Caught in the Middle

By Rita Delude

Wanda and Joe Sterling have been passionately, happily married for seven years. Janice and Ron Weaver love them both and model their marriage after the Sterling's.

When trouble shakes the relationship, the friends find themselves caught in the middle of love. Yet they believe despite the ups and downs, twists and turns, love and honest friendship will prevail.

Caught in the Middle, the sequel to Catch.net, follows true friends and lovers through the peaks and valleys that make genuine love a roller coaster ride to happiness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Crazy Ink
• Release date: Jan 13, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386544357

Book preview

Dedication

To all those who honor their marriage vows, yet understand that no relationship is ever perfect.

CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE

Chapter One

Wanda

Janice pulls into my driveway, parks next to my yellow PT Cruiser, and passes snow-covered shrubs with her Maltese, Daisy, wrapped in her winter coat. I know because I watch her. She almost falls as she slips on a small patch of ice, but rights herself just in time. I open the door before she has time to ring the bell. I am standing there in my Garfield slippers. She flies into the house, dripping snow in the entry way and letting Daisy wander. Daisy goes straight to where Bella sleeps in her infant seat, but doesn’t lick her. She just sits down and acts as guard dog like she always does.

Wanda, he did it. He did it. He did it, she shouts as she picks up my hands and we dance around in circles.

Let’s sit for a bit while I catch my breath, I urge.

She sticks out her left hand and dangles it in front of my sweat glistened face.

Look. Look. Ron made it official. He asked me to marry him.

Oh, Janice, that is the best news. Oh my God, did you have a bodyguard follow you here? I wouldn’t leave the house without one if I was wearing that rock. That’s the biggest diamond I’ve ever seen this side of Hollywood.

I know. But it’s perfect because it’s also so simple, round stone, platinum. I couldn’t have asked for a better ring if I’d picked it out myself.

My face lights up, and I can’t hold back a wide smile. Janice knows me so well and immediately realizes there’s been a conspiracy.

Okay, confess. Did you pick out this ring?

Well, you do know I love to shop. And you do know I can’t say ‘no’ to your Ron about anything. So I went with him to give my stamp of approval, but no, I definitely did not pick out the ring. He did. Damn, girl, that man is crazy about you.

We move to the kitchen where I prepare two hot chocolates and reach into the treat box I keep for Daisy.

So, you knew about this and didn’t tell me? she asks. Shame on you. You know we don’t keep secrets.

Are you kidding me? Ron trusts me enough to take me ring shopping, and I’m going to spill the beans? Not gonna happen. Now, tell me everything.

We celebrated New Year’s Eve with the thousands and thousands in Times Square, but we lingered long after the ball dropped and walked to Rockefeller Center. There under the Christmas tree, he got down on one knee...

Oh, how I wish I could have seen that, I say.

Oh, Wanda, it was perfect. So fabulous. We were surrounded by hundreds of people returning home, but for those moments while he proposed and slipped this ring on my finger, we were alone in the world. So romantic.

She touches her hand to her heart, and I do the same.

It’s gorgeous, I tell her. And you’re glowing.

Wait. There’s more. When he got up and kissed me, people cheered, clapped, and hooted. It was so much fun. Not just romantic, which, of course, it was, but fun, too. It felt that the whole world was happy for us.

I cry, partly because I am so happy for my best friend, but partly because things are going so well for her and Ron, but not so well for Joe and me. I do not, however, want to spoil her celebration, so I partly lie.

Wanda, what’s the matter?

You know I always cry at good news, and this is the best. I’m part of that whole world that’s happy for you both.

I don’t doubt that, she says. You’re my number one cheerleader.

After all you’ve been through in your life, you deserve to have this happiness, I tell her.

I’m the closest person Janice has to a sister now that Gloria’s gone; I’m so thankful I can be here for her.

I love you, girl, I say. Now let’s get to planning this wedding.

TO TAKE MY MIND OFF of the coldness, the distance, the lack of somethin’ between Joe and me, I throw myself into Janice’s wedding like a wedding planner on steroids. She thinks something simple with just her immediate family and his would be enough. But Ron has money. When Joe and I got married, we were just kids. Neither set of parents could afford to help us, so ours was the simplest reception ever. Hot dogs and hamburgers in the local park. Janice’s wedding gives me the chance to plan the lavish wedding every girl dreams of.

Hold on, girl, you have the chance to have a movie-star wedding with every glitz and glitter, and you want to settle for something less than FAB-u-less. Are you kidding me? Ron can afford this. The sky’s the limit, I tell her in one of my verbal volcanos.

First of all, I don’t know if Ron can afford all this, and second, I’m not sure I want it, she argues.

Well, Alicia’s still working as his interior decorator, and last week he put her on full-time because business is booming. He’s building more custom private residences and huge condo and office complexes than anyone else in town, so that answers the question of money.

Just because he has it doesn’t mean I want to spend all of it, she protests. Remember, Ron claimed he was a construction worker rather than a construction company owner, so ladies wouldn’t go gold digging when he posted himself on Catch.net.

So that’s your cock-eyed reason for not wanting to splurge? I ask.

I take two more dog treats from the ceramic treat box on my counter and give them to Daisy, who wags her tail wildly wanting, but not getting, more.

Bella is awake, so we move to the living room with our hot chocolates and leftover Christmas cookies and Janice bundles Bella into her arms.

I swear she grows a foot every time I see her. She’s so beautiful, Janice coos.

She’s Momma’s little girl, but to hear Joe talk, I had nothing to do with it. It’s ‘Daddy’s precious does this,’ ‘Daddy’s baby boo,’ ’Daddy and Bella gonna go to the Celtics game,’ ‘Daddy’s darling’s gonna be president,’ ‘Daddy’s princess is so smart’...and on and on and on he goes. He about never talks to me anymore, I complain.

He’s just gushing. You should be glad, she defends Joe, as she always does.

Don’t you take his side, I say. And Celtics game? Since when he’s got the money for some Celtics game? If he had, he never took me. I’m sick of it. I do all the work, and you know what her first words were?

What?

Janice braces herself on the end table for my answer.

Da Da.

Oh, come on, Wanda, what’s that you always say?—‘Get over yourself.’ He’s just in love that’s all. He’ll get tired of all her newness soon, and he’ll be looking for his little Wanda to be ready, if you know what I mean?

I know what you mean, but it ain’t happening yet. Since sweet Bella got here, it’s like he couldn’t care less about the old somethin’, somethin’. I just don’t get it, I say.

Give it some time, Wanda, Joe’s crazy about you.

But there is a confused look on Janice’s face like she’s thinking maybe I’m right.

Well, never you mind about Joe, the old coot, and me. Let’s talk wedding, wedding, wedding, and nothing but wedding, I say, bouncing on the couch and clapping my hands.

Since Janice only has her brother Jimmy and a brother-in-law and his three kids, she thinks a small, intimate wedding is best. But Ron is well known in the community, and I convince her it would be better to make a semi-large wedding, so he can have lots of business contacts around, plus his crew, who will want to see him married. She’s got friends from the college where she works and all of my family. This won’t be too large or too small, but it will have the best of everything, if I get to decide.

We agree that her brother would be crushed if she doesn’t have him walk her down the aisle, so that is settled quickly. Her niece, Emily, will  be flower girl and her nephews will distribute the programs at the church. Janice fights me on the programs until I tell her we can put directions to the reception on them. Then she remembers that people got lost on the way to Gloria’s reception, and she doesn’t want a repeat of that fiasco.

When Janice asks me to be her maid of honor, I jump out of my seat and pull her into one of my signature bear hugs.

I thought you’d never ask. Of course. Of course. I’d just die if you asked anyone else. I want to be so much, I say.

It takes six months of planning for her perfect day. It distracts me time and again from my suspicions about Joe, and I am thankful for that. I have also been getting bored just taking care of the baby all day. I am a registered nurse and am used to lots of patients pulling me in all directions. Having one infant isn’t enough to fill up my hours, but planning Janice’s wedding really helps me. And finally her day arrives.

I stand with her in the complete chaos of the bride’s room and fuss over her hair and readjust her headpiece and veil every few seconds. Strangers would think I am her mother, not her friend, I am so nervous. The flower girl waits patiently while the bridesmaids fix their hair, adjust their bras, check their lipstick and mascara, and complain about the heat.

I wish we’d eloped, Janice says.

Eloped? Girl, you say that again and, wedding dress or no wedding dress, I will wash your mouth out with soap. Of course you can’t elope. We all have to be here to celebrate this beautiful union, I tell her, but my heart is aching. My union with Joe is falling apart. We barely speak anymore.

Ah ha, she’s right. Can’t do this without us, my sister, Alicia, tells her.

I don’t even think those drive-up-Vegas elopement weddings are legal, Sofi chimes in.

So, you’re outnumbered. It’s too late to back out now, I insist.

Of course, Janice gives up on the elopement idea, but she does ask for people to find Jimmy. She is clearly nervous. Everyone scurries off to find him but me.

Are you nervous, Hon? I ask her.

I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t.

She’s always honest with me.

Well, it’s a big commitment to promise to be with one man forever, but it’s worth it. Look at Joe and me. Seven years of marriage and our beautiful baby Isabella. It’s all worth it, I promise.

Despite my rift with Joe, this is her day and I want it perfect for her, so I will not bring in my troubles. I’ve been holding them back from everyone so long, I’ve sometimes thought I would burst. But Janice sees my chocolate face, turned down lips, and eyes tearing up, so I plaster on a fake smile.

Are you okay, Wanda, you look sad? she asks.

I dab my eyes with a tissue.

I’m fine, Sweetheart, weddings always make me teary eyed. Don’t pay any attention to that weeping lady in your mirror.

When Jimmy walks in flanked by the bridesmaids, looking spiffy in his tux with a sprig of daisy in his lapel, she asks that they have time alone.

Minutes later, she and Ron ascend the steps to the altar and Father Mathias takes over from there. When they exchange vows, I watch them closely. It is like no one else in the world exists.

Ron begins, I, Ronald Anthony Weaver, promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honor you all the days of my life.

And Janice responds, "I, Janice Christine