I really thought I was done blogging about Julie. I really thought it was over.

Then the phone rang and it was a collect call from the Martin County Jail.

I almost stumbled over myself to get to my computer to look her up and sure enough; there she was in the glare of the booking flood lights resplendent in her jail jumpsuit and the vacant and dazed look of someone who had spent the past two hurs being shuffled from cruiser to holding cell.

It's not often when the universe turns in my favor but in those rare occasions when it does happen; its a glorious thing.

Four forgery charges, improper use of identification and credit card fraud.

The phone continued to ring and I continued to refuse the call. I found out later than I can't take collect calls on my cell phone but it didn't matter; there was no way in hell I was going to accept her call. She wants money for bail. The ironic part is that the amount she needed was exactly how much I had blown on her in our first year of dating.

Can she be so stupid that she would think she could come to me again? Could she think I was so stupid that I would fall for her bullshit again? How many times did she think she could trample on me and be able to come back for more?

I am not the kind of person who holds a grudge; I've even mended fences with my ex-wife for crying out loud, but I am reveling in the anger I am feeling. While I still refuse each call from the jail I am looking forward to actually confronting her face to face some day. She lied to me to my face. She used her children as pawns to get what she wanted. I sit and rethink everything we did together and everything said to each other since first meeting in the summer of 2007 and I wonder which ones were legitimate and which ones were a grift.

So I continue to sit and listen to the phone ring. Each call goes to voice mail and I eventually listen to them. Each one starts off with the automated collect call system announcing the call and then a three second audio snippet of her in jail. I can hear the echo o her voice on the linoleum, cinder block and glass; an echo which never stops and they never get right on TV. Some are plaintive, some are pleading, some are stern and some are tear-filled.

With each call I get a little more of my self respect back.

And it feels good for a change.