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Chapter Three

Step 4 - Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves

“Why are you here Alex?”

“Well, I thought it would be the best place to start.”

I was sitting in a swank room on the fourteenth floor of one of the multi-million dollar buildings that made up the business district of Tampa. I was sitting across from a well-dressed Latina woman in her late forties with great legs. I know that sounds like I wasn’t making any progress, but these observations just came natural. It didn’t mean I wanted to sleep with the legs (or the body connected to the legs); it just meant that I appreciated a good set.

“Is this your first time with a counselor?”

“A marriage counselor? Yes. A counselor in general? No.”

After a couple phone calls, I had ended up making an appointment with Angela Rodriguez, marriage counselor extraordinaire. I sat on the leather couch, my hands clasped in front of me. I had no clue how she was going to help me make things right with Rochelle, but as Reva told me before I left, I just had to ‘keep de faith.’

“Where is your wife?”

“My best guess? Home.”

Angela studied me; the tip of her pen hovered over her notebook.

“Why don’t you start from the beginning?”

So that’s what I did. I talked about my stints in rehab, the infertility problems, and my subsequent cheating and drug abuse. I secretly thought Angela must be thanking her lucky stars; she charged by the hour, after all. When I finally came up for a breath, she paused in her writing.

“Okay, let’s do a little exercise. How many women do you think you’ve slept with?”

“At one time?”

She stared at me; I couldn’t tell if she was impressed or disgusted.

“In your lifetime.”

I leaned back into the leather. For a normal person, that should have been an easy question. For me, the question was a little daunting.

“I’m going to go out on a limb here,” I said. “But I’m going to say around a hundred to a hundred and fifty.”

Her face didn’t change expression, but from the look in her eyes I could tell that she either thought I was a deviant or was overly sure of myself.

“And how many of those women have you been in love with?”

I closed my eyes. A stream of pretty girls seemed to dance in front of my eyes. Some I knew only by first name, some by no name at all. Only six girls have ever truly had my heart.

“Six,” I finally said.

“What happened with each of them?”

“The first was Mary. We lost our virginity to each other. We were fifteen,” I explained. “We broke up because of all the time I spent with the guys overseas and we just lost touch.”

“You never forget your first,” Angela said. I grinned.

“Exactly. I thought I ruled the world,” I said with a laugh.

“What about the others?”

I held up a finger. “Kelly. I thought she was too good to be true and she was. I thought it was true love and she was just trying to tag along to see if I would become a star.”

I held up another finger. “Then there was Heather. Now she was the real deal. But she wanted to get married and I was only eighteen. I just couldn’t commit.”

I held up the third finger. “Next was Amanda. It was no strings attached but I fell hard for her. There was a little cheating issue on both of our parts.”

I held up the fourth finger. “Then I actually did propose to the next woman, Sarah. Of course that was a complete disaster. I was involved really heavily with drugs and the Black & Blue tour was going on and…” I shook my head. “That whole time in my life was just a blur.”

I slowly held up my thumb. “And then we come to Ro,” I said gently. I put my free hand around my thumb and closed my eyes.

“That’s your wife,” Angela said. I nodded.

“Well, just from what you’ve told me, I’d have to say that you started off as everyone does in relationships: naïve. Over time, especially as your fame increased, you began to get burned. Sex was easily found and willingly given. During this time women became objects rather than people and this view was only enhanced with drug use and stress. I daresay that the stress of starting a family reignited some of your earlier shortcomings and led you to cheat.”

“That pretty much sums it up,” I said.

Angela looked at me thoughtfully.

“Now the question is how we go from acknowledgement to repairing the relationship.”

I nodded. “That’s the goal.”

“I think the only way we’re going to be able to do that is if we can get Rochelle in here both independently and for couple sessions. There’s walls built up around the both of you that need dissected before you can work as one again.”

“How am I supposed to get her here?”

Angela smiled. “Well, it s a little unorthodox…”

“What?”

“Try talking to her.”

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Step 5 - Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs

“Choo paid two hundred dollars an hour for something I could have told you?”

Reva and I were sitting in the living room. She was watching a rerun of Maury. I put my feet up on the coffee table; she swatted them down.

“Well, it’s not that simple. I mean, even I knew I need to call Ro, but…”

Reva just smiled. “Da phone’s right there in the living room. Or choo can sit out on the stoop with de fire ants and have a party.”

I scowled. “I hate those fucking ants.”

The moment I said the word I groaned. I grabbed the rubber band around my wrist and snapped. Hard.

Reva raised an eyebrow.

“What’s dis rubber band business?”

“Whenever I cuss I’m going to snap the band,” I explained. “It’s kind of my own method of soap.”

Reva wagged a finger at me. “Choo’s a sexual deviant. I bet pain is part of dis kinky thing. Dis ain’t going to help you quit cussing. Soap. Soap’s the answer.”

I smiled. “I think I’ll try the rubber band first. Too much soap could hurt the pipes.” I touched my throat.

“Too many cigarettes will hurt de voice but choo seem to forget that.”

“Hey, I haven’t had a cigarette in…”

“A few days. Dat ain’t nothing.”

“Is for me.”

She waved her hand and turned the volume up on Maury.

“Go call de Missus.”

I stood up and squeezed her shoulder affectionately. I opted to call from my bedroom. There was no way in hell I was sitting outside again. I picked up the phone on the nightstand and dialed home.

There was a reason I didn’t use my cell phone; I knew that as soon as Ro saw my number she wasn’t going to answer. An unrecognized number stood a fifty/fifty chance.

“Hello?”

I closed my eyes. I had almost forgotten how sweet her voice was.

“Ro, it’s Alex. Please don’t hang up. I want to talk to you.”

I braced myself for a dial tone. When it didn’t come I took it as a sign of progress. Instead there was just vast silence.

“I’m staying at my sponsor’s home and I saw a marriage counselor today. I know how bad I messed up but if you can find it in your heart to at least…”

“I can’t deal with this right now.”

“This isn’t something we can just ignore,” I said. I hated the pleading sound in my voice.

“You made your choice,” she said quietly. “I guess you weren’t ready to have this much responsibility. Now that I know that it’s fine. I can raise the babies by myself.”

My stomach clenched. I’ve been punched in the gut many times before but nothing had ever hurt so much before.

“That’s not what I want. Listen, the marriage counselor’s name is Angela Rodriguez. She’d like to meet you one and one with me not there. Just please, please go and just get your frustrations out. I…I don’t want to fail.”

“You never want to fail anyone,” Ro said. “But you just have a knack for it.”

The line went dead. I stared at the receiver for several seconds before putting it back in its cradle.

I didn’t want to go out and tell Reva that the call was a failure. I flipped open my cell phone and called Howie instead.

“Shit, AJ are you okay?”

“Yeah…why?”

“Yesterday you screamed that you had to go and hung up on me. I didn’t know whether you got shot or Ro tracked you down or what.”

“I can tell you none of the above happened,” I said dryly. “In fact, I just talked to Ro.”

“How’d that go?”

“Not well. At least she didn’t hang up on me automatically when she heard my voice.”

“Well, that’s something. So what happened yesterday?”

“I got attacked by fire ants?”

Howie laughed. “What?”

I lay back on the bed. “Long story.”

“That sounds like something stupid that would happen to Brian or Nick. Which speaking of Nick…”

I really didn’t want to hear about Nick. I was still pissed at him. It was bad enough I was sucking it up to get the tour going.

“What about him?” I said coldly.

“Brooke’s birthday party is on the 15th at the Lowery Park Zoo. I figured Nick probably had no clue where to send your invitation.”

I snorted. “I’m probably not invited. Not that I could care less.”

Howie sighed. “Is this how it’s going to be the whole tour?”

“Maybe.”

“Well, I just thought I’d pass the information along.”

“Thanks. Anyhow, I better be going. I have a lot of things to do,” I said. I picked up my socks and tossed them at the wastebasket. They bounced off and rolled over in the corner.

“Okay, bye man.”

“Bye.”

I tossed the phone onto the nightstand and rolled over on my side. I had nothing to do.

“Fuckin’ A,” I muttered. I paused. My fingers wrapped around the rubber band and I pulled it away from my wrist.

Snap.