A Second Chance in Paradise

by Winton, Tom

  A Second Chance in Paradise

  By

  Tom Winton

  Copyright © 2013 by Tom Winton

  All rights reserved.

  www.TomWintonAuthor.com

  A Second Chance in Paradise is a fictional work. All the names, characters, events and locations are from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to current events or locations or living persons, is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Tom Winton.

  Special thanks to Sessha Batto for designing my book cover

  and to Kristen Stone for all her help with the editing.

  ALSO BY TOM WINTON

  Beyond Nostalgia

  The Last American Martyr

  Four Days with Hemingway’s Ghost

  Within a Man’s Heart

  The Voice of Willie Morgan and Two Other Short Stories

  Chapter 1

  For better or for worse, certain events remain clear in our minds forever. Not only can we pull up visions of those memorable moments at will, but we can also rekindle the emotions we felt when we lived them. Granted, whether they were happy emotions or sad ones, ecstatic or devastating, we may not be able to bring them back with all their initial impact, but we can still feel them. Believe me, it’s true. I know all too well. I have one particular memory that to this day, twenty-one years later, still rips away another piece of my heart every time it invades my mind.

  *****

  Clustered beneath a white comforter the way we were that early morning, Wendy and I resembled a single drift of the snow that was soon to fall. Outside our tract house, the darkness and stars were about to surrender to morning’s first light. All over Smithtown alarm clocks tore into people’s sleep, lights came on, toilets flushed, and coffee brewed. Yes, the winter sky over our Long Island town was cloudless, but that would soon change. Also on the cusp of change, though I hadn’t a clue, was the course of my life.

  It started out like any other morning when still in a semiconscious state after silencing the alarm clock, I got out of bed first. Arms outstretched in the darkness, palms up, I followed my bare feet across the carpet, feeling for the bathroom door. As I began my morning rituals, all of them involving running water, Wendy pulled my pillow over her head as she always did. It hadn’t dawned on me yet but the date was February 22nd – my thirty-ninth birthday.

  After I finished doing everything I had to, I quietly padded back into the bedroom. I put on my gray pinstriped suit with the “slightly irregular” stamped over the inside pocket, a white oxford shirt from Penney’s, and a burgundy tie. In the dim light beginning to seep through the curtains, I watched myself in the mirror as I tied a Windsor knot.

  The salesman’s dreaded uniform, I thought. What a waste of time this charade is. No matter how hard we work, Wendy and I still keep getting knocked back farther and farther. I am so sick and tired of worrying about money.

  Easing up to the dresser mirror then, I carefully assessed myself.

  At a shade over six feet tall, people often told me I was broad at the shoulders. Despite the extra half inch I couldn’t shake from my waist, the three weekly trips I was making to the gym were paying off. I still had a good head of hair too, despite the few pesky strands of gray that had recently homesteaded up there. I was reasonably content with my face and most women didn’t seem to find it objectionable either. But that didn’t matter. I loved Wendy too much to be interested in anyone else. The bridge of my nose had been a bit out of kilter for years, but you’d almost have to be looking for the flaw to notice it. It had been broken at a dance club when I was nineteen – after being sucker-punched by a guy with bad judgment. By the time that fight was broken up, the instigator looked far worse than I did.

  “Are you getting up, Wendy?” I asked, finger-combing my hair one last time.

  “No,” came her muffled voice from beneath my foam pillow, “I’m going to have to call in sick today, Sonny. I just can’t seem to shake this cold. It’s been what ... three days now?”

  Picking up one end of the pillow, I leaned over and kissed my wife’s bed-warmed cheek. Then, while still holding the pillow, I straightened up and marveled for the thousandth time at how enchanting she still was. We had no children. Wendy was unable to. But kids or no kids, most women her age and many much younger would have given their entire wardrobes and more to look as good as she did. As I stood there a few seconds, I experienced one of those fleeting isolated moments in a busy man’s life when he truly appreciates what’s most important to him.

  Seventeen years we’re married, I thought, and she still doesn’t look much different than she did back in high school.

  “You stay in bed, hon.” I said, smoothing back a fallen wisp of her long, auburn hair from her forehead. “I’ll call your office later. I’ll tell Silverman you’re not going to make it in.”

  Hearing my last words, Wendy’s emerald eyes suddenly flashed wide open. She jerked her head up as if she’d heard a middle-of-the-night burglar tampering with a window.

  “No!” she said, with a peculiar amount of urgency before altering her tone and going on, “No ... it’s OK Sonny. I’m up now anyway. I’ll call him when the office opens.”

  “Alright, alright,” I said, my eyes narrowing a bit. “I’ll see you around 6:30. I don’t have to work out today so I’ll come right home. Call you later.”

  I then stepped out of the bedroom, slowly easing the door closed behind me.

  When I walked into the kitchen, I saw two unopened envelopes on the counter. Inside them were more bills. One was past due with a late charge added to it; the other from a plumber for an unexpected three-hour visit the previous week. He wanted four-hundred dollars. As I turned on the coffeemaker all I could do was shake my head.

  After drinking some of the coffee and eating breakfast, I backed my aging blue van out of the driveway and slowly motored down New Bridge Street. Steering between the two close rows of small Cape Cod style homes – each identical except for the color of their paint – it dawned on me that it was my birthday. Immediately I thought it odd that Wendy hadn’t wished me a happy one. In the past she’d always gone out of her way to make all my birthdays feel special. And that bothered me during the entire drive to work.

  “Come on,” I said aloud, as if trying to convince myself, “she had just opened her eyes! And she wasn’t feeling good.”

  I finally blew it off when I turned the van into the North Island Mall’s parking lot and motored slowly to the far end of the freestanding city of retail mega-giants. Macy’s, Penney’s, Bloomingdale’s, all of them were part of the behemoth concrete island that to shopaholics rose like Oz from the sprawling field of parking spaces. Early as it was, with nary a car in the lot, the place looked about as lively as a deserted cemetery. For some reason, and it was the first time ever, all the cement car-stops sitting back-to-back put me to mind of headstones – wide, low headstones.

  I don’t know what came over me, but for no obvious reason I suddenly got this very eerie feeling. I quickly eased the van into a spot, killed the engine, and then it really hit me. No, it slammed me. WHAMMO – just like that, I felt as if something horrible was about to happen to me. Other than the cold, gloomy, overcast weather, I couldn’t for the life of me fathom what brought it on. Never before had I felt this anxious – this panicky. It was as if my subconscious mind had withdrawn itself from my body, risen to the top of one of the parking lot’s tall, lofty light posts, and was staring at me through the windshield – cackling down at me.

  I’ve got to get out of this van! Got to get some air! Oh sh
it ... my hands are trembling. My palms are sweating, too. What in the hell is going on here?

  I climbed out of the van so quickly I hit my head on the top of the doorjamb. The instant my feet hit the ground the wind suddenly began to gust harder, bringing with it the predicted storm’s first white flakes. Without looking back, I slammed the door and double-timed it toward Searcy’s Furniture World. The store was only a hundred yards away, yet to me it appeared to be far off on the horizon. Head down, as I made my way across the lot, I wrestled with my mind, trying to pull myself together. But it continued to play its tricks.

  Oh shit ... am I having a heart attack? That’s it! It feels like it’s going to thump right through my ribs. My temples are pounding, too. Oh God, this is it. Please. Please, no! It can’t be. I’m only thirty-eight ... I mean thirty-nine. I’ve got to get inside that store, fast!

  Upping my pace to just short of a run, snow now beginning to accumulate on my eyebrows, I admitted to myself that I had really been stressed out lately, mostly about money. I realized for the first time that that necessary evil, or the lack of it I should say, had been consuming me. But that revelation was short-lived.

  Okay, you’re almost there now. I thought, Please God, no! Don’t let this be the end. Don’t let me die here. What’ll Wendy do without ... oh no! No! Now I’m feeling dizzy. I think my vision is blurring, too. I feel like I can only see straight ahead, like I’m looking into a tunnel. I’m going to fall flat on my face, I know it. It’s like I have vertigo. Shit, I’ve got to get to that door, fast.

  I did. I made it. And the moment I reached the store’s double glass doors, I muttered, “Oh God ... thank you! Thank you so much!

  Like violent storms sometimes do this terrifying experience subsided as suddenly as it had arrived. It may have been short-lived, but it had been far too intense for my liking. I took it as a warning sign. Right then and there I vowed to lighten up on myself. I was going to try not to take things so seriously anymore. To hell with money, debt, and all the rest that goes with it, whatever was going to be was going to be. I decided I wasn’t going kill myself with worry. At least I was going to try not to ....

  Surrounded by almost an acre of furniture inside the store, I hustled up the long center aisle toward the sales counter in back. Though still somewhat spooked, I was so glad to be back in touch with reality that I didn’t even notice the acrid smell of the dyes and formaldehyde in all the furniture that always, by day’s end, made my eyes look as if they’d spent far too much time in an over-chlorinated swimming pool.

  “You’d better hustle your sweet little behind into the conference room, handsome,” said Fran, the bleached-blond, gum-snapping cashier who, at thirty-one, had already worn out three husbands. “Halstead’s already started his ‘motivational’ meeting and ... hey, wow, wait a minute! Are you okay, Sonny? You don’t look so hotsy totsy today.”

  Still hustling as I turned left at the counter, glancing at my Casio and feeling Fran’s eyes all over my behind, I said, “I’m fine, Franny! Just didn’t get a good night’s sleep is all.”

  A few steps later I leaned into the ornate mahogany door that lead into the conference room. As it was at all our meetings, all the salespeople were seated alongside the long mica table and Ronald Halstead stood at the head of it, rambling on about something. Stopping his spiel as I entered, he turned toward me, put on a frown, and snarled, “Glad to see you could make it today, Mister Raines.”

  In no mood for his nonsense after what I’d just been through in the parking lot, I stepped lively to a vacant chair at the far end of the table. All the salespeople’s eyes followed me. A few whispered comments to the person next to them. Surely they were making cracks about how bad I looked.

  Halstead, a onetime Hofstra University linebacker by this time crowding fifty, and three hundred pounds, went right back into his act. All decked-out in a royal blue suit with a white carnation, a pink shirt with huge, faux gold cufflinks, and a bright red “power tie”, he stood up there as erect as his sagging body would allow. Gut sucked in, chest all puffed out, he strutted back and forth like ruptured over-the-hill gamecock.

  Halstead, who worked sixty-plus hours every week and was paid only for forty, simply couldn’t comprehend why none of his fourteen salespeople would do the same. He was one of those born-for-retail types the big chains loved to hire. They gave him a title, let him think he’s going places then worked him so hard he didn’t know what day of the week it was. The corporate strategy obviously worked in Halstead’s case because twice within the previous two months he had come in on a Tuesday – not realizing it was his day off.

  Minutes after I sat down the usual glum mood in the conference room nosedived even further. Halsted began reading everybody’s sales totals for the previous three months. The numbers were abysmal, but it wasn’t the salespeople’s fault. Times had gotten bad. Folks simply weren’t buying furniture.

  Nevertheless, as if Halstead were addressing a room full of mindless idiots, he announced, “And there people ... lies the problem. We are not meeting our sales quotas! You must bring up your numbers! Would you please tell me what seems to be the problem here? Can anybody tell me?”

  As I took this all in, hot perspiration surfaced beneath my collar. I could feel myself tightening up again too. Some serious anger was building up quickly. Thinking how difficult things had become for Wendy and me, my pulse quickened as well. I just had to do something. I couldn’t sit there and listen to this off-the-wall finger pointing. Everyone in the room, Halstead included, knew why sales were down. We were in the midst of the deepest recession in decades.

  Soon I’d had enough of Halstead’s nonsensical blabbering. Sick and tired of not only losing the war but every small battle as well, I rolled my eyes at all the people sitting around the table. As always, nobody was going to refute this foolishness. Nobody had the nerve. Nobody but me, that is. In a single motion I shoved the seat out from beneath me and rose to my feet. Still surveying my colleagues, carefully measuring every word, I blurted, “Maybe all the rest of you are afraid to speak up, but I’m sure as hell not. I’ve had it!”

  I took one deep breath, swiveled my head toward the store manager, then went on, “Who are you trying to snow, Halstead? The reason our numbers are down and none of us are making even half a living is because you load the sales floor!”

  For the second time in twenty minutes my hands began to tremble. But this time it wasn’t caused by anxiety or panic. This was different. Adrenaline provoked this shake, just like it sometimes had when I was growing up, back in Queens. Times when angry words precluded some pretty rough and tumble street fights. But this time, here in the conference room, I kept my clenched fists at my sides, trying hard to squeeze the shake out of them as I went on.

  “Three months ago you hired five additional bodies – which was the last thing we needed in this soft market. Hell, it was tough enough when there were only nine of us on the showroom floor. Then ... what did you do after that? You cut our commissions from five to four percent!”

  I dropped my head, rotated it twice then looked back over at Halstead, scorching him with my eyes. Next I pointed at him, started shaking my index finger as if I’d just burnt it and went on, “Let me tell you something, my heartless friend ... you’re the reason we’re making crap ... you and Searcy’s!”

  “Raines,” Halstead snapped, “I want you in my office right after this meeting. And if you hope to stay here for the remainder of it, just sit there and be quiet! Do not interrupt me again! We don’t need any more of your negative outbursts.”

  With that, the room filled with excited whispers. Most of the salespeople seemed to be loving all this early morning action.

  “No! I don’t think so, Halstead!” I shot back now. “I’m not shutting up this time. And you know what, FREAK your office. Why don’t you just come over here and kiss my ass instead? After all, that’s the kind of thing you’re good at. And let me tell you something else before you get some sick sati
sfaction out of firing me ... I QUIT! I’M OUT OUTTA HERE! Working in this place is like ... like mental masturbation. It’s a freaking joke, a bad joke.”

  With all that finally off my chest after keeping it inside for so long, I barged right the hell out of that kangaroo court. Fighting with myself as I stormed across the showroom toward the front exit, I somehow managed not to turn around. I really wanted to bust right back into that conference room and give Halstead more than words to remember me by. But I didn’t.

  Pushing through both glass doors at once, I bowed my head right into an onslaught of wind-driven snow. It was heavy now. The flakes were the size of nickels and plenty damp. Two inches of the thick white stuff had already accumulated on the ground, and the best I could do was to slowly shuffle my way across the slippery lot. When I finally made it to my van, I cranked her up and turned on the heater. Immediately it blew warm air. I hadn’t been inside Searcy’s Furniture World for very long.

  I forged toward home as quickly as I safely could. Steering stiffly, driving ever so carefully through the deepening snow, my only thoughts were of Wendy. Over and over I rehearsed how I was going to break the news to her. Once I said aloud, “Should I tell her I got fired or tell her the truth?” But I knew damn well what I’d do. I couldn’t lie to her. I never had before. I’d have to fess up. I may have had my fair share of shortcomings but dishonesty wasn’t one of them.

  A half hour after leaving the store I turned right onto New Bridge Street. Like all the rest of Long Island, my neighborhood was now blanched white with clean, fresh snow. Slowly, I motored up the residential street until I was about a half block away from my house. Then I noticed something odd. A gold car, it looked like a Lexus, was pulling away from the curb near my house. It seemed to be right in front of it. Next to nobody on the block ever parked in the street. All the houses had their own driveways. Moments later, I slowed to a stop before pulling into my driveway. Sure enough, alongside the curb was a perfectly dry, dark asphalt rectangle where the Lexus had been parked.