JUDY'S STORY TIME
There isn't anybody who knows Judy as well as I do. and, gotta' say I didn't expect what happened to her. or what she did. how ever you want to look at it. it's a little scary, but it could happen to anybody. really. lives aren't as easy as you think. some things are not easy at all...other times, even the little old ladies do ok....things go well...who really knows the reasons why...so, this is the Story, Judy's to tell... as it gets 'told' now and again....
We all blame it on the on-line dating scene as far as Judy goes...but really, it's more like...we all have times we can be remarkably neurotic. we can be scared. and alone. and still surviving. but, sometimes, we go over the line. we feel like we're not surviving. we can panic. even have panic attacks...real ones! we can start feeling less functional. less connected...we start to fear depression...that we may be depressed. the loneliness is deep. especially at night. it's then that we might make big mistakes in our lives...or, we might make unusual - really uncharacteristic - decisions...that's what happened to Judy, I think....
Tony wrote a very good 'profile' as they call them in the dating service...he had a handsome picture, that did show his few wrinkles, due to his being in his late fifties...Judy was sixty. she was flattered that he emailed her that her profile had really attracted him...that he had been looking for a long time, and hers had inspired him to write his 'first email'...
They emailed back and forth on the service, and then she agreed to meet him 'over coffee' at a very public coffee house, during the day, of course...needless to say, the 'coffe' had been a great initial meeting...he looked just like his picture...he said she was more beautiful than her photo...they chatted and laughed and found lots and lots of interests in common...which was a very good sign...they both showed each other pics of their kids and grand kids...he commented several times on her figure and face...her not looking like she could possibly be a gramma....Judy felt so special...it had been years since any one had said those sorts of complements to her...well...actually, no one had ever said any of the things Tony said....he was obviously a one-of-a-kind sort of guy.
Judy had been covering her terrible loneliness pretty well...she went to work and was cheerful and efficient and so on as usual...she visited her friends and her kids and grandkids and was good to them all and enjoyed their company...she didn't talk much about the divorce. but she was realistic and not mean or obsessive about it. so no one felt put-upon when she would update them about how the divorce was proceeding...she had taken all the helpful advice everyone had given her about how to feel about Jake's infidelities and his lying and so on. several people called her a great 'sport'...she was a 'good sport'...every one knew that. Like all good sports, Judy took her place on the Great Mandala and played along to her new man's tune...in this way, she nabbed him...and he had never even noticed one little neurotic or dark little bit about her at all....
no one was surprised when Judy started to bring Tony to events with friends and with the family...he was, he told them, a retired grocer from the city...he was widowed for six years...he wanted to share his early retirement with a 'wonderful woman', and that woman was evidently our own Judy...she was so happy. she literally looked ten years younger. she had lost a great deal of weight...and she was smiling like a teenager all of the time....
god, the first thing you've got to notice hear is how familiar this all sounds, right? there are hundreds of ladies all over the world who are falling for con men and jerks and just guys who are lying and lying and their stories sound just like this! even worse: there are hundreds more where they just meet a nice guy and get married and live all boring ever-after and you've heard those stories too. admit it. this is going nowhere for you. Judy's story is really boring. that's a fact. all the lonely people and all that.
well...this one is a bit different. I'll tell you that. it's different....
Judy met Tony's brother. he was the guy who owned the chain of grocery stores that his brother had actually been the manager...of one of them, that is....he was a freakin' millionaire, only somehow Judy didn't get that part. as a result of not getting that he was impossibly rich, Judy treated him like anyone else. where usually ladies would fall all over themselves to please him, since he was divorced, more gorgeous than Tony, and richer then god...anyway, he was so blown away by Judy being all over Tony and not even looking at him (his named was Gregory) that he got way more interested in her then he would have in the first place....
He started calling Judy. he sounded so much like Tony that she would mix them up over the phone...which he got a kick out of...he'd tease her that she didn't know her own mind, since she would call him "Love" and stuff. Judy got all flustered. still not knowing he was loaded, she actually got offended and told him to stop horning in on her, on account of she was in love with Tony...this impressed Gregory even more...her faithfulness...in the face of his riches....
He decided to get rid of Tony and go for Judy himself. even tho he knew really nothing about her. except that she didn't cozy up to him to get at his money. that was enough for him...he started telling her bad stuff about Tony, first, but she got mad at him and said to leave his 'little brother' alone..."I trust Tony" is what she said...Gregory was in love, now, with her loyalty. never had he known such loyalty....
Still, he knew his brother...he started telling lies about Judy to Tony. at first Tony was really mad. he accused his brother of trying to ruin his life. which, of course, Gregory was certainly doing. Gregory kept up the insinuations, which he kept very vague...very nonspecific as to dates and people involved and so on....over time, Tony started to wonder...maybe Judy was just like any other woman...not to be trusted...Gregory was certainly getting his own way in this one...and Tony didn't even see it comin'...
so, naturally, somehow the Tony-Thing feel apart for Judy...tho is took a long time....she was very, very unhappy about it. everybody commiserated...Gregory was a big help...at first she was reluctant to see him at all...then she did...she had no idea that he had been the one who had wrecked her perfectly normal relationship...she started getting lonely again and feeling very, very dark... and, she missed the sex especially....
Gregory let a couple of months go by, then called her to 'go out' to 'talk'...she agreed...She listened to his lines. she heard them all for the first time. she realized that she had been set-up to leave her job and to move away from all she knew....this had been an odd benefit of leaving Tony, she had thought...but Gregory had done it on purpose...why? because you treated me like I didn't have money, he told her...she laughed until tears came into her eyes: "I didn't know you have money." she told him. then he realized that she looked sixty and that he hadn't a clue what he needed from a woman. he had no idea what to offer her either. so, he stopped calling her too...just like Tony...and, just like Tony... for good........
so now Judy was back into square one...lonely and feeling depressed and so on...she called Tony and explained to him what had happened....they cried together. but he told her that they were better off apart...besides...he had met a new woman, and they were dating. she was a blond in her fifties..."better for us both, this happened" he told Judy...
Months went by...most of us lost track of Judy....
Then Gregory died. he fell down an elevator shaft that was in repair, because he got impatient and forced the door open and then stepped in without looking. We read about it in the papers...
Four days later, Judy got a telephone call about it, because his lawyer needed to settle the affairs 'of the deceased"....she needed to come to the reading of the will...
Apparently, Gregory was a Hoarder, and a serious one...and he had left a lot of money to a lot of people... when they broke into his house for the records on his computer....using his password....which his former wife had...they found out that he had left five hundred thousand dollars to our sweet now-sixty-one-years-old Judy....plus, he had prepaid his own investment people to get her into about a third of all of his stocks and bonds....the rest of every thing he had, besides good bits to family and so on, he left to the Animal Shelter across the street from his apartment complex.
and, get this. he had actually been murdered...there was evidence that Gregory had probably been pushed down that shaft of that elevator... some witness had heard a tussle in the hall, and a man screaming "noooooooo!"...then he had seen a small lady running down the stairs from that floor. but he couldn't identify her any further...no one else came forth, as they say...no one ever speculated that it could have been Judy....
After all...she was a mousy, sweet, now rich, little sixty-one year old lady, with a very boring life....she also smiled tho, a lot of the time....she had a Mona Lisa kind of smile...like she was hiding something...it was kind of cute, really...little smiling rich lady...smiling all the way to the bank...
So, that is what happened to Judy: that's the story, as has been told these last couple'a years...now for the something-completely-different part:
Judy and I are going to Hawaii next week...we often do...
we love our little bungalow on the beach...our island Paradise...
Judy never looks neurotic or lonely anymore...
I never have to feel second-best to my brother ever again.....
poor Gregory...rest in peace, bro....
you know:
never underestimate quiet, every-day, sweet older ladies....they can really surprise a guy who isn't watching close.....
but this story isn't about Gregory - so enough of the stories about him!
it's about Judy and Tony - that being 'me' - forever! O yes indeed, folks...
This is Judy's Story Time....
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