Amy Maxwell's 6th Sense

by Heather Balog

  “I wanna stay with Allie,” he tells me, batting the long black lashes that any woman would kill for. “Jake and the Neverland Pirates is about to start.”

  “Oh, I like that show,” Colt announces as he plops back down on the bed. “I wanna stay, too.”

  What? What is happening here? We didn’t pay God knows how much money to spend a week watching Disney Channel shows in a tiny hotel room!

  “Guys! We’re on vacation! Let’s act like it! We’re supposed to be doing something fun! Not sitting in a hotel room rotting!” I say.

  “Well, actually, you’re going to the store. That’s not really fun,” says the girl who spends so much time at the mall she could be a professional mall tour guide.

  “Yeah,” Colt pipes up. “I’ll go with you when you get back from the store.”

  “I’ll come with you now,” Lexie offers.

  Of course the chatterbox would be the one to offer to go with me.

  “Fine,” I reply, realizing it is definitely easier to just agree rather than arguing with them. “Come on Lexie.”

  “Don’t forget my mascara!” Allie calls as Lexie and I exit the room. “Don’t get electric blue! This is not 1989 and I’m not Debbie Gibson!” For a second, I’m impressed that she even knows who Debbie Gibson is.

  “And my shoes!” Colt adds. “I don’t want any baby cartoon characters on them like the last time you bought me shoes. Oh, and no Velcro! Velcro is for babies!”

  Rolling my eyes, I close the door firmly behind me, checking twice to make sure it’s locked. Typical of my children...they want me to do all the legwork, but want to feel free to complain when it’s not exactly what they wanted. What brats.

  Lexie and I stroll toward the elevator which is only a few steps from our room. The constant clunking noise it makes adds to the ambiance when trying to sleep.

  “You’ll get what you get and won’t get upset,” I mumble as I punch the elevator button.

  “Huh?” Lexie asks when the door opens and we step onto the elevator.

  “Nothing,” I mumble.

  “Hey, mom, do you think they’ll have those candies I like?” Lexie asks while pressing the button for the lobby.

  “Huh?”

  “You know, those red candies? The ones we got the last time we were in a supermarket when we stayed with Aunt Beth and Uncle Derek at their beach house that they rented? I liked those long red candies and you said they only had them on vacations and now we’re on vacation.”

  I stare incredulously. Lexie is referring to a vacation we took when she was four, over eight years ago. I probably told her that the candy was only sold on vacations to prevent her from asking for the candy when we were in our own supermarket. Not only does she still remember the conversation, she’s still gullible enough to believe it.

  “Well?” She’s waiting for an answer when the elevator doors open and we arrive at the lobby.

  “Um, I don’t know,” I tell her hurriedly, as I rush off the elevator.

  When we enter the main vestibule, I see the line at the front desk is five patrons deep. There’s one angry lady with an armful of sheets, and another who is holding up a blow dryer that is completely burnt out. Nothing like a five-star hotel, I muse, shaking my head. Doubting that the hotel has a reliable shuttle service, and wanting even less to wait on the line, I head out the automatic doors to the front of the hotel. Maybe there’s something close enough to walk to. I wish I could have read the map.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Roger standing in front of the hotel, talking on his cell phone.

  “Wait, I thought we were going to ask about the bus in the lobby?” Lexie says as she trails after me.

  “Change of plans,” I tell her. “Your prodigal father has returned. He can read the map and we won’t get lost.”

  “Huh?” Lexie asks for the umpteenth time.

  “Never mind,” I reply while shaking my head.

  Roger is wandering around in a circle in front of the hotel. Instead of heading toward the hotel entrance, he starts to walk off in the other direction, his phone still strapped to his ear.

  “Where’s Daddy going?” Lexie asks.

  “I don’t know,” I tell her. And who’s Daddy talking to? “Stay right here,” I instruct her.

  Roger is walking briskly in the opposite direction; I need to jog slightly to keep up with him. He ducks behind a bush, causing me to stop suddenly.

  That’s odd. He’s actually acting very squirrelly. I tilt my head so that I can eavesdrop on his conversation.

  “Well, I’m just saying, you almost screwed it up by showing up at the restaurant last night!”

  What? Is he talking to the blond twit?

  The other person must be responding because I can see the top of Roger’s head. He is shaking it like he does when he is annoyed with me, and is waiting for his chance to chime into an argument.

  “That’s exactly why I told you what restaurant we would be dining at! So you would avoid it! Not so you could show up and gawk at her!”

  Gawk at who? Gawk at me? Is he talking about me?

  “Uh, huh. Well, I don’t care. I’ve gone through great lengths to keep this secret and you nearly ruined it. Amy’s suspicious now!”

  Oh, he’s definitely talking about me.

  "Well, we'll have to meet tonight..."

  The other person speaks and Roger bobs his head.

  “Yeah, I know. I’ll work on damage control. You do your part.”

  There’s a brief pause and then Roger adds, “I can’t very well do that in front of her. I’m leaving that in your hands. I gave you my credit card number, just charge everything. I want no expense spared for the love of my life.”

  My heart is frozen in my chest as Roger walks farther away, still chatting angrily. There is only one person he could be talking to—Victoria.

  With clammy hands, I stumble in the opposite direction. I’ve heard more than I ever wanted to. Not only is Roger a cheater, he’s a liar, too.

  In my daze, I step off the curb, not looking both ways, and nearly get flattened by a motorcycle. “Hey watch it, lady!” The guy gives me the finger. I stare at him for a second. He’s oddly reminiscent of the idiot who nearly mowed us down in the airport parking lot yesterday. Or was it the day before? Time has begun to stand still for me, not like it used to when I was on vacation as a kid. Those vacations—the ones I had fun on—simply flew. This one, not so much.

  “Is Daddy coming?” Lexie asks when I reach her. “Did he tell you where the store was?”

  I shake my head. “Let’s just pick up what we need at the gift shop,” I mumble, standing in front of the automatic doors. They don’t open. They’re daring me to jump up and down on them, and have a childish baby tantrum. I feel the tantrum brewing, my overwhelming emotions rising like bile in my throat, threatening to spew forth like Colt’s dinner did on the Scrambler at the local carnival.

  Lexie stares at me like I’ve told her she has been adopted by a tribe of pygmies or something. “But, Mom, everything in the gift shop is so expensive! You said that Daddy would kill us if we paid all that money for something we could get cheaper at the store.”

  Leave it to Lexie to suddenly become savings conscious. “I don’t care what Daddy says,” I snap as the doors finally open. Perhaps those doors just wanted to see me get mad. And I’m mad already. I’m stark raving, plate-throwing, lunatic in a full moon mad. It’s the only thing preventing me from collapsing into a heap and crying right now. “What does it matter? We’re on vacation, after all,” I say, storming into the hotel, Lexie hot on my heels, scratching her head at my bizarre behavior.

  ~Ten~

  “I charge by the head,” the dark, mysterious man says.

  I bite my lip, contemplating how much this is going to cost me. “He’s got a weak heart,” I tell him, shaking Roger’s nitroglycerin pill bottle. “Can I get a discount for him? All you have to do is scare him. Tell him his favorite show is being cancelled or something, an
d don't let him near the pills.”

  The man shakes his head. “That’s not how I operate. I’m a professional.”

  I sigh and hand him the stack of money. “Okay, take them both out then.” The life insurance will pay for half of it anyway. I wish I had paid more attention about that case in the news years ago where the wife chopped the husband up into pieces and stuffed him in the suitcase. I think she’s in prison. She should have hired a hit man.

  I'll have to remember to bury him in his favorite blue shirt and dab my eyes like I give a flying crap about his two timing, good for nothing ass. Gotta make sure I don’t get caught. Although, I’m certain, given the circumstances, not a jury in the world would convict me. All I have to do is show them a picture of the blond bimbo Roger was cheating on me with, and explain how I've given almost half my life to slaving away for him and his children. I just have to figure out how to get a jury of all mothers who have been jilted by their ungrateful, good for nothing husbands...

  “Mom! You didn’t sunblock me the right way!” Allie is wailing as she exits the bathroom, steam trailing out the door behind her. “Look!” She turns around and points at her back. The left shoulder is normal flesh colored, the right shoulder is a lobster red, and the middle of her back is mostly normal colored with a red, blotchy stripe down the center.

  “Sorry,” I apologize, not feeling sorry at all. If a blotchy sunburn is the worst thing Allie experiences on this trip, she should consider herself lucky. At least her heart didn’t get ripped out of her chest and stomped on.

  Oh good God, I’m starting to sound like her.

  “At least she put sunblock on you,” Roger complains as he reaches for the bottle of Aloe Vera on the dresser. “She refused to even put any on me.”

  I glower at him. I want to slap his lobster red face and chest right now. I want to scream at him, and pull the remainder of his hair out by the roots. But I don’t, for the sake of the children. I have spent the entire day keeping it together; avoiding anytime alone with Roger, while making sure Evan didn’t get swept up in the surf, and Colt didn’t wander away to join the volleyball game at the end of the beach. I listened to Lexie’s dissertations on everything from fat people in string bikinis to the phases of the moon affecting the tides. I nodded at the appropriate times and smoothed sunblock onto Allie (repeatedly) as she refused to lie under the umbrella that we had rented. And it was all half-hearted, because my mind kept wandering back to the conversation I had overheard in the parking lot. I just knew this vacation had been a bad idea.

  “You’re lucky I didn’t drown you in the ocean,” I mumble, snatching the aloe bottle out of his hands. My own face is rather burnt. In my hazy, half-hearted state, I didn’t applied any sunblock to my forehead or chin.

  Roger’s mouth drops open and his eyes bulge. He looks like a fish. A trout. Or whatever the ugliest fish in the ocean is. Or the stream. I think trout are fresh water fish. But no matter, Roger is just making himself look plain hideous. Even more so than he already looks to me.

  “What are you staring at?” I snap, squeezing the cooling lotion into my palm.

  “Gosh, you’re cranky,” he says with a smirk. He attempts to wrestle the bottle from my hand. “I know what will make you feel better. Here, let me rub this on you.” He adds a wink, as if I didn’t know where his perverse mind was headed.

  God, he’s annoying. Didn’t my rebuff to his every overture today mean anything to him? He’s like Charlie Brown with the football. He just doesn’t get it.

  “Don’t touch me. Just go away.” I turn my back on him, but not before I witness his grin fade.

  “Well, that’s not nice, Amy,” he admonishes in his hurt little boy voice. He leans closer to me and whispers in my ear, “Didn’t you enjoy last night?”

  I want to smack him right now. How can he possibly speak of our tryst last evening when he was making plans to meet Tinkerbell later! And he gave her his credit card number! In eighteen years he has never given me, his wife, his credit card and said to spare no expense! I huff, grabbing my pajama bottoms, and storm into the bathroom. I try to slam to the door shut, but Roger is right behind me.

  “Go away, Roger,” I growl. After throwing an over-sized t-shirt on, I pull my bathing suit off, and my pajama bottoms on. The fact that I haven’t showered, despite the fact that we spent the last nine hours on the beach, does not deter me. The pain from the grains of sand up my cooch has nothing on the pain in my heart right now. There probably isn’t any warm water left anyway considering everyone else showered.

  “Okay then,” Roger remarks raising his eyebrows in his “Amy is a lunatic” manner. This is usually how he acts when I’m PMSing. You would think he would just stay the hell away, but he never seems to learn. I toss my bathing suit over the towel rack and storm out of the bathroom, Roger hot on my heels.

  He glances at the imaginary watch on his wrist and announces, “Well, it looks like it’s time for everyone to settle down and go to sleep anyway.” He is nearly bouncing on the balls of his feet, overly anxious for our children to go to sleep and I don’t understand why. He’s certain not getting any from me.

  It’s then that I recall the “date” he made earlier on the phone. He’s probably dying to escape so that he can go meet his girlfriend.

  Hmmmm, well, Mr. Maxwell, two can play at this game. I smooth my hands over my frizzy head.

  “You know what? I’m not tired yet. I think I’ll go down to the bar,” I announce, grabbing my satchel with my wallet.

  Roger pales. “What?” His voice is unnaturally high pitched, like when I ask who ate the last serving of ice cream, or who left the empty roll of toilet paper in the dispenser.

  I narrow my eyes at him, daring him to challenge me. Go ahead, make my day. Tell me I can’t go.

  “You’re in your pajamas, Amy. You can’t go to the bar in your pajamas!” He chuckles uncertainly.

  I shrug. “What difference does it make? Who cares if I’m in my pajamas? It’s not like I’m trying to pick someone up. We’re married. We don’t pick people up at bars. Right, Roger?” I beam at him—it’s the fakest smile I have ever plastered on my face. It actually makes my cheeks hurt.

  His pale coloring becomes a delightful crimson shade. He actually looks as if he is going to swallow his own tongue. Good, I think to myself. Squirm, you pig.

  “Well! I’ll see you later I guess!” I call out cheerfully to my family. The children are all engrossed in their own things, the boys and Lexie zonked out watching a movie, and Allie with her face in her phone, oblivious to the world. I probably could have announced Roger’s affair right then and none of them would have even heard me.

  But you would never do that to your children, Amy. As the door slams shut behind me, I am reminded of how Beth’s daughter Jillian got dangerously dragged into her mother’s sordid affair. Thankfully, she still doesn’t know what happened that cold November afternoon when she was picked up from her play-date by someone other than her mother—someone who had intentions of harming her. But still, this is one area of my life that I am determined to be better than my sister in.

  God damn it, Amy! This isn’t a contest! That’s what’s wrong with you, that’s why your marriage is going to fall apart! You always have to try to be better, you always strive to beat Beth and be someone you’re not. And guess what, now Roger found someone that you’re not. He got himself a younger, peppier version of what you should have been.

  Tears are stinging my eyes—tears I wouldn’t let fall during the entire day that my world fell apart. As the elevator opens to reveal an empty compartment, I nearly fall inside. Leaning against the elevator buttons, I sink to the floor sobbing.

  This has to be the worst vacation on record. It even beats the time I got sun poisoning, my period, AND was constipated in California when I was fourteen.

  The doors open way too soon—I had at least eight hours’ worth of sobbing saved up. There is a happy little family on the other side of the doors. I wipe my snott
y nose with the back of my hand and struggle to my feet. The family is staring at me with a mixture of horror and pity. They’re probably wondering how a homeless person got on their hotel elevator.

  Resisting the urge to yell out “Have you seen the security in this place?” or “Vote for Nixon!” just to screw with them, I nod demurely and tuck my chin to my chest, avoiding all eye contact. It’s a relatively small hotel. I could still run into them before we leave.

  The idea of leaving (and the memory of my fantasy from earlier) is still fresh in my head when I sidle up to the outdoor bar by the pool. It’s a gorgeous night, seventy degrees or so, a full moon reflecting on the otherwise darkened ocean. A cool breeze rustles the palm trees, causing me to wrap my arms around my chilled body. The stars are twinkling and the surf is gently crashing up against the sand I sat on earlier with my family, pretending that everything was okay, that my life wasn’t falling apart.

  “What can I get you, miss?” I hear a voice near my right ear. I turn my head and find a sun-burnt college kid with a dopey smile shoving a paper coaster in my direction.

  “Scotch on the rocks,” I order without hesitation.

  College boy raises his eyebrows into his sun-burnt forehead. I wonder if it hurts. He actually has sunburn on his eyelids.

  Leaning on the bar, he offers me a charming smile. “You strike me as more of a Pina Colada type of girl.”

  I shake my head. “I hate coconut,” I lie. In actuality, I love coconut. I really, truly would love a Pina Colada right now, but I need hard liquor. I need to get drunk fast.

  Bar boy tries a different tactic. He points to the machine behind the bar that is slowly churning a reddish icy mix. “We got a brand new strawberry daiquiri machine yesterday. Wouldn’t you like to try it out?”

  “Just pour me a scotch. On the rocks,” I say. “Don’t put any of that sissy tonic in it either.”

  “That’s a mighty potent drink for a lady like you,” he remarks while pulling the tumbler from the shelf underneath the bar.