Ben tried watching The Tonight Show but he just couldn’t concentrate. He kept pacing back and forth on the living room rug. He decided to go out and take a walk, hoping the dark cool night would calm him down a little bit.
He came across a bar called Ruby’s Place. He passed by it every morning when he went to get his doughnut and coffee, but he had never seen it at night, alive with people inside. He could hear a song by The Ramones playing and a lot of heavy chattering. It wasn’t his kind of hangout but something was pulling him closer to it. He knew he shouldn’t drink, but he thought just this once wouldn’t hurt. He’d do anything to get his mind off Annie.
He entered the bar and found an empty seat. The place was packed. There was so much smoke he could barely see things that were going on even three feet away from him.
“What can I get you tonight?” A woman in her sixties cleaning a glass with a towel asked.
“Hmmm…” Ben said, “how about the hardest liquor you have?”
“I could make you a whiskey sour,” the woman suggested.
“How about a whiskey-not-sour?”
“On the rocks?”
“No rocks,” Ben replied, “Just neat.”
“All right,” the woman said. She grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniels and poured it into the glass she just dried. “Bad day or something?”
“Yeah, you could say that.”
“You want to tell me or do you want to keep it to yourself?”
Ben didn’t know her, so he figured it wouldn’t hurt to tell her.
“I found out today that my girlfriend is already married. Do you have any sage advice for me?”
The woman rubbed her double chin. “Uh…no, not really.”
“Well, what would you do if you were in my situation? I mean, what if you found out your husband had married someone else before you came along and he never divorced her?”
The woman gave out a big bellowing laugh. “You know what I’d do? I’d say…here, you can have him back! I’ve been married thirty-eight years to that bastard. I’m getting kind of sick of him.”
Ben couldn’t help but chuckle at that.
“But seriously…” she continued, “if something like that actually happened, sure, I’d be a little bit teed off for a while, but I’d get over it and life would go on. He’s been with me for a long time, who the hell else is going to pick up his smelly socks and cook him dinner? If I kicked him to the curb, he’d probably wither away and die. I’m sure wife number one wouldn’t give a rat’s ass. So, I’d have to stay with him.”
“Well, I’ve only known Annie for about a month or so,” Ben said. “We’ve never had a problem until now. Actually, I was this close to proposing to her.” His thumb and forefinger were only a quarter inch apart.
“So she lied to you about being married?”
“No, she just didn’t tell me.”
“Excuse me for a second,” the woman said. She served a few customers that were signaling her then returned to Ben.
“All right, so she never told you. Maybe there was a good reason. Sometimes people get sucked into love affairs. Hell knows it happens all the time here. She probably liked you a lot and didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Ben said.
“Maybe she was trying to get away from this fella for a reason. Maybe he beat her to a pulp.”
“That wouldn’t surprise me.”
“Now, she meets you and she thinks, ‘Oh, this is a nice, decent guy. I better not tell him I’m married or else he’ll leave me.’ Her husband probably gets mad and beats her for no reason. She doesn’t want to get you mad, you know?”
Ben nodded in understanding.
“But there’s something else he said that bothered me. He said Annie only married him for the money. I have a hard time not believing that, because I own a restaurant. She works with me so she has a good idea how much I’m taking in…so maybe that’s true. Maybe she was just using me to get to my money.”
“Well, I don’t know this Annie girl, so I can’t tell you for sure that she’s after your money or not, but I wouldn’t believe the husband if he said it was going to rain tomorrow. He sure as hell isn’t out to protect you by saying that.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Do you have a picture of this Annie? I’m a real good reader of people. I don’t know what it is, but I can tell right off if a person is good or bad just by looking at them. And I’m always right.”
“Yeah,” Ben said. He took out his wallet and flipped it to a picture he took of her on Valentine’s Day. She was sitting on the sofa of her apartment holding the bouquet of roses he gave her.
The woman studied the photograph carefully. “Hmmm…okay. Well, this is just my opinion, but I don’t see a gold digger in that picture. Very good looking girl, shy…seems pretty sincere to me.”
Ben put the wallet away.
“What was she doing when you last saw her?”
“Crying.”
“Why don’t you stop by her place, maybe bring her some flowers or something?”
“So, you think I should forgive her?”
“Oh yeah, sure. You shouldn’t let her creepy husband ruin your life.”
“Thanks,” Ben said. He pulled out a five-dollar bill and handed it to the woman. “I’ve got to get going.”
“Hey, you didn’t even take a sip of your drink!”
“I don’t need to,” Ben said. “I shouldn’t even be in here.”
“Okay,” the woman shouted as Ben left. “Thanks for the tip!”
He walked straight to Annie’s apartment after he left the bar. The woman was right. If he broke up with Annie, he would be letting that guy ruin his life. Well, that wasn’t about to happen.
As he approached her apartment, he saw that the living room light was still on. He rang the buzzer for her apartment, but she didn’t let him in.
“Hey Annie!” he shouted up to her window. “It’s me! You can open the door!”
After a few seconds, he was buzzed in. He had to knock on her apartment door. He heard some footsteps inside then it opened. Annie was a wreck. Her face was red, her hair was disheveled and her clothes were so wrinkled that Ben was sure she had slept in them.
“Are you here to yell at me again?” she said.
“No,” Ben replied. “I’ve been doing some thinking and…I don’t think we should break up over this.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” Annie said. “I wanted to, but I was afraid.”
“It’s okay,” Ben replied.
“I called up an attorney in Montreal and he served the divorce papers. That’s why Bernard came out here. He knew where I was but he was too busy hanging out with his buddies and drinking. I imagine that girlfriend he has on the side is probably doing all his cooking and cleaning for him now. I don’t know why he doesn’t want to get divorced. It’s obvious he doesn’t love me.”
“It’s probably a blow to his ego that someone is dumping him instead of the other way around.” Ben said.
“Probably,” Annie agreed. “He has quite the ego. And about me wanting money…that’s not true. He actually stole most of my money. I had almost nothing when I came here. You believe me, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do,” Ben said.
“Oh, dieu merci.”
“So, do you want to start over?”
Ben thought she would automatically say yes, but instead she just stared at him with tired eyes.
“I should get divorced first,” Annie said.
Ben was disappointed, but he tried not to show it.
“All right. If you want to take some time off of work to do that, feel free to.”
“You mean I still have the job?”
“Of course you do! It took me forever to find you. Do you think I’m going to let you go now?” Ben gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Try not to worry too much, Annie. It’ll all work out in the end. Go to bed and
get some sleep.”
“Okay,” Annie said, looking doubtful. “I’ll try. Good night, Ben.”
Chapter 53: April 16, 1977
What They Left Behind Page 52
