Available to Chat

by Sutton, Jacy

  “Yes. I have been.”

  Nancy gave her another small, quick nod and stepped backward to grab her cart.

  “Please don’t judge me by your marriage to Dave, Nancy. Not everyone gets a fairy tale. Not everyone gets stargazer lilies.”

  “Oh, Olivia.” Nancy’s hands curled into tight fists. “Stop romanticizing us. The flowers were one small part of our marriage. And have you forgotten why he started giving them to me in the first place?”

  Olivia studied the aisle behind the produce as though she were trying to either choose a brand of peanut butter or muster some courage. She had known Nancy so many years and never had they stood across from each other like this, adversaries filled with anger and hurt.

  “Shall I remind you, then?” Nancy said, when Olivia didn’t answer. “We were out for a Valentine’s date, ten days late, because both girls had had chicken pox and then a stomach bug, in succession. I was ragged taking care of them. And as I sat at dinner, in a casual little restaurant not much fancier than a McDonalds, thrilled to not be wearing sweatpants for the first time in nearly a month, I handed Dave a card. He looked at me, kind of groaned and said, ‘I didn’t know we were doing cards, too.’ Can you imagine? I’d been cleaning up vomit and wiping down these fevered little bodies, and yet I’d somehow managed to get out of the house and buy him a damn greeting card.”

  “I do remember,” Olivia said. “But after that.”

  Nancy interrupted. “After that? Do you mean as we ate the entire dinner in stone-cold silence? Or after that? When we lay in bed that night and he reached to touch me and I slapped his hand away? Or when I told him that to make it up to me I wanted flowers every month, on the fourteenth, for a whole year. I told him what I wanted, Olivia. I fought to make him see how poorly he’d treated me.”

  “I’ve tried, Nancy. I tell Mike what I want. But there’s a wall of indifference between us. Mike put it there.”

  “Then tear it down,” Nancy said, her tone deliberate and without warmth.

  Olivia stepped closer so they were just a foot apart. “Dave listened to you. He bought you those flowers every month that whole year. And he never stopped. He bought them for almost ten years until he was too sick to go out and get them anymore.”

  A mom they both knew from school passed by. Olivia and Nancy each gave a small, rigid wave. Fortunately, she was on her cell phone and returned their waves with a perfunctory nod.

  Nancy reached to grab a twist tie to secure the bag of apples. “Are you going to keep talking to Jake?”

  Olivia looked down at the plain, beige-tiled floor and nodded yes.

  Nancy sighed, put the apple bag in her cart, half whispered a good-bye, and pushed her cart toward the frozen food aisle.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  “IS SOMETHING WRONG with your eyes?” Mike asked, grabbing the salad dressing out of the refrigerator.

  Olivia reached up as though she’d be able to feel the redness. She wasn’t ready to explain the five-minute car sob on the way home from the grocery store, so she said instead, “Sorry I forgot to pick up the Waldorf salad. I know you like it with steak.”

  “That’s okay. I like a little salad with tomatoes too,” he said, coming up behind her and giving her rear end a frisky squeeze.

  She batted him away.

  “Can’t you be more playful once in a while?” He shoved his hands into his pockets as he turned away.

  “I’m sorry, Mike. It was just a stressful day. I guess I just need some quiet time.”

  “Well that I can help with.” His voice sounded like winter. “I took the day off work Friday and I’m going to North Dakota for two days.”

  “Are you bringing Daniel?”

  “No. I got the go-ahead on the habitat article I pitched.”

  “I thought it was Jo’s article,” she said, realizing now it was Jo without an e, and without an Adam’s apple.

  “It is. I’m the research assistant.” Mike regained a remnant of the pleasured look he’d had before Olivia pushed him away.

  Olivia stopped rummaging around for silverware and looked up at him. “You’re going out of town with Jo for two nights?”

  “We’re doing research,” he said dismissively. “And we’re getting separate rooms. Obviously.”

  “Oh. Well then. Feel free to bring several twenty-year-olds.”

  “Please. You don’t actually think I’m informing you we’re going out of town together and then planning on an affair. Wouldn’t I be a bit more clandestine than that?”

  “And what if I were to tell you I was going on a two-night overnight with a man?”

  “Would it be the guy the you stay up chatting with late into the night?”

  Olivia sucked in air and stared at Mike. She had no answer for that. Whether Mike wasn’t sure if he’d hit the mark or if he simply wasn’t interested in pursuing the topic with his own upcoming trip, he said, “I’d better go check on the steak. You should call Daniel. We’ll be ready to eat in a minute or two.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  TWO NIGHTS LATER, sitting in the family room companionably watching television with Daniel, Olivia opened her Facebook account and was rewarded with a ping nearly instantly.

  “Hi, gorgeous.”

  She tapped her toe with a happy little click.

  On closer inspection, she saw it was Mike messaging her, and she answered, “Hey. You and habitat girl all settled in?”

  “I am. I assume she is, too, but since we’re in separate rooms, who knows?”

  “Well, Mike, I’m glad you’re safe. And sound. And alone.”

  “Being in a motel room is giving me a few ideas, though.”

  “Is it?” she typed.

  “You know those pictures I took of you? After we saw the play.”

  “Of course.”

  “Send me one.”

  “Mike! Daniel’s right here!”

  “Well don’t show him, silly. Send me the one with your arms above your head. With that lock of hair kind of covering your eye. You look so hot in that one, Olivia.”

  She ran her tongue decadently along her lip and went on a reconnaissance mission in search of the folder with the pictures. They were concealed well enough that it took a few moments of searching to remember where she’d hidden them. And Mike kept pinging her as she worked. But once she’d located the pictures and made it back to the Facebook screen, she realized Mike had been waiting patiently. It was Jake vying for her attention.

  “Hey,” he’d written. “Hello? Come chat with me.”

  “Hi, Jake. Give me a sec,” she typed. Then she sent the picture to Mike, typing, “Well? You like?”

  “You’re lovely,” Mike wrote. “Stunning. Really.”

  Olivia admired the picture too. She’d photoshopped a muted filter on it, so it had an artistic, smoky quality. The silky pink cami exposed the soft curve of her breasts, and the matching shorts fell nicely on her legs, which looked toned and strong but still slim. Olivia thought the curl of her hair that lay indolently across her cheek pulled the viewer’s eye away from the pointed chin she noticed so clearly.

  “Thank you, Mike,” she wrote. He often complimented her appearance. She should appreciate that more. She knew a lot of wives who never heard that kind of thing, even if they worked hard at it. “What are you thinking about right now?” she asked her husband.

  She glanced at the message light by Jake’s name. She should probably tell him now wasn’t a great time. She waited another minute for Mike to answer. She clicked on Words With Friends and took her turn against Beth. She went back to the Facebook screen. Mike still hadn’t replied. Jake hadn’t said anything more, but then she’d asked him to wait a moment. She looked at the picture once more, and she thought in that picture she did look beautiful. Nothing from Mike.

  Finally she typed, “Jake, want to see something?”

  “Yep,” he wrote back immediately.

  She sent the photo to him in a message.

  “Not
expecting that.”

  “In a good way? Or a bad, not-expecting-that way?” she asked.

  “I didn’t know you were fishing today,” Jake wrote.

  Olivia stared at the screen and wondered briefly if she wasn’t the only one having dueling conversations. She sent him a question mark.

  Then Mike messaged, “Sorry, had to go to Jo’s room.”

  She sent Mike a question mark.

  “Well, if you’re fishing for compliments…” Jake wrote. “Then yes, Olivia, you look lovely.”

  “Jo was getting ready for bed and couldn’t get the room heater turned up enough. But that’s not what got me hot,” Mike added a smiley face. Then typed, “It was your picture.”

  “Well that doesn’t seem like a great time to go to Jo’s room,” Olivia wrote.

  “Jealous again, eh?” Mike asked.

  “When did you take that?” Jake asked.

  Olivia didn’t know who to answer first, and then Daniel asked if she wanted a soda. She ran her fingers through her hair and shook it at the roots, watching Daniel, now standing in front of the center island. She told him no, thank you, and suggested he not have caffeine at this time of night.

  She glanced back down at the computer and wrote, “They were taken in December, one night when I was feeling frisky.”

  “I know. I remember perfectly,” Mike wrote.

  Olivia’s eyes widened and the word “whoops” escaped her lips.

  “Want to tell me something sexy to keep me from going back to check on Jo?” Mike asked, again adding smiley faces to let her know that he didn’t actually plan to go back to Jo’s room, Olivia assumed.

  Without feeling a prick of jealousy, but being absolutely certain she was writing Mike, she said, “Am I going to have to drive there and check on you?” Then she copied and pasted the message to Jake about a frisky night in December.

  “Tell me about it,” Jake wrote back.

  She answered, “It was just after we talked about meeting at the hotel. Remember?”

  “Yes. Drive here and check on me,” Mike wrote.

  “I do,” Jake wrote. “Your smile is so alluring. I’m tempted to tell you to come here so I can see it in person.”

  Olivia said “yes” under her breath and relaxed back into the couch.

  “You okay, Mom?” Daniel asked. He stood at the center island. Arrayed in front of him were a tub of turkey lunch meat, provolone cheese slices, leftover bacon, lettuce, mustard, and the already half-eaten loaf of nine-grain bread she’d bought yesterday. Basically, he had the makings of a small meal, a mere hour after an actual meal had occurred there.

  “Daniel!”

  “I’m growing, Mom.”

  “You’ll be growing side to side,” she said, taking in his lanky frame, the emaciated arms, and skeletal legs

  “Yeah, if only.”

  “Are you coming here to make sure she knows to keep her hands off?” Mike asked.

  Reading Mike’s words, Olivia felt a curious detachment. She wrote back passionlessly, “Yes. I’m leaving right now.”

  Then she wrote Jake, “I can leave now,” and preposterously, allowed herself to calculate her arrival time.

  Olivia looked over at Daniel again. “Are you going to bring that up to your room?”

  “Thinking about it.”

  She gave a small theatrical sigh and said, “Fine. I’ll clean up the mess.”

  “You’re the best, Mom.” And unlike the prick of jealousy which she had not felt, guilt stabbed her. She knew exactly how far from the truth that was.

  “By the time you’d get here, I’d probably be asleep,” Mike wrote, then added, “Ha ha.”

  “Leave now,” Jake wrote. “I’ll have everyone asleep.”

  “Leaving.”

  “Olivia,” Jake wrote, just a second later, and she felt an absolute certainty his stomach had sunk. “I’d probably chicken out before you got here.”

  She sighed.

  “Tell me what were you thinking about when you posed for that picture?” Jake asked.

  Then Mike asked, “Are you ready for bed too?”

  “I am,” she answered truthfully, although certainly not a truth she would want to explain to Mike.

  “Good night then,” Mike wrote.

  And the relief felt traitorous. “Sweet dreams, Mike.”

  She set her chat availability exclusively to Jake and then answered him simply. “I was thinking about you.”

  “Did Mike take them?”

  “Yes.”

  “I guessed that sultry look wasn’t for the photographer.”

  And the truth of the statement left Olivia feeling utterly exposed.

  “Have you done that before?” Jake asked. “Posed for pictures?”

  “No.”

  “Thought about it for a while?”

  “Not really. It struck me that night.”

  “You’re always willing to try something new, aren’t you?”

  She read what he’d written and wondered if a person could type wistfully. “Not at all,” she answered.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever made a suggestion you’ve said no to. Sometimes I think that’s what the attraction is. You’d be so damn lively in bed.”

  That answered some questions Olivia had not dared to ask. “I would be with you. But, I’m…that’s not typical for me.”

  “How come it’s so easy with me, but not him?”

  Even though she was alone in the room with no one to see it, Olivia shrugged. “Maybe, because almost from the minute we began, you’ve taken such an interest in me. It’s flattering.”

  “You fascinate me.”

  His words made her imagine them sitting together, Jake leaning in close. His lips inches away, teasing between talking and kissing.

  “Maybe,” she wrote, “it’s that I can’t see your reactions or body language, so in my mind you always respond just exactly how I’d want you to. I suppose that makes it easier to tell you things.”

  “Sounds reasonable,” he wrote.

  “And, you don’t have a horse in the game.”

  Jake sent a question mark. “A horse in the race? Or, maybe you meant skin in the game, but that may be too literal.”

  “I probably did. But that is absolutely too literal.”

  “So you can talk to me about your bedroom frustrations…” he started her out.

  “…because you’re not the one frustrating me,” she finished.

  “(Well I am a little.)”

  “(Yes, a little.)”

  “You can tell me anything, Olivia.”

  “I know.” she answered. “And you know it’s never worked with Mike.”

  “Yes.”

  “But he doesn’t know that.”

  “He thinks it’s good for you?” Jake asked.

  “I don’t know if he thinks it’s good. Or adequate. Or.…”

  “But he doesn’t know it’s…” again Jake forced her to finish the thought.

  “He doesn’t know it’s not working.”

  “How could he not know? All these years.”

  “Well, and this is going to sound outrageous. But I didn’t know.”

  “How could you not know?”

  “What does an orgasm feel like?” Olivia asked.

  “Spectacular. Breathtaking.”

  “When you think about it, that’s kind of vague, isn’t it?”

  “I can’t exactly describe it.”

  “Right, and that’s why I didn’t realize I wasn’t having them.”

  “Olivia, how could you not know?”

  “Well, I’m not a guy.”

  “Point taken.”

  Olivia stretched her fingers in front of the keyboard, as if warming up, then dove in. “When we were first together, just being touched felt good. So I responded. Made appreciative noises. Cooed a little. I wasn’t faking anything. It felt good.”

  “Okay.”

  “But after a while.”

  He interrupted. “How lo
ng?”

  “I’m not sure. A few years. Before Daniel, or maybe right after I’d had him. I started to realize it felt better by myself.”

  “Does it always work when you’re alone?”

  “Pretty much,” she answered. “Know the movie Thelma and Louise?”

  “Sure.”

  “Remember when Geena Davis spent the night with Brad Pitt? She comes out of the motel room and says to Susan Sarandon, ‘So that’s what all the fuss is about.’ I heard that line and I knew. It hit me. I had no idea what all the fuss was about.”

  “Oh, Liv,” he wrote. “Why don’t you tell him?”

  “A million reasons.”

  “Let’s hear them. I’ve got all night,” Jake wrote.

  “I’ll give you two. He’d be hurt and I don’t think at this point it could change anything.”

  “But now you know what you need.”

  “But now I’ve lost that youthful passion.”

  “If you told him what feels good.…”

  “Jake, there are lots of couples who have a hard time sustaining great sex. So now we have to overcome my body’s dysfunction and the inertia of middle-aged married life. I just don’t see it happening.”

  “Olivia.…”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry, too,” Olivia wrote. “Mike would think I’d was lying to him all this time and I wasn’t.”

  “I meant I’m so sorry, but I have to go. I’m being called.”

  “What would it be like if I could just call you, Jake? Come to bed. Let’s make love.”

  “That’s not why I’m being called. When she wakes at night, if I’m not there she has trouble falling back to sleep.”

  It was odd and fascinating to get a glimpse of the intricacies of someone else’s marriage.

  Olivia looked over at the mess Daniel had left that she’d offered to clean up in exchange for tonight’s privacy. The mess that would now be her evening’s entertainment.

  There was a ping. “How do you celebrate President’s Day?” Jake asked, suddenly.

  “Oh, about like everyone else. I stand on a balcony, lift my shirt up, and let strange men throw beads at me.”

  “So that’s what all the ruckus was about last year in the suburbs. Dana’s celebrating with a three-day trip to visit her sister. She’s taking the kids.”