Twenty Four Weeks - Episode 12 - "Twenty Three" (PG)

by James David Denisson

They’re not asking her to quit, she says, but now they’re less than understanding about the pregnancy and the atmosphere has gotten icy and she thinks they’ll can her any day. Now I’m out of work and there are reporters calling me incessantly and she’s about to be out of work too and the stress has built up and we’re arguing all the time like before and she asks me to leave...

  I see all that play out in a second. Instead I push down the button and I still storm into the booth. I still say ‘What the hell, Wade’ but no one hears me, and I still push him. I don’t hit him though, and I’m ready when he takes a swing at me, I dodge him easily and push him against the wall again. That’s when Kenny from next door arrives and separates us. They cross to the news and the show is cut short for the day.

  Stewart has us in his office just like in my horror scenario and he’s yelling at us. He yells a lot, does Stewart.

  “What the hell is the matter with you two?”

  We don’t answer. We don’t look at each other.

  “You’re cancelling shows. We’re doing reruns for god’s sake. And now fighting... in the booth? What are you two thinking?”

  “It’s good for ratings,” Wade says quietly.

  “Screw you, Wade,” I say.

  “Screw you too, Judd. I was happy until you stuck your nose into my life. Well, you screw with my life, I’ll screw with yours.”

  “What? You don’t think you’ve screwed with my life enough? I was doing you a favour, man. You’re just too much of an ass to get that.”

  “I don’t need your favours, you limp little man.”

  “What?”

  “That’s right. That’s why Quinn came to me. Because you couldn’t satisfy her. She needed a man, not you and your little limp....”

  I hit him then. I smash him fair in the mouth. He goes down, tumbles over in his chair.

  “You heard him, Stewart,” I say to the manager. “You’re a witness. He provoked me.”

  Wade gets to his feet, his lip cut and bleeding. “You prick,” he says.

  “You got anything else you want to get off your chest?” I sneer. “Please. I want to hit you again. Just give me another reason.”

  He puts his hand up, wipes away the blood with the other. Stewart just sits there, his eyes wide open and his mouth working up and down saying unvoiced words.

  I sit down hard on my chair, fold my arms across my chest. Wade can’t hit me from where I am without it being obvious.

  “I think you broke a tooth.”

  “Stop being a wuss,” I tell him, and he starts to laugh. I want to punch him again but I find I’m laughing too. He walks from the room, leaves Stewart and I behind.

  “You two get your crap together,” Stewart tells me, “and get the hell out.”

  My right hand is swelling up. I’ve got a cut on my knuckle from Wade’s tooth and I’m thinking that it’ll get infected. I go home and bandage it up, sit and think, and wait for Quinn to finish work so I can pick her up. I know Wade was just trying to get me angry and score some points. I know what he said wasn’t true, but maybe there was a vein of truth in it. I wasn’t satisfying her because we were slowly rotting away at the core. She could screw Wade without all of those other issues getting in the way. I mean, we had sex, but it was quick and perfectly fine, but it wasn’t frequent and there was no passion. In fact, the last time was when we conceived our baby, and that was five and a half months ago, and it was hardly memorable.

  I pick Quinn up from work later that day and she sees the bandage and knows somethings happened.

  “I hit him,” I tell her simply.

  “What?”

  “During the show.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah. Well, actually I hit him in Stewart’s office, but technically the show would have been on at the time. I pushed him a couple of times in the booth though, but I took us off air first.”

  “Why?”

  “He was being an ass.”

  “What else is new? He’s always being an ass.”

  “More than usual, then.”

  I tell her what he said on air, but I leave out the other stuff. That wasn’t about her, really, that was stuff between the two of us.

  “Ass,” she called him.

  “Yeah.”

  “You won’t lose you job?”

  “No. I hit him in front of Stewart after he said a whole lot of other things that I won’t repeat in polite company. I have a witness that he provoked me. Stewart just said to get our crap together.”

  “Well, that’s something. What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll have to sort it out before we go back on air. I’ll call him later.”

  Quinn remains quiet for the evening. She’s watching television with me, and I’m massaging her tired feet, but she’s absent. I want to ask her what she’s thinking but she’s already told me that she wants space.

  I sleep in the spare room again. I check with her first. She’ll tell me when I can come back in with her.

  Tuesday

  Wade is no where to be found the next day. I’ve called him and called him. His cell and home phone ring out. Stewart is suggesting that I’ll need to find some other work if Wade can’t be located and brought back, and I promise him I’ll sort it out. Another show takes our place, which I suspect will happen a lot more if I can’t find him and convince him to come back to work.

  Carrie sticks her head around the door of my office.

  “Judd. Chloe’s on the phone. She wants to talk to you.”

  “Chloe?”

  “Yeah. I told her Wade’s not here.”

  I pick up my phone, take the call. Chloe is crying.

  “Judd... do you know where my husband is?”

  “So, he’s not with you?”

  “He didn’t come home last night. I’ve been looking for him everywhere. I’m so worried.”

  “Me too. He’s not here either. Damn.”

  “Why is he doing this? That weekend was wonderful and now he’s picking fights with me. Now he’s disappeared.”

  “He was acting weird yesterday.” I don’t tell her that I punched him. She doesn’t need to know that right now. “I’ll look for him, okay? Don’t worry. I know his usual places.”

  “Thank you,” she says, and we end the call.

  I dial Quinn’s work. Maybe he’s called her, and I hope he hasn’t. They hate me calling her office but this is an emergency.

  “Hey, it’s Judd Altman. Can I talk to Quinn? It’s urgent.”

  “I’m sorry, Judd,” Jess, one of my wife’s workmates, says. “She’s called in sick.”

  I have no idea the extent of the lies Quinn told me. I had no idea how many people new, and more possibilities appeared every day.

  “If you’re covering for her, you should remember that all of that before just caused her a lot of pain in the end.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Because if you are… You should tell me where she is now.”

  “Honestly Judd, I don’t know.”

  “Okay, thanks. If you see or hear from her, tell her to call me.”

  I hang up in her ear.

  I call home and it rings out. She doesn’t answer her cell.

  “Damn,” I say.

  I forget about looking for Wade. I worry about Quinn. I worry about where she is and with whom. I worry that if I find her I’ll find him.

  But I don’t know where to start.

  I sit in our apartment and stew over my darkest thoughts while I wait for my wife to return. I go over what I’m going to say, what I’m going to ask her. Will I grill her, or just come right out and accuse her?

  My cell rings and I don’t know the number.

  “Mr Altman?”

  “Speaking.”

  “This is Marcie from Downtown Dental.”

  “Okay.”

  “Do you know a Wade Beaufort?”

  “Unfortunately.”

  “Well he’s with us. He’s had a reactio
n to an anaesthetic.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. But he’s good to come home. He’s given us your number as his pickup.”

  “Really?” Okay, so I’m repeating myself, but I’m seriously confused about what is happening. But one thing this call did was allay my fears about Quinn. She was missing, but at least she wasn’t with Wade. So, I do the only thing I can do. I can get Wade.

  I drive down to the dental surgery. I meet Marcie at the front desk. She leads me down the back where I find Wade on a narrow trolley, fast asleep. I shake him awake, and he looks around dreamily.

  “What happened?” I ask Marcie, perhaps a little sharply.

  “He neglected to tell us he’d consumed alcohol last night and he was quite dehydrated this morning.”

  “That sounds like him.”

  “Judd,” Wade says, his eyes half closed, unfocused. “Thanks, man.”

  “Why did you give them my number?” I ask him.

  “Chloe’s not talking to me, and I can’t call Quinn.”

  “So you get the guy that put you here pick you up.”

  “If you put it that way, I does sound stupid.”

  “Are you the one that punched him,” Marcie asked me, and I hold up my bandaged hand proudly. “You need to get that looked at. It’ll get infected as sure as anything.”

  “Thanks,” I say to her, then I turn to Wade. “Come on,” I say. “I’m taking you home.”

  “Can’t go home. Chloe kicked me out.”

  “She called the station looking for you. She’s worried. I’m sorry, but whatever you’ve done or said to Chloe, you’ll have to face the music.”

  My phone rings on the way to Wade’s apartment. I put my phone on the dashboard because I’m waiting for Quinn to call, and it’s playing a tune and Quinn’s blowing me a kiss. Wade grabs it and answers it before I can pull over.

  “Quinn,” he says cheerfully. I think there are still some drugs in his system.