Available to Chat

by Sutton, Jacy

  “Where is your dad?”

  “Looking for thick socks.” He gestured toward the master bedroom door.

  Olivia calculated the statistical probability of Mike’s sock hunt taking him into the bin of her summer clothes.

  “Why doesn’t he hurry?” Daniel said. “We’ll only be out there ten minutes.”

  “You’re right. So it’s not worth complaining about, is it, honey?” She tried to keep her voice upbeat.

  “I have homework. I’m hungry. And this is stupid.”

  “I’ll start dinner, then,” Olivia said. She tousled his hair, remembering the little boy who’d loved any excuse to go out in the snow.

  “Mom, did you ever ask Nancy about us going to Dave’s parents’?”

  She rubbed her temple with one hand. “I guess I’ve forgotten to. I’m sorry.”

  Mike walked out of the bedroom just then, with only socks in his hand, thankfully.

  “You don’t look happy.” He glanced back and forth between the two.

  “I don’t have time to shovel today. And I wanted Mom to ask Nancy about us going to Green Bay.”

  Mike sat down heavily on the wood bench to pull on his boots. “I told you, Daniel, I don’t think it’s a good idea. It’s too soon to ask them about a fishing trip.”

  “It’s been over a year. And Dave’s dad told us at the funeral he wanted us to visit.”

  “I know,” Mike said, sounding wretchedly tired. “But I just think the whole weekend would be awkward. All we’d be thinking about is Dave.”

  Since before Daniel was born, Mike and Dave had made an annual trip to Dave’s parents’ home. The men fished for sturgeon and walleyes in Lake Michigan by day. At night they’d go to a sports bar near Lambeau Field and soak in, or suck in, the local flavor.

  The two couples had met the first year Olivia and Mike were married. They got to know each other one muggy summer as they all congregated around the apartment’s small concrete pool. The women bonded over plans for their first homes and watching harried young mothers scurry after diapered toddlers. They swore their children would be better behaved with the conviction young people have before they’ve actually had children of their own.

  Mike and Dave’s friendship required more time. They approached each other warily and faced the added challenge of dueling football loyalties: Vikings for Mike and the Packers for Dave.

  When Mike discovered Dave had grown up in a house directly on the bay, he’d been fascinated by romantic visions of a childhood spent fishing the Great Lake. In reality, Dave had spent more time at the playground basketball court next to the high school, but he enjoyed bringing Mike to his childhood home. And Dave’s father relished having an avid fisherman as a houseguest.

  In grade school, on Daniel’s first trip with the men, he’d been most impressed with the crazy tradition of sitting in the lakeside sauna till the sweat dripped down his nose, then running, screaming like banshees, into the frigid water.

  “Dave’s dad wants someone to go fishing with.” Daniel pulled the knit cap over his ears, then slammed the door behind him as he tramped outside.

  “Mike,” Olivia said, working to make her voice sound like butter. “I agree with Daniel. I know it will be hard to visit, but they live with Dave’s death every day.”

  Mike gave her a blank stare. He rose slowly from the bench, as though he were being led to a cell. “I miss him too, you know. I don’t have a lot of friends. Dave was one of the few.”

  “I know that.” She stepped toward him. “I know.” Olivia pushed herself against him, a stranglehold of comfort. Mike wrapped one arm a quarter-way around her waist. She lay her head on his chest, and his other arm reluctantly encircled her. For two minutes they stood, not speaking, just touching.

  Abruptly, Daniel opened the door and poked his head back in. “Dad, I need your help to get those shovels down from the rafters.” His voice was tight and itchy.

  Olivia squeezed Mike once more, then released him. She watched as he followed Daniel out the door.

  When the shoveling was done, they ate dinner quickly, as though they all had a lot of homework to do. Afterward, Mike went back outside to straighten up the garage. Olivia opened iTunes on her computer. Her music tastes were limited. Nothing too exotic, nothing too recent. She found a song by Robert Palmer, “Addicted to Love,” and she cranked the sad little audio on her laptop as she rinsed the dishes, one foot tapping along.

  “I haven’t heard this in forever,” Mike said, walking up behind her and surprising her.

  “Meet ya in the family room?” She smiled over her shoulder. “We’ll get a fire going. We can watch something on TV.”

  Unlike those smiles that don’t quite reach his eyes, this one didn’t even make it to Mike’s lips. “I’ve got a lot to do downstairs. Thanks, though.” He reached toward her inconsequentially as though to give her a hug, but his cold hand just skimmed her elbow, and Olivia bristled against his freezing fingertips.

  She watched after him for a moment, exhaled, and finished rinsing the last of the dishes. The kitchen was clean now. She peeled the wet, rubber dish gloves from her hands and turned to stare at the doorway leading downstairs. She considered fetching Mike, but the family room looked inviting, too, empty as it was.

  Olivia settled into her habitual spot on the left corner of the couch, next to the side table, which was home to the fireplace remote. She clicked the fireplace on and bathed in its mock electric beauty. Olivia contemplated the fine line between alone and lonely, and logged on to Facebook.

  She found Jake waiting for her. “What if we’d met again? Have you wondered about that?”

  “Hello, Jake,” she wrote back. “Yes. It’s crossed my mind.”

  “Iowa City is kind of far to get to. Maybe halfway. Cedar Falls?”

  “Mmhmm.” She nibbled gently on her pinky.

  “You know that big hotel?”

  “The one with the colossal hog out front?”

  “That’s the one. Would we have met in the room?”

  Olivia startled at the boldness of his question, but the word yes came immediately to mind. An image formed. She saw herself at eighteen, standing alone with him. She could picture the $59.99-a-night austerity of the place, but she knew she’d be conscious only of him. His presence and strength. And the heat the first time his hand grazed hers.

  “I guess we would have met up in the lobby,” he typed. “I think I would have led you outside to take a walk. Maybe to see that pig.”

  She was picturing them alone in a room that held nothing but a mini-fridge and a king-sized bed, and he was thinking about sauntering over to visit a 500-pound roadside attraction. Had she misinterpreted where this was going?

  “You shit,” she typed.

  “What?”

  “You were teasing me. This whole time.”

  “Oh! No walk, eh? Just right to the good stuff. Is that what you want?”

  She didn’t know how to answer. She wasn’t sure which way he was taking this. But then his words began to appear.

  “I unlock the door and pull you into the room. It’s dark. The shades are drawn. Our eyes adjust a bit and I push you back against the wall. Gaze down at you. Watch you bite that bottom lip and grab it with mine. Do you like that, Liv?”

  She hadn’t realized she would be expected to answer. “Yes,” she typed.

  He wrote, “I’d kiss you deeply. Long, passionate kisses.”

  She touched her fingers to her lips and they felt warm, as though he really had just touched them with his own.

  “My tongue finds yours. Your body presses against me. Close. Tight. I nibble your ear. Whisper your name. My hands on either side of those slim little hips.”

  Olivia raised her hand to her chest and laid it gently in the concave of her breasts.

  “Will you do me a favor?” he wrote.

  “I’ll try. What is it?”

  “Will you let me use your hand?”

  Olivia had not realized how fully pa
rticipatory this conversation would be.

  “Take your fingers, Olivia,” he wrote.

  But she wasn’t thinking about her hand; what she felt most consciously was the tug between her legs.

  Then, abruptly, his typing stopped.

  She waited a long moment. Then another. “Jake?”

  More time passed. Finally up popped the word, “Sorry.” There was another short pause, then he added, “I’m being called. I’m sorry. I could maybe come back.”

  “Um,” she wrote lamely.

  “You’re right,” he typed, even though she’d said nearly nothing. “Good night, Olivia.” The green chat light next to his name disappeared.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THE NEXT DAY AT WORK, it was evident the client hadn’t been thrilled with the Sunday Brunch ad. “Don’t list all the dishes on the buffet!” (Highlighted in an angry red pen and underlined three times.) “Just the seafood ones.”

  “What if someone doesn’t like seafood?” Olivia asked the account manager.

  “Who doesn’t like seafood?” he said, shaking his head and walking away.

  Sarah began naming people she knew who were avowedly anti-seafood, and Olivia tried very hard to focus on Sarah’s argument and not let her mind wander back to Jake and the hotel room, but she kept finding herself pinned up against the wall, his strong arms trapping her, his chest pressed against hers.

  Sarah suggested enlarging the typeface on the seafood dishes—Crab Quiche! Shrimp Deviled Eggs!—and Olivia tried to not think about Jake’s lips devouring hers.

  “Should we move the anchor icon here?” Sarah asked, pointing to the left corner of the ad, but Olivia was thinking about the question “Will you let me use your hand?”

  After working, or mimicking work, for another twenty minutes, Sarah suggested they break for lunch. She invited Olivia to run errands with her at Target, but Olivia begged off, needing solitude so she could replay last night’s conversation for the fifty-sixth time.

  She decided to walk the three blocks to her favorite lunch spot and pick up a sandwich. The late fall sun felt spectacular, even if the temperature was only a few degrees above freezing. Her mind wandered as she walked, and she posed the question: How far would things have gone last night if he hadn’t been called away? She listened closely for a voice inside her head telling her this was wrong, but all she heard was silence, not even crickets.

  The restaurant was packed. She found a place in line behind a distracted father, holding the hand of a toddler whose adorable face was marred only by a long trail of mucus running from his nose. Behind her were two women, mid-sixties, discussing a recent trip to the casino, which evidently had been quite lucrative for one of them.

  Olivia gazed around the dining room, absentmindedly people watching until the blonde hair caught her eye and she recognized Barbie sitting alone at a small two-seat table near the soda machine. Barbie, head bowed, wrote notes purposefully in a large leather portfolio. After ordering, Olivia considered saying hello, but decided Barbie was too focused on her papers and note-taking, and it was best not to interrupt. As Olivia stood waiting for her sandwich, she heard her name, and the sparkling-eyed, disarmingly friendly sex toy saleswoman waved at her.

  “Olivia, come join me,” she said, motioning toward her table.

  “Hello. I’m surprised you remembered me.”

  At first glance, Barbie’s unsubtle beauty seemed at odds with the genuineness in her expression. “Of course I do.” Barbie cleared away her portfolio to make room for Olivia. “I was wondering how you were.” Her gaze was so direct, but so enveloping, Olivia felt both caught off guard and welcomed all at once.

  “I’m good. I’ve been good.”

  “Have you had the chance to try it yet?” Barbie asked, keeping her voice low so no one besides Olivia could hear.

  “Oh. Well,” Olivia stammered as she unwrapped her sandwich. “No. Not yet. I was waiting till I was alone for the night. Or the weekend, maybe.”

  “Absolutely.” Barbie reached for Olivia’s hand. For a brief moment, she rubbed it softly, smiling as she spoke. “When I got my first vibrator, I think it took me a week to work up the courage just to open the package.” When Barbie removed her hand, Olivia’s suddenly felt cold.

  “I think it’s about setting the mood,” Barbie continued. “Do you have something to spark that desire?”

  Olivia had not felt someone was so interested in what she had to say, since…since, she last spoke to Jake. “There is something. Someone,” Olivia admitted.

  “Good.” Barbie looked as though she’d just watched her child win the all-school spelling bee. “Try taking the toy out when your husband is busy with something, maybe just watching TV. Think about that spark. Relax. Experiment. When you feel you’re close, call for him. Invite him to join you.”

  Olivia stared at her turkey sandwich with cranberry relish, which sat untouched. “The desire isn’t so much about him,” she said. She looked up to gauge Barbie’s reaction.

  But Barbie’s blue eyes didn’t so much as flutter. She nodded. “I think it’s about the heat. Not the source.”

  Olivia nodded, picturing the source.

  “I remember the first party I ever hosted. When I arrived, I expected I’d set up shop in the master bedroom, but instead the woman had me work from her baby’s nursery. It was Pepto-Bismol pink, and I did my consultations surrounded by large cutouts of Tinker Bell as I showed off vibrators.”

  Olivia laughed, unfortunately at the same moment she was taking a large bite of her sandwich. A tiny piece of partially chewed French bread landed just to the right of her plate. Barbie either didn’t notice or politely didn’t mention it.

  Barbie continued, “My first sale went smoothly. The woman was a little nervous, but I just held her hand and stroked it gently. I recommended a sexy couples video. The next woman who came in, though, burst into tears as we spoke. She was just like you, Olivia. It didn’t work with her husband.” Barbie took a sip of water, the lemon wedge bobbing. “I was just like you. I couldn’t come with my husband, either.”

  Olivia puckered her lips and nodded.

  “I told her my story, which I’d never told anyone before. But I knew she needed something more than I had in my catalog.”

  “Yes?”

  “Here.” Barbie tucked one of Olivia’s stray hairs behind her ear and smiled approvingly at her work. “After I left my husband, I moved out of our big suburban rambler, into this tiny apartment that would have hardly housed my old sectional sofa. As I hauled my fairly meager belongings up the three flights of stairs, this man, he was younger than me, mid-twenties, passed me on the steps. He was thin, wiry, kind of cute. He looked more like a reader than an athlete. He stopped, and without even asking, just grabbed the suitcases out of my hand and said, ‘Where to?’

  “His name was Tom. And he made me laugh for the next couple hours as we brought all my things upstairs. And then he stayed while I unpacked. He helped me set up the dresser and assemble the bed frame. After we pulled the mattress onto the frame, he pulled me onto the mattress.”

  Olivia had stopped eating. Without intending to, she leaned in.

  “Within a week, he’d taught me how to come on his command, Olivia. I just needed the right spark. So do you.”

  Olivia surveyed the other customers, a bit surprised to find all eyes weren’t gazing in their direction. But the families and the business people ate and chatted, not paying any attention to the erotic story being told just to the left of the condiments station.

  “It seems like fate that I ran into you today,” Olivia said.

  “Possibly. I’m not on this side of town very often. I’m visiting a new client. She’s more a one-on-one shopper than a party person.”

  “I guess it was fate, then.”

  Barbie stood, gathering her things, then reached in her purse and fished out a business card, handing it to Olivia. It was Mattel Barbie pink. “Your job is to figure out what you need, then let me know
how I can help. Some people see me as a shopping buddy or a psychotherapist, or even a best friend. Just let me know what can I do for you, Olivia.” She gave Olivia’s shoulder a gentle, familiar squeeze, just before she walked away.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  BY THE TIME Olivia settled in on the couch that evening, she felt as though she’d spent hours orchestrating the family’s whereabouts to ensure she was alone. Although in actuality, no arranging had been necessary. Both Mike and Daniel had gone to bed early. Mike with a sniffle and a dose of NyQuil, and Daniel to be rested for weightlifting before school in the morning.

  “Hi,” Jake pinged.

  “Hi,” she wrote back.

  “Today was a killer. The students must have collectively decided to be pains in the ass.”

  She sent a smile icon in adult solidarity to the moodiness of large groups of adolescents.

  “I’m probably not staying on long tonight,” he wrote. “Just thought I’d say hello.”

  Her stomach sank a little. She tried to think of something to write, to prolong the conversation.

  Jake cracked the door slightly. “How was your day?”

  “Nice,” she wrote. “Although I struggled a bit to focus on work.”

  “Oh?”

  “Well, I thought about...“ she hesitated, choosing between coy and straightforward. “I guess I thought about our conversation last night.”

  “I worried I’d upset you.”

  “No. It wasn’t that.”

  “What was it then?”

  Straightforward won. “Intrigued, I guess.”

  “Olivia,” he wrote. “What are you wearing?”

  “My favorite Levis. A cami. Scarlet,” she typed cautiously, but it was the last caution she would show that night. “But, Jake, it’s kind of small.”

  “Come back to the room now,” he wrote. “I’ve pushed you up against the wall. Kissing you. My hands squeezing your tight little ass. But now I move them up. Slide them under that…cami, is it?”

  “Yes.”

  “And then I cup the soft curve of your breasts. I can feel your silky little bra. And your soft, warm flesh peeking out. I lift your shirt off. Can you do it with me Liv? Can you pull off your shirt?”