Like a Woman Scorned

by Hart, Randi

  “Yeah, thanks, Bren. That will work. My coworkers still think it was food poisoning, but since I asked for two weeks off, they’ll need a better story. Appendix is good. Lots of people probably go to emergency rooms thinking they have food poisoning and end up getting their appendix out. Mike will go along with whatever I say.”

  Alison shifted her body in the bed and realized how much she still hurt. She wouldn’t be going anywhere for a day or two.

  Brenda leaned over the bed and spoke quietly, but firmly. “Now listen. I’ve made arrangements to spend a couple of days with you when you go home, no arguments. But the condition is that I get to go through your freezer and food pantry.” Alison laughed at the mental picture of Brenda slinking around the pantry and moving things in the freezer.

  The doctor appeared. Alison introduced her to Brenda, and let her know she could talk in front of her. The doctor spoke positively and had mostly good news. The surgery and immediate recovery had both gone well. Alison would be fine, but needed to take it easy for a few weeks. It would maybe be a month before jogging again. The three of them chatted for a bit, the doctor left, and Brenda stayed for a while longer. Before she left, she gave Alison a small bag of chocolate candy. Alison fell asleep clutching it tightly. It was all she had now to get her through this ordeal.

  Two days later, she was home in her own bed. It would be a while before her life was back to normal. In fact, normal was being redefined. Brenda was there with her for the first few days, a true friend and lifesaver. Alison never told her the bad news. She would never be able to have children. Before the surgery, the doctors confirmed that—for some reason Alison didn’t understand—any subsequent pregnancies for her would probably be ectopic ones. Some kind of a condition called Asherman’s, which Alison planned on researching further. Before going under, she gave them permission to tie her tubes so there would never be that risk again.

  Not that she’d be having sex any time soon.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Three months passed. The newness of spring was excluding Alison every bit as much as Rick had. She couldn’t shake a gloomy, wintery, unsettled feeling. Nothing seemed to help—not playing the workaholic, not resuming her jogging routine, not going out with friends. When she ran now she found she had to force herself to look up, but it wouldn’t last, so she had become one of those runners who are always looking at the ground. She couldn’t concentrate at the movies, it just seemed dark in there to her, and her friends often had to explain obvious things in the plot of the film that she somehow missed.

  Concentration became a problem for Alison. Her mind just didn’t want to focus. Finally, she decided to see a therapist—but she didn’t want to go through her health plan. There was someone in Berkeley she’d heard good things about, so Alison phoned to make an appointment, politely explaining she would pay outside of her insurance plan. From the receptionist’s reaction, that must have been a fairly normal request.

  Susan Josner was her name. She was supposed to be a tough, no-nonsense therapist who had a talent for perceptive listening and getting to the root of a patient’s issues. Tough love was beginning to sound attractive to Allison. Maybe she just needed a push.

  Alison wasn’t disappointed. Her problems were by no means new or unique to Susan, who quickly got to the bottom of the matter.

  “You have how many people working under you?” Susan asked.

  “Ten.”

  “How often do you need to check with your boss before making important decisions?”

  Alison thought for a moment. “Almost never.”

  “You’re a person very much used to being in control. When you got involved with Rick, that was different for you. It was a situation you couldn’t control.”

  “I suppose not,” Alison said. “But I never felt I needed to be in control. Everything with him just flowed.”

  “Nevertheless, it placed you in a vulnerable position you are not used to. Nothing wrong with that, but, unfortunately, you got burned. When he abandoned you with no explanation, it wasn’t much different for you than it is for a person who experiences the death of a spouse, especially considering how close you too became in such a short period. Then the pregnancy and subsequent surgery, and the unfortunate consequences thereof, that was the knock-out punch. Your loss of control resulted in your worst fears, the ones you always avoid by not taking any risks. So, now you are mad. Mad at yourself, mostly, for allowing the loss of control—but since you can’t rationally punish yourself for that, you turn your wrath towards Rick and even the world itself for being such a dangerous place. Some of the anger you are now directing at Rick is unwarranted, because it’s really about not getting the opportunity to choose to keep the pregnancy.”

  It made sense to Alison. According to Susan, the solution was for her to fully deal with her anger. That meant more sessions, of course. The two of them also agreed to a simple plan of purposefully breaking her current routines, and to make a point of engaging in more spontaneous activities, especially outdoor things now that it was spring. It would supposedly help break her out of the confines of her self-protected existence.

  Money well spent—so far, anyway. After the session, Alison decided she would make good use of the rental car, since she had it for the whole day. Why not spend some time in Berkeley, visiting places she hadn’t been to in years? It was a nice day and she realized Susan was right. More spontaneous fun and less rigid schedule adherence was in order.

  Many of the shops Alison remembered were not there anymore, which is to be expected in a college town like Berkeley. She walked down Telegraph Avenue, thinking about all the good times she had in this city back in the day. It was almost a shame she chose to go to UCLA instead.

  Alison thought about losing her virginity here when she was 18 years old. The culprit was her friend, Scott—boy was she crazy about him back then. Scott had decided his role in life was to protect Alison from anyone who could hurt her in any way. That job ended up coming with fringe benefits. He was a junior at Berkeley and she had just graduated high school. They met when Alison spent that summer with her aunt in Oakland. The affair predictably ended badly and was the primary reason Alison decided to go to different school.

  Having a rental car for the day was nice. Maybe Alison should buy a car. Then again, why spend the money when it would just sit in the garage most of the time? Maybe a fun weekend car, a little red convertible for sunny days. Sunny days were nice. Not too many of them in the bay area, though.

  On a whim, Alison phoned her mom in Phoenix and arranged to go visit this coming weekend. She stopped by the rental car place and extended her contract, then went home to pack. After calling Mike to let him know, she rang up Brenda to see if she was interested in going on the road trip.

  “You have got to be kidding. Me, deal with your mother? I don’t think so. Thanks, anyway. Have a good trip. Let me know when you’re back.” They laughed and chatted a few more minutes.

  Alison’s parents were easterners who were frustrated to no end with the casualness of the western lifestyle. Phoenix was offensive to them, but San Francisco much more so. They had both been born into wealth and never quite adjusted to people with different lifestyles, but they chose to live in Phoenix for her father’s health. They weren’t rude about it, but they didn’t blend in at all and made no attempt at it. Alison fought them on the issue as a young adult and kept her parents as far away from her friends as possible. A couple of men she dated when she was a teenager had been so put off by the “grilling of status” they’d received that she never again had a date pick her up at home.

  After she moved to San Francisco, Alison set up her home and life without consulting her parents about anything, which was fine with them. They believed they raised her to know who she was, what she wanted, and right from wrong, so they never interfered. Thankfully.

  The trip to Phoenix was fun. It felt empowering just to drive. Good thing Alison brought along a container of CDs. She hadn’t listened to most of
them in years now, and there were a lot of old favorites in that box. Spontaneous? You bet. Just look, Dr. Josner! She was driving to Phoenix on a whim and getting back into her old music.

  One night in a Southern California motel was necessary, so Alison stayed in Palm Springs—albeit with an ulterior motive. There was a fabulous deli in the area and the next morning she loaded up a throw-away ice chest with goodies to take her family—corned beef, pastrami, chicken salad, breads, pastries, and half-sour dill pickles.

  The visit with her parents went far better than Alison thought it would. Everyone was in a good mood, no issues were thrown in her face, no one was critical of anything she was doing in her life. She almost thought she was in the wrong house. They made a video to send her grandmother, which was a laugh riot, something the family had never done before. When Alison left two days later, it was to hugs and bon voyage with the very best of attitude from everyone.

  Her parents asked her to consider moving back to Phoenix. Not back home with them, of course, but just to live in the same city so they could be a closer family again. They said they could introduce her to “so many wonderful people they’d met.” Alison knew what that meant—so many wonderful single men. They were still hoping for grandkids. No point in killing that dream. It would die naturally for them over the next five years or so. During the drive home, though, Alison actually thought about their suggestion, and quite seriously too—but moving back to that weather after having become a coastal-dweller could be a problem. Still, her current living situation in San Francisco was beginning to lose some of its luster.

  So what was she to do with her life?

  Before she could decide, Alison knew there was a nagging little detail she had to handle, what Susan told her she needed to do: fully deal with her anger. And in order to do that, she had to see Rick. It became clear to her as she drove back through the Southern California deserts. Nothing more, but nothing less was going to work. She had to go to Boston and see Rick, see him in his environment, and come to some kind of understanding about him. Alison needed proper closure.

  She got home early enough to meet Brenda for dinner and reveal her plans. Brenda understood and supported the idea, which was surprising. She even offered to go with Alison, but then remembered she had a big project coming due in the next few days. Time off was out of the question at the moment for Brenda. Maybe that was for the best.

  While Brenda was in the restroom, Alison phoned Mike to see if he could manage without her for a week. Coincidentally, several cases had just been settled unexpectedly, lightening the current workload significantly—so she was free to go.

  Alison and Brenda polished off a bottle of wine with dinner, and then ordered cappuccinos with desert. The mix of alcohol and caffeine seemed to put them in a rare, bold, philosophical state of mind.

  “I don’t know why I need to go there to see him,” Alison said, “I just know that I do. And I have no plans on how to approach him or what to say. I have to play it by ear and see what happens when I get there. I don’t think I really want him to know I’m there, though, so I may have to figure that part out.”

  Brenda stretched her neck out and swirled her large, circular cappuccino cup around in the air in front of her. “Very simple, my dear. You get a blonde wig and colored contact lenses—blue ones. Voila. It would fool him, as long as you also dress modestly. Don’t jog his memory with too much of that fabulous skin of yours.”

  Alison squinted as she held her own big mug with both hands, elbows on the table. “You little devil, you. I haven’t thought of that. Good idea. Okay. It’s set. I’ll go tomorrow.”

  “Ali, please call me from there and let me know you’re okay.”

  “I will, sweetie. Not to worry. See you in a few days.”

  * * *

  The next morning Alison packed a small bag, still having no idea what she was really going to do. But she ordered a pair of blue contact lenses anyway, based on her prescription for her reading glasses, which would be ready to pick up at a Boston eyeglass store tomorrow. She then booked herself a seat on the redeye to Logan and a hotel room at the Ritz. It was close enough to the Public Gardens so Alison could ride the boats again, one of the local treats she always enjoyed.

  Alison managed to sleep for most of the flight after only one mini-bottle of wine with the airline-food dinner. After settling into her hotel room for a bit during the Boston morning rush hour, she put her walking shoes on. The hotel wasn’t far from Filene’s Basement, so she called her credit card bank to let them know she was travelling and then headed out the door for some shopping fun. She’d wait until tomorrow to deal with the reason she came to Boston.

  The day was one of emotions because she could not stop thinking about Rick. It was one thing to be 3000 miles away, but quite another to be only one mile apart. She didn’t sleep well that first night in the hotel room. Twice she woke up thinking she felt him beside her. Then she did something strange. She cried, for the first time since the pregnancy. She just cried, in the middle of the night, there in the dark.

  The next day, Alison got online and found a nearby wig store. She already had the blue contacts, having picked them up in her travels about town yesterday. Then she called Rick’s office. It was only three blocks from the hotel. The girl who answered the phone said he would be in court that morning, but back in the office from early afternoon.

  Alison walked to a nearby café for a breakfast of lox and bagel with chamomile tea. While she was there she put in the blue contacts. The waitress did a mini double-take at her when Alison paid the check, or maybe it was Alison’s imagination. The contacts did make her eyes noticeably blue, like Jennifer Aniston in those stupid commercials she does. Then it was off to change her hair color.

  The salespeople at the wig store raved over Alison’s choice. They insisted she was definitely “a should-be blonde” with those gorgeous blue eyes. It was fun to have that kind of attention, although Alison knew they were primarily motivated by making the sale. Good wigs like that, which looked natural and could actually fool people, were quite expensive. Alison paid plenty for hers. She told the sales staff she would wear it home, and they loved that, cheering her on. She left the store feeling in charge of her destiny for the first time in months.

  Walking in Boston was invigorating, and quite different from San Francisco. Different culture, different history, different values—but an outstanding place to be nonetheless. Alison felt she could easily live here, even with the occasional extreme weather at both ends of the scale. She was fascinated by the architecture of the office buildings in Boston and could spend hours walking through them.

  Her foreign reflection in an office window caught her attention. Wow. Not bad, kid. As Rick’s office building drew near, Alison felt stronger. Maybe there was something to being a blonde after all.

  There was the Starbucks on the bottom floor. That’s the place Rick said he went every day. Now she felt a tiny surge of apprehension. Maybe a good dose of caffeine would fix that. In the doors she went. The young man behind the counter brushed his hair with his hand as Alison approached.

  They delivered her latte, she turned around, and there was Rick—standing right next to her. He was literally inches away.

  Alison found herself in a temporary state of shock. She stood in place and swirled her swizzle stick rapidly. For a brief second, she was sure he recognized her and was about to say something. But then he stepped forward and the barrister handed him a coffee. Apparently, they knew Rick well enough in that place to start pouring it for him as soon as he came through the door. Alison then realized Rick didn’t recognize her and she was pulling it off—so far, anyway.

  As jarring as that experience was, it also seemed natural in a way. Standing next to him, seeing him, this wasn’t something so out-of-place. He looked his same dashing self, one of the most handsome men on the planet by any method you care to judge by. There was no denying that, even if he was a cheating bastard. Heck, maybe all the best looking m
en in the world were all cheating bastards.

  But there was something about his eyes today. They were …vacant, hollow, void of emotion or any feeling. It wasn’t Alison’s imagination. How scary. Maybe there was trouble in paradise already. He had looked right at Alison for a couple of seconds with no discernible reaction. Alison found she had a fleeting moment of sympathy for him. Very fleeting. This was the man responsible for messing up her life, for sending her to therapy.

  He took his coffee and walked out the Starbucks interior doors towards the building elevator. So much for the first encounter. That would do for today. Alison went sightseeing.

  She went back to the Starbucks the next day, however, at a time when business was slow. Two young men who worked there and were obviously smitten with her appearance struck up a conversation with her. One of them said he remembered her from yesterday. Alison mentioned she was out of work and looking for a job, waiting for agencies to call back, and thought this seemed like a great place for her to hang out as there were no weirdoes around. So she sat down and played with her cell phone, perused a magazine, and occasionally chatted further with the two male staff members. Both of them seemed determined to cater to her every need, to the obvious chagrin of the girl who was also working there that day.

  Rick showed up at 9:30 to get a coffee. An hour later he was back for another. Alison took a risk and asked the girl barrister who the gorgeous man was.

  “Oh, that’s Rick. He’s an attorney in the building. He’s the nicest guy in the world, but just got married again and has been acting a little strange ever since. Don’t know what’s going on, but he’s sure a doll. Always nice to us.”

  With that report, Alison knew she was done. Her days as a spy were over, and she felt a bit silly. The airport and San Francisco were suddenly beckoning. This wasn’t helping as much as she thought it would. Her emotions were flipping and flying because each time she saw him, she was torn between wanting to kiss him and throwing her coffee in his face. Alison went back to her hotel and booked herself on the next flight out.