Available to Chat

by Sutton, Jacy

  “It’s no one. Some girl. She said she’d hand in the assignments and I thought she had. I’ll talk to her at school tomorrow.”

  “Why don’t you call tonight?” Olivia pulled the belt from the jean loops and stepped toward his laundry hamper.

  Daniel reached for the jeans. “No, Mom.”

  “Why not just call?”

  “I’ll talk with her tomorrow.” He folded the jeans and, favoring his good leg, hobbled over to his chest of drawers and shoved them in.

  “If she’s not doing her share of the work, you should go to the teacher.”

  “If it comes to that.”

  “I could e-mail your teacher.”

  “Don’t.”

  “Fine, Daniel. I’ll give you till Monday to work this out.” Olivia stepped toward the door. “And you should probably wash those jeans before you wear them again.” She didn’t know if he’d heard the last because his earbud was already back in place.

  ***

  Mike did not share her concern about the missing assignments. As they cleaned the few dinner dishes, his pronouncement of “I’m sure he’ll get them turned in” seemed to end the matter for him.

  “I wish when we were eating you would have asked Daniel about his schoolwork.”

  “You were asking.” Mike walked the last dirty plate over to Olivia.

  “I don’t always want to be the heavy.” When Mike didn’t respond, Olivia said, “Aren’t you going to say something about how I’m the skinny one?”

  He gave her a weak smile, but nothing more.

  Like a child shoving a branch into an anthill, Olivia asked, “Mike, you’re not concerned at all?”

  His back was to her now as he bent over the recycling bin, pulling out the full bag.

  “Let me try to put this in terms you’ll understand,” she said. “If Daniel went hunting and shot a bunch of birds and didn’t retrieve them, and just left them sit there. Would that bother you?”

  “Yes, Olivia.” He stopped, the bulging plastic bag at his side. “That would bother me.” Without further comment, he walked to the garage door, his gait heavy and slow.

  There wasn’t much left to do in the kitchen. Sweep. Put the dried pans into the cupboard. And when every possible thing was done, Olivia glanced outside at the thermometer and considered taking a walk, even though the temperature hovered at freezing. The sun had already set and Olivia wished for one of those neon vests that alerted drivers in the dark. But her mood was so foul that she thought if she did get hit, it would probably just end a lot of frustration.

  Daniel found her sitting on the hallway bench pulling on her walking boots, wearing the bulky down jacket that made her look as though she were a little girl playing dress-up in her mother’s clothes.

  “You’re going for a walk now?”

  “Yes.” Olivia felt the satisfaction of monosyllabic answers.

  “It’s dark out,” Daniel said. His tone sounded kind.

  “I need some fresh air.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “With your cast?”

  “Sure.”

  “You can’t do that.”

  “I suppose.” He sat next to her on the bench. “So, as you know, thanks to your friends, I am dating Becca.”

  “Okay,” Olivia said, scooching over a bit to give him more room.

  “But before that, when she didn’t seem interested, I was hanging out with my lab partner. I didn’t think it amounted to much. But, I guess she did.”

  “And she’s angry?”

  “Yes.”

  “So she sabotaged some of your schoolwork?”

  “She and Becca are kind of friends. And Becca warned me she was madder than I realized.”

  “That’s not fair using school to get back at you. I think the teacher should know.”

  “Mom.” He picked up Olivia’s hand and held it as though he were much younger. “I was kind of shitty to her. I lied. And I used her. So I’ll do my best to get my grade up. And I’ll try to get a new lab partner. But I deserve some of this.” He gave the back of her a hand a fast kiss. “I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry,” he said, and he stood up. “Are you going for that walk?”

  She thought of a million pieces of motherly advice to give him, but squelched them all and said, “Well, maybe I’ll see if your dad wants to come.”

  “Kay.” He turned to hobble back toward his room.

  “Daniel, I think you’re handling this well.”

  “Thanks,” he called over his shoulder.

  She found Mike in his office and shared the abbreviated version of Daniel’s explanation. “I wonder exactly what he meant by, ‘I used her.’ Do you think they slept together?”

  “That’s a lot to conjecture based on three little words.”

  Olivia could not argue with that. “Want to go for a walk?”

  “Nah.” Mike didn’t glance up. “It’s dark. I’d probably trip on something. But you should go, if you want,” he added, then turned back toward his computer.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  STALKING FACEBOOK, Olivia successfully found Becca. She continued hunting through the mutual friends of Becca and Daniel, working to discover the identity of the lab partner, when a ping startled her.

  Jake was one of the few people she chatted with on Facebook, so she was both stunned, and not in the least surprised, to find it was him.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey, yourself,” she wrote.

  “I’m just downloading some pictures from Facebook.”

  “Uploading?”

  “No. Downloading. There were some I’d only saved there, so I have to get them off.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m closing it down.”

  “Facebook?” she asked. “That’s a tall order.”

  “Well, my little piece of it anyway.”

  “Oh.” She felt like a cheap umbrella in a rainstorm.

  “Dana and I are starting a marriage encounter seminar through our church.”

  “Oh.”

  “I have to commit fully to her and the kids. I have to put everything I have into my family. So,” he wrote, “I’m deleting my Facebook account. Permanently.”

  Olivia tried to think of something beside a one-syllable interjection, but she was stumped and had to settle on “oh” again.

  “Liv, we never really talked about that night.”

  “No. We haven’t.”

  “I was desperate and alone. And you talked with me on the phone for hours. Is it too much to say you saved me?”

  “I care about you, you know.”

  “I know you do. And I have cared about you, too. Too much, Liv.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I never allow myself to think what if. But sometimes, for just a moment, I let myself linger on the memory of making love to you that night. And while I need to move past that. Past you. Believe it or not, I don’t regret one minute of our evening. It feels as though.…”

  “Yes?”

  “It feels as though it was the natural conclusion to us. I’ve come to think it was inevitable.”

  “Oh, Jake,” she typed, hoping it conveyed one small trace of all she wished she could say.

  “You are an amazing woman. I will never forget you, Olivia. I promise.”

  “Me too.” It sounded so simple, but it was exactly true.

  “I’ve got all the pictures. So I guess I’m done,” he wrote. “Good-bye, Olivia.”

  “Good-bye, Jake,” she typed, astonished at how pinpointed and intense the prick of pain was, but also how it felt just the slightest bit less so after just a brief moment.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  SHE’D HAD ONE MEETING with Dr. Jones after the end with Jake, and she’d set up another. But sitting at her desk the morning of the appointment, Olivia realized the sick, tight feeling in her stomach wasn’t anticipation, but dread. She could think of three scenarios: another sob-fest starring Jake, a dull litany of conversations with Mike, or a discus
sion about the pitfalls of teenage life. Maybe it wasn’t a therapist she needed, with careful nods and inconclusive “Mmm hmms,” but a life coach. She imagined a Richard Simmons-type shouting instructions at her as she ran along life’s treadmill.

  “Get over Jake.”

  “Find a lover who can pleasure you.”

  “Add weight lifting to your workout regimen.”

  Stacey, Dr. Jones’s assistant, her tone dripping with efficiency, informed Olivia there would be a $25 cancellation fee. Olivia acquiesced, thankful for a reprieve from another hour of the muted brown couch and the therapist’s muted emotions. She decided to walk a check over on her lunch hour, gaining both exercise and closure.

  Each buoyant step gave her more confidence. The temperature had crept up to the low 50s, which felt tropical after the long winter. The sun shone, and she was almost sorry when she arrived at the building so quickly. The parking lot was nearly empty, and Olivia realized it was possible no one would be there. She found the office suite unlocked, although Stacey wasn’t at her desk. The door to Dr. Jones’s private office stood open. Olivia saw a woman’s sleek black patent-leather pump with a thin stiletto heel peeking out from behind the door. She could hear two women’s voices, and she stood silently, allowing them privacy to finish their conversation.

  “Thank you.” She heard Dr. Jones’s crisp, calm enunciation. “I appreciate your time to come see me at my office. I don’t have a lot of downtime to run errands.”

  “Of course, dear.” Surprisingly, the other voice sounded oddly familiar, but Olivia couldn’t place it. “And some women simply prefer shopping one-on-one.”

  “Yes. True,” said Dr. Jones impassively. “Thank you again, Barbie.”

  Dr. Jones pulled the door shut without ever seeing Olivia, and the lovely Barbie stepped out from behind it, spotted Olivia, and beamed. “Olivia, how delightful to run into you.”

  Olivia basked in the genuineness of her words. “Hello, Barbie.”

  The smaller woman embraced Olivia in a big, friendly hug.

  “I was just dropping this off.” Olivia set the envelope with the check on Stacey’s desk. She turned toward the building door to walk out with the effervescent saleswoman.

  “I was dropping off some things, too,” Barbie explained.

  “Oh.” Olivia peered back at the closed door. She thought of the doctor’s subdued room and imagined a package from Barbie, filled with color and gadgetry. “Oh,” she repeated.

  “Still waters run deep, my dear.” Barbie locked her arm through Olivia’s. “Now tell me, how have you been?”

  “I’m doing okay. But I have high hopes of doing better soon.”

  “Good.”

  “How about you?” Olivia asked.

  “Just wonderful. I met the most enchanting young woman the other day. She just has a slight little problem when performing fellatio,” Barbie said, as she guided Olivia out to the parking lot, continuing her story.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  “IT WORKS,” Mike said, coming into the kitchen.

  Olivia glanced up. Her hands were sticky from the garlic she’d pressed for the marinade. She offered her cheek to Mike, but he brushed past her and took a spot directly across the center island from where she stood. His eyes were wide, and she noticed for the first time in years how blue they were. His mouth was half open as if he were trying to form words.

  What had he said as he came in? She thought for a moment, and then asked, “What works?”

  “Me.” His eyes focused so directly on her, she thought of headlights set to high beam. “I pleased a woman today.”

  Olivia gave him a half smile, not quite understanding.

  “Pleased her,” he said slowly, as if he were talking to someone who didn’t speak the language. “Satisfied her. Fucked her. Made her come.”

  The corners of Olivia’s mouth turned down and her head began nodding, as though working out a complex algorithm.

  “You made me think there was something wrong with me.” He stepped to the cabinet and took down a glass. “But it’s you, Olivia. There’s something wrong with you. It’s amazing to watch a woman come. Absolutely joyous.” He turned on the faucet and filled the glass.

  “All these years,” he continued, “I could have been screwing someone who could actually enjoy it.” He studied the water but didn’t drink any, and then, without warning, threw the glass forcefully into the sink so that it exploded like a small firework.

  His infidelity hadn’t fully registered, but Olivia did appreciate that even in his anger he’d made sure to contain his volatility to an easy-to-clean area. He stepped toward her and grabbed her forearm with enough force to make her recoil.

  Mike startled. Her obvious fear and the release of breaking the glass seemed to mollify him, because his next words were soft, almost kind. “What is wrong with you, Olivia?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did it work with him?”

  Like a driver on a snowy night, she had a fraction of a second to decide whether to swerve, brake, or plunge ahead.

  She met his eyes and steeled her shoulders. “What the hell are you talking about, Mike?” She guessed he wasn’t sure there was a him, but she turned away before he could respond.

  At the sink, she gathered a half dozen or so of the largest glass shards, concentrating intently to avoid any actual bloodshed, while she waited to see if Mike would call her bluff. She couldn’t say why she hadn’t admitted all. He just had, and pretty damn proudly, too.

  If she had told him about Jake, then what? Would she admit that aside from one night of long-bottled passion, the only sex she’d ever found satisfying was lying down by herself? Would she tell him how much she hated her body for being so damn inefficient? When she glanced sideways, she saw Mike standing, arms crossed, back pressed against the clean-steel refrigerator door—the one he’d insisted on when they’d remodeled because the stainless was too costly—the look on his face was so detached, she had to remind herself he was the one who’d just confessed to infidelity.

  The jazzy ringtone of Olivia’s phone split the silence. When she reached to grab it, Mike groused, “You’re answering that? Now?”

  “Hello,” she said out loud. Thank God, she thought to herself.

  “I have some news, hon.” It was Ruth.

  Olivia met Mike’s eyes. She was looking for something familiar, something she had once loved. And even though his stare remained direct, his eyes seemed half shrouded.

  “News?” she said into the phone, turning away from him.

  Mike grunted loudly, kicked the bottom of the refrigerator, and stomped from the room.

  “Well, dear, news for me. I’m being transferred,” Ruth said.

  The tightness in Olivia’s throat relaxed a little as she watched Mike’s departing back.

  “Ohhhh,” Olivia said. “Is that good?”

  “God, no.” Olivia heard the quick intake of breath and knew Ruth was taking a deep drag on a cigarette.

  “You’re not smoking again, are you?”

  “I am, dear. I figured, what the hell. I’m sixty-eight. I’ve made it this far. Anyway, this transfer is what will be the death of me.”

  “That bad?”

  “Worse. I loved what I was doing. But you can’t get a decent middle-grade children’s book published these days. All they want is aliens and zombies.”

  “Ohhh.” Olivia watched the empty hallway where Mike had been.

  “They’re shutting down our division,” Ruth continued. “Sorry, hon. I would have loved to spearhead your book and to have seen it published.”

  “Yes. Of course. I understand.” Olivia was thinking bad news came in threes and wondering if she could add the end of things with Jake in this grouping, or if something more might happen today.

  “Listen. You had a good story. Compelling dialogue. Just a real understated quality.”

  “Thank you, Ruth. I appreciate that.” Olivia was afraid Ruth would hear the catch in her th
roat if they discussed her now to-be-forgotten book for another minute, so she asked, “Where are they transferring you?”

  “I hate even saying it out loud. I wish I could have taken early retirement, but I’m still about five years away from being able to move abroad. I’ll be damned if I’ll spend my octogenarian years in New Jersey.” Olivia heard the older woman’s small hiccup of frustration. “They’re moving me to our new imprint, Lush.”

  “Lush,” Olivia repeated, trying to sound engaged rather than devastated.

  “It’s soft-core porn for middle-aged women, dear.”

  “Really?” That caught Olivia’s attention.

  “It’s horrible. Crass writing. Not an ounce of real romance. Just bodies pulsating and grinding.”

  “I’m sorry, Ruth. You published great books. I wish you weren’t getting stuck there.”

  “They think it’s the next big wave, now that vampire romances are on the decline. I guess dirty is the new flirty,” Ruth said. “No worries, though. I’ll make the best of it.”

  “You will,” Olivia replied.

  “Sorry. I have to run now. But you know, Liv,” she said, surprising Olivia with the nickname. “It’s a shame we didn’t get to see this project through together. I would have loved working with you.”

  As Ruth hung up, Olivia heard her take another long, seductive drag.

  ***

  Olivia felt a slight, biting wetness at the corner of her eye and grabbed a tissue. It occurred to her the tears hadn’t actually started until Ruth’s rejection. Still, nothing gushed. No Niagara Falls. More like a modest leak in a garden hose. Without the clamor of tears and sniffles, Olivia realized how quiet the house was, no sound of Mike.

  Daniel came in at some point later and found her sitting in the club chair, dabbing at her eyes with the tissue.

  “What are you doing, Mom?”

  “Having a cry.”

  Daniel sat next to her, on the arm of the chair. He put all his weight on his outside leg and the casted leg hung uneasily. Throwing his long, gangly arm around her shoulders, he said, “It doesn’t look like too big of one.”