An Irreconcilable Difference

by Lynda Fitzgerald

  He took a sip of his now-cold, acid coffee and made a face. “What’s she into this week?”

  “Tai chi,” I said with a smile. “I think.”

  “Amazing,” he said, smiling back. “She’s amazing, and you’re just like her.”

  “Me? I don’t do anything amazing.”

  “You will, Lou, as soon as you find your land legs.”

  I didn’t believe him, but I patted his hand before getting up to move restlessly around the kitchen. I wasn’t restless because he was there. Darren had been a part of my life for so long that I couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t there. What felt strange was that he no longer lived in our home.

  I rubbed away the chill bumps that the thought occasioned. “I’d feel a lot better if I knew where Greg was.”

  “Why don’t I call Jana? Maybe she’s heard from him.”

  “Okay.” I started to reach for the phone, but he pulled his cell phone out of his shirt pocket and hit a few buttons.

  After a pause, he said, “Hi, Jana. It’s Dad.” “Good. We were worried about him.” “No, let him sleep. I don’t want to talk to him now.” He glanced over at me. “Your mother and I want to talk to both of you at the same time.”

  I gasped.

  He ignored me. “No, Jana. She is not having an affair. Greg blew the whole thing out of proportion. She got flowers and a card from a man associated with her office. She took care of some paperwork for him and he bought her breakfast. End of story.” “Yes, I’m certain. I know the man, and a lot more importantly, I know your mother. So…what about dinner?”

  He held the phone away from his ear. “You free tomorrow night?”

  “Yes, but—“

  “Tomorrow night.” He winced. “Her house. Sure. Seven. See you then.”

  He punched a button and put the phone back in his pocket. “She wanted to know whose house.”

  I wasn’t going to deal with that right now. “Darren, you agreed—“

  “I agreed to let you talk to them first,” he broke in. “You did. Now we’ll talk to them together. We need to present a united front.”

  I giggled a bit hysterically. “A united front about dissolving our union?”

  He didn’t smile. “Yes.”

  “It’s not a good idea.”

  “Why not?”

  I bit my lip. How could I tell him it was because he and his son were too much alike, because each knew the right buttons to push to get the other riled beyond common sense? I mellowed it with, “Because Greg will say something that makes you mad and you’ll end up shouting at each other.”

  “I promise you, we won’t. Lou, honey,” he said, catching my hand as I passed him and pulling me to a stop. “This is the only way we’ll ever get them to accept reality. We’ll tell the kids exactly what we agreed upon. That we’re getting a divorce on the grounds of irreconcilable differences.”

  The words echoed in the quiet kitchen, bouncing off the cheery walls, bounding back to confront each of us with what we already knew. “They are, you know.”

  “Lou—” he began, but then he nodded as a sad smile touched his eyes. “They are, hon. They definitely are.”

  I walked him to the door.

  “Want me to stay the night? I could bunk in the guestroom.”

  I shook my head. “I’m fine.” I squeezed his hand and opened the front door. “When you see dad tomorrow, tell him I’ll be over to see him in the afternoon, okay? He probably won’t remember who I am, but tell him anyway.”

  “I will.”

  He wrapped me in a bear hug, the kind that used to make me feel that nothing could get through to hurt me. I wished it still did. He was such a good man.

  As I closed the front door after him, I told myself once again that I was lucky to know him. Then I started to clean up the mess in the hall.

  When the phone rang at midnight, I almost didn’t answer it. Greg was at Jana’s, safe. But something could have happened to my father, or Darren, or—

  “Hello?”

  There was a steady hum on the wires. Nothing more.

  “Hello,” I said again, immediately thinking of every horrible thing that could cause a caller not to speak. Auto accident. Obscene caller.

  I almost hung up, but something made me keep the phone pressed to my ear. Finally, I heard, “Mom.”

  “Greg?”

  He sniffed. Crying or too long outside in the cold. “Yeah. I—I know it’s late, but I thought you might be up.” His voice was tentative, shaky.

  “You didn’t wake me,” I said. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah. Well, you know. Sort of. I—I talked to Jana. About—you know.”

  “Yes. I know,” I said, although I wasn’t exactly sure what I knew.

  “About the guy,” he said. “She—well, she told me I was nuts. And I—uh—well, I’m sorry, mom.”

  I felt tears spring to my eyes.

  “It’s true, right? I was just being nuts?”

  My tears dried up in an instant. “Yes.”

  “I want to talk to you. To you and dad both.”

  On the emotional roller coaster I was riding, my heart melted. “We want to talk to you, too, honey. We’ll talk tomorrow night. You need to get some sleep.”

  “Yeah. I will. I—I love you, Mom.”

  “I love you, too.”

  “Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  I hung up the phone and lay back on my pillows, overcome with relief. This was my son, the one I had raised and loved to distraction. Not that angry, suspicious individual who inhabited his body earlier. I breathed out a long sigh. Maybe I had worried more than I should have. Maybe everything would be all right now, at least for a while.

  Such are the silly, groundless hopes we entertain late at night when those with good sense and a firmer grip on reality are sleeping.

  * * * * *

  Friday, I decided to drop by the office after all. I wanted to find out from Sam and Jeff how silent a partner Klee was going to be before I decided whether to start job hunting. I also knew I’d keep going if Klee’s car was in the front driveway.

  I had taken an almost instant dislike to the man, and not only because his ill-timed flowers had turned my life upside down. I didn’t like the way he looked at me and—well, I didn’t like his innuendo that his new status as a partner gave him some kind of control over me. I intended to tell that to Sam and Jeff.

  Klee’s car was nowhere to be seen. Nor was Jeff’s truck, but he was probably parked in the back. Breathing a sigh of relief, I pulled in behind Sam’s Blazer and climbed out of the car.

  It was a glorious winter morning. Thirty-five degrees, and the sky was that kind of limitless blue you only see a few times a year. I breathed deeply as I headed up the walk. Tulips would be up in another few weeks, I knew, followed closely by the graceful yellow forsythia. Then the Bradford pear and peach trees would explode into flower, along with the azaleas, the dogwood. Noses would run. Eyes would water. Even as I popped my antihistamine, I would be thinking how much I loved Georgia in the spring. Beauty has its price, after all.

  Jeff and Sam were head to head over a set of drawings at a layout table in the middle of the room which, I noticed, was nearly freezing. Both had shirt sleeves rolled up above their elbows, oblivious to the temperature. Jeff, I was happy to see, wore pants sporting no tape. Neither looked up as I walked in.

  “This is a stick-up,” I called out.

  Neither batted a lash. “Hi, Lou.” Then Sam’s head swiveled around. “Lou? What are you doing here?”

  “Wondering why it’s colder in here than outside,” I answered, deciding to keep my coat on. “Is the heat off?”

  They exchanged mystified glances. Then they seemed to realize there were chill bumps on their arms.

  “It’s cold in here,” Jeff said, pulling down his sleeves, as if that would help.

  Sam cocked his head, listening. “The furnace is working.”

  I smiled. “Overtime
, I would guess.”

  We began exploring the building. “In here,” Jeff called out from the back.

  Sam and I met in the hall and walked together into the kitchen, where the back door was standing wide open.

  “I think we’ve been robbed,” Jeff said.

  He started looking around the kitchen, and so did I. The microwave was still on the counter, the cutlery in the drawer.

  “We have been robbed, damn it,” I heard Jeff’s muffled voice from behind me.

  Both Sam and I turned.

  Jeff’s head was in the refrigerator. “Cokes. They took the last of our cokes and—son of a bitch. They took the Oreos.”

  I must have snickered or done something to earn me the dirty look Jeff shot at me. “Vandals,” he said.

  “Kids,” I corrected.

  “Thieving kids.”

  “Was the back door locked?” I asked, knowing it rarely was. Jeff always used the back door, and he seldom remembered to lock anything.

  “I’m sure it was,” Jeff said, his voice defensive enough to convince me it hadn’t been.

  I crossed over and pulled the door closed, flipping the lock. “I’ll order one of those automatic door closers, but one of you will have to install it.”

  Sam had started out of the room when Jeff asked, “So, what are you doing here, Lou?”

  “I need to talk to both of you together,” I answered, sitting down at the kitchen table. What was it with me and kitchens?

  It was almost comical the way their heads swiveled to look at each other, then at me. They walked over to the table as if the kitchen floor was land mined and dropped into chairs on either side of me. “Don’t even tell us you’re quitting,” Sam began, “because we won’t accept your resignation. If this is about money, the answer is yes. You can have a raise. Name your price. Within reason, of course,” he added, realizing what he was saying.

  I had to laugh. “If I’d known it was that easy, I would have asked for one months ago.” I looked from one anxious face to the other and took pity on them. “I don’t know if I’m quitting or not,” I told them seriously. “It depends on a number of things.”

  “Tell us what,” Jeff urged, actually squirming in his chair.

  “Gideon Klee tells me he’s bought into the partnership,” I began. Then I saw Jeff nudge Sam under the table. I looked at Sam.

  He avoided my eye. “I told you she’d hate it,” he said to Jeff.

  “What’s to hate?” Jeff argued, also not looking at me. “The man wants us to build his buildings. We want to build buildings.”

  Sam gave him a dirty look and turned to me. “What happened, Lou?”

  I told him about the Klee’s phone call, boat papers, the brief breakfast, quoting as many of Klee’s actual words as I could remember.

  Sam’s face grew grimmer with each word. “That bastard,” he said when I was finished. “He knows he has no say over any of the people who work with us. That was part of the deal right up front. We hire who we want and fire who we want with no input from him.”

  “None,” Jeff agreed, nodding.

  “He had no right to tell you that, Lou, and no right to badger you into meeting him. Why didn’t he ask Jeff or me to recommend a notary?”

  When I didn’t answer, his eyes widened. “Do you think he was hitting on you?”

  “I don’t know if he was or not, but let me make sure I understand you. He’s not my boss?”

  “Hell, no. Klee’s not your boss,” Sam burst out. “He’s a silent partner. Silent, as in keep his mouth shut.”

  “And he’d better damn well do it.”

  “Keep my mouth shut about what,” a voice said from the doorway.

  It was inevitable, I guess, that he would show up at that exact moment. Sam and Jeff stood as a unit and walked over to him. Jeff was eye to eye with him, but Sam was a full head shorter. Still, he was the spokesman. “We need to talk, Klee.”

  “Okay,” Klee said, walking past them and sitting down at the table with me. “Let’s talk.”

  The room suddenly seemed too small, too claustrophobic. Jeff was a big, strapping man who seemed to fill whatever space he was in. Klee, although tall, carried no excess fat. His imposing size, I realized, stemmed from the force of his personality. I wondered if Sam felt as small and inconsequential as I.

  “We might want to have this talk privately,” Sam said.

  Klee sat back in his chair. “I don’t see why. Lou is a part of the firm. She can hear whatever we say to each other. By the way,” he added, turning to me with a lazy grin, “the new hairdo is a knockout.”

  Jeff and Sam both stared at my hair. I doubt they saw a difference. I had managed to put it back in something of the same shape Roger had achieved the day before and felt inordinately proud of myself for having done so, but I didn’t acknowledge Klee’s compliment.

  They looked back at Klee, and he regarded them steadily.

  I decided to solve the problem. “I was leaving.”

  “Sorry, Lou,” Klee said. “I had to pull in behind you. I’ve got you blocked in. I’ll move my car as soon as we have our talk if that’s all right with you. Besides,” he said grinning, “I have a feeling this concerns you.”

  Klee’s words gave Sam the opening he wanted. “It does, Klee.” No mister today, I noticed. “I heard about your breakfast with Lou yesterday.”

  Klee snorted. “I wouldn’t call that breakfast. Toast, and she didn’t even stay to eat that.” He grinned suddenly. “She stayed long enough to put me in my place, though.” He looked pleased at the thought.

  Sam looked me with surprise. “She did?”

  Klee chuckled. “I was fussing at her for not staying long, and she came back at me that she’s a part-time employee.”

  The three men had a chuckle over that.

  I was beginning to get that invisible feeling again. “Mr. Klee, correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t you tell me that you are now my boss.”

  “Well….” He drew the word out endlessly. Then his grin turned sheepish, the naughty boy caught out by his mommy again. “I might have hinted around at something like that—to test you, you understand.”

  “To test me? Like some student in high school?” I was insulted and let it show.

  My manner didn’t seem to worry him. “No, Lou. It wasn’t like that at all,” he said. “To see what you’re made of. To take your measure.”

  “Why would you want to take my measure? I work for Jeff and Sam, not you. I’m certain my dealings with you will be limited. I can’t see how what I’m like can possibly affect you.”

  “Well, there is the small matter of the two million dollars I’ve dumped into the firm. It’s nice to know my investment will be in capable hands. I won’t be around here all the time, but we will be working together some, and I kinda like to get a feel of the people I’ll be working with. And then,” he added, sitting back and crossing one leg over the other, “I gotta admit it wasn’t all about business.” He looked me over thoroughly. “You have to know you’re a mighty appealing woman.”

  I was still digesting the two million dollars part, but Jeff picked up on the end of his statement. “For Christ's sake, Klee, she’s a married woman.”

  I was glaring at Klee. His eyes flickered to Jeff, then back to me. “Well, she might be right now, but since she and her hubby are living at different residences, I don’t imagine she will be for long.”

  Chapter Nine

  A stunned silence filled the room. I didn’t have to look at Jeff and Sam to know what their faces looked like. There was no way I could meet their eyes. I felt a rage begin in my newly pedicured toes and boil up until I’m surprised the top of my head didn’t blow off. “Let me get something straight,” I said, my eyes riveted on Klee. “This man is in no way my boss, right.” My question was greeted with silence. “Right?”

  “Uh—right,” Sam said, recovering enough to speak.

  At that, I got to my feet and stood as tall as my sixty-three inches wou
ld allow, my hands planted on my hips. “I would like to know exactly who in the hell you think you are,” I said to Klee, “barging into my life. First you call and nag me until I agreed to meet you because it was the quickest way to get rid of you. Then you lie about your status in the firm in some sort of sick attempt to pressure me, and then, and then you come in here and bandy about information about my personal life.”

  “Oh, God, it’s true,” I heard Jeff mutter.

  “You have no right, Klee, no rights at all that concern me and you’d better remember it. And you can take your interest in me as a woman and stick it—stick it in a bucket of cold water because I can tell you, I emphatically am not interested in you as a man. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Klee said with a grin.

  I wanted to slap the grin off his face, but I had been raised too much of a lady. Instead, I glared at him for a several seconds before I said to Jeff and Sam, “I can’t talk to you about this right now. I’m sorry. I can’t talk about anything right now.” I drew in a deep breath, “But I’ll tell you both one thing. I’ll take that raise you so generously offered earlier because, if I have to have any dealings with this man at any time in any way at all, I know I’ll more than earn it. Make it a big one.”

  I turned on my heel and stormed out of the kitchen, but not, unfortunately, fast enough to miss Klee’s final volley. “God, she’s magnificent.”

  It wasn’t until I reached my car that I remembered Klee’s car was blocking mine in the drive. There was no way I was going go back inside and ask him to move it. I jumped into the car and slammed and locked the door. I would give him five minutes. At exactly five minutes and one second, I would put my car in reverse and floor it. Where his car stopped was his problem. It was about time I got back something from the exorbitant auto insurance money I’d been paying since I was sixteen.

  Less than a minute later, he sauntered out of the office, keys in hand. I double checked to make sure the door was locked. It impressed me against my will when he made no effort to speak to me. Instead, he gave me a brief salute and climbed into his own car. A moment later, he was gone.

  I almost went back in to talk to Sam and Jeff. I couldn’t believe Klee had dumped that knowledge on them the way he did. Darren and I were their friends—both of us—and I couldn’t stand to imagine what they might be thinking right now. But I’d meant it when I told them I was too angry.