by Nancy Naigle
Katherine had been perfectly happy with her Ford. But when bonus time came around at the bank, Ron had practically insisted she treat herself to the expensive ride. So she had.
When she was in college, her visions of joy had been simple, and not nearly this much work. Sandy beaches, sunshine, pretty drinks with umbrellas, tender hugs, and sharing beautiful moments.
But then if anything was going to change, she’d have to make an effort to make a change too.
She got through her meetings and was out of the office by eleven.
Still feeling hopeful that she could somehow wrangle a romantic weekend for the two of them, she headed for Ron’s office. Nothing like a surprise on a Friday to put a smile in someone’s day. A quick lunch at their favorite little restaurant, and then they could plan the weekend. If not a trip to Hilton Head, maybe at least a little day trip to do something together.
Her mood buoyed. Even the crazy afternoon traffic wouldn’t bother her today. She took the exit for Ron’s office. In this section of Atlanta, the tall buildings shaded the road from the hot summer sun, but the air still undulated above the hot pavement.
She sat at a stoplight just a few blocks from Ron’s building with her blinker on. The guy in the car next to her smiled and waved. He must have been wondering why she was sitting in traffic with a big goofy grin on her face.
The streets crawled with businesspeople in a hurry to squeeze in a quick break, or a working lunch. She was thankful the LOT FULL sign wasn’t up at the parking garage. Sometimes it was nearly impossible to get a spot in this part of town on a Friday. She got lucky and found one on the second level of the parking garage. As she took the stairs, rather than the elevator, she smiled at a woman who was also walking up. These days, with all of the hours you spent behind a desk, you had to work in a little exercise any way you could.
Katherine headed up the block toward Ron’s building. Unlike in the bank, anyone could go up and down the elevators. She dialed his cell but there wasn’t an answer. She called his office line and his secretary answered.
“Hi. It’s Katherine Barclift,” she said as she wove through the maze of elevator banks to the one for floors 11–26, and pressed the button. “Can I chat with Ron?”
“I’m sorry. He’s in a meeting.”
“Oh. That’s okay. I’ve got some time. I’m here in the city. Maybe I’ll just come up and wait.”
“You know, it’s one of those all-day things. I don’t know when he’ll be available.”
This was exactly why she didn’t usually do spontaneous. It rarely worked out for her. Nope, she should have made a plan. “Okay, will they be breaking for lunch?”
“They’ll have to eat, I suppose. Maybe at the top of the hour?”
Clueless didn’t begin to explain this girl’s reaction. Katherine hated it when people seemed to be winging it. “Just let him know I called, then.”
“I’ll tell him.”
Katherine had her doubts she’d even deliver the message. She’d just call him herself in about thirty minutes. Where to wait, though?
The arrow lit, and the elevator door opened. She nodded to a couple of Ron’s exiting coworkers she didn’t know by name, but recognized from the Christmas party last year.
She decided to head on down to her and Ron’s favorite little bistro and order a salad or appetizer while she waited. If she called at the top of the hour, maybe she’d catch him and they could meet for a short lunch.
People were coming in and out of the building so fast that the revolving door looked like it would never stop spinning.
She timed her entrance into the swift moving contraption and it catapulted her back out onto the street. Heading east a couple blocks, she spotted the familiar bright red awning of the Carpe Diem Bistro.
A young man in black pants, a white shirt, and a red bow tie greeted her immediately. “Just one?”
“I’m meeting someone,” she said, and then quickly added, “He’s running late.”
“No worries. I can seat you now.”
“Can I get a booth? With a little privacy.”
He gave her a wink. “I have just the one. Follow me.”
Feeling a little more confident that she might be able to salvage the not-so-impromptu lunch date now, she relaxed a little and followed him to the corner booth.
“Can I get you something to drink while you wait?”
“A glass of chardonnay would be great.”
“On its way.”
She settled in and checked her phone for an update from Peggy. She hoped things were going okay. Knowing that your husband is unfaithful had to be the worst feeling. But there weren’t any messages or emails from her.
A different waiter brought her a glass of wine. “I’ll be back in just a bit for your order.”
She sipped her wine until it was just a few minutes until the top of the hour. She’d try calling Ron then. Hopefully he’d pick up his personal cell phone, or she could at least leave him a well-timed voice mail.
At exactly one o’clock she dialed Ron’s phone. He finally picked up on the fourth ring.
Her mood lifted. “Hi. How busy are you?”
“Hey, Katherine. Everything okay?”
The meeting must still be going on. He sounded hushed and in a hurry.
“I’m fine. Finer than fine.” She lifted her shoulders and let them drop. “Fantastic. I thought we could get together for a quick lunch.”
“Oh, hon. It’s not a good time. You should’ve called.”
“I left you a message. I guess you didn’t get it.” She shifted gears. “When will you be done? I can wait.”
“No. I’m in an all-day meeting. I just stepped out here in the hall to take your call, in case it was important.”
“There’s kind of an echo,” she said, pulling the phone from her ear.
“Must be the hall.”
Only it wasn’t. Because it wasn’t echo so much as stereo. She edged forward and looked across the way to the booths over and behind her.
The waiter approached her with a “you ready” look.
She held up a finger and he disappeared.
The man in the blue button-down shirt with the sleeves turned up just-so who sat across the way . . . he didn’t need to turn around for her to know who he was.
The way his hair waved in that one spot, and the way his watchband hung like it was a little too loose on his left arm, which always drove her a little crazy, was all it took.
She pulled back into her seat, clutching the phone close to her ear, trying not to completely lose it right then and there.
Chapter Four
Katherine slid further toward the wall in her booth. Not just to hide, but to catch her breath. The smells of the food in the bistro made her stomach roll like oil in a fryer.
Breathing, that thing your body knows how to do without thought. Her body had suddenly forgotten how.
She sucked in a deep breath and risked leaning out to look again. Katherine watched her husband hold his shiny red iPhone case to his ear. He reached his hand across the table to hold someone else’s, and his cheeks tugged in a smile.
“An all-day meeting?” she repeated, watching intently to gauge his response. “They won’t even let you out for like a fifteen-minute lunch break? I don’t mind waiting. I could meet you somewhere. Just a quick bite in your office, even.”
She watched the line of his jaw as he spoke. Though she couldn’t see him face on from her angle, the words coming across the phone line synchronized with his every movement.
She lifted a finger to the corner of one eye, and swept at the tears that were making her vision blurry.
So this is what it looks like to have no idea at all.
Thoughts of Peggy flooded her mind, and that place in her gut that was so hungry just a few minutes ago tightened into a coil.
The blood pulsing through her veins was so loud she’d missed half of what he’d just said.
“And I’ll probably be late tonight. You know how these things are, babe.”
Babe? “Of course. Yeah. Sure.”
She watched him shove the phone in his pocket and slide his arms across the table toward that woman. There was no explaining it away.
Late? How many times had he been late recently?
She sat there staring.
At him. Her husband.
At that woman. Younger than she was. The woman had short, wispy dark hair. Her total opposite. Ron about came unglued every time Katherine had a hair appointment. He liked her hair long and simple. He loved blondes. That woman was not his type.
At least that’s what she’d thought.
But Ron’s attention was so focused on the woman that he didn’t seem to notice a thing around him, including her.
Her body refused to budge to get out of his view. All it would take would be one glance across the aisle and he’d be looking right at her, slack-jawed and all. She gasped, sucking air, but seemingly unable to get her lungs to take it in. They . . . her husband and some other woman . . . sat there with nearly empty plates in front of them. The image of them bounced around in her head, burning into her brain. An image that didn’t belong.
With her back to them in the booth, she lifted her phone above her head and snapped a picture. It made that loud, old-timey camera sound.
She practically folded in on herself as she yanked it from the air. So much for being sneaky.
She hit every button she knew of on her doggone iPhone to quiet it. Then she held the phone again like she was going to take a selfie . . . only the camera was reversed, facing across the way . . . toward Ron’s table. Silently, she captured the image.
A moment later they slid out of the booth.
She snapped another as they headed for the front door, as she pretended to make her way to the ladies’ room.
He held the door for her, that woman. His smile, the one that normally charmed her socks off, made her teeth grind. The woman ducked under his arm like she was doing a well-executed cross-body lead in a sexy mambo. When was the last time he’d held the door for her?
Katherine tilted her head down, pretending to focus on her phone, all the while snapping a loop of pictures of them as they crossed the street. Holding hands.
And then as if there were any inkling of hope in her heart . . . she watched them as they stood at the crosswalk. Ron lifted his hands and placed them on the sides of the woman’s face. And then he kissed her.
Katherine’s mouth dropped open.
She knew that move. She could almost feel the heat of his hands against her cool cheeks. His warm mouth. It melted her heart the first time he’d ever done that to her. It had melted her heart this morning . . . again . . . for the last time.
Click.
She stood there, frozen to the spot. A tear of frustration traced her cheek to the corner of her mouth. She swept it away and ducked inside the bathroom. The pounding in her head blurred her vision with each beat in a dizzying effect. Her heart felt like it would explode out of her chest.
Her watch read 1:09 p.m. A quick glance at her most recently dialed numbers showed she’d called him at 1:01 p.m.
Those eight minutes felt like eight hours of adrenaline-forged hiking.
She stepped out onto the street to find them, but however long she’d been in the bathroom pulling herself together had been long enough for them to get a pretty good head start.
Standing there with no idea what to do next was like being stripped naked on Main Street.
Katherine walked up to the next block, but still didn’t see them. Her mouth was so dry she could barely swallow. She stepped inside the Starbucks and paid for a bottle of water and a biscotti.
On the street she scanned the people again. No sign of them.
She unscrewed the cap off the water bottle, and of course the flimsy plastic collapsed, spurting water across the front of her shirt. She took another sip and then shoved the bottle in her purse.
Slowly moving up the block, she manipulated the biscotti in her hand, the crinkle of its cellophane wrapper bringing her some kind of weird peace as she tried to figure out what her next step was.
She’d prayed for a change. Practically danced across the parking garage at the thought of it. Now this? Had God answered the wrong prayer? Maybe she hadn’t been specific enough. And damn if those words that she’d thought about Peggy weren’t raging in her head, slashing at her with a big fat don’t-judge reminder from her mom. How could she not know?
That last conversation with Peggy and her own unspoken judgment felt like payback. Maybe everyone else knew about Ron and what he was doing too. Maybe it wasn’t even the first time. Would that make it worse? One time was enough damage, wasn’t it?
The tsunami of thoughts flooded her brain.
He couldn’t or wouldn’t give her even fifteen minutes, but he sure did give Miss Thing his undivided attention. Seriously? He could have squeezed her in, kept his secret, and still played playboy for a long lunch . . . if he’d wanted to. If she’d been important enough.
No one was that busy. It was just a matter of where you were in his priorities. It was that simple. He hadn’t been willing to give her an inch.
The biscotti crumbled inside the plastic wrap. She hadn’t had any intention of eating it anyway, but she’d about tortured the innocent almond pastry into a limp heap.
She debated confronting Ron.
What purpose would that serve? Maybe she should have done that in the restaurant. Stepped pretty as you please right up to his table, and then said, “Hello, dear.” Laid a big wet kiss on his mouth and told little Miss No Good, “I’ve got this.” Shooshed that pixie-haired woman off with a flip of her hand like she was nothing.
What did she expect to get out of that, though? An apology? She’d more likely get an excuse. Was that what she wanted? And even if she got the apology or the excuse, was it enough?
She pressed the button on her phone and pulled up the pictures she’d taken. She tapped the screen and spread her fingers to enlarge the image.
He looked perfectly happy. Not even guilty. You’d think he’d have had the decency to at least find a new restaurant, not recycle her favorite lunch spot with that woman. Was nothing sacred?
She was pretty. Katherine wanted to think she was ugly. Pretty is as pretty does, Mom had always said. Did she know he was married? Did she even care? Must be nice to have such long manicured nails. She glanced at her own nails. Void of polish. It was too hard to keep them looking nice with all the typing she did.
Maybe that woman didn’t even work. Maybe she had all day, any day, to spend with Ron. How do you compete with that?
Katherine brought up Shaleigh’s number on her phone. She’d know what to do, but Peggy had said they’d been gathering things for weeks to get ready for her separation from Tucker.
There was no way Katherine was going to keep her cool that long. Peggy probably deserved an Oscar. Besides, why suffer through even one weekend of silence when she could face Ron head-on and be done with it.
She tossed the crumbling package of biscotti into the trashcan. He didn’t need to bother coming home tonight. Late or otherwise.
Katherine made her way back to Ron’s office on heavy legs. She paused to lean against the hard concrete of the black-glassed building she’d always called Darth Vader. Weighing her options, her mood was as ominous as the dark building.
She stood there in Vader’s shadow. May the force be with you. The words echoed in her head as she pushed herself onward.
She pushed through the spinning doors and right into the same elevator to Ron’s floor that she’d almost gotten on earlier.
Two o’clock. Too much to take in.
The receptionist s
miled politely when Katherine walked in, but Katherine didn’t bother to stop to chitchat or ask her to announce her arrival. She whisked right by her instead.
Katherine knew the way to Ron’s office. She’d helped him hang the pictures she’d picked out for it when he got his last promotion.
“Mrs. Barclift,” the receptionist called as she closed in on her from behind, her high heels making little scuffing noises in the plush carpet as she ran down the hall. “I’m sorry. I can’t let you just come back here.”
Katherine put her hand on the knob of Ron’s office door, and threw it open without so much as a glance back at the girl.
The office was dark. Not a paper or laptop on the desk. Not a darn paper clip out of place.
She turned and stared at the receptionist, tilting her head as if the thoughts in her head would just somehow inform the girl what she was thinking.
With a quick intake of breath, like someone getting ready to dive into icy waters, the girl said, “He’s been gone most of the day.”
“The meeting?” Katherine choked out.
She shook her head. The lie creeping in in the form of a red rash up her neck. “I’m sorry. I don’t know. He said he wouldn’t be back in today.” The girl looked afraid. Probably afraid for her job. Maybe afraid of what Katherine was going to do. It was probably wise, because Katherine wasn’t quite sure what she was going to do either.
“Can I have one minute?” Katherine tried to sound calm.
“Of course,” the girl said with a look of panic. “Just don’t break anything. Please?”
Katherine stepped into the office and closed the door behind her.
The smell of Irish Spring soap and Ron’s aftershave intermingled in the air. She walked over to his desk.
The picture of the two of them on their honeymoon wasn’t on his desk anymore. Neither was the one where they’d been in the Caribbean celebrating Christmas island-style.
Slowly looking around the room, there wasn’t one picture of her. It was like she’d never existed. The thought made her throat ache with regret. No evidence of their life together. Except there, on the bookshelf, was a picture of her new car. Thanks, man.