“What are you doing?”
“I no longer live here, Henry.”
“No, El.” He pulled the bag from her. “You live here.”
“I’m leaving.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Did you think I’d stay? Did you?” Ellen flung open the closet. “You hid the truth from me.”
“I was afraid to talk to you. I was afraid of this.”
“Guess what, Henry, your fears have come true.”
“No.” Henry pulled her from the closet. “I won’t let you do this. We need to resolve this matter.”
Ellen laughed. “Resolve? Do you actually think there can be a resolve? I walked around Beginnings like an idiot, professing that I had no idea how Nick was conceived. You … you backed it right up.” Her hands flew about. “Do you know how stupid that feels? When all along, you knew. You knew exactly how and when I got pregnant with Nick.”
“I told you I was scared.”
“I thought you knew me.”
“I do.”
“Apparently not, Henry. Because if you would have just told me the next day when I asked if anything happened between us …” She stepped to Henry. “I asked you if anything happened. You said no. If you would have said yes. Told me the truth, it wouldn’t have been an issue.”
“Then, why is it an issue now!”
“Because you lied to me. You didn’t just lie to me then, you did it all the way up until now. You lied about Nick. You had a chance then, too. Why aren’t you getting this?”
“Is the Nick paternity why you are so mad?”
Ellen blasted, “What! No! It’s everything. The lies, everything.”
“At least I told you, Ellen. Give me credit for that.”
“Oh my God. In what reality does that make it OK?” Ellen walked to her drawers and grabbed clothes. “Now I have to live in the old reality and keep pretending I haven’t a clue how Nick came about. Because if I say I do, then I look like a bigger liar than everyone thinks I am. If I tell the truth, you’ll be ousted as a rapist.”
As she turned, Henry grabbed her arm. “Rapist? How dare you throw that word at me? I told you I didn’t know. You remembered kissing me.”
“I was drunk, Henry.”
“You kept kissing me.”
“I blacked out.”
“But you responded when we started having sex.”
“And that makes it okay?”
“Yes.”
“Fuck you!” Ellen grabbed her bag, swung it outward, smacking Henry in her exit of the bedroom.
“We have a son.”
“Apparently that was a huge mistake.”
“El, listen to me.” He chased her down the stairs. “I didn’t tell you. I was wrong. I’m sorry. I am so sorry for lying to you. But how was I supposed to know. You responded, you reacted when we …”
“Stop.” Ellen held out her hand. “Did you know how drunk I was?”
“Yes.” Henry lowered his head.
“Then you should have never taken advantage of me.”
“No one takes advantage of you.”
Ellen stared him down. Her eyes glaring, then she grabbed for the door.
“I guess you’re gonna go tell everyone now.”
Ellen turned back around. “No. No I’m not. I’ll make up an excuse about the wedding, about us, whatever. Because I am so embarrassed by it all. But I swear to God, Henry, if you ever imply that I let you take advantage of me. If you ever imply that you weren’t wrong and I was. If you ever imply that again. I’m going straight to Dean with the truth.”
“Dean?” Henry nearly laughed. “Not Frank.”
“Dean. Frank will just beat your ass. Throw you out. Dean will kill you.” She opened the door. “And you’ll never see it coming.”
CHAPTER NINE
JULY 29
Barely daylight and barely awake, Robbie found himself having to think and recount what had happened the night before. He sat up, propping his pillow behind his back against the headboard and straightening the sheet across his waist. He folded his hands, tapping fingers together. He wasn’t drinking heavily the night before. He remembered that. One drink, that was it and he went to bed early. His thoughts were interrupted when the snooze alarm went off on his alarm for the fourth time. Quickly he reached his hand over and shut it off. He lifted the covers, looking down under them at himself. He wasn’t naked. He was wearing shorts. It was just as he remembered the night before. He wouldn’t have given any thought to the previous evening at all. Until he hit the snooze for the third time and heard the slight moan next to him in bed.
Did he accidently put something in his own drink? Perhaps he had a brain tumor. Because he missed the fact on how Ellen ended up in bed with him.
He looked at the time knowing he had to get out of bed, and figuring so did Ellen, he decided to wake her.
“El,” he called out to her, looking down as she curled close to the other side of the bed. He could see she wore a tee shirt and Robbie wanted so badly to lift the covers to see if that was all she wore. “El,” he called out again.
Ellen grumbled something and lifted her head. Her hair flopped all over her face. She plopped over on her back.
Robbie smiled. “El, do you need to get up?”
“What time is it?” She groaned.
“Six thirty.”
Ellen whined, “My poor head.” She lifted herself to her elbows then rolled onto her side, removing her hair from her eyes. “I can’t even lift my head.”
Robbie grinned. “Considering you smell like Josephine after a long night at the hall. I’d say you were drunk.”
“Oh, God, did I drink.”
“Hey, El. How exactly did you ...” One knock, one firm knock and Robbie looked to his bedroom door.
“Robert,” Joe called and opened the door walking in. “Time to get ... Oh Jesus Christ.” Quickly Joe retreated and left, shutting the door with a loud bang.
Ellen sat up all the way. “What was all that about?”
Robbie shrugged. “Don’t know.”
“Why would Joe ... oh shit!” Ellen flung the covers from herself jumping out of bed. “He saw us in bed.”
“Yeah, so.”
Robbie got out of bed too. “You’re wearing shorts.”
“Of course I’m wearing shorts.” Ellen looked for her shoes.
“El, did we have sex last night?”
“No!” Ellen answered sharply. “Where are my shoes? Oh I know Joe is just gonna yell at me. My head.” She grabbed her forehead. “Why would you think we had sex?”
“Because you were in my bed. I don’t remember how you got there. Last I recall I was alone. Now, I’m thinking I have a brain tumor or I drank more than I thought ...”
“Robbie.” She sat on the bed. “The reason you don’t remember is because when I got into bed last night, you were crashed. I ended up here because I couldn’t get into Dean’s. I knew his house was empty, but it was also locked. I couldn’t go to Frank’s because it’s crowded enough there. So I came here. But when I snuck in, Katie was sleeping on the couch and Denny was on the floor. I guess Andrea had an emergency.” Ellen stood up.
“No, Andrea is sick. She came down with something last night.” Robbie shrugged. “I don’t know what but we watched the kids for her then I went to bed. Is that why you were in my bed?”
“Yeah. You have a double bed. There was room and I remembered you are not a bed hog so I slept here.”
“Hey, El, can I tell everyone I woke up in bed with you?”
“No,” she said annoyed, walking to the door. “It’s bad enough Joe thinks we slept together. How I’m getting out of that one, I don’t know.” She opened the bedroom door.
“El.” Robbie waited for her to stop. “Can I at least tell Henry?”
Ellen was silent. “Yeah, go on. You can tell Henry but that’s it.” Waving her hand and knowing she had to be going, Ellen left.
<><><><>
Over the raili
ng of the lookout tower Frank leaned his body into his elbows that rested on the thick wooden beam. He took the tower watch while Steve took a break. Frank never minded it much doing that. There was something really peaceful about the view that was seen from the tower, not that Frank would share that feeling with anyone. Watching out into the wilderness, where barely an animal moved, Frank smoked his cigarette, thinking back to the night before.
Ellen was in the Social Hall when he found her, one of three people there. Forrest sat with Josephine at the bar, and Ellen sat at a table using two chairs, one for her body and the other for her extended legs. Her head was back and her hair looked longer than it was as she rested her side against the table and her hand played blindly with her drink.
“Hey,” Frank spoke to her, gently tugging her hair and making her head pull back more. “Can I join you?”
“Not right now. OK, Frank?”
“OK.” Frank stood for about ten seconds then walked to in front of her, removing her legs from the chair and sat down there. “How about now?”
“Frank.” Ellen turned her body into the table. “I just want to sit alone. OK?”
“Nope.” Frank shook his head. “Dean said he went to the house. You stormed out. Henry told him the wedding was off. Is it?”
“Are you going to gloat?”
“Nope.”
“No, I told you so’s ?”
“Nope.”
“What’s up with that?” Ellen asked him, holding back her bangs as she leaned for support on her elbow.
“Let’s just say as your friend for over half your life,” Frank rested his hand on her hand that held her drink, “I’m concerned about you.”
“I probably look really stupid right now, don’t I?”
“I don’t know how to respond to that because I don’t know why the fake wedding was called off.”
“I’m just tired of the lies. I want to change, Frank, and a mock wedding isn’t the way to do it. Plus, Henry ... I don’t know. He ... let’s just say, he’s not always what he appears.”
“I’ll accept that and let this go. If you wanna make a change, why did you keep going on with the wedding stuff?”
“First it was for Joe. Then I kinda got all caught up in it. Then, and don’t laugh, I liked being part of the women. I liked ... no, I like Jenny Matoose.”
Frank nearly choked.
“You’re making fun.”
“I’m shocked.”
Ellen sipped her drink. “You know what hurts the most, Frank. It’s Henry.” Ellen turned her head to look at Frank. “I never expected anything less than the truth from him. I trusted him so much. He doesn’t even realize what I put aside, what I gave up for my obligation to him. No matter how much it hurt, I put aside everything I felt for you so ... so ... I could ... finish my drink.” She held up her glass, widening her eyes as she drank, and looking away from Frank. “I didn’t say that.”
Frank smiled. He lowered her drink from her mouth. “I didn’t hear anything. El, am I missing something here? Did Henry do something? I mean ... it sounds to me like he did something and you aren’t saying.”
“He did. And, I’m not going to say what. Please respect that.”
Frank held up his hand. “Promise. Wanna come back to the house with me. Hang out. I have to be getting back anyhow. Walk with me. Come on, Blind Dean is there.” He tilted his head with a smile. “We can play blind jokes on him. What do you say?”
“No.” She shook her head with a slight laugh. “I wanna stay here, at least for a little while. Rain check though on the blind jokes?”
“Most definitely. Will you be all right?”
Ellen grunted and moaned, “Don’t make fun of me but ... I feel so bad.”
Frank put his arm around the back of her chair and scooted closer. “I’m sorry.”
Ellen leaned into his chest.
“Will you be all right?”
“I’ll be fine.”
Frank leaned into her and kissed her on the cheek. “If you need me for anything, you call me or come and get me. I want to help.”
“You can.”
“Good.” Frank began to back away but Ellen pulled him back.
“Frank.” She slipped her arms around his neck and brought her lips lightly across his neck and to his ear, whispering, “Take me somewhere. Make love to me. Do what only you can do and make it all go away. Please.” She brushed her lips against his ear.
“El.”
“Frank.”
“El.” He pulled Ellen away from him then firmly ran his hands up her arms then to her face. He placed his hands to her cheeks and lowered his lips close to her. Then Frank stopped. “I can’t.” He backed up and removed her arms. “I can’t, sorry.”
“What? I won’t ever, ever, ever offer it to you again.”
“Yes, you will.”
Ellen’s mouth dropped open in shock. “I will not.”
“Yes, you will.” Frank walked to beside her. “And trust me when you do, you won’t be on your fourth drink. I don’t want you to do something you’ll regret and not remember in the morning.” He kissed her on the cheek before he left, but felt bad. Because there was an expression on her face that told him, he probably shouldn’t have left her with Forrest and Josephine, the town barflies.
He missed something in their conversation. He felt it.
Frank reminded himself right then and there, as he finished his cigarette on the tower, that he would try to talk to Ellen about it. Or at least get Robbie on it ...
Looking at the cigarette that had nearly burned itself out, Frank, using his middle finger and thumb, flicked the butt over the rail. It sailed through the air spinning. For as much as Frank didn’t expect to hear it hitting the ground fifty feet below, that was how much he didn’t expect to hear the high-pitched shriek beneath him. Knowing that the cigarette probably hit someone, Frank snickering, peeked over the railing. It took everything he had not to laugh out loud when he saw Henry rubbing his arm and looking up at the tower to try to see who had just burned him.
<><><><>
It wasn’t turning out to be a very good day for Henry at all. Not like he actually thought it would be, but since the moment he woke up alone, the day had gone downhill. It was bad enough that everybody in town knew, by eight a.m., that the wedding was called off, but what made matters worse was that he couldn’t walk past a single woman in Beginnings without them calling him a prick. Every single one he walked by called him that. Henry kept his head low. It would have hung like that on its own from his sadness but now he dealt with name-calling. He tried to get by Jenny, but she called him a prick and told him she wished she could spit on him. Trish went into her own version of a riot act, telling Henry he was sending her into premature labor, that they still would have a gala and he would eat his heart out at it. Of course, Trish screamed that single slang term for the male anatomy at him at the end of her speech. Even Josephine jumped on that bandwagon adding the word ‘fuckin’ in her sentiments to Henry. Bad day. He would have thought Ellen told the women the truth, but since he was still alive and still in Beginnings he knew no one knew.
As Henry walked to the Mechanics Division building, he was in pain and ready to kill Steve the guard for that cigarette burn. Henry guessed that red welt was now the cherry that topped the whipped cream that topped his bad day.
It had to get better. It would get better, when he tried to speak to Ellen ... again. Hopefully on his next round at it, she wouldn’t walk by him. If he could only get her where she couldn’t leave, then he’d be sure to get her to listen to him. To Henry, getting her to listen would be half the battle.
Walking into Mechanics, Henry tossed his bag on the bench. “Hey, Scott, back already?”
“Yep, and I’m going back out.”
“Good.”
“Henry, Forrest is in your office waiting for you. He radioed and asked where he could find you, and when I told him you were heading back here before your meeting with Joe, he showed up.�
��
“Forrest?” Henry tilted his head in question. “What’s he want?”
Scott shrugged. “Don’t know.” He picked up his things. “See you later.”
“Scott, did Robbie ever show up this morning?” Henry asked.
Scott didn’t need to answer. Robbie did. “Yes, Henry, I did.” He came from the stockroom, holding wires.
Henry turned from Scott who left and faced Robbie. “Why are you here and not out working?”
“Uh ...” Robbie looked up at the ceiling in a thinking mode, his middle finger pressed to his bottom lip. “Supplies maybe.”
“You were late.”
“So what? I’ll work late.”
“You can’t be late, Robbie.”
“I slept in, don’t start on me.”
Henry grunted. “I don’t care. You can’t be sleeping late all the time. You have to learn to pull yourself from that bed.”
“Normally I would, Henry.” Robbie gave a shitty grin as he walked to the door. “But why pull myself out of bed this morning when Ellen was still there.” He gave swift pat to Henry’s back as he walked out. “Bye.”
Henry spun fiercely to the just shut door. “No. He didn’t ... shit.”
“An-ray,” Forrest called out chipper, stepping from Henry’s office.
A squeak of Henry soles occurred when he spun back around to see Forrest. “Hey, Forrest.” Henry took a second to let his heart stop racing at the vision of Robbie with Ellen.
“An-ray, uh woo luck ta speck with you if uh cooed.”
“Um sure, Forrest. What is it?” Henry placed his hands on his hips and looked down to the much smaller man.
“Uh woos specking ta Trash un shay tod may dat you un El-loon half cod ef de wadding. Oui?”
“Um ...” Henry quickly deciphered what Forrest had said. He really wanted to rush him along; he had to get his notes and head to Joe’s office. “Yeah.”
“Uh um saw-ray, An-ray. Trash has tod may dat El-loon es don with you. Shay hes mud de sue-gestion dat ma-bay uh cooed stop en un hop El-loon. I luck El-loon and uh ned ta knew ef you wooed mund, An-ray, ef uh wooed tuck El-loon on a det.”
The Big Ten: The First Ten Books of the Beginnings Series Page 302
