Nothing but Trouble

by Cathy Quinn

  A kid who looked barely old enough to be in high school passed them with a wolf whistle. “Hot girlfriend you’ve got, Dr. Rogers.”

  “Thank you,” Robert called after the kid. He was grinning widely when he turned his attention back to her. “Are you my hot girlfriend?”

  She made a face at him. “I don’t know. Are you my nerdy boyfriend?”

  “Oh, yes. I’m just waiting in the wings for you to choose me over George.”

  “Mmm.” She leaned into his hands moving over her scalp and closed her eyes. “You win. George never gives me massages like this.”

  “How was work?”

  “Tiring. And I haven’t been kissed in ages.”

  “Ah. I was getting to that.”

  Her eyes snapped open at that promise. “There are still some students around. Won’t you get fired for indecent behavior?”

  “Just keep your hands off my butt and we’ll be fine.”

  She was still laughing when he kissed her, but it was just as heady as before. Perfection.

  “I’ve got great news,” he said, drawing back, but not letting go of her. “You’ll never guess what it is.” He paused for effect. “Aphelion is pregnant.”

  “Aphelion? Pregnant?”

  He nodded. “About a month. We’re going to have a tiny chimp baby in about seven months. Isn’t it amazing?”

  He sounded like a proud father, and the glow on his face stirred her unease again. Robert and babies were a factor she had been pushing out of reach. “Is she doing okay?”

  “She’s great.” He chuckled. “Apparently, chimpanzees have cravings just like human females. She’s been asking for tuna fish, of all things.”

  “Tuna fish?”

  He nodded. “While we were at your place, remember how she loved to tease Copernicus by stealing his food? Now she keeps asking for ‘cat dinner’”

  “And you’re sure she means the cat’s dinner and not the cat for dinner?”

  “I got chalk dust all over you.”

  She looked down at her burgundy blouse. Sure enough, it was flecked with white. Robert started dusting her off with his hands and she was quite enjoying the process until she remembered where they were. She stilled his hands. “Uh, Bob? Indecent behavior, remember? What you’re doing is probably higher on the indecency scale than me grabbing your butt.”

  He released her and turned towards the podium, where he threw some papers and miscellaneous stuff into a briefcase. “You’re right. Let’s go.” He grabbed his briefcase and pulled her with him towards the exit. “Let’s go somewhere we can be indecent in peace.”

  They only had two days of indecent bliss until Linda had to leave for work again. She had managed to adjust her schedule so that she was on the flight bringing Chris and Ellen back home from London. They’d be staying for a couple of weeks, working out their notices and getting the last of their belongings in order for the move south.

  By Saturday, the house was crowded again. Ellen had been reunited with her cat, and was busy preparing him for the move to a warmer climate. When Copernicus had had enough of her lecturing, he scampered off, leaving Ellen to turn her attention to Linda. “So. When are you going to tell me about you and Robert?”

  “Why do you think there’s something to tell?”

  “You’ve mentioned him five times in two hours and always with a smile.”

  “Oh.”

  “So, are you going to tell me?”

  “Okay... He... may have stayed the night occasionally, even when the kids weren’t here.”

  Ellen gasped. “Really? Oh, wow, that’s great.” She paused and gnawed on her lip. “And, uhm, I suppose that does mean you have ... ”

  Linda bit her own lip to keep the smile back. “Yep.”

  “Oh,” Ellen sighed. “This is so romantic. And did you...”

  “Yep again.”

  Ellen grinned broadly. “That’s terrific. I knew it would happen. When I told Chris, he said you just needed to find the right guy.”

  Linda rolled her eyes. “That’s such an old-fashioned, chauvinistic, romantic, illogical remark. Women are responsible....” She broke off as Ellen's remark sank in. “You told Chris?” Her voice rose to a shriek. “You told Chris I couldn’t have orgasms?”

  Ellen grimaced. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have, I guess?”

  Linda’s forehead hit the table with a thud. “Rule number one, Ellen.” She stuck one finger up above her head. “You do not talk about my sex life with your husband.” Another finger. “Rule number two and this one is even more important: When you break rule number one – and you will – under no circumstances do you tell me about it. Got it?”

  “Got it. Sorry.”

  Linda whimpered. “How am I going to face Chris again?”

  “Talking about me?”

  Linda pushed her forehead deeper into the scarred wood of the table and felt that newly familiar heat spread over her face once more. Ostriches had the right idea. A pile of sand would come in handy now. “No. Go away, Chris. Far away. Girl-talk. You’re not invited.”

  “Linda and Robert are together now,” Ellen informed him.

  “Really? That’s great. Did you—“

  “Yes!” Linda interrupted, straightening and glowering at him. “I had an orgasm, okay? A whole bunch of them, in fact. I’m all cured, no problem anymore. There! Is that what you wanted to know? Any more questions about my sex life?”

  Chris froze in place, met her furious gaze briefly and turned his attention to the wallpaper behind her, his face red. He fidgeted, then backed towards the door. “I was just going to ask if you’d sorted out that quadruplets business... but I think I’ll just leave now.” He pivoted around and fled, his footsteps echoing around the house as he ran up the stairs.

  Linda banged the table again with her forehead. “Oh, God. You guys will be the death of me,” she moaned. “You two and Robert. I have hardly blushed at all since I was seventeen and now my face constantly thinks it’s a ripe tomato.”

  Mercifully Ellen changed the subject. “I look really forward to meeting the quadruplets next weekend.”

  “It’ll be crowded. The four of us and the four of them.”

  “Mom already dug up a bunch of toys from when I was a kid. It’ll be fun.”

  Linda chuckled. “You’ll find out in a few days just how exhausting ‘fun’ can be.”

  “You were right,” Ellen was admitting by Friday afternoon, as she picked pieces of play dough out of Alexander’s hair. “This is exhausting.”

  With four adults to torture, the kids were even more energetic than usual. Linda laughed. “You’ve got it easy. You should have witnessed the first few days with them. I didn’t think I’d ever recover.” She glanced at the clock. “I’ll just run to the phone for a second, okay?”

  She sprinted down the stairs to the phone and called her doctor. For two weeks she’d been meaning to make an appointment to get birth control pills. But now she’d finally remembered to call and could scribble the appointment down in her diary.

  “Wednesday at two. Thank you, doctor.”

  “You were making the doctor’s appointment?”

  Robert was staring at her from the doorway. She smiled and snapped her diary shut. She’d told him she was going on the pill? She didn’t remember, but she must have. “Yes. Wednesday.”

  “Don’t do it, Linda.”

  For a moment she didn’t understand what he meant, but then she realized. He must think she was going ahead with the tubal ligation, and he was looking like she was about to donate both her kidneys and half her brain.

  His gaze was hot and intense as he finally moved towards her. “You can’t do this.”

  “I’m not...” She took a step away from him, panic coiling inside and blocking her first instinct, to tell him the truth. He hadn’t challenged her decision directly before, but now all her system went automatically on full defense. What he thought might as well be the truth, so there was no point in telling him otherwise.
She was as determined as ever that children would not be a part of her future. If he was going to flip over that, this was as good time as any.

  “Linda, don’t do this!” His voice was raised. He slammed the wall with his fist and closed his eyes for a moment, then continued in a lower tone. “Not now. There’s so little to gain and so much to lose. You can’t do this.”

  “This is none of your business. It’s my life. My body.”

  “You haven’t even told me why, Linda! I don’t think you even know yourself. I don’t know what happened with that stepson of yours, but it can’t have been bad enough for you to make such a drastic decision so young. And things have gone so well with the quadruplets.” He reached out towards her, but let his arm fall down as she pulled away. “This doesn’t make sense. Think about it. Just wait a while and think if over.”

  “There’s no point in thinking it over. I’m not changing my mind. I know what I want. I told you from the beginning I would never want children. You always knew.”

  “I’m not asking you to have my children,” he bit out. “I’m just asking you to wait. And believe it or not, I’m thinking about your best interest, not mine.”

  She felt cornered off. “You have no idea what’s best for me,” she said, clutching her diary to her chest. “And you have no business interfering in my life.”

  His laugh was quick and abrupt, radiating surprised fury as he stepped even closer. “Well, that puts me in my place, doesn’t it? Your life is none of my business? You are none of my business?”

  “Let’s just drop this subject, okay?”

  “No! We’re talking this through. I am a part of your life now, Linda. You can’t deny that. Just cancel the appointment for now and we’ll talk about this.” He touched her cheek with one finger and for a moment she could see tenderness behind the barely restrained anger in his eyes. “We’ll talk and work something out. Then, if you’re still sure later, you can always go through with it. Or some other ways to make sure you’ll never get pregnant.” He paused, cupped her face in his hand and continued, his voice low and intense. “If that means anything to you, Linda, I can imagine my future without children. But even after such a short time, I have a lot of trouble imagining it without you.”

  Claustrophobia ambushed her, and a landslide of panic and intense regret followed. It had all been too good to be true. She hadn’t listened to that nagging voice warning her not to fall in love with him, and now she was reaping the rewards. She wasn’t sure if this was his way of telling her he loved her, but whether it was or not, now was the time to end this. She’d entangled him enough in this mess already for him to even suggest making such a sacrifice for her.

  She looked in his face, squarely at the middle of his forehead. “This isn’t going to work out. You and me, I mean. This is just one of many things that come between us. We should just quit before we get too involved. Else we’re just asking to be hurt.”

  Dead silence. She kept eye contact with his forehead, the heaviness in her chest feeling worse by each ticking silence. “Say something, damnit,” she burst out when she couldn’t take it anymore.

  “You could at least look me in the eyes when you impart news like that,” he said dryly. “I know the forehead trick. I’m a teacher. It’s a trick my students are fond of when they’re nervous.”

  She lowered her eyes and felt guilty heat bloom in her cheeks as she met his serious gaze. “I’m sorry, Robert. But it’s the truth. You know I’m right. There’s no point in continuing something that has no chance.”

  “Why are you deciding we don’t have a chance?” She shook her head, fighting against the lump in her throat. “Just because of the kid issue?”

  She nodded. “I suppose that’s the visible part of the iceberg. It just shows how different we are, that we want different things in life.”

  “You think I’m objecting so that I can someday pressure you for children?”

  “No,” she said honestly. He was close, but yet so far. She was worried he wouldn’t pressure her for babies. That he would willingly forgo such a vital part of life for her. It was a sacrifice she couldn’t allow him to make. “That’s not it, Robert. It’s all sorts of things. You know that we’re opposites in so many ways.”

  “We are alike in a lot more ways than we are different, Linda. And I know we can reach some sort of a compromise on things. We’ve been doing so great. Why are you determined to ruin what we’ve got?”

  She knew what compromises meant: meant ending up with a solution neither party was happy with. “I’m sorry, Robert. I guess I knew all along, but we had such a good time together that I ignored it.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I think we’ve taken this relationship as far as it can go.” She’d read that quote somewhere. It had sounded good at the time. It sounded rather lame now. “It’s over, I guess. I won’t let you interfere, this is my life, my body, my decision.”

  “Don’t, Linda.”

  “We were never compatible anyway,” she relentlessly pushed on. “It should have been obvious from the beginning that we are too different.” She turned her back to him and headed for the door. “I’d really like to be alone for a while. Will the three of you be okay with the kids if I go for a drive?”

  She didn’t wait for an answer. Grabbing her jacket, she ran out of the house, in a hurry to get to her car before she started crying.

  Robert had looked hurt and furious, both at once. She had meant to alienate him. Mission accomplished and she felt more miserable than she ever had in her entire life. She started her car and headed straight for the nearest supermarket. If there ever was a chocolate-emergency, this was it.

  She entered the store, grabbed a cart and trudged listlessly through the aisles of the supermarket, her mind on one thing and one thing only: chocolate. Chocolate chip cookies, chocolate ice-cream, chocolate in any size, form or shape. If they stocked chocolate shampoo, she’d buy it and indulge in a long, hot, frothy calorie-laden shower.

  She forced the stubborn cart to take a squeaky turn, and entered Paradise, known to the infidels as the chocolate aisle. Ah. Herein lay the cure for a broken heart.

  One minute later she was storming out of the store, rushing for her car. She made it inside and slammed the door, just as the first tears started spurting.

  “You do not cry in the chocolate aisle,” she yelled at herself and banged her head against the steering wheel.

  Robert had really done it now. He had tainted her most sacred shelter. She had been greedily reaching for a family bag of mini-Snickers when the image of him laughing as he fed her tiny bites had blasted her brain. She’d dropped the bag and stood there frozen, remembering, and then had no choice but to rocket out of there before she melted into a puddle of lovesick regret. Low-fat puddle at that.

  How was she going to get through life without chocolate to sustain her through the worst of times?

  She went for a long drive, then drove slowly back home, and stopped at a local store to buy chips and ice-cream and all sorts of non-chocolate candy, even marzipan, an old family favorite. It wasn’t the same, but at least it was something.

  Back at her chocolate-deprived home, she snuck past the playroom, intending to make it to her room alone. There were three of them to watch the children, she wasn’t needed. But she didn’t make it.

  “Iiiiida!” came from the playroom, and a beaming David stood at the small gate, holding out his hands. She couldn’t resist that. She put down her shopping bag and lifted him up, burying her nose in his neck, and said a muffled hi to Ellen who seemed to be the designated babysitter for the moment.

  “Inna!” David yelled and pointed at her bag. She smiled at him, rather proud of his recent increase in vocabulary. After “Iiiida”, the words just didn’t stop coming.

  “That’s right, kiddo. It’s almost dinnertime.”

  Christine demanded her attention and Linda put David down and picked up his sister for a short chat. By the time
she was returned to the floor, David had managed to pick apart her shopping bag and stuff his face with candy.

  “David! Sheesh. Let’s try to keep this snack from your uncle, okay?” she muttered as she wiped the mess off his face. “I’m guessing marzipan and licorice isn’t all that nutritious.”

  Footsteps sounded on the stairs and Robert appeared. He paused in the middle of the stairs and looked rather intimidating, even when looking up at her. “You’re back.”

  “Yes.” She avoided his gaze and returned David on the inside of the playroom.

  He kept advancing up the stairs, not taking his eyes off her. “Can we talk now?”

  “No.” She turned on her heel and escaped to her room, closing the door quietly. She heard Robert pause outside the room, but after several knocks that she didn’t answer, he strode away, cursing.

  Tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough. The kids would be picked up around noon, Robert would vanish and then she could begin working on getting life back to normal.

  Until then: a whole night of insomnia to look forward to.

  There was a harsh knock at her door. She woke up, feeling disoriented and looked at the clock. Six. The kids would be up already.

  “Linda, it’s Robert. Are you up yet?”

  “Robert,” she repeated and sat up in bed, almost feeling Cupid’s arrow, rusty from all those tears, twisting in her heart knowing she would never again call him Bob. “What is it?” she called.

  “I need your help. It’s David.” He paused. “Don’t be alarmed, okay?”

  Nothing provoked panic more quickly then the warning not to panic. Why couldn’t men realize that? She reached for her robe, threw it on and opened the door. Robert and Ellen were standing outside the door, looking worried. “What? What’s wrong?”

  “Probably nothing. He looks just fine, but...” He broke off and took a deep breath. “There seems to be some blood in his diaper. I can’t reach Eric and Holly, so I have to take him to the hospital myself. Would you watch the other children?”

  “Blood? Oh, my God. What can be wrong?” Linda was already dressing, her back to him as she pulled on her clothes. Fear was boiling in her blood, making her hands tremble, and inevitable she thought of little Barry, another sick child, another early morning emergency. “What can cause that?”