Hungry for Love

by Nancy Frederick

  The bailiff cocked his head toward the judge and the stenographer looked up, not wanting what she was hearing to go on the record, but the judge was invested in his comments and neither of them could interrupt.

  “Capital punishment is underrated, I think.” As Antimangia said this, the people in the courtroom seats registered a visible level of nervousness. If it were the old West, they’d be whispering that he was a hangin’ judge.

  “What happened to those chain gangs?” posited the judge. “Liberals, that’s what happened to them. Frizzy headed women lawyers, that’s what happened to them. Humanitarian—if you ask me, it’s a four letter word.”

  Far in the back, a young man wearing shirt sleeves and shorts—the vacation clothes he’d brought on the trip, never expecting to need dressier attire in casual Los Angeles, leaned in close to an attorney next to him and whispered, “Just plead me guilty.”

  The lawyer put a steadying hand on the man’s arm and replied, “You’re the guy he ran off the road.”

  The bailiff leaned over to speak to the judge, words nobody heard, then Antimangia passed sentence. “Fine of $2,000, damages to cover auto repair and $5,000 emotional injury for that young fellow over there, six months community service, psychiatric evaluation. Must be some clinic somewhere that needs a free quac—doctor. And stay the hell away from my…courtroom…. And anywhere else I happen to be. Do you get me?”

  Kevin nodded. Some justice, he thought, but he was too terrified to speak up.

  Bill observed Chrissy parking on the street by his house, but he noted that she didn’t exit her car. He assumed she was waiting for the guys who were coming to pick up her exercise equipment. Technically that stuff belonged to Bill, who had paid for it, but it was bought for her and the last thing he wanted now was to be petty. What he did want to do was to examine his own heart and see what lurked inside. Would seeing Chrissy provoke any latent feelings for her or perhaps an insight or two? That was what Bill wondered. The kids were thankfully off on play dates so he didn’t have to worry that they would suffer any further trauma. As far as they were concerned, Chrissy no longer existed and that would be true for him as well after the next few minutes.

  Soon enough a truck parked in his driveway and a couple of guys walked toward the door with Chrissy. Somehow Bill didn’t even feel enraged, just as though a business transaction were ending, as if he were selling an old car that was being removed. Oddly enough, it was Chrissy whose eyes shot daggers and Bill observed the withering glance she tossed him as she walked past him and into the den, her lackeys following her.

  Chrissy was surprised when Bill had the gall to say hello to her considering how he’d behaved. Some people had such nerve, she thought, but not wanting to jeopardize the sale of her equipment, she smiled politely and said hello back, then walked right past him with the scorn he deserved.

  The men got the machines out the door with a minor degree of aggravation as Bill and Chrissy stood silently together. “You’ve found a place already?” Bill asked kindly.

  “I’ve found what I’ve always wanted, always needed,” she said confidently.

  Bill hoped she hadn’t meant Kevin, for he knew that would be a huge mistake. Kevin never dallied and returned. “That sounds positive,” he said neutrally.

  “God knows you refused to get it for me,” she said softly.

  “Oh?”

  “Don’t pretend you don’t know.”

  “What don’t I know?”

  “You do know. Koush Koush.” Chrissy scowled at Bill.

  “Really? Still?”

  “You were just too busy porking your partner’s porky wife to take my needs seriously,” she said.

  Bill was tempted to shove her out the door and lock it but shouldn’t she know the actual truth? “We were never messing around. We were planning your birthday party.”

  “Yeah, right. At some smokers’ rally. I wasn’t born yesterday. I saw you two always lurking around together, shoving food into your mouths. Why don’t you just be honest for once.”

  Bill laughed. “Honestly? I can’t fathom how I spent a year with you.”

  Chrissy huffed and turned and followed the men out the door, accepted some cash from them and, without looking back, walked to her car and drove away as Bill made a mental note—if you hook up with women just because they casually resemble your dead wife, you get what you deserve.

  Kevin was thinking about Meryl Streep and the fact that she had it much easier than he did. In Sophie’s Choice she had two alternatives while he was being forced to sacrifice the thing he loved best, his beloved Porsche. There was no rational way he could allow himself to keep it. With demented, half-blind junior coppers and power-mad, moldy old judges ready to send him to the slammer for being an innocent victim, Kevin had to take self-protective measures. The car had to go. But what to do? Should he go and buy a BMW? A Corvette was sporty but had a different vibe than his Porsche. What a dilemma and a damn shame too.

  He drove to the beach, all the way down on Pico Boulevard, where he had never seen that Honda and it had never pursued him. Hey, if Laura kicked him out permanently, maybe he could move down here and keep the car. No that was just silly. Laura would never kick him out permanently. They’d been married far too long. She would take him back and then punish him with her disgust and life would go on.

  Just as he approached the ocean, Kevin had an inspiration. He had to sell the car, yes. He needed different license plates and a different color—but he could still have a Porsche. They weren’t out there running down every freaking Porsche in the city, were they? He didn’t actually know, but it was just obvious, wasn’t it, that they were focused on him, or maybe on him and one or two others. He whipped the car onto Ocean Boulevard and then turned east onto Wilshire and soon enough he was back in Beverly Hills at the Porsche dealer, signing papers and driving away in a newer model, different plates, and a different color. Talk about the silver lining.

  Then he decided it was time to confront Bill and get on with his career. Porsches didn’t pay for themselves. He had a practice and he wasn’t giving it up, so off he drove to the office, parking in his usual spot inside the building. He glanced at his watch—it was after six in the evening. Everyone was gone. But look—his name was still on the door, and his key still worked in the lock.

  Kevin took a seat behind his desk. Really only a weekend and a day had passed, but it seemed as though he’d been gone forever. Perhaps it was the disjointed feeling of being away from home. He’d actually had to buy some new clothes, which as he thought of it was absurd. This was his office and that was his home. It wasn’t as though he couldn’t just walk in the door.

  Laura was in the kitchen peeling carrots for dinner. It was a task that made her feel serene and she went about the work of cooking with a peaceful sense of pleasure. When the phone rang, she instinctively knew it was Kevin, and deciding that she couldn’t ignore his calls forever, she answered the call.

  “Honey!” he said fervently, “I know I have a lot to apologize for, and I’m sincerely sorry, but when you hear everything that’s happened to me in the last few days I think you’ll realize…” He paused to listen to what she was saying, then continued, “I know. I don’t know what came over me…” More comments from Laura then he resumed speaking, “Yes it is some sort of malady. I don’t know what, but once you hear my story about the car and that maniac.”

  Laura sighed. He was talking about the car, not the marriage. “I just don’t know you any more.”

  “Let me come home. I promise to make it right. I’m never going to do anything like this again. I swear.”

  Laura lay down the peeler and thought for a moment. Her heart twisted inside her. She suspected that whatever choice she might make would be incorrect. “I don’t know,” she sighed, “I don’t think I’m ready for that yet. Maybe not ever.”

  Kevin’s voice grew irritated. “What else do you want from me? I said I’m sorry. What do you expect from me anyhow? You don
’t even know what I’ve gone through lately, what I’ve suffered. It’s not like you even know I’m alive.”

  “Yes, Kevin, it was my fault you screwed your partner’s bimbo. That and every other disgusting thing you’ve ever done. Clearly I should be begging your forgiveness instead of the other way around. Please forgive me for hanging up on your whoring ass.” Laura slammed the phone back into its cradle and sat down on a stool at the counter, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  Angie was feeling rather nervous as she parked her car in the driveway between the guesthouse and main residence. Gingerly removing a container, she walked softly to the side door and tapped on it. Her dad appeared rather too quickly, she thought, but she smiled brightly at him and tried to sound normal.

  “Hi, Daddy! Here’s some lasagna. Thought you might like a little snack.”

  The judge gestured dismissively at her, scowled his customary scowl, and growled crankily, “It’s the middle of the night. Go to bed!”

  Angie glanced at her watch. It wasn’t even quite nine o’clock. She watched him gesture once again and then, without even taking the food from her hands, closed the door practically in her face. She stood there for a moment, just breathing, feeling hurt but also enraged.

  “I hate it when you treat me like that. I’m angry at you,” she said almost under her breath. “You’re a lousy dad.” Then even more softly, she whispered, “How was that, doctor?”

  She turned to walk away, then turned back around and with one hand smashed the food down onto the doorstep, and with more than a little satisfaction watched it open and go splat all over the place. She should have done that long ago.

  Kevin sat in the solitude of his office, his head in his hands. Despite the high of having a brand new car, he couldn’t shake the feeling that in a few short days everything had turned to utter crap. Could it be possible that his life was in a downturn and might not recover? No, he didn’t believe that. But what if it were true? What if life as he knew it were over? That could be true. A new car didn’t make up for the security of losing his practice or his wife. How do you go from having everything, from life being wonderful, to being trapped in utter misery, that’s what Kevin wanted to know. It was like some sort of bizarre Greek tragedy. Militant marauders come along and hustle you down some road toward chaos. How does that happen in real life?

  Kevin took the little rake from his Zen garden and whacked the dangling balls on his Newton’s Cradle, setting them aclatter. The noise was soothing, but it wasn’t lost on Kevin that basically he was witnessing what he had recently endured—his equilibrium set out of balance by outside forces. Life was so strange.

  What should he do to placate his wife, that was the main thing on Kevin’s mind. Always in the past she was receptive to his promises and surely that meant something. Kevin wanted to believe it meant she loved him and trusted him and recognized that it was all just him letting off steam and didn’t mean anything in the larger scheme of things. But could women really comprehend that? Shopping was what women did to let off steam but Laura had never been that big a shopper. She was a doer, she ran that anti-smoking thing, as though anyone who wanted to smoke could be persuaded to stop, but at least it was better than coming home daily with a cluster of shopping bags as did most doctors’ wives. He was lucky. He had been lucky. The change of tense in his thoughts frightened Kevin. Perhaps it all was over.

  Then his cell phone rang and Kevin grabbed it, pushing the button and prayerfully saying “Laura?”

  “No, it’s me, Angie.” She stood at the back of her guesthouse in the tiny kitchen area, aggressively kneading a ball of dough on a flour-dusted cutting board. The rhythm of her movements was pleasant and calming and she could hear clearly through the speaker phone. Kevin sounded distraught again. What was up with him, she wondered. “Are you okay?”

  He sighed heavily. “No. Your dad scared the shit out of me today.”

  Angie couldn’t fathom that the morning’s fracas could have been that traumatic for Kevin. “But you’re twice his size and half his age. I thought for a bit you’d end up killing him.”

  Kevin laughed. It was nice to hear that he was big and young even though he knew that the judge was probably less than ten years his senior.

  Angie was relieved to hear him chuckle. Maybe he wasn’t as unhinged as he’d seemed previously. “Well we both know what he’s like. How about coming over to finish what we started—well almost started.”

  “I can’t run the risk of running into your dad. He’d have me shot.”

  “No sharpshooters tonight. He’s in bed and asleep by ten. No way he’d spot you.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Kevin, sighing once more.

  Angie’s voice grew tremulous, and all the feelings for Kevin that for so long had been with her flooded over her, and the words poured out. “We were just so hot for each other before. And it’s more than that, you know it is.”

  She really was sweet. And so uncomplicated. Kevin glanced at his watch. It wasn’t that late. Where else did he have to go? “What the hell,” he said.

  Bill sat in the den with the kids, relaxing after a nice dinner out. Candy was on the floor with some papers, working hard on something for school, he assumed, because she was ignoring the movie that played on the TV, Toy Story, one of her favorites. Will, atypically, sat on the couch beside Bill, not attempting to torture his sister or create any disturbances. It was a pleasant family evening, something they really hadn’t had in a very long time. Bill hadn’t realized how Chrissy’s absence would make such a difference. Everyone was calm and relaxed and it felt pretty good.

  He couldn’t resist asking Candy about her school project—maybe he could help. “What are you working on there, Miss Tootsie Pie?”

  She looked up and said, “A very important list.”

  “Oh,” said Bill, “Of what?”

  “Well, Daddy, you might not know this, but I’m thinking it can work in our favor.”

  “What can?”

  “The travesty of divorce.”

  Will laughed and said, “You mean the tragedy of divorce.”

  “Whatever,” said Candy. “If I spent all my time thinking about the right word like you do, I’d never get anything said.”

  “There’s a blessing we’ll never see,” said Will.

  Candy stuck her tongue out at her brother, then resumed speaking to Bill. “Because of this travesty—um tragedy— whatever—there are a lot of single moms out there. Or non moms. Women, no husbands. That’s where we come in.”

  “We do?” asked Bill, smiling.

  “Look at you, Daddy. I mean take a look. Have you looked in the mirror lately?”

  Bill thought about himself trying to squeeze into a too-small tuxedo only a few days ago. “I’ve looked,” he said.

  “So! I mean you’re like Prince Charming, a total dreamboat, Mr. Right. So we just have to make the most of that.”

  Bill laughed and reached down and scooped Candy up in his arms and hugged her. “All little girls think their daddy is a dreamboat,” he said, “It’s the rules.”

  “C’mon, that’s not true. Have you seen some of the daddies? I have. We’re talking garbage barge, not dream boat.”

  Bill turned his head to one side and gazed at his daughter, who was so much like her mother. He smiled softly.

  “So here’s what I’m thinking,” Candy said, jumping down from Bill’s arms and grabbing her list from the floor. “We make a list of all the women who are possibles.”

  “We already had the impossible,” said Will.

  Candy nodded sagely, “Yes no more Miss Wrongs. We don’t have forever and no point in wasting more time.”

  “So you’re setting a deadline for me?” asked Bill. “Oh, the pressure!”

  “I’m just saying why waste time. I can’t go off to college with you here all alone. It wouldn’t feel right.”

  “College?” asked Bill. “You’re in second grade.”

  “Gramma says the older
you get the faster time goes by. At your age it will probably feel like a week, maybe you have a month, I don’t know. Do you really want to waste it joking around when you should be out there meeting a new wife?”

  “Don’t worry, Dad,” said Will, smirking and pointing at his sister, “Nobody will ever marry Candy so that weirdo can be here taking care of you forever.”

  “How dare you,” shrieked Candy. “I already have three boyfriends. I could marry any one of them I wanted to. I’m just taking my time.”

  “Lucky them,” said Will.

  “You…you…you…” sputtered Candy, “Thing Three! You’re the worst Thing of all, greedy, selfish, monster.”

  Will laughed to see Candy so frustrated.