SUMMER OF ‘95
by
Michael Ewing
The blaring alarm
shattered my sleep. I groaned and cracked my greasy eyes open wondering when
five-thirty in the morning had gotten so damned bright. I pulled the pillow
over my aching head and tried to figure out a way of not going into work. The
night before I had gone out drinking at Shy’s with Scott and Justine for their
anniversary and had overindulged. Yesterday, my boss, Gregg, had asked me for
five more names for layoffs and it was easy to drink more than I should have.
God, I hated my job.
I gingerly tried to stitch
the previous evening together. I remembered going to Shy’s. I remembered
waiting for my wife Laura to join us and her eventually calling to say that she
couldn’t get away from work, again. I remembered getting angry about her job,
about her endless hours, and how she was never home. I remembered hanging up on
her and Scott ordering a round and someone ordering another and eventually the
evening went blurry.
I heard water running and labored
slowly into the bathroom, eyes squinting against the glare. Laura stood in the
shower under the warm water with her eyes closed. I blinked at the water
sluicing down her soft curves and remembered the last time we had made love in
the shower, the way her back arched and how her fingers clutched at my
shoulders. Our schedules had been horrible lately so it seemed like the only
time we had together was in the shower. I wasn’t complaining. I loved the way
she felt under my hands. She had been working out with a personal trainer for
the last six months and every inch of her five foot something was toned and
sculpted.
I slumped over to my sink
and turned on the water. The skin on my
skull felt eggshell thin as I washed my face, like it was made of tissue paper.
I stared at the defeat in my gray eyes. There were good days and bad days with
my job, but today was going to be one of the worst. I didn’t want to lay Scott
off. He was my best friend and I had
tried as much as I could over the years to protect him, but Gregg hadn’t given
me a choice.
It had been a long time
since I had been happy at work and being unhappy five days a week spilled over
into every other part of my life. I was lucky Laura was willing to put up with
it. Life with me hadn’t been pleasant.
I swished the taste of
stale vodka out of my mouth trying not to move my head any more than was
necessary. My hair was a snarled brown bush on one side and flat on the other.
Annoying gray patches had somehow sprouted at my temples overnight. I needed to
start thinking about a haircut. A day’s worth of whiskers darkened my jaw. All
in all, a horrible start to an equally horrible day.
I
spat out the mouthwash, nearly fell getting out of my shorts, and stepped
tentatively into the water, wincing under the thunder of the water on my skull.
Laura opened her bright blue eyes and put a gentle hand on my chest.
"How was the
party?"
“I don’t know.” My mouth
felt like it was full of sawdust. “I can’t remember.”
"You should go back
to bed. You look terrible.”
“I wish I could. I have
meetings all day.”
“I hope it isn’t more
layoffs. It seems like every time you have lots of meetings you have to walk
someone out.”
I stared glumly at the
drain as she put shampoo in her hair. I debated about telling her about Scott
but didn’t want to ruin her morning. She didn’t want to hear about my job any
more than I wanted to talk about it. We both needed new careers. Laura’s hours
had been brutal for the past six months.
I switched to a safer
topic.
"I
guess congratulations are in order. Do you feel forty?”
“No.”
“If
it’s any consolation, you don’t look forty.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t
let Darleen get you drunk at the Kenny Loggins concert tonight,” I cautioned.
“You’ll never know what will happen.”
She
fixed me with a steady look. “Nothing will happen.”
"Your
old college roommate’s crazy. She almost got you kicked out of medical school.
What did the two of you get caught doing again?”
Laura’s
baby blues narrowed into barbs. “The charges were dismissed.”
“Well,
don’t let Darleen keep buying you drinks. We don’t want another dismissal.”
I was eating a cheery breakfast of
cheerios and aspirin when Laura swept into the kitchen in a very short, low-cut
blue silk dress that showed off more than she had shown in years. A brilliant
blue azurite necklace matched her eyes. Her dark, golden hair was fashionably
highlighted with streaks of platinum. I whistled and immediately wished I
hadn’t.
“Wow. No scrubs today?”
“I didn’t want to change
before the concert. I’m going to put on a lab coat at work.”
I
gently pulled her close, inhaling her jasmine perfume, and holding her tighter
than I normally would have. “You sure you have to go?”
She
put a finger onto my chest. “What, sir, is your intention?”
I
managed a smile. “With a dress like that, you could stay home tonight and we
could celebrate your birthday in style instead of you going to the concert.”
She turned to inspect her
reflection in the kitchen’s stainless steel oven. “Do you think it’s too much?
I just wanted to be pretty, you know? It’s been so long since I’ve seen these
people that I... Do I really look nice?”
“You
look a lot better than nice.”
Her
face went from pretty to beautiful in a flutter of her eyes. I forgot about her
horrible hours and never seeing her and let myself fall in love with her all
over again.
“Thank
you.”
I smiled. “Anytime. All
the time.”
Her phone screeched. She
turned, the moment lost, and picked it up.
“This
is Dr. Weller.”
She listened to the ER
nurse then rattled off a medical order for a prescription change. She put her
phone in her purse, grabbed her keys, and turned my way.
“I
know it’s hard but try to have a good day at work.”
I
made a face.
She put a hand on my
shoulder. “Have you thought about calling some of your friends about other
jobs? Dave has been after you for years to work for him. His company is growing.
You could finally do something you really like again. It’s been years since
you’ve been happy.”
“If
I leave, the department will close.
Gregg doesn’t have a clue about how to keep it running. He’d lay off the
entire place in a month.”
“Maybe that would be for
the best. Never knowing who’s going to be walked out next has to be getting
old.”
She saw the expression on
my face and her shoulders slumped. “How many this time?”
“Five.”
“That’s
over a quarter of your department.”
“Yes.”
“Will
Scott be affected?”
I
lowered my gaze to the floor. “Gregg didn’t give me a choice.”
“That’s
horrible! Does Scott know yet?”
“I’m
under orders not to say anything.”
She
sighed. “Call Dave and at least talk with him. He’s your friend. It would make
things so much easier.”
I
blinked at her. “Easier? His company is in San Jose Phoenix
Her
phone buzzed and she pushed the button to look at the display. “I have to go.
Darleen and I will be going out to dinner after the concert tonight so I’ll
stay at her place and drive home from Tucson
She
gave me a quick kiss and left me wondering when we had reached the point in our
marriage when she failed to notice I was eating breakfast naked.
I was staring at the list of layoffs on
my desk when Scott McClellan banged my office door open to collapse into one of
my chairs. His brown hair was a mess, his askew eyes were rimmed in red, and
his clothing looked like it had gotten wet and dried on him.
“You
look like hell,” I said, glancing at the clock. It was ten o’clock in the morning and he was just
arriving at work.
“So
do you.” He sounded horrible. “I’ve never seen you drink as much as you did
last night. We put you in a cab after you started falling asleep. How much do
you remember?"
"I'm
not sure."
"Do
you remember Saundra and Don?”
I
probed my memory. “The blonde couple from the bar that Justine invited over?”
“Yeah.”
He sighed and an uncertain look crossed his face as he lowered his voice. “You’re
not going to believe what happened. After we put you in a cab, Justine and I
went to their house for a nightcap. They have this mansion up in Scottsdale
with crystal chandeliers everywhere.”
I blinked. I knew Justine
but I couldn’t imagine her going to another couple’s house after a night at
Shy’s.
“That must have been,” I
paused, thinking, “interesting on your anniversary. So what happened?”
"I don’t know. I can’t
remember.”
I
stared. “You and your wife went home with another couple and you fell asleep?”
Scott
nodded glumly. “I woke up this morning under their coffee table with my face in
my shoe.”
I
almost laughed but didn’t.
“Where
was Justine?”
“I have no idea. I crawled
out from under the coffee table and tried to figure out where I was. There were
these huge Palladian windows and the sun was cooking my brain. I felt like a
vampire caught on a Mexican beach in high summer. But I really had to go so I
started searching for a bathroom. The house was huge. I ran around snatching
open doors until I finally found the master bedroom. The room was a mess.
Bedding was tangled up on the floor. Clothing was everywhere. I sprinted for
the bathroom and unzipped and let go. I was in mid-stream when I realized,” he
swallowed, “I wasn’t alone.”
“What?”
Scott blinked his grainy
eyes. “The shower was running. The glass was all steamy but I could still, ah,
see things.”
“What things?”
Scott ran his hand over
his unshaven face. “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you
don’t know?”
“I panicked and grabbed my
car keys and ran for it.”
“You ran away?”
“What was I supposed to
do? All I wanted was a bathroom and then I looked over and saw shapes through
the glass and with all the clothing on the floor, I panicked.”
I didn’t know what to say
so I kept my mouth shut. There were lines on Scott’s face I had never seen
before. There was a dried beer stain on
his pants. He looked like he had been run over in a mud puddle.
“Have you called Justine?”
“She called me.” Scott
gritted his teeth. “We had a huge fight on the phone. Probably the worst we’ve ever had. She went
off on me because I had called her boring.”
“You told Justine she was
boring?”
“It was our anniversary,
remember? She asked me what I wanted and I made the mistake of telling her I
wanted her to be more, ah, inventive.”
I stared again. “That’s
almost as bad as last Christmas when you gave her a gift certificate for laser
lipo.”
Scott winced, scowling.
“Yeah, well, she wasn’t happy.” His voice jumped an octave. “How do you think
it made me feel when you called me boring?” And then I made the mistake of
saying, “I don’t know how you feel, Justine. But, how exactly, did they make you feel?
“She started yelling again
and I had to pull into a Circle-K and buy a bottle of Tylenol because my head
was about to split open. The next thing I know, I’m here trying to find my
office.”
“You should go pick her up
and take her to lunch so you can talk.”
Scott scratched at his stained
pants. “What am I supposed to say then? Would you like me with your soup and
Saundra and Don sandwich?” He swore, the words muttering out of his chest.
“This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.”
“But you don’t know what
happened. She was probably asleep in the guest bedroom or something.”
“But what if she wasn’t?”
I sighed. “I feel
uncomfortable asking you this, but how exactly did you want her to be more, ah,
inventive?”
Scott shifted
uncomfortably. “You remember J.C., the woman I dated before Justine?”
“The woman with all the
cats who wanted you to marry her?”
“That’s the one. I used to
come home from work and find her panties on my apartment doorknob. Inside I
would find a trail of clothing leading into the bedroom where she would be
lying on the bed in nothing but high heels reading a magazine.”
I blinked. “That’s it? You
wanted Justine lying on the bed reading a magazine?”
Scott’s lip curled. “It’s
not just that, you moron. What I wanted was for Justine to be a little crazy
once in a while. Not all the time though, just on special occasions.”
“Like President’s Day?”
Scott glowered, slumping
into his chair. “I don’t know what to do. This is all my fault. She got some
alcohol in her and this happened. But what should I do now?
“At the risk of sounding
like the therapist you should have, did you tell her what you wanted?”
“No.”
“So she takes you out for
your anniversary. She drinks a lot more than she should and decides to do
something she normally wouldn’t because you made the mistake of calling her
boring, but then you passed out and now your alcohol-fuddled brain is filing
divorce papers.”
“I guess.”
“Have you asked her what
she wants?”
“No.”
“Maybe you should.”
Fear crossed Scott’s
pallid face. “I’m not good at talking about my feelings. I feel like Justine wants
to pry open my head and grope around inside like she’s lost something. Women
can get really crazy about that communication bullshit.”
He levered himself up out
of the chair to open the door. He paused, staring out at the sea of vacant
cubicles from all the layoffs. The glare from the windows made us both squint.
“I hate this job.”
“We all hate this job,” I
corrected. “It used to be a good place to work before the buyout.”
He turned to go then
stopped. “Have you thought more about getting out of here? Dave’s been after
you for years. You provide the expertise and he provides the venture capital is
one hell of a partnership. Just bring me with you if you decide to bail.”
“Dave’s in San Jose
“She could sell her
practice. She can’t like working the hours she’s putting in. The woman is never
home.”
“She’s spent years
building her practice. It’s not easy moving on.”
Scott
twisted his wedding ring. “It never is, is it?”
I sat in my office staring at my desk
and thinking about what Scott had said about Laura never being home. Every year
of our marriage she had gotten home later and later from work and the past year
had been especially bad. It was rare for her to pull into the garage before nine
in the evening and when she did get home, she would immediately get on the
computer to catch up with her dictations. Afterwards, she would start the
treadmill or do crunches. It had become a normal part of our routine. She
exercised while I went to bed by myself. The next morning, she would complain
about being exhausted yet she would do the same thing over and over again. Sex
was scheduled over breakfast as we yawned at each other.
“I’m going to try to get
home early tonight so maybe we can have a date,” she would announce. Or, “We
have to do something quick tonight—I have an early patient.”
Usually it took three or
four of these “appointments” before something happened. We spent more time
yawning at each other than kissing.
Today was her birthday and
birthdays ending in zeros were trouble. My sister-in-law, Denise, had told my
brother, Rich, that she wanted a divorce on her fortieth. According to Rich,
there had been no warning. The two of them were just finishing eating dinner
and she turned around from the sink and dropped the bomb. One second they were
cleaning up the dishes, the next she had cleaned out their shared bank account.
My fortieth birthday had
been last March, and it wasn’t something I cared to remember. Laura had
decorated the house with black balloons and invited all of our friends over so
they could watch me moodily pop them with a steak knife. The evening had gotten
worse after that.
I tapped my pencil. Laura
had looked stunning in her dress that morning. I hadn’t known she owned a dress
like that. Had it hung in the back of her closet waiting for something she
could wear it to, or had she gone out and bought it for the concert?
On impulse, I logged into
our checking account and went through the transactions until I found the charge
and whistled. That tiny piece of silk had cost five hundred dollars. She had
bought it two weeks before.
I stared at the charge and
tried to remember the last time we had gone out for an evening or even a
weekend where she could wear a dress like that. We hadn’t been to a concert in
years, and her schedule was bad enough that she rarely had the energy to do
anything but go to bed.
I tapped my pencil again
and got on my computer to check ticket availability to the concert. I wasn’t a
Kenny Loggins’ fan but maybe I should drive down to Tucson
Ten minutes later, I
slammed my office door and headed for home. The rest of my day was full of exit
interviews for five unfortunates, but I didn’t care.
I pulled my Lexus into the garage and
parked between my restored ’69 Camaro and the dusty pile of boxes Laura had
dragged behind her from house to house and job to job without ever getting rid
of them. The boxes were a sore spot with me, literally, because they were heavy
and I was always the one stuck moving them. Plus, it made it hard to get out of
my car because I always tried to park as far away from the Camaro as possible
so I wouldn’t ding the candy paint. I had spent almost twelve thousand dollars
on that paint job. The entire bill for the restoration was more than I wanted
to think about.
I opened the Lexus’ door
until it touched the last stack of boxes and squeezed out. I shut my door and
was about to go inside when an open box Laura had been sorting through on top
of the stack teetered and fell. I saw it fall and jumped over to grab it, but I
was too late. It hit with a heavy thud and bundles of old medical magazines
exploded onto the floor.
Swearing sulfurously under
my breath, I knelt down to clean up the mess. Laura hadn’t touched those boxes
in years. Why had she opened the box and why hadn’t she sealed it up when she
was done with it?
I dispatched the medical
magazines into the box and found myself holding her old college yearbook. I stared
at it for a moment then flipped pages until I found her name. She had been
young and striking in school. Her thick hair was pale blonde and caught the
flash of the camera. Her smile was captivating. Her eyes were vividly blue.
I turned to Darleen’s
picture. Her smile smoldered. She looked
like she was auditioning for a men’s magazine. Her face was stunning, her
jet-black hair long, her eyelids lowered as she pouted at the camera. Under her
name was the scrawled letters, "The World Belongs To Us! 1995!"
In the bottom of the box
was a stack of Laura’s yearly journals. Each had a date penned into the spine.
I saw the one marked “1995” and on impulse, opened it up. Inside was page after
page detailing school assignments and exams and guys she’d thought were cute
and dreams of becoming a pediatrician. The weather was a favorite topic as was
Darleen’s excessive drinking and how Laura never knew who Darleen would bring
home to their apartment. She even kept track of what she ate for lunch. I read
each day’s menu shaking my head. Why would she care what she ate on a Tuesday?
I flipped to the middle of
the journal and found a concert ticket to Kenny Loggins taped to the top of the
page. Under the ticket was a paragraph saying she had had the best time ever
with the last word capitalized and underlined.
A week later was another
concert ticket. Two days later was another. After that, almost every page had a
different ticket as she and Darleen followed Kenny Loggins as he toured the
east coast. After the fifth concert, they scored backstage passes and these
were carefully kept along with the ticket stubs. There were pictures of Laura
with the band. There were photographs of Darleen draped on the drummer. I
flipped more pages. More backstage passes. More photographs. There were lots of
Darleen with a guitarist, of her making out with an older man with tattoos and
predatory eyes. There were informal pictures of Laura with the band. There were
more of Darleen drinking, Darleen sitting on a man’s lap and Darleen sticking
her tongue in another man’s ear.
“Does she still have a
liver?” I wondered out loud.
I flipped the page to the
next photograph and ice sliced through my stomach. Laura was sitting with Kenny
Loggins. Her head was on his chest and her eyes were closed. He had one arm around her. His other hand was
on her knee. Everything about the picture spoke of intimate familiarity.
I stared at the page,
blood rushing through my head, and tried to remember what she had said about
that summer. Had she told me she had been the girlfriend of a famous rock star?
I numbly flipped more
pages. There were more photographs of Laura and Kenny. They were comfortable
together. They spent a lot of time smiling and staring into each other’s eyes.
I dropped the journal,
abruptly deciding I didn’t want to look at it anymore. I felt awkward. I felt
hurt. But why did it bother me? That was seventeen years ago. During her summer
of ’95, when she was with Kenny, I was living with my fiancé Viki. We were
young, we were in love, and our lungs were full of fresh air.
We didn’t have much money
so we spent our weekends driving my Camaro. We never had a destination. We just
hit the accelerator. The north rim of
the Grand Canyon was a favorite destination as
was the cool pines of the White Mountains . We
slept in a tent if the weather was good or in the Camaro’s backseat if it
wasn’t. I wouldn’t think of sleeping in the back of a car now, but at the time
it had been the best summer of my life.
We eventually broke up—not
because we didn’t love each other, but because the timing was wrong. Viki had
gone to the University of San Francisco to get her MBA, and our long distance
relationship had slowly fallen apart. I sent her hundreds of e-mails and
letters and texts, but over time, all I heard from her was replies about her
classes or the traffic as she walked on the street to school. I didn’t hear
about her heart or her plans for our future. She had walled off her feelings.
Last I had heard she was
still in San Francisco
Laura and I both had
summers of ’95. So why did these photographs of her smiling face hurt?
I dejectedly went to put
the book back in the box and noticed a manila envelope at the bottom. It was large, thick, and held two pieces of
semi-rigid cardboard inside. I opened it up and froze. Inside were proofs of
Laura and Darleen taken with a professional, large format camera. Each was shot
in front of a white background. The lighting was perfect. The poses were very
carefully arranged. The two women stood with their backs to the camera, they
wore faded jeans, and nothing else. They had their hands in each other’s back
pockets.
I recognized the
photograph instantly. It was the album cover from Kenny Loggins’ album, This or That? The title song had been one of his biggest
hits.
I stared at the journal
and photographs for a few minutes trying to figure out what to do. Laura was
going to his concert tonight with Darleen. She had bought an expensive, clingy dress
for the occasion and looked stunning wearing it. Six months before she had
started working out with a personal trainer, and every night after work she
exercised on the treadmill and did crunches until she was exhausted. It all
added up to something. But to what?
I slammed the box back onto
its dusty stack and stamped inside to take a shower. She could have opened the
box months ago. Was I making a lot out of nothing?
I toweled off and angrily decided
to forget the whole thing. I would go back to my horrible job and give Gregg
the five names. Laura would return Saturday morning and that would be it. I
would take her out for a date Saturday night for dinner and dancing if she
wasn’t too tired and she could wear the dress. It had been a long time since we
had gone out.
But I found myself calling
her office instead.
“Doctor Weller’s office,”
Laura’s secretary answered. “May I help you?”
I swallowed twice before
the words would come. “Maryanne, this is Mark. Is she there? Her cell phone was acting up this morning and
she asked me to pick up her dry cleaning but she didn’t tell me where. I can’t
get hold of her.”
“I’m sorry, Mark, but
Laura took the day off to go to Tucson.”
My world fell out from
under me. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think. My heart clenched in my chest.
I felt like a trap door had opened under my feet.
“She said she was going to
drop by the office to finish a dictation before leaving,” I lied, stammering.
“Maybe she did it over the
phone. Would you like me to leave her a message for Monday?”
I was having a hard time
saying anything. “No,” I croaked. “No thank you.”
Ten minutes later I was speeding down
to Tucson in the Camaro, the rumbling big-block 396 cubic inch engine and my
heavy foot making it hard to keep my speed under a hundred. The empty, barren
Sonoran Desert stretched towards the horizon through quivering veils of heat.
Nothing moved through that thorny, desolate purgatory of dust and glare. I
tried to get my mind around what I had seen. I rolled down the windows and let
the hot summer wind howl through the car. I cursed myself for looking in the
box. I cursed her for loving Kenny all those years ago. I cursed the hollow,
terrible, vulnerability in my mind. Over and over I tried to call Laura but her
phone only went to voicemail. Normally
that wouldn’t be an issue because it meant she was with patients, but since she
wasn’t at work, she should have been available to answer her phone.
I got busy flipping
stations on the Camaro’s old pushbutton radio. Along the way, about fifty miles
from Tucson
This or that,
The choice is up to you.
This or that,
Whatever you decide.
I snatched up Laura’s
journal and started flipping pages. I read rapidly, frenetically, burning
through the months of July and August until I found the first mention of
medical school. The decision had been horrible for her. Page after page of
cramped, tiny writing, she debated whether to stay with Kenny or go back home.
I turned another page and found her acceptance letter to medical school. I kept
turning pages and I found something I hadn’t expected. Lyrics written in a hand
not her own:
This or that,
The choice is up to you.
This or that,
Whatever you decide,
at the bottom were two lines that had
never made the record:
just remember,
Laura, I will always love you.
The song hadn’t been about
choosing between a blonde or dark haired beauty like the album cover implied. The
song had been about a woman. A woman who had spent weeks making a decision to
stay with him or go back to school.
I had asked Laura more
than once, usually in the middle of the night when she finally crawled
exhausted into bed, if this life was what she wanted. The answer had always
been the same. She loved her job. She
loved helping people. It was what she
lived for, what she put her heart and soul into. She had helped thousands of kids.
So when had she finally
realized that in putting so much of herself into helping others, she hadn’t
helped herself?
I shuddered the breath out
of my chest and slowly took stock of what was important. I hated my job. I was
tired of being on call around the clock and the endless budget cuts and never
knowing if I was going to be tapped on the shoulder. I loved Laura, but neither
of us liked where we had ended up.
I made a sudden, wrenching
decision and called work.
“Gregg, it’s me.”
His rheumy smoker’s voice
was sharp. “Where the hell are you, Mark? You were supposed to start doing exit
interviews after lunch. HR has called me three times in the past hour.”
“I had a family emergency.
I had to go home.”
“When are you coming
back?”
I clenched the handset and
looked out the window. Here and there, standing like lonely sentinels, mesquite
trees bowed thorny, gnarled shoulders under the unrelenting sun.
“I’m not coming back. I’ve
decided the first name on your list should be mine.”
“What?”
“I’m tired of laying
people off. I don’t want to do it anymore.”
“You’re the head of your
department. Personnel changes are a part of your job.”
“Not anymore. I want out.”
“You can’t ask to be laid
off.”
“Then fire me. It’s time
for me to move onto something,” I abruptly thought of what Laura had said that
morning, “easier. Either way, this is goodbye.”
I cut Gregg off in
mid-yell and drew in a soul cleansing breath. I felt free, like a giant weight
had been lifted off my shoulders.
I turned off the radio and
looked at my laptop computer on the passenger seat. I needed a way of finding
Laura. I could track the unique hardware
MAC address of her phone on the
cellular network with my MAC Tracker
software from work. But her phone wasn't answering. It was probably powered
off. So how could I find her?
I followed the GPS signal of Darleen’s phone to the Tucson Ventana
Resort perched on the Santa Catalina Mountains just north of town. I tried to
find Laura’s phone, but it was not on the cellular grid. Either it had been
powered off or it was not broadcasting its identifying address to the cell
towers.
I pulled into the resort
and circled the winding parking lot until I found the white Mercedes
convertible with the “KID DOC ”
custom plates. I stared at it, hands shaking on the wheel. I parked and numbly
carried my laptop into the resort’s Flying V Bar and Grill. The restaurant was dark and intimate with
booths and tables scattered under a ceiling of rough wooden beams. Antiques and
old photographs of early Tucson
I
asked the hostess for a table away from the windows in the back where it was
dark. The lunch hour was over so I had the gloom to myself. I wasn't hungry but
I ordered the lunch special of chopped shrimp flautas and sat back to wait
until Darleen’s phone moved. Knowing
Darleen, she was probably passed out naked somewhere with a blood alcohol level
past the legal limit.
While I waited, I checked
my phone messages. There were six from Gregg which I deleted. Two were from
Scott. None were from Laura. On impulse, I looked up Dave’s phone number in San Jose
“Mark! I was just thinking of calling you up!”
he said cheerfully. “How’s life in the heat?”
“Great, actually. I gave
notice today at my job. I had to layoff five more of my people and got tired of
it.”
“You quit?”
“I told Gregg the first
name on the list was mine.”
Dave chuckled. “I bet he
liked that. He has no clue at all. The guy is worthless space.”
I tried to keep my voice
even. “I was just wondering if your offer was still open.”
Dave didn’t say anything
for a second. When he resumed talking his voice had quieted. “Moving out would
be a big step. Laura would have to sell her practice.”
“She wants me to find
something else and I think it’s time for a change. It’s a hundred and ten here
in the shade. A trip to the coast would be nice.”
“Well that’s good news!
When can you come out?”
“I’m wide open.”
Dave clicked on his
computer. “I have a group of hedge fund investors flying in from New York
“That would be great.”
“Cheer up, buddy. You
sound like you just got out of a funeral. It may not feel like it right now but
today’s the best thing that’s happened to you in a long, long time. You've been
depressed for years. Getting out of that bankrupt hole will do wonders for how
you feel. I guarantee it.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ll have my secretary
call you about booking your flights.”
I hung up and felt another
weight leave my shoulders. Dave and I hadn’t discussed specifics, but all I
needed was a chance. Maybe he was right. Today might be the best thing that had
happened to me in a long time.
I stared at the laptop
without seeing it until I realized Darleen’s phone was moving. I clicked in the tracker’s window and watched
her icon stop until the elevator went “DING” behind me and it started to move
again. I glanced out of the restaurant into the lobby. My insides turned very
cold.
Laura wore the blue dress
and a smile on her face I hadn’t seen in years. Kenny was dressed in khaki
Dockers, a pressed blue shirt, and leather boat shoes without socks. There was
a crow’s nest of fine lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth, but he was
still a handsome man right down to his capped teeth. Darleen followed in a
little black dress that showed a lot more than it hid. She glanced my way and
for a second I thought she had recognized me in the gloom, but she didn’t say
anything.
Time stopped. I couldn’t
breathe. There was my wife. It wasn’t a dream, I wasn’t just guessing. The
woman I loved was with someone else. I grabbed hold of the edge of the table.
When had she given up on me? When had she given up on us?
The hostess took the three
of them to a table in the opposite corner of the restaurant where they could
gaze out the windows at the sweeping canyon views. Kenny held out Laura’s chair
and she sat down with a whisper of thanks. I watched them talk, a volcano
erupting in my stomach.
I thought back to when our
relationship had been young, when I couldn't keep my hands off her. Each night
lasted forever. Time apart lasted even longer. But then the years went past,
slowly at first, and before we knew it, a decade had come and gone. The alarm
clock would beep and we would hurry out of bed into the day. Long hugs and
lingering kisses gave way to quick pecks on the cheek.
My job had been horrible
for years. I hadn’t been the best of company. It was hard to be upbeat when
one’s soul was being wood-chipped one bad work day at a time. Had I driven her
to find something better for herself?
After they were finished
eating, a cloud settled on Laura’s face and the smile disappeared. Her hands
started to tremble. She looked down at her lap and opened her purse. My phone
abruptly vibrated. I numbly answered it, lifting my eyes to look at her across
the tables. I had to try the word twice before the hello would come.
"Mark?” Her voice was
quiet, barely more than a whisper. “Can you talk?”
“Yes,” I managed over the
scream echoing through my head. “I've been trying to call you.”
She went over to the
windows to stare out at the beautiful view. In the sun, her dress sparkled like
it was made of blue diamonds.
“I know. I’ve been on the
phone most of the morning with work and I forgot my charger and the battery is
almost dead.” She took a breath. “I didn’t want to tell you this over the
phone, but I need a change. I’m tired of being tired all the time. I'm just not
happy with how things have turned out."
My heart fell further into
the abyss in my stomach. "What things are you talking about?"
"I
just feel like life is passing me by, you know? The last time I went to a
concert was in 1995. Ever since then I've been digging myself a rut and trying
to feel happy about it. I had so many plans back then. I could do whatever I
wanted and no one would question me about schedules or commitments. I didn’t
have to work all the time. I wasn’t a slave to my practice.”
“Both
of us feel that way. Do you think I like my job? I hate it.”
“But
I didn’t feel that way back then, Mark!
The summer of ‘95 was the best time of my life. I went to one of Kenny’s
concerts and had so much fun that Darleen and I decided to go on tour with him.
It was wonderful until medical school started and I made the decision to go
home.”
“You
were his girlfriend?"
Her
voice froze. “Yes.”
“Why
didn’t you tell me?”
“I
tried a couple of times. I just didn’t know how.” She swallowed, bowing her
head. "When was the last time you really enjoyed being with me, Mark? We
used to write love letters. Now we write checks. We used to have long
conversations about out hopes and dreams and what we wanted to do together. Now
all we talk about is call schedules.” She let out a frustrated laugh.
“Yesterday we argued about what was worse, bad sex or no sex. When did life
pass us by?”
"So
what are you saying?”
She took a deep breath.
"I know how much this life means to you—the big house in North Scottsdale,
the new cars and expensive vacations. But I can’t do it anymore. My hours have
been horrible. You need to quit your job. We need to try and find ourselves
again.”
She brushed tears away.
“Look, my battery is dying. The phone’s beeping. But life is too short to be
unhappy, Mark. I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry.”
The connection
dropped. She pulled the phone away from
her ear and looked at the display. I watched her chin fall to her chest. She
stumbled out of the restaurant into the lobby and disappeared into the ladies
room. Kenny put some money on the table and left. The elevator went “DING”, the
elevator doors closed, and then Darleen set a vodka martini in front of me on
the table. Her long black hair had been stylishly cropped so it fell around her
beautiful face. It had been years since I had seen her but there was no
mistaking her for the devilish siren on the album cover. She wore a tight black
dress made of a filmy, semi-sheer material that glistened in the dim light. She
wasn’t wearing any underwear and her full breasts strained at the material.
“How did you find us?” she
asked.
“I tracked your phone,” I
croaked. “Hers was powered off.”
“She forgot her charger.”
I tried to keep my voice
even and failed. “She should have told me she was thinking of ending it, dammit.
This is not something I wanted to hear on the phone, not here, and certainly
not now.”
“She didn’t know how to
tell you. She thought you would like being free of the responsibility. Most men
do.” She put a cool hand on my arm. “However, if it’s any consolation, she had
a horrible time making the decision. It tore her up inside.”
“Yeah, I could see that by
the way she melted at the end.”
“Endings are always messy.
Beginnings are where the fun is.”
She removed an olive from
the martini and very slowly sucked the alcohol off of it as she stared at me
before crunching it with her white, sharp teeth. I had never had a woman look
at me like that before and glanced away. She smiled at my distress.
“You’re a very handsome man.
I’d forgotten how attractive you are. Were you going somewhere in those slacks
and tie or did you expect to see me?”
“I bought a ticket to the
concert and booked a suite at the Hilton. I quit my job earlier today so I
don’t have to go back to work. I thought Laura and I could take the weekend
off.”
“Sounds like fun. Do you
still want to go? I could make myself,” she leaned forward so I could see down
her dress, “available.”
I choked out a laugh. “You
hate me. You’ve always hated me.”
She shrugged, dress straining.
“That’s because you’re the only man I’ve never been able to seduce.”
“I’m the only man you’ve never tried to seduce,”
I corrected.
“True.” She pointed at my
food. “Are you going to eat that?”
I motioned at the martini.
“What about your lunch?”
“The drink is for you.
Alcohol does so lower one’s inhibitions.”
“My inhibitions are fine.”
“If I had lost a piece of
clothing every time I heard that line, I would be having a lot more fun.”
“This isn’t fun.”
“Another piece of clothing
gone—I feel naked already. Parts of me are standing at attention.”
“Don’t you ever stop?”
I saw the vulnerability in
her dark eyes then, the fragile, delicate moth wings that barely held her
together.
“I’m walking on quicksand.
I stop, I sink.”
She plucked another olive
between lacquered fingernails, delicately licked it and locked eyes with me
again.
“So what are you going to
do now, Mr. Mark Thomas? It’s not often that one gets to start over in life.”
I wanted to snarl
something at her. I wanted to kick and scream until everyone knew my wife had
just gone upstairs with her boyfriend the rock star.
“I need to go.”
Darleen sighed. “They
always do.” She set the toothpick on the table. “Take some advice from someone
who has been there more than once. Think about what you want in your life and go
get it. Don’t stop. Don’t look back. Nothing you can do or say will change
anything about yesterday and will only make it worse."
"That's the best you
have?"
Her piercing eyes caught
mine and she stretched like a lioness under the dress. Her sexuality, like an
intoxicating perfume, was overpowering up close. "Oh, no, honey. Not even
close."
I snapped the lid of my
computer closed. The concert was in a few hours. I could stay and try to win
Laura back. North was Phoenix
“Tell Laura I took Dave’s
offer," I managed. "She’ll understand. And tell her thanks for having
the courage to end it.”
“So you’re okay with her decision then?”
“Of course I’m not. Nobody
would be. I know things haven’t been great between us but I never saw this
coming.”
“It was the only way out
for her, Mark. She’s been agonizing over it for months. It’s a big change to
give up on a dream.”
“That’s the understatement
of the century.” I took a steadying breath.
I needed to get out of there. “Tell her I hope things turn out better
for her this time around with Kenny.”
Surprise widened her dark eyes.
For a second she didn’t make a sound and then she laughed. She laughed so loud
it echoed across the tile floor and bounced off the antique decorations on the
walls.
“So that’s why you’re all
gloomy? Her being with him?” She laughed again.
I glared at her. There were so many things I wanted to say to
her but then I caught a flash of blue and I looked up to find Laura gaping at
me from the entrance to the restaurant. I met her gaze and she started to cry
as she walked slowly over. For once in her life Darleen actually did the right
thing and left. She grinned and swayed
her hips as she left, every part of her moving in different directions, but she
left.
Laura sat down without
looking at me and started rummaging through her purse for a tissue.
“Before you say anything,”
she whispered, “I’m sorry for not telling you what was going on. But I just
couldn’t keep going the way things were. The cost was too great.”
She found the elusive
tissue and wiped the corners of both eyes trying not to disturb her mascara.
“Do you know what it’s like to give up on everything you’ve ever wanted? I
finally achieved all of my hopes but at the end, I found only disappointment.
Neither of us has been happy. I’ve tried to tell you I needed more out of life
but your job was coming apart and I didn’t know if I had the courage to move
forward so I didn’t say anything.”
A bit of western sunshine
slanted through the windows and lit the table in gold. Dust mites danced.
She dabbed at her eyes
again. “I should not have kept it from you. I’m sorry. Are you going to be
okay?”
“I guess so. I quit my
job. I told Gregg my name should be the first name on the list.”
She looked up in surprise.
I continued on. “I called Dave and he wants me to come out next weekend to talk
things over. Today’s a day of change for both of us.”
“Oh, Mark, that’s
wonderful!” She gave me a hug. “I’m so happy for you! I wondered why you were
here. If I would have known you were on your way down I would have just waited
to tell you in person.”
For a second with her in
my arms it was just like it had been all those years ago when we had spent
every moment buried in each other. Nothing else was important. All we had was
each other and it was all we would ever, ever want.
So how had it gotten so horribly,
horribly wrong?
She stood and managed a
small smile. “I’m glad you’re moving on. I was so worried you were going to
take this badly. But we have our lives back.
It didn’t work out like either of us had planned the first time but
we’re going to be so much smarter the second time around, hey? You’ll get a
better job and I’ve made a ton of money selling the practice. Let’s go get a
room and celebrate. It’ll be like we’re kids again, maybe not as crazy as it
once was, but we can try. I’m sure they have wonderful rooms here. We’ll get something with a king sized bed and
a big tub and we can spend the entire weekend exactly like we used too.”
My mind lurched. She
wanted me to go with her? After telling me she was going to leave?
“I don’t understand. What
about Kenny?”
“The concert isn’t until
tonight. We have three hours before I need to get ready. C’mon, I’ve dreamed of
this for so long I’m going to go absolutely crazy if we don’t go somewhere.”
I replayed her words and
stepped back. “Wait a minute. Back up.” I took a breath. “You sold your
practice?”
“I know I should have told
you weeks ago but you had so much going on with your job and the negotiations
for the sale seemed to go on forever. The paperwork never stopped. Even the
lawyers had lawyers, if you can believe it. I didn’t want you to get your hopes
up until I knew the sale was really going to happen. We’ll have to sell the big
house and give up the country club membership and the expensive cars, but we
can start fresh with our lives. Not many
people can say that. So let’s start by getting a room and celebrating. I can’t
believe it all worked out this well!”
She laughed like a
schoolgirl and grabbed my hand, pulling me forward. “Let’s take your Camaro out
to San Jose next week. How long has it been since we’ve gone anywhere together
in that old car? We can take it easy and see everything between here and there.
Remember when we were kids and we went to the Grand Canyon and made love on the
edge in a tent? Let’s do that again.”
I stumbled after her,
still unable to put everything together. So that was what this was all about,
her selling her practice? And now she wanted to start our lives over? Together?
And then I saw my ring on
her finger and I realized Darleen had been wrong. Beginnings weren’t where the
fun was.
It was the miles in
between.
About the author:
During
Michael Ewing’s career as an engineer, he has had seven jobs in five states,
been outsourced, spun-off, relocated, laid off, downsized and been married
twice. Characters, like the writers who
create them, need a deep and tangled past and Michael doesn’t write about
roller-coasters—he writes about people whose lives are roller-coasters.
His novel, Satan’s Gold, is the
winner of the 2014 Emerging Writers
Gateway award for best crime thriller. His workflow automation software, Rhapsody, is the winner of two awards from
NetWorld and Lotus Magazine. He has published short stories and poetry and is currently
enrolled in the Arizona State University’s Your Novel Year program
where, in addition to Satan’s Gold, he’s working on the science fiction
novel, Landfall and the sequel to Satan’s
Gold, The Second Worst Mistake.
---
About the author:
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