Up to our necks in it.

A continuation from this post.
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The phone rings, it's Mandy.

Shit.

"Hey Mandy", I said.

"Hi, it WAS Justin at the airport", Mandy said, tersely.

"Oh, right, and...and the woman? Who was she?", I ask, not really wanting to hear the answer.

"He just said to me, you're right, It was me, and I've got some things to work out with Leanne", Mandy recalled.

"So, he admitted to some sort of relationship with her then? How did you bring it up?", I was a little concerned....

"Yes , he confessed to it. I said that we were around at your place for dinner, and that you saw him at the airport, and told us that it looked suspicious", explained Mandy.

"You fucking what?!" I shout. "Jesus Christ, I specifically explained what to do, and it wasn't that!" I was finding it hard to control the anger.

Mandy starts the justification speech, "Well, I thought by mentioning your name, it would give credibility to the story."

I couldn't talk.

Earlier that day, Mandy had rang, and said she was going to confront him, and wanted to know what she should do it. I took her through a process, explicitly stating, it is not necessary to use your third party as a supplier of knowledge. Just say what you know to be true, and ask for their perspective on that. Let them answer, it will come out by itself, no additional weight or credibility is needed.

"Well, he's now going away for 2 weeks for business, and said he won't tell Leanne until he gets back. "So I have to carry this with me, and see Leanne in the mean time, whilst we wait for him to get back", Mandy explained her quandary.

"You've got a choice to make then, haven't you", I say, almost pleased that she is in this shithole with me. "Tell, her, or wait, it's up to you".

"It's not my job, I'm going to make HIM do it", growls Mandy.

Wow, what a mess.

Mandy waits, her hatred for Justin grows, every day, and every time she sees Leanne in the mean time. Understandably. She, however, put herself in that place by deciding to confront him. And, I, well, I am up to my neck in shit. I saw it, I told someone else, it turned out to be true, I'm the rat. Justin may well end up on my door step with a gun, or at lease a big fucking bat, and Leanne's life is about to be turned upside down.

The 2 weeks passed, Mandy ground Justin down, holding him to the fact he would tell Leanne. He did. I'll spare you the gory details, but needless to say, it had been happening for a while, she was an office colleague.

Their relationship, had exploded.

And so, there were now some life changing conversations to be had between Leanne and Justin. Making things worse, they have a little boy, so it wasn't going to be pretty.

I admit to being a little fearful for my safety, for a while. I was still travelling a lot, so from then on I took a rather cautious path through the airports in particular. The rear vision mirror in the car, was also kept clean.

I was not looking forward to seeing either of them, not looking forward to that, at all.

An airport affair

I'd just flown back from a business trip, it was 6ish and I was tired from a hectic few days.

Heading towards the carousel to get my bags, I noticed a guy I vaguely recognised as the husband of a friend. It must be said, she is a friend of a very good friend, so a bit removed, but a friend none the less. I had met him only once or twice before, but he had these translucent blue/green eyes, that were hard to mistake.

Strange thing, he was being greeted affectionately, by a woman, and no, it wasn't his wife.

It wasn't a motherly figure, nor was it a familiar greeting from a sibling, it looked too intimate for friendship...I was suspecting. I didn't say anything about it when I got home, not sure why, I just got on with my week.

Friday night came around and we had some friends over for dinner, including coincidently, the ones that provide the link to my midweek sighting. Well, it was really a passing comment, rather than a gossip piece, "Hey, did Justin fly back in from Sydney on Wednesday?", I asked. "I think he did, actually", Mandy said back. "Oh, I think I saw him", I pause. "Did you say hello?", Mandy asks. " No, well, he had someone there picking him up, so...".

Silence.

Mandy is now leaning forwards on the table, looking directly at me.

I remember thinking to myself, what the fuck have I just got myself in to?

By this stage, all eating and drinking had stopped too, and now everyone was looking to me for the next piece of information.

"Well, he was greeted by another woman, and it wasn't Leanne, it didn't look like it could be his mother, and looked a little too intimate to be just a female friend". "Um, does he have a sister?", I ask, lamely.

It was silent.

Mandy looks to her husband, and says "I told you!".

Fuck.

"Now, hey. I haven't seen this guy for ages, and you might want to be careful what you think, or say", I sprout out trying somehow to climb back up this greasy pole. Alas, we are in free fall.

"I want to know everything you saw", Mandy barks, "I'm going to confront him".

Ah, fuck me, I am now the accessory to a possible dalliance, and I for one, do not want that position. Guess I should have thought of that before I opened my mouth.

Fortunately, there was more food and wine to hide behind for a short while, and being the cook, I had plenty of reasons to get up and down from the table to excuse myself from the fire I had started. And, it was raging.

I had a habit of being opinionated, my friends knew it, and expected it of me. I just said it as it was, straight to the point, it is black or white, left or right of the line, nothing straddled the middle. This to me, at the time, was another straight out "tell it as you see it" moment. Oh, how wrong I would be.

Mandy's blood pressure was bordering hypertensive, it is one of her best friends involved, and I hold the details to a possible life changing event in both of their lives, especially Leanne's.

I'm flushed, and feeling pretty fucking ordinary. "More wine?", I cry in desperation. For me at least, comfort me dear juice of the grape.

Over the course of the night, I have every minute detail of the 3 or 4 minutes of data I posses, extracted from me. I tell you, interrogation should be carried out by a woman scorned, she was relentless. I told her each time, "listen, you should be very careful, I saw them briefly, from a distance, and I couldn't tell you the last time I saw Justin".

Well, fortunately, for me and the others, we managed to get off this subject, with brief digressions back to THE sighting, and finish the evening, on topics far more light hearted. We laughed a lot, enjoyed each others company, as we always do, but something has now changed, for good, Mandy knew this, and looked at me so.

One thing is for sure, I knew Mandy was going to take this further, it was just a matter of time. I told her that before she planned to confront him, she should consider it very carefully, and that if she was definitely going to do it, I would give her some steps to follow.

I had been workshopping some issue and conflict resolution techniques I had learnt from a management training course, and without fail, they worked, every time I used them. I wasn't going to confront him, I didn't know him well enough, so by Mandy choosing to do it, she needed my information to validate her reason for the confrontation. This made me nervous.

Number one rule in using information from a third party in a conflict resolution, do not reveal your source, say only that you know this to be what happened, and then ask the accused for their perspective. They then simply have 3 choices, refute it with proof, confess, or lie. If it turns out to be false information, and you reveal your third party source, they're dead.

I am the third party, I value life.

As every one was leaving, we worked through the usual procession of kisses and handshakes, with Mandy being last. We hugged, and she said, "I'll call you". I knew she would.

For now, all I could do was wait.