Money Talk

    Jeanine looked at her phone. After this latest communication with Dylan, she decided her brother Jason was correct – Dylan was an arrogant little shit.
    “I am an idiot,” Jeanine said to herself. “It is that simple. I am an effing idiot.” Why had she let this . . . person . . . become involved in her life?

    As she pulled back into the midweek midday traffic, Jeanine reviewed her ten months of dating Dylan. They had met in a bar in Lexington in July. He wanted to get serious sooner than she liked, but he was fun to talk to, they had similar interests, and she felt at ease with him.
    Jason had disliked Dylan on sight, but he hadn’t been fond of any man Jeanine had dated except for William, her fiancé who was killed in Afghanistan three years ago. Since then, Jason had become over-protective, and Jeanine suspected he had discouraged more than one potential suitor.
    No matter. If Dylan didn’t stop being so unreasonable about her money, she was going to unceremoniously dump him. Maybe into the Cumberland – in small pieces.

    Things had been going good between them until a few days after Valentine’s Day. Dylan had gone from seldom mentioning anything about money to constantly telling her what to do with her money. Jeanine was tiring of the questions . . . Why she bought new shoes when the ones she wore two weeks ago were perfectly good. Why she paid someone to wash her truck when she had a water hose at home. Why she ate in a restaurant at lunch instead of brown-bagging it – yet if she paid for a restaurant meal she and Dylan had shared, or bought him a pint of Blanton’s on a whim, that produced no complaints.
    She had ignored his comments, but wondered about this current obsession with how she spent her money. Both of them had good-paying jobs and plenty of work. Neither of them had had an illness nor any other unexpected expenses.

    But this phone call was over the top. Dylan had ranted about her having the oil changed regularly on her new truck – it cost too much. She shouldn’t’ve bought a new truck that needed the oil changed on a schedule to keep the warranty in effect. And the clincher – she should sell the tires that came on the truck and buy cheaper ones.
    Damn! Jeanine thought. The Cumberland was looking better by the second.

    When Jeanie got home and parked, she debated whether or not to tell Jason of this latest conversation. He would blow his stack over the bit about the tires. Why not tell Jason? At least now she would vent to Jason about Dylan’s foibles and not just listen to Jason tell her why she should dump Dylan.
    A twenty-minute venting to Jason cooled Jeanine’s temper somewhat. Jason was as incensed about the tire comment as she was. By the time both of them finished venting about Dylan’s current outlook, Jeanine had arrived at a decision. No more.
    No more. Enough was enough. Dylan might be cute, a good conversationalist, fun to be with, but she was not, under any circumstances, going to be made feel like she was a second-class citizen because she spent her money the way she deemed appropriate. She wasn’t a spendthrift, but once in a while she did splurge on a new pair of shoes.
    Her lifestyle was her business, no one else’s. To think that she had seriously thought about marrying this . . . person . . . if he had proposed. Jeanine could not believe she had been that foolish, even if she was lonely at times.

    Knowing she needed to calm down before talking to Dylan again, Jeanine walked around the pasture, then sat on a log by the branch. She listened to the rippling water and the birds singing in the trees. Spring flowers were in bloom, breaking the monotony of wintered leaves on either side of the branch. Minnows darted from side to side of a still pool under a sycamore’s roots. A light breeze was causing the spring blooms to sway side to side, as if they were waving “hello.”
    Her mood leveled out and Jeanine walked up the hill to the house. Once inside, she debated whether to call Dylan tonight or tomorrow. Tomorrow she decided, then had supper and read a while before bedtime.

    The next morning, Jeanine was at the auto dealership, waiting while they were changing the oil in her truck, when Dylan called. He wanted to know where she was.
    Jeanine told him and he immediately began telling her all the reasons that was wrong. She interrupted his tirade with, “Good morning, Dylan. How are you this morning?” which he ignored, continuing his rant.
    Jeanine listened for a couple of minutes before interrupting him again. “Dylan,” she said. “Dylan. Listen to me. You are in no position to tell me how to spend my money. You spend your money the way you want and I don’t say anything about it. Give me the same courtesy.”
    “You are being unreasonable,” he said. “You know I have expenses you don’t know about. Things I can’t tell you about. And you keep on asking questions.”
    “Okay,” Jeanine said. “I’ll stop asking questions. You stop telling me how to spend my money.”
    “There you go, being unreasonable again.”
    Jeanine took the phone away from her ear, held it in front of her and wondered if a cell phone drove some people crazy. Putting the phone back to her ear, she said, “Dylan, I have no idea why you’ve become so obsessed with my money, but it is bothering me. It makes me feel that you think I’m an idiot, and really makes me think that you want to control me, and that I will not tolerate.
    “What caused you to get this way?”
    “You have no idea what my life is like when you’re not with me,” he said. “There are things I can’t tell you about.”
    Or won’t, Jeanine thought. They lived in different towns and had dates only two or three times a month, so Jeanine was certain she didn’t know what Dylan did other times. This sudden change bothered her. If he loved her as he said he did, why this change? She had suspected more than once that he was married but hadn’t asked any direct questions.
    Was it time to test the waters?
    “When did your wife find out about me” she asked.
    “How did you . . .?” he said, then stopped talking.
    His silence answered Jeanine’s questions.
    “Thanks for your honesty, Dylan,” she told him, ended the call and turned off her phone. She tapped the phone on the arm of the chair. She could hear Jason now – “I knew the s.o.b. wasn’t worth your time” – and his description of Dylan would go downhill from there.

    Jason had been right all along. Dylan wasn’t someone she needed in her life. She hadn’t been looking for romance when they met – she could live without romance in her life. She didn’t need romance, nor did she need a man. 
    Life on her own could be lonely at times, but Jeanine decided loneliness was preferable to a controlling man.