrive.  He was often late, well…  He was always late.  One time I can remember thinking- Oh my gosh!  Was that really him?  Was he really pulling up in our driveway?  It’s only 8:00pm!  He usually shows up around 10:00pm and has some sorry excuse for being late.  Up the sidewalk here he comes, smiling through the front door.  “Honey, I’m home!”  Not hello…Not hi…Not how was your day…but I’m home.  Big deal I thought to myself, who cares.  He didn’t even say hi to the kids!  “Let’s get a babysitter.”  “Why, what’s going on tonight?”  I asked.  “Oh, nothing, just thought we would go out and get some dinner or go have some drinks.”  “What do you think?”  He said.  What the hell, he wasn’t thinking!  I had been home all day with the kids.  “I am tired, I did cook, you know!”  Could he not smell the aroma of dinner when he walked through the door?  What about his kids?  Did he not notice that they were all sitting around the table eating their dinner?  What an idiot!  “That’s okay, I’ll take dinner for lunch tomorrow.”  He said.  “Come on hurry up, get dressed and make sure you wear your black dress.” 

What was the rush?  Didn’t he get the hint?  I was tired.  Why did we have to go out?  Why couldn’t we stay home?  Couldn’t we just stay home and watch a movie?  Play happy family?  Why did we have to go out when it was a weeknight and we had kids and they had to go to school the next day?  He always wanted to drag the kids across town to his Mother’s on a school night for a few hours of fun, and I had to be the one to wake their cranky asses up in the morning to get them to school on time! What did he care, he didn’t have to deal with them?  He had no idea what it was like to deal with them on a daily basis!  He would just wake up late, hit the alarm fifty times and complain that he had to go to work while I got to stay home with the kids!  He never appreciated anything I did for him!  According to him I was lucky, I could stay home because most wives had to work.  He acted like he was doing me a favor by letting me stay home with the kids!  I was doing him a favor washing all of his clothes, cleaning his house and taking care of his kids.  Don’t get me wrong, I love my kids.  He just never helped me with them, I practically raised them myself.  Yeah right, I just sat home and ate bon-bon’s all day!  I wish!  He acted like there was a deadline for fun when he wanted to go out! 

Maybe he wanted to continue to keep his buzz going because he had been at the bar when he said he was at work.  In the back of my mind, I knew he was up to no good.  He probably got stood up from some sleazy girl and I was his second choice for fun.  Maybe that is why he decided to come home that night?  I went ahead and got dressed that night because I knew that he would just take off without me and end up doing who knows what with who knows who.

Glancing at the clock, I noticed that I was running out of time.  My session with the therapist was almost up and I still had so much more to say.

Oh yeah and one other time I can remember…  I would ask, “Why are you late tonight, honey?”  His reply would be “work.”  That was always his reply, work…work…work…  I can still hear him… “What’s your problem?”  “Why do you have to check up on me?”  “Don’t you trust me?” Now that was a big question…  Trust?  He never earned my trust.  I don’t think I ever trusted him.  How could I?  He would always lie to me!  He was not your typical “little white lie” liar, he would come up with some Oscar-winning lies! 

Every time I tried to call his office I could never get a hold of him.  He use to have a pager when we first got married so I would call his pager and half the time he would not call me back until he couldn’t stand looking at my 911 pages that were really not 911 pages!  Why couldn’t he call me back?  I thought I was his wife.  Was it so bad to want to talk to your husband every now and then during the day?  I would always think to myself wasn’t he the least bit curious to find out how my day was going?  What was wrong with a little phone call?  Was it too much to ask for him to check up on us during the day?  Sometimes I would try to get in touch with him all day and before I knew it the time was 8:00 pm and he still had not called.  I would fall asleep at night waiting up for him and I got tired of asking questions because I knew the answer.   “I was at work.” 

After countless lies and denial, I begin to really believe that he was at work.  I think in the back of my mind I really knew different.  I just did not want to accept it.  I had no proof, but I felt it, like a stab in the heart.  So I went about my day, and tried to realize that it was I too that had a choice.  I guess after a while the guilt caught up with him and a night out or a day of shopping was supposed to make me feel better, or was it to make him feel better? 

Like the time he left to stay over at a friend’s because we had a fight and I caught him with some fat ugly bitch the very same night he left!  How could he cheat on me the very same night he left?  Why, if I caught him cheating, was I being blamed for being the bitch?  Yes, that’s right I was being blamed for catching him and he was feeling sorry for himself and he was “working” all the time. 

Oh yes, this is the topper…  He must have really been doing a number on me because out of the blue he bought two tickets to Jamaica for my 30^th birthday!   We did not have Jamaica money!  We could barely afford groceries some weeks.  See, this is what I am talking about when I say the guilt caught up with him!  I know that you are probably thinking that all of these bad things that I am telling you bring up questions as to why I would marry him, but what did I know?  I loved him.  Oh you should have seen the production…  It was great; I walked into a balloon-filled room, a complete surprise.  Remember, he was good at keeping secrets.  What a wonderful husband, I was thinking.  Yeah right!  Little did I know looking back now that he was probably trying to make himself look and feel like a good husband by throwing such a great party at our house!  That is what he wanted everyone to see!  Little did my friends know that I had caught my husband a month earlier kissing some ugly skank and he begged me to forgive him!  You see…  He and I were the only ones that knew in our circle of friends and family that he cheated on me. 

Back to the party… As I walked through the door with my sister and my best friend, he looked like Prince Charming, but I already knew my fairy tale was coming to an end.  I had to play nice even though it killed me inside.  So after a few margaritas I walked into my 30^th birthday party trying to forget the unforgivable.  I greeted him with a big smile and a kiss, when I really wanted to smack him across the face.  How could he pretend like nothing had ever happened?  He cheated on me!  She was ugly too; he could have picked someone a little cuter!  I had to play nice. I can remember saying, “Oh honey, this was such a wonderful surprise!”  Meanwhile, wouldn’t he have been surprised if I would have announced what he had done to me just a month ago.  That bastard, I can’t believe that he did that to me and I forgave him!  I really don’t think I forgave him, but I did take him back.  For what?  Why did I take him back?  Why did I marry him?  I ask myself that all the time!  I should have never married him!  I knew what he was like.  A leopard never changes his spots!  He could have picked a cuter girl at least!  Still I smiled and pretended to be happy.  At least there was alcohol there to help me get through that night of that for-show bullshit party! 

“All right Ms. Jones, your hour is up.”  “Maybe next week you can concentrate on moving past all of this anger.”  “You know Ms. Jones; you are going to be ok.”  “He won’t.”  “Letting go of these fairy tale illusions is painful, but you must let go.”  Your marriage may not have been as good as you thought it was or wanted it to be, but the fact is it was real.  You made him a better person than he was able to be on his own, and thank yourself because that was a major accomplishment in itself.    

That day I left the therapist office I knew I had to find it in my heart to forgive him.  I just was not ready to forgive him, not yet.  Why did I marry him you ask?  I loved him and I still do.

Revision Account

I must say that I had some difficulty getting starting on writing a fiction piece in the first place.  I wanted to write something that everyone could relate with so I decided to write about a woman going through a divorce.  Divorce is such a big issue in our society.  I have not experienced going through a divorce myself, but seeing my sister go through a divorce, I felt the impact.  Getting started was the hardest, but once I had my thought process down, the words started flowing.  I did not plan on my piece turning out as a monologue, but I think it works best.  I think that it turned out really well to help the reader understand that my narrator/character was in a therapy session with her therapist.  During my class presentation of my piece, I started to notice little things as I was reading it to the class.  Writing my piece was completely different than reading my piece out loud.  I felt that when I was reading my piece that I was throwing a lot of information out there that was a little difficult to follow.  I knew what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it, but when I read it out loud it was so different to me.  Several of my classmates gave me great ideas to begin my revision process. 

First was my title.  I liked my title, but for some reason it was not completely working for me.  I decided to change the title to “3:00 Appointment” as suggested by JT.  To me, I was able to change my title without giving the whole story away that the narrator/character was in a therapy session.  I had several comments that indicated that they enjoyed the suspense and did not know who she was talking to until the end.  I did give a few signals in the beginning of my piece as to where the woman was, but I left it vague.  The title itself, changed the piece just enough not to give it all away.  

Secondly, I changed up the paragraphs.  In my first draft, I did not break down my piece into separate paragraphs.  To be honest, I did not know where to break them up or what might be a good stopping point or starting point to break up the dialogue.  Several of my classmates, including Joann and Nancy suggested that if I broke up my paragraphs it might help to show how erratic my character is. 

Thirdly was adding more of a description to my characters.  In the description of the woman, I added that she was a little on the heavy side. I wanted everyone to see that she was not a trophy wife, but a typical everyday housewife.  I gave the husband a charming description and even an added bonus on how he compliments the woman that she is beautiful.  As suggested by my classmates, I added the “little black dress” dialogue.  To me, this described the characters in more detail and what they might look like. 

I tried to maintain consistency as I wrote my revision.  I am really happy with how it turned out.  I really found it helpful to read my piece to the class.  All of my classmates were extremely helpful.  I did not feel that I was being attacked by my classmates.  They were quite kind.