Affairytale : A Memoir Read online

  We spent the night at the lake cabin, naked and rolling in pleasure, in the back bedroom where our love affair had begun so many years earlier. We reminisced about the first night and all the indiscretions along the way. No matter how disapproving they might be, since they had gotten us to where we were, we agreed we would never take anything back. We talked about all the decades to come and how they would never be enough.

  ***

  It was Christmas when we got back to Maui, seven months after our wedding. The air was filled with the sound of mele kalikimaka and every palm tree on the island was twinkling with lights.

  Our goal: find the waterfall that had eluded us last year.

  We parked our rental car on the side of the road next to the same bamboo forest. He stepped out and onto the highway, then walked around the car to get me. With his hand on the small of my back he made sure I didn’t trip and fall into traffic on the narrow road.

  We entered the towering green forest through a small unmarked opening that turned into an actual hiking trail.

  “This is it!” I yelled. “A small opening in the trees leading into a grotto! How could we have missed this?”

  “You’re right!” From behind he wrapped his hands around my little growing belly and kissed my cheek. “Follow me.”

  We hopped from stone to stone across a shallow river bed that cleverly concealed its treasure deep within the forest. The trail picked up on the other side of the water then spit us out into another river basin where we immediately heard gushing water.

  Gigantic boulders surrounded a small emerald pool, the mouth of a stunning secluded waterfall. It wasn’t a hundred feet tall nor did it require a helicopter and landing pad to get to. It was better. It was private, and no one was there but him and me.

  I sat on a flat polished boulder dangling my legs into the crystal green pool as Grant navigated his way to a ledge behind the falls.

  “This is so amazing!” he yelled from behind a curtain of white gushing water. “I love it here!”

  When he was done exploring, he came and sat beside me. He kissed me with a frisky smack and interlaced our fingers. I felt his wedding band around his right ring finger and laughed out loud.

  “Honey, you do know that wearing your wedding band on your right hand means you’re gay.”

  “I know,” he said. “It doesn’t bother me. It doesn’t fit my left hand, and I don’t want it to fall off.”

  “We can get you a new one,” I said.

  “I don’t want a new one. I like this one.”

  “Actually, I like it that you wear it on your right hand. Other women will think that you’re gay and leave you alone.”

  He turned his attention to my wedding ring, wiggled it from side to side, and slid it off past my swollen knuckle. We watched it sparkle under the sun as he twisted it around, and then he turned his body to face me.

  “I’m so excited for our baby. You make me so happy. Since I didn’t get to do this how I planned last time…” He smiled.

  I cringed.

  When I looked up, his unconditional loving eyes met mine.

  “C.J.,” he said, “you were so worth the wait. Will you marry me?”

  ***

  I am getting excited

  for our little guy to arrive,

  so I can get u prego again!

  HONEY!

  IT’S SO GREAT THAT I GET TO CALL MYSELF YOUR HUSBAND! THERE IS SO ONLY ONE OF YOU ON THIS PLANET, IN THIS UNIVERSE, AND I’M THE ONE THAT HAS THE HONOR OF BELONGING TO YOU!

  THIS IS A FIRST FOR ME—THE FIRST TIME I GET TO CALL SOMEONE MY WIFE :) ALL THE YEARS THAT HAVE GONE BY WITHOUT YOU ARE FINALLY OVER FOREVER, AND I LOOK FORWARD TO EVERY DAY SPENT BEING A FAMILY WITH YOU AND I, DANI, AND OF COURSE, ALL OF OUR FUTURE CHILDREN. WELL, OKAY, ALL MEANS NO MORE THAN TWO.

  I LOVE YOU, WIFE!

  LOVE, GRANT

  Everyone gets a do-over

  —C.J. English

  I hope you enjoyed my story as much as I enjoyed telling it. If you did, please consider posting a brief review on Amazon. The more honest the better.

  Thank you so much!

  -C.J.

  If your book club is reading Affairytale and would like to skype with the author, please send your request to [email protected]

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  Acknowledgments

  To my editor Hannah Kiges-Hutton who took on my manuscript in the eleventh hour and believed in it enough to commit to a crazy timeline. Thank you for letting me keep my voice and allowing me to make my own rules.

  Ericka and Mandee, I speak as if you are conjoined twins but appreciate and love you both in unique ways. Ericka, thank you for listening to me ramble about this project as it was being conceived years ago and thank you for reading endless unpolished drafts until I got it right. Mandee, without the amazing cover, website and your brilliant business mind the book would never have gotten out there. You two bitches are the best.

  Levi, you are a fine and decent, hard-working man and I intended no harm to come to you in writing this memoir. I hope you find love and happiness with a woman who will treat you like you deserve to be treated.

  Thank you Lissy for supporting me through all the stages of my life and taking me back with open arms after I avoided you while sneaking around and pursuing my love interest. I only kept you away because you would have figured it out.

  Dylan, without your very unique personality Grant probably would’ve never become your friend and we may have never met. I guess I owe my happiness in part to you. Also, thank you allowing me to divulge some embarrassing characteristics for the sake of sheer entertainment, I love you.

  Mom and dad, without the both of you making me get me on stage, I would never have had the confidence to speak in public and be fearless in front of an audience when I need to be. I want you guys to live forever within the walls of pleasentville, I’ve never seen you happier and that makes me happy. You are loving, open-minded and understanding parents and I am truly grateful for everything you’ve done for me, and with me.

  Dani, thank you for being the only one who get’s my sense of humor and snarkiness when no one else does. You understand me in ways no one else does. Whether you like it or not, little by little, you’re turning into me.

  To my littlest guy: thank you, little monster, for plunking on the keys of my laptop when I was trying to write this book. I never want you to grow up.

  Thank you to my sweet little girl who tossed and turned in my belly and gave me heart burn while I was trying to finish this book. I’ll always remember the times you fell asleep in my arms by the light of the laptop and I just couldn’t set you down. I love you guys.

  Thanks to Shawn Rode for the cover photo, I don’t know how you managed to conceal my very pregnant belly in the promo shots, but you did!

  Thank you to Lewis Grant for believing in this book from the very beginning and coming along for this wild ride. You are amazing at what you do, the book trailer is fantastic.

  Thank you to Grace, Kate, Sunny, Deb, Cindy, Nichole and Jeanette for your edits and honesty in the initial drafts; your feedback was invaluable. Thank you to my in-laws or as Dylan would say (my non-blood’s) you have treated me with nothing but immense respect and kindness. You’ve taken me and Dani in like we had been family all along. I am forever grateful and learning how to love deeper because of all of you.

  My love, what more can I say? I just wrote an entire book about you! I think I’ve probably said enough, likely too much. I’m not sure why you came around t
o the idea of me airing our dirty laundry, but I’m glad you did, I’ve enjoyed telling the world our love story. If no other dreams of mine ever come true I will never be disappointed. You alone make life extraordinary. You have taught me things about life and love and string theory that I never knew existed. Although I’ve said it before, I want nothing more than to live for all eternity with you, or at least another 10,000 days. Please create some device that will allow us to upload our consciousness into a computer before we die then download it into a new youthful body when one is grown for us. Or maybe we really should freeze our brains?

  To all the readers and reviewers, lovers and haters; thank you to the moon and back for your precious time and support or lack thereof. No matter what, I consider each of you my friend.

  With Love,

  C.J.

  I’m sorry you had to find out this way.

  Table of Contents

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Twelve Years Earlier

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Four Months Later