"It's...okay. As far as I know, he started a couple of years after we married. But I don't know if that's his problem now. He did give his word that he'd quit. But if he's addicted..." Her voice trailed away.
"Is there any chance he'd come back and everything would be great?"
Twenty or so feet from her driveway, she asked, "You mean in our marriage?"
"Yeah."
Nora shook her head, grasped Charley's hand and gave it a squeeze. "No chance at all." They stopped in the road in front of her and Josh's house. A street light illuminated them. She frowned during a short pause and looked away. "It's over."
"Okay..."
"No one knows...except you. Not even Josh. I can't find him to tell him."
"Don't you think you should call the police?"
"He's fine. He keeps in touch with his mother."
It burned Charlie's butt that Josh kept in touch with his mother, but not with his wife. "Pardon my French, but that sucks."
"It does."
Charley's gaze returned to her silhouette after they started up the driveway and neared the back end of her Taurus. They let the car separate them. On her porch, she raised a hand to the plastic security box mounted beside the door.
Standing next to her, Charley watched as Nora punched a number onto the keypad, opened the doors, and stepped an inch or two inside. She wriggled her fingers. "Good night, Charley."
He went down the stairs and said, "Sleep tight."
She laughed. "How does that old saying go? Sleep tight and don't let the bedbugs bite?"
"Yeah."
"Okay. Bye."
He blew her a kiss. Turning, he walked next door. Giddy like a kid in high school, instead of a forty year-old, Charley sashayed across the yard, jumping the hedge along the way. It took a bit of effort, but he shoved her marriage out of his mind.
Chapter Five
Between the parted drapes, Nora peered outside and tried to catch one last glimpse of Charley as he walked away, but she missed seeing him. For a moment, she relived the forbidden, tingling sensation of his lips on hers, combined with a hint of tonguean inkling of what intimacy would be like with him. It would've been so easy for them to break into a frenzy of hot passion right there in Ruth and Jeff's dark hallway. Thank God it didn't go further than a kiss. The moment stood still and she basked in the sweetness of it. I'll remember until my dying day. Charley is such a tempting man. She imagined them together in bed. His rough hands glided up her naked curves. She gave herself a firm, mental shake. I mustn't think this way.
Taking care with the drapes, she arranged them so they hung in place. She walked to the bedroom, feeling as though she floated on air. Over the next few minutes, she showered and dressed in a silky pink gown all the while wanting to re-live the kiss again before she went to bed.
The jangling of the telephone drew her from her warm, fuzzy reverie. Laughter and music filled the background of the call.
"Hi, Nora. This is Ruth. Hey kid, are you okay? Everyone is asking about you."
With fingertips to her temple she loudly said, "I'm just fine."
"Will you be coming back over? It's still going strong as you can probably hear."
She remembered the meetings the next day at the real estate office. "No I'm sorry, Ruth. I have to work tomorrow morning. Thank you so much."
"You work tomorrow?"
"Yeah, I have to show a couple of properties. Gosh, Ruth. Thank you so much for inviting me. I do apologize for leaving early."
Her background noise grew even louder than before. "Hold on," Ruth said. "I'm going to get somewhere so I can hear."
"Okay."
A moment later, the noise quieted to a dull silence. "I suppose Saturday is a good day for selling."
Relieved she could hear her talk, Nora answered, “It is.” She switched the phone to the other ear and held it with her shoulder while she kicked off her shoes. "A lot of people are off work and they like to shop for houses on the weekend."
"Okay, well you take care, then. I just wanted to check in on you. Everyone in Schooner Cul De Sac is concerned, you know."
Nora grinned and said, "I appreciate it. Oh. Before I forget...I borrowed a towel. I'll bring it back tomorrow."
"Don't worry about that."
Nora set the handset on the base and the phone rang again.
"What took you so long?"
The upsetting sound of his deep voice caught her off guard. "Josh?"
"What?" he asked in his usual maddening tone.
Memory of a few of his antics caused her to seethe with anger. "I was about to call the police," she bit back. "I decided not to, because you're just staying away on purpose. I don't want to waste their time." She paused, blinked, and finished with a question through clenched teeth. "Why haven’t you come home, Josh?" she snapped.
His tone turned to one of nonchalance. "Work, damn it. A lot of men stay away on business."
Nora raised an eyebrow. "Oh really?" She looked down at the caller ID which read, Unknown Name, Unknown Number. "I don't believe you. Sorry."
"I swear I am." He laughed. “Who gives a shit anyway?”
Disgusting bastard. She scanned the room for a box of Kleenex and remembered that she'd run out.
"Listen, Josh. You haven't contributed a dime to our household lately. You're part is to pay for the mortgage, remember? I take care of everything now. The house payment is way past due. You're forty-two and going on ten, Josh. It's like you hate responsibility." Thank God we never had kids.
"I've got a couple of big sales...road graders to Ace Construction in East St. Louis, and then there are caterpillars to Rogers Construction in Chicago. That one's about ready to fly."
"Fly?" I don't think he's funny at all.
"Sell, I mean. It's just a saying. Lighten up, for Christ’s sake."
Yeah, right.
"As soon as I get the money, I'll send it."
"When? In 2025? How many times have I heard this?" She sank to the edge of the bed. He may as well stay away for good.
"Settle down."
"It's over...."
"I don't want to get into it."
"It is over, Josh. Really. I've had it. You won't even return my calls. I don't know how many I left on your voice mail. We are married, you know."
"Now's not a good time to talk."
Near him a woman's voice said, "Josh, come here when you have time."
Did I hear a woman calling his name in the background? She raised gaze to the shadowy ceiling and clucked her tongue.
"I've got to go. Hang in there, honey." The phone line deadened into silence.
Hang in there, honey?
Nora put the phone onto the cradle, without dropping or slamming it. The conversation was disturbing enough to ruin part of a good night's sleep. Where's the Kleenex? She hurried over the soft carpeting to the sweet-smelling bathroom and pulled a short line of toilet paper from a roll and blew her nose.
I'm going to go ahead with the divorce. She tossed the tissue into a waste can and soon turned the covers down on the bed and fluffed the pillow.
Hang in there? This is a nightmare. Did he hear what I said? Tears flowed down her cheeks again and she got up and padded back to the bathroom, seeking more tissue. The hurt I feel every time I talk to Josh has to end.
* * * *
Saturday morning, sick of crying, she stalked out of the house, shut and locked the front door. Her sinuses ached and her eyes stung. I refuse to bawl like a baby over him anymore.
Wearing a white and black suit, Nora walked down the sidewalk donning sunglasses. She strolled along, her heels clicking on the concrete. She glanced over into Charley's driveway and noticed that his pickup truck had already left, possibly for Morton's Plastics.
Nora raised the trunk, took out an umbrella, and tossed it into the front passenger seat. Peering over the top of the frames of her sunglasses, she slid behind the steering wheel and started the car.
Movement out the corner of her
eye caught her attention. The moment she began to back onto the street, she saw the postman's bread box-shaped car as it pulled up next to her mailbox along the road and stopped. Holding her foot on the brake pedal, she waited and watched as the postman pulled the gray handle down and shoved several envelopes into the box. She retrieved the mail, deciding to wait and read it at her desk.
A half hour later, sitting alone in the sunny, warm office, she glanced at the white car that once again parked in the lot across the street. She decided to waive calling the police again.
One letter in the small pile caught her attention, so she shoved the rest aside and stared at the legal-sized envelope that bore no return address. Using a light touch, she slipped a manicured nail, slid it around under the flap and brought out a folded piece of paper. She opened it and began reading the hand penned note.
Dear Mrs. Nora Aames,
I want you to know that your husband Josh and my sister are doing things they shouldn't be doing. I don't know what he tells you, but I thought you should know. It would be wrong of me to stay silent in this matter. He's living with my younger sister. She's twenty-one. They both gamble at the riverboat in Metropolis a lot.
Now I fear for my sister's safety, because your husband has taken out numerous gambling loans with some unscrupulous men who have bad reputations. I don't know if you and he are getting divorced or what, but I just want you to know that her family is not like her. We all go to church and live peaceful lives. She's left her kids by a previous marriage with our mother whose health is bad.
I got your address from a friend at work that moved here from your town, if you were wondering how I knew who and where to write.
Thank you. You have my deepest regards.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Delores Kramer
1221 So. De Witt Ave.
Raredon, Illinois61991
After heaving a deep sigh in an effort to relieve her inner upheaval, she wrote out a letter of apology and stuffed it into an envelope. As she wrote Mrs. Kramer’s address, she shook her head. I shouldn’t feel guilty, but I do. She wadded the woman’s letter, tossed it into the waste can beside her desk and affixed a stamp to the corner of the return mail and set it aside.
Before the first set of potential buyers entered the office, she leafed through the Yellow Pages and looked for telephone numbers of lawyers who specialized in divorce. She jotted several names and numbers down, vowing to keep her wits and pride through the process. Who knows what drama Josh might add to the proceedings if he thought I dated or even cared for Charley?
Chapter Six
Eleven months and a case of Kleenex later, the summer after her divorce, Nora dressed in her usual day off attire of cut off jeans and a Pizza Hut t-shirt minus a bra. Barefooted, she vacuumed the living room and gazed out the living room window. The warm air smelled of clean scented odor-eating powder that she had sprinkled on the carpeting.
Charley, who walked to his truck, caught and held her attention as he readied to leave in his truck. His tight, designer jeans nicely fit his ass. His knit shirt covered his powerful chest. Those arms would stir her soul if he ever wrapped them around her in an intimate embrace. He hasn’t called. But why? It must be me…my body language or something. Maybe it’s our age…forty-one. Or, I’m scaring him off. As she repeatedly ran the sweeper back and forth on a square yard of carpeting, she watched. Deep yearning clenched in her heart. He climbed into his pick-up truck, shut the door. The engine purred and his black cherry truck backed down the driveway.
The phone rang, tearing her out of her reverie. She flipped off the switch, parked the Dirt Devil and brought the handset to her ear. “Hello?”
“How are things going?” the familiar voice asked.
An image of her fifty year-old step-sister entered her mind. Nora could almost bet five dollars that Leslie Kyra Dalton wore her long hair drawn back into a pony tail at her nape and tied with a big bright bow. Dangling earrings adorned her earlobes. Her soft skin softened her wide set eyes and delicate features. Most assuredly she wore some god awful, bright pants suit with thongs on her large feet. Despite her poor taste in dress and foul attitude, I do love her. But I’m not ready to tell her about my problem. “It’s nothing.” I see how this conversation is going to go. She turned away from the window and went to sit down. When Leslie refused to give up, Nora decided to give in and tell her all that was on her mind.
Nora sank to the couch, wondering if she should give away everything she knew right now. After a short hesitation she said, "Well, there’s the good and the bad.” Tilting her head down, she stared at her wriggling toes and manicured toenails.
Her nosey step-sister said, “The good? Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Well, okay. I’ve been divorced seven months tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah, you have. And?”
“Leslie, I’m still thanking my lucky stars I went through with it. I’ve seen Josh three times since last December and I feel in my bones that he hasn’t bettered himself one bit. You know what I mean?”
“It’s not your fault he screws up. Sometimes I think he’s fuckin’ nuts.”
“I know. He made me crazy when I was married to him. When he came over he seemed all hung over. Crap, he smelled like an overflowing ashtray, not that I got that close to him. His hair and clothes are a mess. It makes me wonder if he bathes regularly. In a way I feel sorry for him.” She felt her sulky tone creeping back.
“Still gambling and tom-cattin’ around, eh? Some guys never learn.”
Nora shrugged. “Looks like it to me. It’s none of my business any more.”
An elongated pause followed. “And so, what else is getting you down?”
I refuse to tell her about the man in the car and that he still shows up in the lot at work. She’d freak out. I don’t want to deal with it today. “Nothing.”
“Nothin’?”
She tapped a manicured fingernail on the window. “Yeah.”
“Well, okay. When you get ready to say what’s buggin’ you, you know where I am.”
“Okay…” Love for her step-sister fluttered in her chest. She swallowed hard and said, “I appreciate that, Leslie.”
For a while they gabbed about the price of gas, the election coming up and Leslie’s husband’s new job at the candy factory. They discussed at length the latest Johnny Depp movie before the conversation eventually returned to Nora’s deficient love life.
“Have you gotten out of the house lately?”
“Yeah.” She glanced at her laptop case. “I go to work, don’t I?”
“Woo hoo. That’s not getting out, girl,” she said in her unique Miss Snarkedy-snark tone that had the capability of driving Nora up the wall. “I mean goin’ out to dinner or to the movies, something like that?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“You need a man, sounds like to me.”
“I’m torn.”
“Huh?”
“What’s that old saying about the definition of intelligence? It’s learning from the past and not repeating mistakes…or something like that.” She took a deep breath. “But, and it’s a big but, I know a white guy. He’s my age and I’d like to get to know him better.”
“Hm. Well now. Tell me more.”
“There’s chemistry between us. Know what I mean?”
“Yeah. Just go up to him and start talkin’.”
“What do I talk about?”
“Anything…the weather. He’s pro’bly waitin’ on you to make the moves.”
She smiled. “You think so?”
“Yeah.”
“We’ve kissed. He even mowed my lawn when I was still married. I s’pose he didn’t call because I was going through the divorce. I dunno.”
“Wow.”
“So, uh, is he still mowing?”
“The neighbor lady’s boys do it.” Nora felt a little warm, so she picked up a newspaper and fanned herself. “Why do you think he’s not called?”
&
nbsp; “I don’t know.”
“I’m not giving out the right vibes.”
“When you finally get together, come up and visit. I’ll cook dinner.”
Nora laughed because as usual her sister jumped to conclusions. “I doubt we’ll get together.”
“Hey, I’ve got to go,” Leslie said. “Someone’s at my door.”
“Talk to you later.”
“Adios.”
She hung up and returned to her housework, wondering when she'd talk to Charley again.
* * * *
Here it is, July, and the unthinkable is happening to me. The central air conditioner shuddered to a clanging stop. Noticing the sound and feeling warm air flowing from a vent, she went to the utility room and flipped the breaker switch off. After calling all twelve of the heating and cooling companies in the area, she determined they all were booked up for the coming month.
Inside, the house heated up to sweltering, 90-plus degrees and was too hot to sleep or cook. Fanning with the morning newspaper, she peered out the front window to see if Charley's truck sat parked in the driveway. An idea formed. A little nervous, she looked up his phone number and dialed. I'm desperate. I have to do something.
Waiting for him to answer, she bit her lip.
On the third ring, he said, "Hello?"
Blinking, she cleared her throat. "Charley?"
After a short silence he asked, "Nora?"
"I was wondering...do you know anything about central air conditioners?"
"Not much. Why?"
"Mine is broke down and I can't find a heating and air conditioning place that's not booked up."
His voice brightened and his tone sounded thoughtful. "I can look at it, if you want."
She managed to keep the excitement of just being around him again out of her voice. "Oh, would you?"
"I'll throw on some clothes and be right over."
"I appreciate it, Charley."
* * * *
Within ten minutes, he arrived on her front door carrying a toolbox. "Sorry if it took a little long for me to get here."
"Oh no. I thought you came right over. Thank you. Please come in."
"Just show me where the breaker box is."
Loving Thy Neighbor (Siren Publishing Classic) Page 3