Friday Mornings at Nine

by Marilyn Brant

  You self-centered kumquat.

  She could hear the clipped vowels of her own speech still hanging in the air, blanketed by the angry sheen of sarcasm. She almost didn’t recognize herself. Not only didn’t she feel like the same woman who’d been sprawling on the grass, giggling with her goofy aunt just a few minutes before, she didn’t sound like that woman either.

  “You can stop with the expletives now,” he ground out.

  “Only if you stop with your shitty insinuations.”

  “Fine,” Jon said, forcing civility. “Just go into my office and double-check something for me—please. It’s on my desk in the blue folder on the right-hand side. Look on top of the Attorneys in America text. Do you see it?”

  Tamara stomped through the door and up the stairs to his office, where she scanned the top of his desk and, yes, spotted the blue folder. “I got it. Now what?”

  “Open it and tell me if, in the left pocket, you can find a certificate of deposit for Mid-Atlantic Bank dated around March first of last year.”

  She riffled through the papers, half expecting to find something incriminating, until she came upon the CD. It, however, looked totally normal. “Okay, I have that.”

  He breathed a relieved-sounding sigh. “Good. Just tell me who, besides me, signed it.”

  She read the bank manager’s name on the certificate.

  “Good,” he said again. Then, “Uh, hang on a minute.” And suddenly he was back to yakking with somebody else who’d walked by. A woman this time—whoo-hoo. And, again, out popped that über-amiable vocal tone he’d used before.

  Tamara squeezed her eyes shut. This was so typical of him—spewing his crappy attitude all over her while faking a Mr. Nice Guy front to the rest of the world. He had such a volatile personality. Calm one minute, argumentative the next. How many times had he done something like this to her? How many of her days did he routinely ruin with his unpredictably foul moods? At least one per week? Maybe two? Regardless, he’d already reached his quota, and she wouldn’t let him wreck another one.

  She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, opened her eyes and glanced out the window in time to see a figure down the street. A tall, muscular figure. One who was working out in his front yard with his light gray T-shirt so drenched in sweat it was sticking to his very buff torso.

  Aaron.

  Her neighbor worked from home. Must be break time. She admired his cut physique from afar as she waited for her husband to finally finish up his conversation, the view helping her to resent Jon’s terseness toward her a little less. As Jon blathered on to this new acquaintance, she tried to push the idea of Aaron’s lean, well-defined body from her mind. But it was so easy to imagine him stripping off that damp T-shirt, then peeling off those formfitting blue jeans and—

  “Thank you, Tamara. That was all I needed,” Jon said coolly, the woman gone and his voice Exhibit A in a case on Dispassionate Interest and Impersonal Contact.

  “Um, you’re welcome,” she murmured, waiting for him to say something else. Apologize for his snappish behavior, perhaps. Ask her about her day. Tell her, like a normal husband would, that he missed her (despite all evidence to the contrary) and was looking forward to seeing her soon. He usually came up with some excuse for his offensive conduct or made an attempt, however paltry, at smoothing things over. It was a pattern she’d grown accustomed to over the years.

  But, this time, Jon did none of these. “Enjoy the rest of the week,” he said stiffly. “I’ll see you on Monday.”

  And he waited until, at last, she said, “Bye,” and hung up on him.

  She shook her head, clapped her cell phone shut and resisted the urge to slam it on Jon’s desk. Fine. Screw him. She left the phone on his freakin’ blue folder. She’d go back outside, she’d work in her garden and she’d be damned if she’d take any more calls from him or from anyone.

  She strode out of the room, paused at the top of the stairs and bowed her head. Turning on her toes in a half pirouette—the one thing she remembered from her six years of ballet—she returned to her husband’s office and grabbed the phone. No, she had no intention of speaking with Jon anymore, at least not for a couple of days, but there was someone else whose voice she wanted to hear.

  She punched in the Austin phone number and waited for her son’s answering machine to pick up. “Hi, y’all. This is Ben. Sorry I missed ya. I’m probably at the library studying right now—” This was followed by a few loud guffaws from his roommate. “But if you leave me a message, I’ll call you back soon. Thanks for calling, and hook ’em, Horns!”

  Despite a pang of loneliness so strong it nearly made her double over, she couldn’t help but be flooded with warmth at his message. Her Benji (so he’d abbreviated himself and was “Ben” now?) was growing into a man. With a voice so deep, so adult. But best of all, he sounded so very happy with his independence. He was free from all parental constraints. The world was a playground of possibilities. And he knew it.

  She clicked off without leaving a message. She didn’t want to embarrass him with an unnecessary call from Mom when he came home from whatever he was really doing that night (one thing she knew for sure, it wasn’t studying at the library). He’d gotten into the habit of calling her on Sundays and, a few times in the past few weeks, when she’d gotten really lucky, he was inspired—or bored—and called her on a random weeknight. She lived for all of those calls.

  Meandering outside again, she picked up her Weed Extractor and began a full-fledged attack on those malicious thistles.

  “Listen up, you prickly bastards, I’m gonna get you. Don’t think you can hide from me, scratch me or infiltrate something I love and not feel the wrathful blade of my sword,” she informed the thorny weeds in her lowest and most vengeful tone. She brandished her tool, pointed a chipped index fingernail at the nearest thistle and added a threatening, “Prepare for battle.”

  Just as she lunged toward the first villainous clump of barbed leaves, she heard a masculine chuckle behind her and a voice rich and resonant saying, “En garde.”

  She swung around. Oooh. Young Neighbor Guy. Still in that sweaty T-shirt, too. “Uh, hi, Aaron.”

  “Tamara,” he said with an amused nod. “I’m afraid I’m interrupting your…your, um…” He motioned toward the garden.

  “Crusade against the Evil Thistle Empire,” she finished for him. She grinned and forced herself to project the kind of cool confidence a “woman of her type” (a circular description Jon once used to categorize her) was supposed to project.

  “Exactly. It sounded like you were gonna kick their spiny little asses,” he said, wiping a few drops of perspiration from his brow. She was about to lob back some flippant reply when his amused expression morphed into a compassionate one. “Frustrating day?”

  Before she could verbalize it, her body was saturated with a combination of emotions befitting a woman on a Big Day in her life, not a random Wednesday. A day, perhaps, of either her marriage or her divorce—but not a simple day of weeding. She knew she shouldn’t feel so affected by his concern. And, yet, she was quivering just beneath the surface, and she could honestly say:

  Hell, yes, she was frustrated.

  She missed her son.

  And her husband was such a callous, insensitive jerk sometimes. Why couldn’t he have been the one to ask her about her day instead of this (very) cute but uninvolved neighbor?

  She tried to sweep away every thought but the one of her own image—the veneer she’d polished until she all but sparkled with self-assurance. “Yep,” she answered with practiced carelessness. “Broke a nail fighting these suckers. They’re gonna pay.”

  He shrugged and laughed briefly with her, but his empathetic look still lingered, and she hated that he didn’t completely buy her charade.

  “Well, I saw you out here and had a favor to ask.” He paused as if waiting for permission.

  “Of course,” she prompted, her imagination running like a cheetah through the
possibilities. Did he want to borrow a cup of sugar? Was he hoping she’d collect his mail while he was out of town on some romantic cruise? Was he in desperate need of a tennis partner for a game tomorrow? Hey, she’d play a set or two with him. She flipped her hair off her shoulders and tried to keep from further imagining what that would be like. Both of them very hot, very sweaty and—

  “I wondered if you might have a handheld trimmer I could use, just for the afternoon. I was about to charge mine, but I’d foolishly left it on the basement floor where my ravenous dog found it and chewed through the power cord.”

  She laughed, surprised. “Really? Sure. Ours may need to be charged, too, but it might still have ten or fifteen minutes of juice left in it.” She studied him, all long-limbed and relaxed. Except for his neck where she could see the tendons tensing. She rethought her reaction. “I—I don’t mean to make light of what happened, though. Is your dog okay?”

  He broke into a full grin. “Thankfully, yes. The cord was unplugged. But Sharky’s a feisty one. I’ve come to expect these little disasters.”

  “You named your dog Sharky?”

  “Yep. He’s a two-year-old German shepherd I got from Pet Rescue a month ago. Still not quite polite enough to meet the neighbors. We’re going to obedience classes,” he explained ruefully. “But that devil dog is all mouth. His goal in life is to chew on everything, dig up my backyard and make a nuisance of himself. He’s got the energy and the manners of a hyperactive teenager.” Aaron’s affection for the pooch radiated off him. “Don’t know what I’m going to do with him.”

  “He probably just needs to get laid,” she muttered.

  “Pardon?” he said, his deep blue eyes blinking at her, the amused expression returning full force.

  “Nothing. Sorry.” She flushed and race-walked toward the garage so she could grab the trimmer. She needed to make sure her own mouth didn’t get her in trouble here. It wouldn’t have been the first time, but for some reason she didn’t want to come across to this man as “flamboyant and frivolous” (yes, another of Jon’s flattering descriptive phrases for her). She considered trying to say something serious, but she couldn’t think of anything that didn’t sound insipid.

  She snatched the device off the dusty metal shelf and swiveled around to walk back to him, but he was only two steps behind her. “Oh, okay,” she said, almost breathlessly. He was standing so close! “H-Here you go.” She placed it carefully in his hands.

  “Thanks, Tamara.”

  Ahh, she loved the way he said her name.

  “I’ll bring it back tomorrow.”

  “No rush.” She sent him a casual nod. “Keep it as long as you like, Aaron. I’ve got my work cut out for me here. I’m not doing any detail stuff until I can see my cherry tomatoes in clear rows and be assured they won’t be overrun by the Bristly Bad Boys.”

  He nodded and strolled back toward the garden with her. “I think your cherry tomatoes look great,” he said, appraising them. He raised a single eyebrow in her direction before reaching toward one very ripe, very red Sweet Chelsea on a branch near them. “May I?”

  God, he was so polite. “Be my guest.”

  He plucked it, rubbed it against his jeans and held it up for her to see before popping it into his mouth and chewing. “Mmm, good.” His lips were so…so…indescribably intriguing.

  Huh.

  “So, they’re to your satisfaction then?” She feigned a mild interest in his reply and barely glanced at him. Inside her chest, though, her little heart picked up the pace.

  He stopped in place and waited until she met his gaze. “I wouldn’t worry about perfect rows when you’ve got a product that tastes this good.” Then he broke eye contact with her and scanned the yard. “Why aren’t the guys helping you out here? Work? School?”

  She explained Jon was on yet another business trip and Benji was officially away at the University of Texas.

  He whistled, low and smooth. Lordy, the man was Sexiness personified.

  “Big step, starting college. Kind of a big deal for both of you, huh?”

  Staggered again by the suddenness of her shifting moods, she drew a shuddering breath at this and tried to brush off the pummeling of emotions that raced like the Running of the Bulls through her system. She strained to smile but couldn’t speak.

  “Really,” he said, tilting his head and edging closer to her. “How are you doing?”

  Now, what could she say to this? That she was a fucking mess? No one wanted to hear crap like that. All anybody ever really wanted from her was an “I’m fine” or a “Doing great” or, at most, an “It’s been a long day.”

  But for some reason, as she looked deep into his serious eyes, she found herself unable to maintain her well-honed masquerade, not in the face of all this concern. “Truthfully? N-Not well.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, I sort of figured that. It’s gotta be hard.”

  She swallowed. “It is.”

  They walked in silence for a few minutes, making a paisley pattern on the grass with their meandering footsteps.

  Aaron rubbed the ridge of his jaw. “I was the youngest kid in a family with three older sisters,” he told her, his voice soothing and slow. “When I left, it was tough on my mom. She loves my sisters like crazy and they still get together all the time, just the girls, but it was real difficult for her losing me. Not only because I was the last one to leave home, but because I was her son.” He met her gaze again and held it for a long moment.

  She finally had to look away. She spotted her weed remover a few feet to her left. Snatched it up from the grass. Fiddled uselessly with it.

  “My mom and I communicate really well,” Aaron continued, “but not in the same chatty way she talks with my sisters. Our conversations are less verbal. It’s more about just hanging out together.” He sighed and stopped walking. “So, my being gone created a different kind of absence for her, know what I mean?”

  Tamara’s breathing grew more labored. Dammit. “Unfortunately, yeah.”

  She studied the features of this increasingly alluring but, in essence, unfamiliar man. Tall, lean, strong—yes. But there was something more about him. She was overcome by his intuitive ability to express what she’d been trying to understand about herself and her relationship with Benji but, for some reason, hadn’t quite been able to pinpoint. Sure, Aaron was more articulate and in touch with emotions than most men—a characteristic she attributed to his profession as an online men’s health magazine writer. Or was it editor? Some literary thing, anyway…but still.

  She felt her throat tightening and a tempest brewing within her. If one of them didn’t change the subject fast, she knew a crying jag would hit. One uncontrollable and torrential enough to rival a tropical rainstorm.

  But, despite her efforts to hide her rising emotion, Aaron persisted in noticing it. Noticing her. He didn’t let her construct her usual facade. He stood next to her as a couple of fugitive tears leaked from her eyes and dropped onto the dry grass.

  “I don’t know if any of what I said helps.” He waited until she wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand and stopped sniffling. “But it’s easy to see what a great kid Benji is, even from the few times I’ve talked with him. You must miss having him at home.”

  And gently, very gently, he reached out his hand and touched her forearm. Just a couple of fingertips, but they burned his kind words into her skin and warmed her.

  “Thanks for understanding,” she murmured as he pulled away and took a few steps toward the curb.

  “Hey, it’s okay. Hang in there, you hear? I’ll see you soon.” He raised his palm in a quick wave and added, “Thanks, again, for letting me borrow this.” He motioned to the trimmer.

  “You’re welcome.” She swiped at her eyes and smiled a little. “Just bribe Sharky with a nice leather loafer or something—I’d suggest some tasty Armani—so he stays away from cords.”

  He chuckled. “I will.”

  And as Aaron strode back toward his house, she
stared after him. No longer thinking about his sweaty shirt or even his cut physique. Her only prevailing thought, which spooled like a never-ending mental loop through her addled brain, was, What could’ve induced any woman to divorce him?

  He was, in Tamara’s not-so-humble opinion, a man without fault.

  4

  Jennifer

  Thursday, September 9

  “The dish towel caught on fire,” Jennifer’s husband, Michael, informed her as he dropped the singed green terrycloth into the sink and turned on the faucet.

  She watched steam rise from the stainless-steel basin and counted the seconds until the fire alarm would likely go off. Five, four, three, two—

  The blaring noise assaulted her ears. Jennifer eyed the alarm. Couldn’t be too much power left in that battery after all the use it’d been getting lately. Good thing daylight savings time was coming to an end soon. She needed an excuse to make Michael change the 9-volt.

  The latest problem, of course, was the toaster oven; the dish towel was merely an innocent bystander. Something invariably went wrong daily between 6:10 A.M., when Michael stepped out of his hot shower, and 7:20 A.M., when he grabbed his briefcase filled with student quizzes, his ¿Habla Español? teacher’s guide and the keys to his Toyota before heading off to work.

  How did she know this? Well, because yesterday’s problem had been the hair dryer.

  And the day before it had been the rechargeable shaver.

  And one memorable morning last week it’d been the microwavable omelet maker.

  She and Michael had had a month of appliance malfunctions with which to mark the deterioration of morning conversation from “Hi, honey, how’d you sleep?” to “Quick, grab the fire extinguisher!”

  If she didn’t know better, she’d think Michael was set on destroying the house one electrical device at a time, simply to get out of asking her how she was doing, what she was thinking or why she was spending so many hours glued to her computer screen.