by Dave Conifer
It felt even more real as she realized that it wasn’t impossible that her husband had spent some evenings in Atlantic City without her knowledge. It could have been one of the late nights out with his buddies, although those nights were few and far between. It could even have been on a night when she was on an overnight shift at the hospital. It wouldn’t have been easy but he could have done it. She didn’t think that was it. He wouldn’t have left Allie home alone. On the other hand, she didn’t think he’d have an affair, either. But he had.
~~~
“Eddie, man, this is Steve. What’s up?”
“Hey. Where are you? It’s past quitting time. I’m mobile, on the way out,” Eddie reported.
“Me too. Look, I’m not ready to go home. Want to stop off and meet me for a beer or two?”
“Uh, I guess so,” Eddie said. “I never turn down an offer like that. It’s just that Valerie’s expecting me home.”
“We’ll just have one, then,” Steve said. “Come on, man. Be a pal. I need to talk. How about at Izzy’s?”
“Izzy’s? That’s too far. How about Applebee’s?”
“Applebee’s? You’re joking, right? Applebee’s?”
“It’s on the way,” Eddie said firmly. “That’s the best I can do on short notice. Take it or leave it.”
They met outside Applebee’s, five minutes from Eddie’s home and ten from Steve’s. After they were seated and the bartender brought them two draft beers Steve explained what he was so upset about. “I didn’t get the job. I didn’t get that fucking job! I had it in my hands two weeks ago and it slipped away. All because of those goddamned programs that went to shit last week. Who has this kind of luck?”
Eddie took a long drink and positioned his phone on the bar so he could see any incoming messages. “That’s tough, man. You kind of knew it could happen, though. You were already saying that the near-miss on the deadline could be a problem. At least it wasn’t a total surprise. You still have a job, at least. Look at it that way.”
“It was still a surprise and it still sucks. Some fluke problems and I’m out of the picture? I still don’t even understand what happened. I never had so many errors at the same time like that before. It was like a skit on Saturday Night Live. The Retarded Programmer.”
Eddie shook his head. “You programmers are the least funny people on earth.” He rubbed his eyes before taking another swig of beer. “I don’t know what to tell you, except that you’re right. It sucks. It’s a bad break.”
“It gets worse. I didn’t even tell you the worst part.”
Eddie plopped his glass onto the bar and gaped at Steve. “No. No way. Not possible. Not the woman who works for you. No way.”
Steve didn’t have to answer. His scowl said it all. Both men had a few inches of beer left but he signaled to the bartender for another round anyway.
“Dude, that’s got to be the last one. I’ve got to get home. Dinner’s on the table, as they say.”
“What are you, Ward Cleaver now?” Steve asked. “She can wait a few minutes. I need more beer time.”
Eddie checked his phone again. “I’m safe so far. Look, I know it sucks but you have to take the high road on this. Don’t be bitter. Don’t be a dick about it. I know what you’re thinking. Don’t go there. It could be dangerous for you. Just cut your losses and move on. Seriously.”
“I knew you’d say that. Congratulate her and shit.”
“I know you don’t want to hear this, but you’ll just make it worse if you bitch about it. If you feel bad about her beating you out that’ll make you feel even worse. You’ll look like ten times the loser you are now.” He grimaced. “Sorry. You know what I mean.”
Steve drained his glass and took a sip from the fresh one that had just been placed at his elbow. “I’m bitter all right. Let me tell you why. Do you remember when all my troubles started? Who do you think it was that discovered all these so-called problems? Who called me at home and told me about the disaster? And after I busted my ass fixing it all, who called me again three days later to tell me it started all over again?”
Eddie’s glass had been on the way to his lips but it stopped halfway when he realized what his friend was getting at. “You can’t be serious,” he said. “Are you out of your mind? Are you accusing her of sabotaging your programs? Twice? She can’t be that stupid. If she got caught she’d never work in this industry again. This is what I’m talking about. You’re already acting like a maniac. Take the fucking high road for once. Please.”
“Think about it,” Steve argued. “She’s right in the middle of it every time there’s a problem. She’s always the first to know. Is that just a coincidence? She’s always the goddamned first to know. How can you explain that?”
“No,” Eddie snapped. “Wrong. It’s not necessarily a coincidence. Isn’t there a reason for her to know what’s going on with the project? Why is it so unreasonable for her to see it first?”
“Well, sure, maybe. But I just think she had something to do with it. It turned out she had a lot to gain. You can’t deny that.”
“So what? That doesn’t mean she did this. Look, here’s my problem with it. Just because you would do something like this doesn’t mean she would. Not everybody is like you. What was she like when she worked for you?”
“What do you mean?” Steve asked.
“Was she loyal? I just don’t see where this is coming from. Did she ever give you any inkling that she could pull something like this?” When Steve went silent Eddie answered his own question. “I didn’t think so. You better settle down and take this like a man or you’ll really have problems.”
“Speaking of loyalty, thanks for standing by my side on this. It’s nice to know you’ve got my back,” he said sarcastically.
“I am being loyal. I’d be a real asshat if I let you delude yourself like this.” He looked at his phone again. “Gotta’ go. We’ll talk later. Don’t do anything dumb, okay?” He slapped his friend on the shoulder and stood up to leave.
~~~
Jane wanted to talk about what she’d learned, or what she’d thought she’d learned, but she wasn’t sure who to talk to. Most of her friends had husbands who knew Steve. She wasn’t ready for him to know that she knew, so those friends couldn’t be confided in. All the others she could think of either weren’t close enough for something like this or weren’t reliable enough to keep it quiet.
Even if Steve hadn’t been going through tough times at work she didn’t think she would have brought it up with him. Not yet. There were too many questions. High on that list was the identity of the Facebook member who sent the picture. Who is this Mike Albemarle? For all she knew this was a sick joke being played on her by a friend, or even one of Steve’s friends. Besides, guilty or innocent, Steve would lash out at her if she asked him about it, especially with all the stress about not getting that job. She wasn’t interested in enduring that, at least until she knew what was true and what wasn’t.
The painting project began the morning after she worked an overnighter. She dropped Allie at seven-thirty for day care and stopped off for a few groceries before returning home. When Manteo came to start painting she didn’t bother making him wait outside until she was back with Allie before letting him in the house, the way she had with the tile job. He’d never done anything to make her suspicious. If this Albemarle character was right, that was more than she could say for her husband. As soon as he arrived she let him haul his equipment inside and get started.
If he hadn’t been there she would have napped while Allie was at day care. Instead she went to the kitchen to make coffee. When she poured her third cup it occurred to her that she should offer Manteo some. She doubted that he would accept it. These kinds of guys always stop at Wawa first thing in the morning for a giant cup, she told herself. She always saw their trucks and vans parked haphazardly every morning as she drove past. But it wouldn’t hurt to be polite and ask. She wasn’t surprised when she walked down to the den where he was la
ying tarps on the carpeted floor that he turned her down.
“So where do you come from every morning, Rob?” she asked after returning with her own cup and taking a seat on the floor near a stack of tarps. He stared at her without answering. “I mean, where do you live?”
“I got a little place up the parkway.”
“Oh? Where?”
“Where? It’s, uh, up in Pleasantville.”
“It’s nice up that way.”
“Not really.” He unfolded one last tarp and tossed it so it spread perfectly into one last corner. “Good enough.” She wasn’t sure if he was talking about where he lived or how the tarp had landed.
“Do you live by yourself?”
“Yup.”
“Hmm,” she said. “Sometimes I wonder if I’d be happier just being alone like that. No ties, no worries. But I couldn’t live without Allie now that I have her.”
“Or your husband.”
“How could I forget,” she answered flatly. “My dear husband.”
He examined the three paint cans he’d brought in from the truck. They were the spoils of a two hour expedition to a paint store by Jane, Allie and Manteo a few days earlier. He finally found the right one, which he pried open and began to stir with a ruler-shaped paddle supplied by the clerk behind the counter. “Bein’ alone can be good sometimes. Depends on how you ended up that way.”
“How did you end up that way?” Jane asked. “Or was it by choice?” He stopped stirring the paint and stared at the wall for a moment before resuming.
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I don’t know what gets into me. Somebody sprung something on me a couple of nights ago and I have a lot to think about all of a sudden. I guess I lost my head.” She turned for the door. “I’ll leave you alone and let you get to work.”
“You remember the promise I told you about?” he asked, stopping her in her tracks just before she was out of the room.
“You mean about the weight lifting? Sure.”
“It wasn’t really a promise. It was just somethin’ we talked about. Me and my wife.”
“You have a wife?”
“That so hard to believe?”
“No, of course not. I just didn’t know.”
“See, I’d always been skinny as a rail,” he explained. “Six foot five, a hundred and forty pounds soakin’ wet. She was always tellin’ me if I worked out I could bulk up. I always told her I don’t mind bein’ skinny. But she kept saying it. I don’t know why. Well, one day she said it and it rubbed me the wrong way. We had a terrible fight.”
“You had a fight with your wife about weight lifting?” Jane asked.
“Didn’t take long to move on from there but that’s what started it.”
“She must be happy now if she wanted you to bulk up. You’re a giant now. I mean that in a good way,” she added with a smile. “Then again, she doesn’t live with you anymore.” She clapped her hand over her mouth. “There I go again.”
“Those were the last words we ever said to each other. When we went to bed we were both still pissed. Didn’t talk none in the morning. She died in a car crash up north later that day. Well, somethin’ like that.”
Jane drew in her breath and stared at him. “No!”
He stood up and walked over to the supply pile where he grabbed a paint roller and a pole. “My baby girl, too. She was ‘bout the same age as your little girl is now,” he said as he screwed the roller onto the pole.
Jane felt a sting in her eyes. “Oh my God. I had no idea,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
“That’s why I work out the way I do. I made a promise.”
“That’s so sweet, Rob. I had no idea.”
“But just working out wasn’t enough. Not enough for her. So I got me some vitamins. Took ‘em every day. But that wasn’t enough either.”
“What was your daughter’s name?”
“Sara. So I started askin’ around at the gym. Now I take everything I can get my hands on. It worked.”
“How long ago did this happen?”
“Three or four years,” he told her as he poured some of the creamy, tan paint into a crumply metal tray. “Maybe five. At least.”
“I had no idea,” Jane said for at least the third time. “I thought I had it tough. What kind of stuff are you taking? That stuff will kill you, whatever you’re taking. I’m a nurse. I know. I’ve been reading up on it lately since we met. You’re sick, aren’t you? Something’s not right.”
“I don’t care.”
“That stuff will kill you,” she repeated.
“It already is. But I made a promise.”
“To who? Didn’t you say the promise was after the accident?”
“Still made it,” he insisted.
“To who? I’m sure she wouldn’t want you to kill yourself with this stuff. What are you taking? You should stop, Rob. It worked. You did it. You kept your promise.”
“I better get started painting.”
“What did you mean when you said ‘it already is?’”
“Same as you meant. Time for me to get to work.” He walked to the far wall and dipped his roller in the paint. There was nothing for Jane to do but go back to finish the pot of coffee because she knew he was done talking. On her way out of the room she paused to look more closely after seeing what looked like a cell phone in his open sack of tools. It was. Somehow that went against the image she had of this simple man.
~~~
That afternoon Jane felt like she was watching Allie and Manteo hanging out together through a new pair of eyes now that she knew more about his past. I’ll bet he was a good father, she told herself. And Allie knows it, too. She can tell somehow.
While Jane was in the kitchen she saw Allie race past the doorway and then back again with something in her hand. “We made a marshmallow man!” Jane heard Allie yelling at Manteo as she sliced Allie’s sandwich into quarters. She smiled. After nearly a year of pre-school they had enough of those arts and craft projects to fill a U-Haul truck.
“Let me see that,” Manteo said. Jane heard the crinkling as he walked across the plastic tarps to the doorway where Allie must have been waiting. “He looks like somebody I’d like to be friends with, Miss Allie,” he said. Allie’s lunch was ready but Jane didn’t call her in, knowing she was occupied. A few minutes later, when she did finally amble in to eat, she reported every detail of her conversation with Manteo about her creation. All of his comments, of course, were favorable.
When lunch was finished Jane planned to focus on housework, knowing she’d be leaving for work shortly after dinner. “Don’t bother Mr. Manteo,” she reminded Allie. “He’s very busy. Find something else to do.” A half hour later, when she heard Allie and Manteo talking and laughing, she stomped downstairs to repeat the instruction. She poked her head into the den and couldn’t keep from laughing when she saw he’d equipped Allie with a paint roller of her own, and she’d made good use of it on the far wall.
“Allie! I told you not to bother Mr. Manteo!”
“She ain’t botherin’ me,” Manteo said. “I needed somebody to prep them walls.” When Allie wasn’t looking he reached over with his own roller to smooth out a spot where she’d rolled the paint on so thick that it was beginning to drip. “Keep up the good work,” he encouraged her before walking back toward Jane. “You prime the walls and then I’ll paint them. We’re a team.”
“I’m so sorry,” Jane said. “I told her not to—“
“She won’t hurt nothin’,” he said quietly enough that Allie wouldn’t overhear. “I’ll have to do two or three coats on that wall anyway. I like having me a little partner. I’ll keep a close watch on her.”
A few minutes later she heard him stumble into the bathroom for the second time that day. He tried not to make much noise but she was certain that the sound she heard was him retching into the toilet. He did say the drugs were killing him, she thought. If it isn’t that then something else is. She made a note to clean the bathroom u
p before Steve got home.
When he emerged Allie still wanted to help with the painting. Jane made her change out of her school clothes before sending her back in. She wasn’t worried about leaving her alone with Manteo. There just didn’t seem to be any reason to. Not anymore.
Chapter 7
“How did it go at work?” Jane asked cautiously when Steve arrived back home that night. “Did you see what’s her name at all?”
“Cindy. No,” he said with a sigh. “I made sure not to. You know me. I would have gone off on her and made myself look bad. I’m still too pissed off to face her.”
“That was smart.” She almost told him she was proud of him. Ordinarily she would have. With the image of the Atlantic City photograph burned into her brain, though, she couldn’t find it in herself to use those words about him. “Maybe after you get used to it you won’t have to be so careful.”
“I still feel like I got screwed. By her.”
Interesting choice of words, she thought. “You know her better than I do but I’ve heard you talk about her for years. She’s always been there for you. I just don’t think she’s the backstabbing type.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” he said in a smoldering tone. Jane was relieved that Allie strolled in right then. The look on his face told her that another bitter tantrum was coming, the same one she’d already heard about Cindy several times in recent days. He’d probably hold his tongue with Allie in the room.
“Your daughter worked hard today,” Jane commented.
“Hi Allie,” Steve said. “What did you make?”
“No, I painted.” Steve looked quizzically at Jane. “I painted the room. I was the helper.”
“She was painting?” Steve asked. “Here?”
“Why don’t you go see for yourself.”