“No, we’ll talk about it later tonight.” The phone clicked off.
That’s it. Once she got close to Chestnut Hill, she turned the car in the direction of Germantown Family. The place was probably filled with patients but who cared? Not Tracey. Up until now, she couldn’t tell if Brian told the truth or not about things being over with Lisette. But if Tracey showed up and viewed Lisette and Brian’s body language, their movements would tell her the truth.
Reading the marriage book would have to wait until after her visit to Germantown Family.
9
Tracey parked right in front of the office building. She’d probably end up with a ticket. Whatever. She grabbed her purse, locked the car and dashed inside. Ignoring the elevator, she climbed the stairs two at a time to the second floor. She pushed the door that lead into the long, narrow hallway, made a sharp right, then opened another door into the Germantown Family waiting room.
Quiet. One elderly man waited there, sitting in a chair in the corner. Tracey spied Ruthie behind the glass partition separating the waiting room from the nurses’ area. Ruthie, with green-rimmed reading glasses perched on her nose, looked up and nodded toward Tracey, but didn’t rise to greet her. Instead, the older lady kept silent as she thumbed through multi-colored file folders. Whatever Ruthie thought about Tracey showing up out of the blue, she wasn’t going to say anything about it.
As Tracey hung her brown leather jacket on the wooden coat rack she felt a swift breeze behind her. She whipped around in time to see a woman hurriedly pushing her arms into a white down coat, her petite body clad in light green scrubs, white nursing clogs on her feet.
Lisette! She moved so fast the white canvas bag slung around her body was airborne as she opened the door and let it slam shut behind her, making the front wall vibrate.
Tracey glanced sidelong at Ruthie behind the glass, as if to say, Did I see what I think I saw? Ruthie gave Tracey a fast nod. That was all the information Tracey needed. In less than five seconds Tracey zoomed out the door, down the hallway, and stopped five feet away from Lisette, who stood in front of the elevators.
“Lisette Santana,” Tracey said as she approached the young woman. “Right?”
Lisette pressed the down button for the elevator. She turned her head and looked directly in Tracey’s eyes but didn’t utter a word. She had small eyes and wavy light brown hair flowing to her mid-back. Slender. Strikingly pretty. Could pass for J. Lo’s sister.
Tracey reached out and knocked Lisette’s hand away from the elevator button. “I’m talking to you.”
The young woman finally spoke back, her voice raspy and slow. “I see you. I don’t have anything to say to you.”
Tracey stepped closer. “Oh, I think you do. You certainly have a lot to say to Dr. Jones, since you call him more than I do each day. And by the way, in case you don’t remember me, I’m …”
“I know who you are.” Lisette scanned Tracey’s body up and down before she slowly turned her gaze back to the silver elevator doors.
Tracey leaned in close enough to catch a whiff of Lisette’s spearmint gum. “I don’t appreciate you calling and texting my husband the way you do. Stay away from him unless you need to interact with him in a professional capacity. He has a wife. Have some respect!”
Lisette stared right back into Tracey’s eyes as she chewed her gum and hitched her bag up higher on her shoulder. She looked … bored. The raspy voice came out again. “That’s the best you can do?”
“Pardon me?”
“Stay away from my husband. He has a wife.” She mimicked Tracey’s words in a high-pitched tone. Then she yawned and rolled her eyes. “Cliché.”
Tracey talked louder. “Woman to woman. I’m telling you … back off!”
The elevator door opened and Lisette walked in and turned around. She pushed the button to hold the door open. Looking right in Tracey’s eyes, she smiled wide, both rows of straight white teeth on full display.
“I hope you’re enjoying the leather jacket you got for your birthday. Nice, isn’t it? No need to thank me for picking it out. And isn’t Relish a phenomenal restaurant? I hope you loved going there because it’s my absolute favorite place to eat and Brian loved going there with me. You take care now.”
The elevator doors slammed shut as Tracey realized the bomb Lisette had just dropped. Tracey loved that jacket. She’d been so surprised Brian had picked out and wrapped something so stylish and instead of having the usual crystal vase of red roses delivered to the house. She’d actually praised him. Thought he’d been paying more attention to what she liked.
She’d thought wrong.
The hallway seemed gray and narrow—more than usual—and smelled stale to Tracey as she stood there dumbfounded and alone. And for what? Lisette had totally missed the fact she was being confronted. Tracey could have asked her about the weather and her face would have looked exactly the same. No remorse. No shame. Nothing. And to make matters worse, the chick had the nerve to mock her!
Maybe Tracey hadn’t been direct enough?
She bolted for the stairs and scrambled down them so fast her boot heels clicked the concrete sounding like a wild castanet orchestra. Her heart galloped while her brain telegraphed staccato messages. Stop. Don’t do this. Go back. This is not a wise thing to do.
True. A wise woman wouldn’t run out of a building, push open a door and stand out on the street, wild-eyed, looking up and down the sidewalk like her purse had just been snatched and she was searching for the assailant. The Christian thing to do would have been to remain calm and centered, pray for strength, and ask God for guidance for the next thing to do.
Trouble was, Tracey couldn’t see praying.
She saw red.
Especially when she squinted and saw Lisette had made it all the way down to the end of the block and was standing at the corner waiting for the light to change, holding a cell phone in front of her face, yakking away.
Christian. Wise. Stop. Right. Now.
No!
Tracey had never been so glad she’d shoved her car key in her pants pocket. She fished it out in a flash, ran over to her car and jumped in. A freshly minted ticket decorated the underside of the windshield wiper. She ignored the ticket, turned the ignition and threw the car in drive so fast it jerked. She stomped on the gas pedal and the Volvo shot out of the parking spot, down the street and closer to Lisette on the corner—closer and closer—until Tracey stopped the car with a screech just as Lisette stepped off the curb.
Tracey kept the Volvo still. Long enough to stare Lisette in the eyes. You see me now right?
She hit the gas, jerked the wheel, and the car flew right up to Lisette’s body before Tracey hit the brake. If Lisette hadn’t jumped back suddenly, fallen to the sidewalk, and landed on her butt, the car would have knocked her so hard she’d have flown down the street a few yards and landed on the pavement, broken and oozing.
Tracey turned the car back toward the street and accelerated into the flow of traffic. The rhythm of traffic calmed her. She would keep driving for a few minutes then go back to Germantown Family to see Brian.
At a traffic light, Tracey stared at her hands on the steering wheel. They were shaking. But Tracey hadn’t hurt anyone. Scared someone, yes. Hurt someone? No.
Short telegraphed messages ran through her head once more. That. Was. Not. Wise. That. Was. Not. Loving.
This time she answered herself. Out loud.
“No. It. Was. Not. But. It. Felt. Good.”
“Have you lost your mind?” Monica yelled.
“Mon, I swear, I don’t know what came over me.” Tracey held her phone in front of her, rubbing the dust out of her eyes as she sat, pulled over in the Volvo, a few blocks away from the office building.
“Did you hit her?” Monica asked.
“Of course not!”
“When she fell
, did she hurt herself?”
Tracey paused for a second. She replayed the sight of Lisette tumbling to the pavement and falling on her behind. “I don’t think so, no.”
“Good, because I don’t want to see you get sued for damages by some nutcase because she dissed you in a hallway and you had to teach her a lesson.”
“I know.”
“It’s not worth that.”
“I know,” Tracey repeated. “Thank you, Jiminy Cricket. I promise you, I am not going to take a trip to Muncy over some nurse.”
“Good.”
“Girl, please tell me something to take my mind off of all of this? I gotta go back and try to get a hold of Brian and talk to him, and I need to clear my mind before I get there. Help me think about something else. What’s going on with you this week? Are you dating anyone new?”
“Are you kidding me? Girl, do you know you almost got mixed up in a homicide!”
“I’m trying not to think about that. You wanna come visit Rise on Sunday? I’ll probably need someone to talk to because I doubt Brian will be in great spirits.”
“Absolutely not!”
“Why’d you say it like that?”
“There’s no choir! Where’s your choir? Why do you all have a house band like on The Tonight Show? And your pastor doesn’t wear a robe. And for Bible study you have to meet in house groups.”
“Life groups.”
“Give me a good old-fashioned church with choirs and building fund thermometers on the wall and ministers in fancy robes and flowers on the altar and Sunday fried chicken dinners and missionaries named Bertha and Beulah. Now that’s church!”
Tracey laughed. “You made me laugh so I’m giving you cool points.”
“Thank you. I meant to.”
Tracey sighed. “I gotta go figure out more about this mess.”
“Try not to run over anyone this time.”
“I won’t. I think.”
10
Tracey let thirty minutes pass before heading back to Germantown Family. As she walked from the main waiting area down the narrow hallway to Brian’s office she debated in her head as to whether or not she should tell him she’d nearly mowed Lisette down on the street on purpose. She decided against it. Why waste time talking about that when there was the big issue she needed to discuss?
“We can keep talking now,” Tracey announced as she entered his office, shutting the door behind her.
Brian looked up from the files on his desk. “I told you I’d talk with you later.”
She planted her bottom in the chair in front of his desk and stared at him without blinking. As far as she was concerned, they were going to get to the bottom of things right there in his office. No matter what happened, she would not allow them to get into a full-on fight at home with the kids. The thought of that brought back flashbacks of being nine years old, huddled in her rickety twin bed with the lights out, afraid she would wet the bed but too scared to tiptoe into the hallway and go to the bathroom. Her stomach always twisted in knots back then when she heard Alice and Pernell cursing and yelling at each other like they hated each other.
Not in the Jones’s house. No way.
“I didn’t like the tone you used when you hung up,” Tracey reprimanded Brian, gritting her teeth. “Now you tell me about you and Lisette.”
“What do you want me to tell you?”
“The truth.” She gazed long and hard at their family Christmas picture in the silver frame on his desk, then looked back at him.
Brian stared back at her. Silent.
Tracey sighed. “I just talked to her in the hallway. I take it you asked her for help on my birthday present and she made a suggestion. I like the gift though. I’ll keep it. Oh, and she made sure I knew you took me to her favorite restaurant. Sounded a lot like someone trying real hard to point out you and she are pretty close.”
“I’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this. Lisette and I became friends. We aren’t anymore. I guess you want to know everything else?”
“That would be nice!”
Now why did his face look like that? With his mouth downturned and his eyes scrunched up all weird. It freaked Tracey out. His face showed sorrow mixed with remorse and confusion and she had the crazy urge to place her arms around him and comfort him. Try to stop him from hurting. Must have been a reflex emotion. Something she felt because she loved him. Then she remembered she was hurt too. So she stayed put and kept her arms crossed in front of her.
“I’m not sure where to start,” he said.
“At the beginning.”
“Honey, I can’t,” he stammered. “This is … I can’t.”
Now Tracey was “honey”? Oh, please! Now she had to become the Oprah Winfrey of the room, asking simple and direct questions. Back straight. Shoulders steady. Here we go.
“Do you love her?” Tracey asked.
“Of course not.”
“When did it start?”
“January.”
“Where?”
“She worked here late one night when it was icy outside. I dropped her off at her apartment. She invited me in for coffee to thank me and I went in with her.”
“And you had sex?”
“No.”
“No?”
Brian shook his head. “No, but we were attracted to each other and I could feel it. We … got together two weeks later when I drove her to her apartment again. I skipped going to the gym.”
“I see,” Tracey said, her heart sinking with the magnitude of her husband’s admission. Her eyes shifted down toward her lap.
“Do you want more details?”
She paused for a second then shook her head. “No. Not right now.”
“Are you okay?” He reached out for her hand.
Tracey pushed her chair back to maintain distance from him. “I’ll be all right.”
Amazing. She didn’t feel like slapping, kicking, or throwing anything at him. The truth had come out. She felt oddly at peace. Free from wondering.
He looked puzzled as he scanned her face. “Do you want me to go on?”
“Yes.” Tracey could take it. “Go ahead.”
Brian took a deep breath. “It happened maybe a couple more times … same situation.”
Tracey’s eyebrows shot up. “A couple?”
“Two more times.”
Silence for a moment. Tracey uncrossed her arms. “Where was I?”
“What do you mean, where were you?”
“I mean, where was I when all this happened? Did a time warp of some sort occur?”
Brian looked away. “These were regular weeknights. You were at home with the kids.”
“When you were supposedly at the gym working out?”
He nodded.
“What happened after that?”
“Nothing. I never went to see her again.”
He leaned over and grabbed some tissues from the box on his desk. He pressed them against his eyelids then wiped his nose.
“What about the day you left the practice early?”
“That was for me. I needed some time by myself to think and pray, but I did call Lisette and talk to her. I’d already told her we couldn’t continue what we started and I needed her to accept it and move on. But breaking it off with her had caused new problems. She started getting angry with me and calling my phone all the time. She let things slip out and started talking loud around the office. When Ruthie talked to me … and then Dan brought it up … ” Brian shook his head and sighed.
“It must have really upset her, you ending it,” Tracey said.
“I’m married.”
“Probably blew her mind when you decided to act like it.”
“Sounds like you feel sorry for her?”
“I feel sorry for both of you,” Tracey sno
rted. “All she had to do was chat you up a bit and pour you some Folgers and you’re willing to break your vows? Really? Seriously.”
“Tracey, please. If we’re going to talk about this like adults, no sarcasm.”
She swallowed, pausing for a moment to look away, then looking back at him.
Brian continued. “Since Lisette and I didn’t do anything the first time I visited her apartment, I dropped my guard. I didn’t even think she was interested in me like that. She sees a lot of guys—she’s always going out with someone and meeting up with people she’s seen on Tinder. I’m fifteen years older than her. I thought I could serve as her mentor.”
“Mentor?”
“That’s how we started talking so much. I gave her my personal phone number when we she told me she was thinking of applying to medical school.”
“Med school? Come on.”
“No, seriously. She told me she’d always dreamed of being a pediatrician and opening a clinic in a low-income neighborhood. She loves kids and she’s got a good work ethic. When I told her about my experience at UMDNJ she had a lot of questions. I thought I could … I mean … I wanted to help her out.”
“Why’d you lie to me then?” Tracey asked.
“When?”
“The night we drove to Walgreens, I asked you if there was anything else I should know. You told me no.”
“By that time what she and I had done had been over. I didn’t want to hurt my marriage by talking about it.”
Tracey watched him search her face for a reaction. She didn’t give him one.
Brian continued. “Look, there was no way I was going to destroy my family for something stupid, incredibly brief, and completely over.”
“Oh.” What else could she say to a husband who provided half-truths and pretended they weren’t outright lies? He’d had no intention of telling Tracey about this. If not for Ruthie, she wouldn’t have known a thing.
“I didn’t want to hurt you,” Brian said.
“Stop saying that! Stop insulting me!” Tracey’s words dropped like ice cubes. “You had no business … ”
Broken Together Page 7