by Gina Holmes
Twenty-One
In the distance, Larry stood on the lot with his back to me. As I made my way toward him, I looked up. The overcast sky appeared ominous—a sea of foreboding gray, but the breeze was soft and warm, which gave the day a not-unpleasant, surreal feeling. I hoped the clouds would finally give up their water. According to the Southside Herald, our reservoir was dangerously close to dry. I wasn’t worried, though. It looked like rain. It felt like rain. And with a musty dampness in the air, it even smelled like rain.
Although I was beyond tired, having only gotten an hour, maybe two, of broken sleep on the sanctuary floor the night before, I still felt better than I had in a long time.
As I approached Larry, he jerked around, revealing too late that he’d been blocking my view of Danielle.
When she looked at me, I froze. “Hey, there,” I said. “Didn’t see you behind Hoss here.”
Larry took off his glasses, puffed on each lens, and cleaned them with the end of his tie. “At the rate I’m gaining, just be glad you can still see the sun.” He slid his glasses back on. Bags hung like hammocks below his bloodshot eyes. “Of course, there’s not much sun to see today anyway.” He looked up at the sky. “Hope that rain comes though. We sure need it.”
Danielle wore an uncharacteristically conservative navy suit that ended at the top of her knees. “Hello, Eric.” Her words were clipped and careful. “I hear your event went well last night.”
“Yes,” I said hesitantly.
Larry put a hand on my shoulder. “You should have seen this guy. He was breaking up fights, fielding life’s unanswerable questions, and turning an angry misfit into the life of the party. Just goes to show you there’s hope for anybody.”
“Angelo’s a good kid,” I said. “He just needed a little push in the right direction.”
He squinted at me. “I was talking about you.”
He was trying to be funny, but the truth of it hit too close to home for me, so I let it blow by without comment.
Danielle looked from Larry to me with a dull expression, and I’m sure she must have been thinking about what a hypocrite I was, ministering to teenagers when I was nothing but an adulterer myself. “Well, good. Good for you,” she said without emotion.
Larry looked back and forth between us. His gaze landed on me, and I knew him well enough to understand the wide-eyed look was an implied warning. He cleared his throat and turned to Danielle. “Good luck with that interview, hotshot.”
Her smile looked as natural as one painted on a corpse. “Thank you, Larry. I appreciate that. And your advice.”
I wondered what interview she had and what advice he’d given her, but of course I couldn’t ask without her thinking I cared more than I did. I watched him walk past a row of SUVs as a string of colored pendants flapped above us.
When he disappeared into the dealership, Danielle turned to me. “You don’t look as tired as you ought to, considering how little sleep Larry said you got.”
I buried my hand in my pants pocket, scooped out the loose change, and jangled it around in my fist as I fought for something to say. I finally settled on a simple, “Thanks.”
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I have an interview today.”
“Who with?” I asked, trying not to sound too interested. If she left for another position, it sure would make my life a whole lot less complicated. Hers, too, I imagined.
“That job in Leesboro you told me about. The manager’s in town, so he agreed to interview me over lunch. Don’t tell Thompson.”
Knowing what thin ice I stood on, I kept my expression as neutral as I could manage.
“So,” I said, speaking slowly, weighing each word, “was Larry able to give you some good interviewing tips?”
When her eyes filled with tears, I knew the ice had cracked. “He was very helpful. He’s a good guy. I wish there were more of them in this world.”
I let the insult go. I deserved it, and then some. A late-model, silver Camry pulled into our lot in one entrance and back out the other. People were always using the dealership for U-turns. It made Thompson curse every time he saw it, unless of course they slowed to eye the merchandise. I watched them drive away, then faced Danielle again. “So, what advice did Larry give you? Maybe I can add to it.”
“He told me people treat you the way you let them.” Her eyes glazed over as if she were pondering this. After a moment, she looked at me again. “So, what words of wisdom do you have for me?”
I couldn’t bear the intensity of her gaze and looked at the two-door behind her with its gleaming black paint, brand-new tires, and inflated sticker price. The second it was driven off the lot it would depreciate ten thousand dollars. Did customers care when they came to buy one though? No. They just wanted the instant gratification of something pretty and new. “My advice would be to be yourself and trust that what’s supposed to be will be.”
A soft whimper escaped her lips. “Is me leaving what’s supposed to be?”
I looked around the lot to see who might be watching us. There were a few guys moving about on the showroom floor, but they were too far away to worry about.
She grabbed my chin and jerked my face toward her. “Why do you keep looking around? You think anyone cares about us?” Her face twisted with anger as she let me go. “No one cares, Eric. No one cares.” Covering her face, she began to cry.
I pulled her to my chest. Her body trembled against me as she dampened my shirt with her tears.
After a few seconds, she pulled back and wiped at her tears. Her lips were quivering and streaks of mascara marred her mottled face. “You never did tell her, did you?”
Of course I knew what she was talking about, but instinct took over. “Tell who what?”
“Doesn’t pretending to be stupid ever get old?” She sucked in a breath and looked out at the bumper-to-bumper cars lined up at the red light. “Doesn’t matter. Larry’s right. The worst punishment I can give you is to let you live with your lie.” She rubbed at her nose. “I just can’t believe I let you make me cry again.”
Good old Larry still had my back after all.
“You know, I honestly thought when I told you I was applying for that job that you would ask me to stay.” She laughed without humor and hugged herself as a fresh stream of tears ran down her face. “How pathetic is that?”
I felt like the world’s biggest jerk, but I didn’t know how to make her pain go away. Meeting her gaze, I hoped somehow she could see in my eyes just how truly sorry I was. “I guess we’d better get back in there,” I finally said. “It’s got to be about showtime.”
She wiped her eyes again. “And all the world’s a stage. Isn’t it, Eric?”
I felt so tired all of a sudden. Tired enough to curl up right there in the parking lot and sleep for a month. “Dani, I really am sorry.” Maybe Larry was right. Would the truth really set me free from this guilt and all the pain I’d caused?
She pressed her fingers against her eyes. “Do you still love her?”
After a moment, she wiped her eyes and looked up again. “I know you’re not ready right now, but maybe once the divorce is filed . . .” Her voice trailed off as though she’d lost her thought. She now stood close enough for me to hear her quick, shallow breaths.
She played with the necklace lying across her cleavage. It took everything in me to keep my eyes planted on hers, not because I wanted to check her out, but because flesh always drew my eyes like metal to magnet. If my bearded Aunt Ethel showed skin, I’d have to look, whether I wanted to gouge my eyes out after or not. It was a reflex I could not afford at the moment.
If my gaze deviated even for a second, she’d assign meaning to it. She’d done enough ad-libbing with my intentions as it was. I stared at the green of her despondent eyes, trying not to look as rattled as I felt. Larry poked his head out the showroom door, pointed at his eyes, then at me.
Trying to ignore him, I looked back at Danielle, who now played more frantically with
the charm, dragging it back and forth on its silver chain. “This is the last time I’m going to throw myself at you, but let me just say this. I love you. She doesn’t.”
Love? I thought back to the e-mails, the texts, the couple of late-night calls I’d made to her from the front porch while Kyra slept, and shame filled me.
What had started as mutual loneliness turned into a little flirting, some sexual tension, and then before I knew it I was on a runaway train that nothing short of a derailment could stop. Now that the train was smoldering on its side and we were all lying there beside it dazed and bleeding, I realized that Kyra hadn’t been the only victim.
“If Kyra divorces you—I mean in the future, not now—maybe . . .” She stood up straighter and crossed her arms across her stomach, as though bracing herself for whatever I might throw her way. “Just tell me the truth. If Kyra wasn’t in the picture, would we still be together?”
All the vulnerability of a lost little girl waved over her like a banner. I wondered if it had been there all along. More than anything, I just wanted to look away from the pain I’d caused. But I wouldn’t let myself. Not this time. Nothing was worth this. Nothing.
“Please tell me,” she repeated.
It would have been the easiest thing in the world to lie to her then, but for the first time in a long time, I saw her as the friend she’d been to me before she’d become both more and less. If I didn’t tell her the truth now, maybe no one ever would. Maybe she’d never get off this Ferris wheel she rode. Even though I didn’t care about her the way she wanted me to, I cared about her more than that.
“In all honesty,” I said, lowering my voice, hoping to soften the blow, “even if I didn’t still love Kyra, and even if she decides to divorce me, I’d always know that you were the kind of woman who would sleep with a married man. How would I ever trust you?”
Her face tightened into an angry ball. “You’re a married man who slept with me. How could I ever trust you?”
“Exactly,” I whispered.
She turned on her heel and headed for the building, leaving the shards of her self-esteem at my feet. The enormity of what I’d done hit me once again, and I wondered if Kyra could ever forgive me. I didn’t see how when I couldn’t even forgive myself.
Twenty-Two
It had been almost a week since Kyra had gone to Milan with her sister. I called her every day on my lunch break, which was every night her time. I always started the conversation the same way, and today was no different. “Hey, lover, how was your day?”
“Incredible,” she said. “You wouldn’t believe what we did.”
“Do I want to know?”
“Probably not.”
“Does it involve other men?”
I took her pause to be playfully deliberate. “Yes. Lots.”
“Were they good-looking?”
Another pause.
“Were they straight?”
She laughed. “I didn’t ask, but all except one were awfully effeminate.”
“What about the straight one? Was he attractive?”
“In an old-guy sort of way, I guess.”
I chuckled. “Tell him if he touches you, I’ll kill him.”
“I don’t think it would do any good.”
“He can’t be swayed away from your charms, eh? I can’t blame him.”
“No, he’s deaf.”
“He’s what?”
“Very funny.”
“Hey,” I said, “you’re coming home in a few days.”
“Don’t remind me,” she said.
“Don’t sound so thrilled.”
“It’s just there’s so much to see here.”
“There’s lots to see here, too,” I said. “We’ve got the freeway, Piggly Wiggly, the science museum, and that pool on the corner of Arlington and Sherwood with the green water.”
“And the handsomest man in the world. Don’t forget about him.”
“Who is he? I’ll kill him, too.”
“Be sure to leave me a suicide note if you do.”
“Come home now,” I said, missing her so much it hurt.
“You come here.”
Sometimes we talked until she fell asleep like when we were dating. Sometimes she was on her way out to some fashion gala or another with Marnie and her entourage of Italian designers, and I had just enough time to tell her how much I missed her. Boy, did I miss her.
With each passing day, I fell more and more in love with my wife and more and more terrified she’d remember the incriminating e-mail. I knew the right thing to do was to tell her the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. After all, I’d finally leveled with Danielle and survived to tell the tale. But Kyra was a different story. I wasn’t completely oblivious to the fact that my rationalization was pathetic, but my heart didn’t care.
Danielle didn’t get that job in Leesboro, and I doubt she even really applied, but Thompson had decided to take care of her in his own way. Somehow he got wind of what had happened, and to placate her—or just to remove her from my sight, I’m not sure which—he bumped her up to the finance department. She seemed content now that her cubicle, title, and paycheck were all larger. Even though she still wrinkled her nose like she smelled roadkill every time our paths crossed, she at least wasn’t sulking anymore. She’d moved on, and with my son coming home tomorrow and my wife the day after, I was anxious to do the same.
If Benji and Marnie could both be persuaded not to remind Kyra about my betrayal, we might just be okay. Surely I could get them to see that reminding her of what I’d done would punish more than just me. Did the entire family have to be ripped apart because of my mistake?
Maybe not, hope whispered. Hopefully not.
Thompson called me into his office to tell me he was leaning toward handing the reins to me when he retired next year.
“You know, I was seriously considering Larry,” he said. “He’s a good worker and a heck of a salesman, but not many men would be willing to give this job what you and I would.”
I looked down at his left hand and saw that his wedding band was missing. That would make this, what, divorce number four?
He looked me over, as if considering livestock he might purchase. “You’re one of the only men I’ve known in my life, besides myself, who understands that getting what you really want in life requires a little sacrifice. Heck, a lot of sacrifice.”
I was only beginning to realize the extent of what I’d sacrificed for my job. And that I wasn’t sure whether the payoff was worth it. Of course I didn’t feel that I needed to share that particular information with Thompson just yet. I figured there would be time enough to sort all that out once things were squared away with Kyra.
Though he still seemed to be considering Larry for the promotion too, I didn’t worry. The old man was just hedging his bets. Like he said, no one would give the job what I would.
* * *
You wouldn’t know that Larry and I were not only competing for the same job, but rooting for opposing teams as we split a bag of Doritos and six-pack of PBR, watching basketball on the big screen in my basement rec room.
As usual, my team was winning. They were on fire this season. Even if there was a major upset and they didn’t win this game, they’d still go on to the finals. We both sat on the edge of the couch as my favorite player, Jay Johnson, pump-faked the opposing point guard, then drove the ball to the free throw line. I held my breath and stood as he shot, hitting nothing but net.
“Yessss!” I punched my fist into the air, feeling as if I’d made the jumper myself.
Larry leaned back, took a swig from his can, and pointed the remote at the TV. It went black. “Game over.”
“Oh, come on,” I said. “Your guys still have a whole period left to make it up.” I was egging him on, of course. No way was his team coming back from a twenty-five-point hole.
He stood like he was leaving. “Whatever.”
“Someone’s a poor loser.” Waiting for his ret
ort, I saw something on his face that wiped the smile off mine.
“You really think that, don’t you?”
“Think what?”
“That I’m a loser.”
I looked around like maybe there was a candid camera pointed at me. How did we go from having fun to fighting in two seconds flat? Kyra and I had no problem with that kind of acceleration, but Larry and I? Never. “What are you talking about?”
“Forget it.” He pushed past me and headed for the stairs.
“What’s your problem?”
He stopped and turned around. The look on his face was one I’d never had aimed at me before. I pushed my mind’s rewind button but couldn’t replay a single thing I might have done to earn his anger.
“I’m going home,” he said looking past me.
“Are you ticked?”
“Maybe.”
“Is it the game?”
Halfway up the stairs, he stopped and looked over his shoulder. “Yeah, genius, I’m mad because my lame team lost to the best in the league.”
“What, then?”
He walked back down and stood at the foot of the stairs a few feet from me. One of the empties he held spilled a drip on the carpet. “I’m not supposed to tell you.”
I eyed the leaking can. “Tell me what?”
“Nothing.”
I took all but the full can from him and walked them to the garbage behind the bar. “C’mon, man, spill it,” I said as I put the lid back on.
“Spill what? That you’re a winner and I’m a loser? You don’t do anything wrong, and I don’t do anything right.”
I tried to take a mental step back and analyze what was happening here before reacting. There had to be a logical explanation for his strange behavior. Larry was the one person I could count on when the whole world was against me. I didn’t want to lose that, especially not over . . . well, whatever this was over. “C’mon, Lar, don’t do this. I can’t defend myself against accusations unless I know what they are.”
“If I tell you and you tell Thompson I told you, I’ll kick your—”