“Well, you can’t.”
Rich stood by the sofa for a moment, rocking on his feet, fiddling with the tail of the T-shirt he’d slept in. Finally he looked sheepishly at his wife and said, “Why not?”
“Why not what?”
“Why can’t I quit?”
Vanessa paused with the sandwich halfway to her mouth and stared at her husband as if he’d lost his mind. She suspected he had. “Please tell me you’re not serious.”
“Hear me out,” Richard said, sitting next to her. “You’ve been selling houses left and right lately, and that has really padded our bank account. I’ve sold another two stories to publications that pay pro rates. I’m really on a roll now.”
“Three stories, none of which you’ve been paid for yet, hardly constitutes a roll,” Vanessa said coolly.
“I’m telling you, Ness, this is the beginning. Big things are around the corner, I can feel it. And the new novel I’m working on is going tremendously well.”
“Your novel,” Vanessa said with a sneer, before she cut herself off. She wasn’t sure why, but it felt important not to let Rich know she’d read some of his work.
“Yes, I really think I’ll be able to find a publisher when I’m finished, but I need to focus, and the job at the Gazette is a distraction I don’t need right now.”
“Need I remind you that when you first got the job at the paper, you were ecstatic. ‘Finally, a job that utilizes my skills as a writer,’ you told me.”
“So-and-so passed away last night, and is survived by a wife and two kids,” Richard said mockingly. “Not exactly Nobel material. I really feel that I’m on the precipice of a major breakthrough in my writing career. I need to devote more time to it.”
“How is that possible?” Vanessa asked. “How could you possibly devote more time to your writing? You already spend every waking second at it, neglecting everything else. Your job, the house, your wife. The only way you could spend more time at it would be to add extra hours to the day.”
“Ness, please, listen to what I’m—”
“No, Rich. No! Right now I’m doing well at my job, but real estate is a fickle business. If the market were to go south, my commissions would dry up and we’d be in quite a bind. If you’re looking for me to tell you it’s okay with me if you quit your job, you’re out of luck.”
Richard stood, his mouth puckered as if he’d tasted something sour. Vanessa noticed a tick in his left cheek, causing his eye to twitch. “I don’t know why I bother trying to talk to you,” he said. “You never understand.”
“Well, maybe if you started talking sense, I’d understand.”
“You’re a fucking philistine.”
Vanessa tossed her unfinished sandwich in the wastebasket then turned to leave the room. “I’m not in the mood for this. I’m going to turn in early. I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow.”
Without a “good night” or a kiss, Vanessa walked past her husband and out of the room. Only after she was safely behind the closed door of the bedroom did she allow the tears to flow. Something was very wrong with her husband and she didn’t know what to do about it. After changing into her nightgown, she crawled under the covers of the big, empty bed, still warm from Richard’s body, and wept softly into the pillow until she fell asleep.
***
TO: [email protected]
FROM: [email protected]
SUBJECT: Loved the Chapters You Sent
You’ve nailed it, Richie!
I am totally fucking hooked on Subtle Changes. I need another fix, so hurry up and send me some more chapters. I can tell you’ve finally stopped holding back and are letting the muse flow through you. No more safe, dull stories for you; from here on out, it’s all a trip down the rabbit hole into a world of insanity and depravity. I think you’re finally learning that nothing makes an impression like the extreme. I like to think I’ve played at least a small part in helping you tap into the dark power that you’re showing in this novel. If it keeps going this well, I’ll bet you’ll have agents beating down your goddamn door to represent you, and there will probably be a bidding war among all the big publishers. I’m not blowing smoke up your ass, either; I am truly impressed.
So is the wife still being a bitch about all this? I don’t mean to badmouth the missus or anything, but from what you’ve told me, she sounds like a really insecure woman. Maybe she’s jealous of your talent, bitter because she doesn’t have a gift like yours. In any case, sounds like she’s really trying to stand in your way. It’s a shame some people have to be like that, a hindrance instead of a help. A truly devoted wife would bend over backwards for you, do whatever the fuck she could to make your life easier so you could focus on your writing. Your wife sounds like she wants you to make her life easier. This is what happens when all this women’s lib shit gets taken too far. You end up with women who think they’re men, women who want their husbands to play the housewife. You’re wife sounds like she needs a wakeup call, something to let her know you’re the man of the house, and she can either support you or get the hell out of your way.
You know, Rich, I’ve been thinking about this, and perhaps it’s time you and I met face-to-face. I mean, I feel a kinship with you that I’ve never felt with anyone else. It’s like we’ve known each other for years, like we really understand how one another’s brains work. I’ll be traveling in your neck of the woods to visit some family in the near future; maybe I could swing by and we could spend some time together. Perhaps together we could persuade your wife to be a little more understanding. Let me know what you think.
Mace
TO: [email protected]
FROM: [email protected]
SUBJECT: Pain in My Ass
Hey Mace, I broached the subject of quitting my job with Ness earlier tonight. She reacted predictably, which is to say like a real cunt. She has pretty much forbidden me to quit the paper. Like she wears the pants in the family or something. With the money she makes at her job and the money I know will start coming in now that I’m having some success with the bigger magazines, there’s no reason I should keep that lousy shitty job at the Gazette. Crazy as it sounds, I think she resents the fact that writing makes me so happy, and I swear she is out to spite me. She’s really changed in the past couple of months; it’s like her mission in life to make me miserable. I don’t know what her problem is, but she needs to get over it right fucking quick. I mean, I haven’t been able to get any decent writing done tonight, she put me in such a bad mood. And I simply cannot allow anything or anyone, not even my wife, to interfere with my writing. That is unacceptable. She is in need of a serious attitude adjustment.
You know I’d love to meet you, Mace, but the idea also makes me a little nervous. I mean, it would be like meeting an idol. Your work is so fan-fucking-tastic, I am afraid I would feel totally inadequate in your presence. Let me give it a little more thought, and I’ll get back to you.
Well, I was supposed to finish up a bunch of obits to send off to my supervisor in the morning, but I think I’m going to take some of your advice and say FUCK IT! I would rather spend the time working on Subtle Changes, and it’s not like those folks will be any less dead if I don’t write their obituaries. I’m going to try to get some work done so that I’ll have some more chapters to send you by the weekend.
‘Til later.
Mace
***
Vanessa could remember a time when she found absolute pleasure in coming home after a day in the trenches. Nine times out of ten she would find Rich in the kitchen, tending to something on the stove or in the oven. Often he had something romantic waiting—a rose in a vase, soft music on the stereo. Even in the early years of their marriage, when he worked at temporary labor jobs while she studied to pass the realtor’s exam, he found the time to be romantic. Now she stepped into the house with a ball of dread knotted in her stomach. The door closed behind her with a muffled thump and she stood in the foyer, listening.
She could h
ear the steady, bass thud of music from the upstairs office. The room that had become Richard’s domain.
Ness moved through the house, putting her briefcase and jacket down in the dining room. The house was dim, the blinds in the same half-drawn position they had been when she’d left that morning. The breakfast dishes were heaped in the sink, unwashed. The anger that Ness wanted to feel—righteous anger at her husband’s sudden dismissal of everything in his life outside of his writing and his friendship with Mace—was dampened by fear.
Are you really afraid of Richard? Afraid of your own husband?
To be honest, Ness thought she was. She never imagined there might come a day when Richard could frighten her, but here she was, standing at the bottom of the stairs, listening to the heavy notes of music that came from behind the closed office door. That closed door seemed to represent everything that had come between them in the past months. It was a barrier that had never existed before.
Drawing up her courage—and some of her anger—Ness mounted the stairs. She meant to have it out with Richard now, for better or for worse. She couldn’t continue living with him if he was going to treat her like something secondary. She wouldn’t be afraid or upset by him any longer.
She paused outside the office door, the floor vibrating underfoot. She could smell smoke. It wasn’t the bitter smoke of a fire or something burnt, but rather the acrid aroma of tobacco. Ness was immediately taken back a dozen years, to a time when Richard still smoked. That had been his one true vice when they’d first married. He used to smoke like a chimney, in fact, until Ness squeezed it out of him and made him quit. Now, it seemed, he’d gone back to his old habits.
Ness put a hand on the doorknob and turned. Part of her, that same frightened, saddened part, half-expected the door to be locked, but it wasn’t. The knob turned and the door swung open. With the barrier removed, the blasting beat of the music rushed around her like a hot summer wind.
Richard sat at his computer, chair leaned back and feet on the corner of the desk. He held a half-smoked cigarette between his lips and stared at the computer screen through a haze of smoke. On the desk, by his elbow, was a bottle of Jim Beam and a tumbler, half-filled with amber liquid. Richard scrolled down the screen with his mouse, lips moving slightly as he read the text.
“Rich?” Ness said. She wanted to speak sharply, with anger and authority, but the word came out in a stifled croak. Richard didn’t hear her. He continued to read the words on the screen, cigarette smoldering.
Ness drew a quivering breath and said, “Richard!”
His feet dropped off the desk and he swung around, his face bearing an expression that was one-half surprise and one-half anger. The cigarette bobbed in his mouth.
“Ness,” he said, lifting his voice above the music. “You’re home already?”
“Of course,” Ness said. “It’s past six.”
“What?”
“Jesus, Richard, turn that racket down so we can talk!”
Richard reached over and dialed down the volume on the stereo. The music faded away like an echo of thunder. Setting his cigarette down in an ashtray, Richard said, “There.”
They regarded one another in a long stretch of silence. Ness didn’t like the expectation she saw in Richard’s eyes. He knew that she had come here to confront him, and there was almost a childlike glee in his expression. He was waiting for her to say something.
“You’re smoking?”
Richard picked up the cigarette and tapped the ashes into the ashtray. “Yep,” he said.
“I thought you quit.”
“I did, but only because you wanted me to.”
“That’s not true,” Ness said.
“It is,” Richard replied. “Hell, Ness, I’ve done a lot of things in my life because you wanted me to do them. I quit smoking, moved out here to the suburbs, got a job at the Gazette . . . ”
Ness raised her eyebrows. She had never suggested that Richard write obituaries for the Gazette. He found that job himself and gone out of his way to obtain it. He thought it was going to be a lead-in to something better, a way to get a full-time writing position.
“So,” Richard went on, drawing contentedly on his cigarette, “I decided to reconsider a few things. I figured it was time I did things for myself. Like this, for example.” He waggled the cigarette at her and smiled.
“Richard, I never said . . . when you decided to get the job at the Gazette, it wasn’t me who . . . ”
She realized that the conversation distracted her. She hadn’t come here to defend herself against Richard’s accusations. She came here to confront him about his behavior. Gritting her teeth, she struggled to regain focus. She crossed the room and took up a spot in front of her husband. “Richard, what the hell is going on with you?”
“Going on?” Richard asked, exhaling plumes of smoke. “I don’t know what—”
“Damn it Richard, put that cigarette out and talk to me! And turn this off!” She reached around her husband and switched the stereo off completely. The music evaporated, leaving behind the strained silence of the room.
With slow, deliberate motions, Rich butted out his cigarette. Then, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms, he said, “You’ve obviously got something to say, so say it.”
Ness began speaking quickly, before she could think about what she was saying and change her mind. “I do have something to say. You aren’t acting like yourself at all. Smoking. Drinking. The late nights. The moods you get in. I don’t even feel like I know who you are anymore. You barely have time for me and when you do, you scare me.”
“What?” Richard said. “That’s crazy.”
“You’re acting crazy. You have to see it.”
“I don’t,” Richard said. His eyes flickered.
“You spend every waking hour in here at the computer. I never see you anymore.”
“I’m working,” Richard said.
“Really? I never see you working. Everything you do for the Gazette is done late or not at all. And when you—”
“I’m writing!” Richard shouted. Ness jumped. “That’s my work! Not that fucking bullshit I do for the Gazette. Jesus Christ, that was a distraction, a fucking measly paycheck. If you ever thought of that as my work then you’re the crazy one, Ness. Not me!”
Tears rose in her eyes. She tried to choke them back. “That’s what I mean,” she gasped. “You’re ignoring your work for your writing and—”
Richard came out of his chair quickly. Ness backpedaled, terrified for a single moment that her husband was going to strike her. Instead he slammed a hand on the desk and grabbed for a pack of cigarettes.
“My writing is my work,” he said. “Why don’t you get that? You don’t understand. The Gazette was nothing. Nothing! I quit that fucking job a week ago. Christ, if it wasn’t for Mace I wouldn’t have anyone who understood.”
“You quit your job?”
Richard shook a cigarette out of the package. “I did.” He pinched the cigarette between his lips. “That job was a dead weight on me, Ness. Don’t you understand that? It was holding me back. Now I can focus on what’s important. It’s like Mace says, nothing can get in my way. I have to keep my eyes on what matters. My writing. I sold another story today, did you know that?”
Ness blinked. “No, but Richard, please, you quit? Without talking to me?”
“You see?” Richard said, lighting the cigarette and exhaling a curl of smoke. “I told you I sold a story and all you can do is harp about that job. No congratulations for the story. Nothing.”
“There are bigger things going on right now,” Ness said.
“For me, my writing is the big thing. I’ve made more money with my writing in the past month than I have before. And right now I’m working on a novel and it’s going to be—”
Before she could stop herself, Ness said, “It’s ugly! It’s vile and disgusting, that’s what it is.” As the words spilled out of her, her strength collapsed. Tears coursed down her c
heeks.
“What?” Richard said.
Ness didn’t reply. She closed her hands over her face and sobbed. She felt lost, adrift, and longing for someone to help her.
Richard grabbed her shoulders and squeezed. “You read my novel without asking?”
Ness lowered her hands and stared into her husband’s face. It wasn’t the Richard she knew. She didn’t recognize this man at all. The man she knew should have taken her into his arms to comfort her, not accuse her.
“I read it,” Ness said. “Because you shut me out. You didn’t ask me to read your stuff anymore, because of Mace.”
Richard lowered his hands. “What?”
“Mace!” Ness screamed. “Your precious goddamn Mace. That’s all I hear. Mace this and Mace that! You practically worship a man you’ve never even met.”
Richard spun on a heel and sat back down at his desk. For a few moments he stared at the computer screen. Then, carefully saving his work, he turned to face his wife. “Well, don’t worry. That’s going to change.”
“What is?”
“I’m going to meet Mace. He and I were discussing it via email. I actually said I wanted to wait—to make sure. Maybe talk to you. But I don’t think I need to wait. I’m going to invite him for a visit. He said he’d be glad to come.”
“Here?”
“Of course here,” Richard snorted. “Where the fuck else would he go?”
“But you don’t even know him. You know nothing about him! You can’t invite a stranger to our house.”
Richard blew a stream of smoke out of the corner of his mouth. “He isn’t a stranger.”
Ness swallowed tightly. She watched while Richard set his cigarette aside and picked up the glass of whiskey. He took a lingering sip.
“God, Richard,” she whispered. “What’s happening?”
Richard set his drink aside. “Things are changing around here. I’ve put up with you stifling me long enough. I’m a writer, Ness. An artist. I create. It’s what I do, and it’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to write my novel and it’s going to sell. Big! Before you know it, you’ll be asking me to let you quit your job.”
Flowers in a Dumpster Page 21
