by J. Thorn
“Your mom.”
Drew laughed and threw his hands behind his head.
“What did you do this weekend?” asked Brian.
“My son had his first ice-hockey game on Saturday. He scored twice and laid a mean hit on the other team’s defenseman. The kid knows how to forecheck.”
Brian chuckled and dropped his shoulder. He feigned a crosscheck on the office door. “Coulda been a center in the NHL. No doubt.” Drew shook his head and glanced back at the monitor on his desk. “Can’t keep your eyes off that thing for more than one minute, huh?”
Drew shrugged off the question. “Each e-mail is a gift from the tech gods, bundled full of excitement and possibility,” he said.
“Sarcasm?”
“Hardly.”
Brian glanced into the hallway as two skirts pushed through the rows of cubicles. Spiny coat racks covered with winter garments stood like buoys on an open sea of business.
“Every ten seconds,” said Drew. Brian turned back, his eyebrows drawn upward. “The average guy thinks of banging every ten seconds. You’re probably closer to three.”
“Ain’t my fault marriage makes it ten years,” replied Brian.
Drew smiled and shook his head in mock disgust as Brian continued his daily office rounds. He faced his monitor again and noticed that three more bolded subject lines had appeared in his in-box. Drew clicked on the first one and wondered how penis enlargement offers had found their way through the company spam filter. The next one was cc’d to his wife, and the subject line demanded an RSVP to a child’s birthday party.
Molly will handle that, he thought as his finger struck the delete key.
The radiator next to Drew’s desk hissed and spat as the water from the boiler invaded the pipes, reminding him of an air compressor at a gas station. Most of the women on the floor envied his location and fought winter with electric heaters stashed like stowaways under their desks.
The thought trailed along like a fine vapor until it led him back to Virginia Beach. Drew closed his eyes and could smell the cocoa-butter tanning oil on his wife’s body, and his breath hitched when he remembered the night they had spent on the sand behind the pool. Molly kept worrying that the kids would wake up or one of the other members of the extended family sharing the house would catch them in the act. As usual, Drew talked her into letting go of her inhibitions, even if her mom was a light sleeper. They rolled in the sand until it mixed with the salty smell of desire, sprayed off under the shower nozzle next to the hot tub, and snuck back into the beach house with nobody the wiser.
Drew felt his pants tighten, and he dropped the quarterly sales report into his lap in hopes of drowning his growing embarrassment with numbers.
“What time is the staff meeting?” a coworker interrupted. Drew shook and fumbled for the coffee mug, feeling his cheeks flush. “Didn’t mean to scare you, Chief.”
He rolled his eyes and grabbed hold of the mouse on his desk. Johnson never remembered a name. “You didn’t. It’s at 11:00.”
“Like, in ten minutes?”
Drew glanced to the bottom right corner of his monitor at the time, reading 10:49. “Eleven,” he replied.
Johnson shrugged and walked toward the break room. Drew marveled at his own ability to daydream. His teachers had warned his parents about his lack of attention. However, in a time before every kid suffered from ADHD, and before the FDA jumped into bed with Big Pharma, his parents treated his condition like every other parent did. They told him to pay attention and then sent him out to play with the neighborhood kids.
The alarm on Drew’s computer shook him. He glanced back to the screen to see that the time was 10:59, his one-minute warning to head to the boardroom for the staff meeting. Johnson had a habit of making the latecomers the butt of the joke, and Drew was tired of providing him with new material.
As he stood and pushed the fauxleather office chair back from the desk, Drew noticed a new arrival to his in-box. He placed both hands on the desk and squinted at the bold subject line. “Tonight,” was all it said.
Incentive to get me through the meeting, Drew thought as he hit the buttons on the keyboard to lock his computer from nosy cubicle mates and office pranksters.
***
The rest of the morning bled into afternoon with a constant cycle of texts, e-mails, phone calls, and drop-in visits from the usual suspects. Drew wondered how any business was done with the alluring siren call of social networking and smartphones tucked out of sight but within reach.
“Heading out to the Fox and the Hound after work. You coming?” asked Brian.
“It’s Monday,” replied Drew.
Brian threw both hands into the air and his mouth drew into a circle. “Can’t possibly have a beer on a Monday.”
Drew rubbed a hand over his forehead as three more messages jumped to the in-box. “I’ve got too much work to do.”
“You could come hang?”
“Billy has hockey practice, and Molly’s been at me for weeks to snake the drain in the bathtub.”
“Livin’ on the edge,” replied Brian as he shoved his hands into pockets full of lint, change, and scraps of paper.
“Someday you’ll get it,” said Drew.
“Already do, and got a prescription to keep it from spreading,” replied Brian as the fifties-era wall clock crawled toward five.
Chapter 2
“Hon, can you help Billy get the hockey pants on? The suspenders aren’t staying on his shoulders.”
Drew looked at Billy and motioned over his shoulder with the nod of his head. “Will you please tell Mom it’s fine?”
Billy smirked and winked at his dad. “All fixed, Mom!” he yelled toward Molly, who was upstairs working the knots out of Sara’s hair.
“Got a scrimmage after practice?” Drew asked while Billy pulled the shirt over his shoulder pads, releasing the musky fragrance of preadolescence on ice.
“Probably. Coaches let us play if everyone does their best on the drills.”
“Remember to—“
“Keep my head up near the boards, and not every shot has to be top shelf. Got it, Dad.”
Drew tousled Billy’s hair and reached for the hockey stick lying across chapter books on the Greek gods. He helped his son carry the hockey bag to the car and lift it into the trunk before backing out of the driveway, turning right onto Main Street and heading east. While the radio blared another “alternative” rock song that was no longer the alternative to anything, Drew remembered the subject line of the e-mail he did not have time to revisit.
Tonight, he thought, will have to wait until tonight.
***
“Left wing, left wing!”
Billy skated toward the corner and unleashed a bruising hip check on the unsuspecting kid hovering over the puck like a hen trying to hatch an egg. A collective sigh oozed from the parents clinging to the glass. Drew shrugged and looked at the parent next to him on the bleachers.
As the game progressed, however, Drew and the other parents retreated into somber silence. The opposing team filled the net with goals until the mercy rule came into play, and the referees let the clock run in hopes of protecting the self-esteem of the losing team, Billy’s team.
“Can you untie my laces?” Billy asked Drew through wet eyes and a sniffling nose. Other parents entered the locker room and helped the children shed their hockey equipment.
“You gave it your best out there, kid. I’m proud of you.”
Billy managed a smile for his dad as the coach prattled on about the merits of losing and how it builds character.
***
“Billy was really upset about the game.”
“Losing sucks.”
Molly rolled her eyes and let her toes crawl up Drew’s calf. “Don’t be so coy. Your opinion means a lot to him.”
“Just doing what fathers are supposed to do.” Drew struggled to complete sentences with his wife wrapping her naked body around him underneath the warm bedding of a frigid F
ebruary night.
“Love you, hockey Dad.”
Before Drew could reply, smooth skin and flowing hair enveloped him.
***
The green LED clock read 3:13. Drew smirked through the exhaustion as he thought of the signs held up at sporting events. He then figured out that the verse quoted from John was 3:16, not 3:13, and the realization brought him completely out of the dream state.
He turned and saw Molly’s dark hair fanned across the pillow, and her ample chest raising the comforter. Drew slid his hand across the cool sheets between their bodies and touched the soft, hidden flesh of his wife’s upper thigh. Molly moaned and pushed his hand away.
The bedroom door opened to the hallway. Drew and Molly’s room sat between Billy’s and Sara’s, and directly across from the steps. The bathroom down the hall held a night-light to help the kids find it in the middle of the night, especially Billy, who struggled to hit the bowl between the hours of 10:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m.
Drew stood and his toes recoiled from the icy feel of the oak hardwood. He curled his right leg to fight off an impending cramp. The wood beneath his feet cracked and protested as he trudged toward the bathroom. He heard Sara snoring, and saw Billy’s right leg hanging through the Pittsburgh Penguins bedding and over the edge of the frame. Drew’s dark reflection peered back at him as he passed the vanity and emptied his bladder.
He crept down the steps and into the living room, and picked up the remote, holding it for a moment before putting it back down.
175 channels, 170 of them showing infomercials, he thought.
The laptop sat on the end table, the blue glow pulsing near the power switch. He ran a hand through his hair and lifted the cool, metallic hasp at the front of the machine. His finger depressed the round power button, and the screen flickered from charcoal grey to black, and then to a blinding array of colors that forced Drew to squint. His desktop wallpaper appeared, a photo from a trip to New Orleans during Mardi Gras.
Molly hated the picture. A woman, young and blonde, stood on the balcony of a hotel overlooking Bourbon Street. Her sandy hair fell about her shoulders, tinted by the red bulb of a nearby streetlamp. The woman’s eyes shone with glee, assisted with a healthy dose of Hurricanes and Red Stripe beer. Her wrists were crossed at the bottom of a tight-fitting tank top that struggled to contain two upright breasts. Beneath the bottom of the shirt and the top of low-slung, hip-hugging jeans, a strip of tanned, tight skin clung to a toned abdomen. The light from the festival glinted off her naval piercing. Dozens of beads sat on her chest in the traditional colors of the holiday: purple, gold, and yellow. Drew took the picture because it was a perfect shot of Madame LeVive’s Voodoo Temple shop, which sat underneath the balcony. While his buddies spent rolls of film on drunken girls flashing boobs for beads, Drew was more interested in the story of voodoo in the Crescent City. While it may have been the truth, Molly never bought the story.
Once his eyes adjusted to the glare of the screen and had passed over the well-known intricacies of “slut on balcony,” as Molly named it, Drew used the track pad on his laptop and placed the cursor over the Thunderbird icon. He hesitated, somehow unsure as to whether or not it was a wise move. Years ago, Drew promised himself that he would never again check his e-mail at night.
Before he could reconsider, the beautiful, blue bird appeared and was then replaced by an in-box. At the top of the list, sorted by arrival time, sat more offers for penis enlargements and deep-discount, prescription meds. His eyes slid down the list until they caught the subject line that had escaped reading until now. “Tonight.” Drew’s mind jolted a memory before his eyes read the e-mail.
In the summer of 2005, things at the office reached a fevered pitch prior to the buyout. Molly was pregnant with Sara, and Billy was getting ready for kindergarten.
“She keeps giving me strange looks.”
Brian winked. “Oh yeah!”
“I’m married, asshole,” replied Drew.
“So are thousands of other swingers. Molly would never find out.”
Drew shook his head as Vivian came past his desk for the third time in one hour.
“Can we talk?” she asked, casting a dagger at Brian as she spoke.
“I’ve got the Wilson deadline tomorrow. I’m really busy.”
Brian took three steps backward and turned toward the break room. “Catch ya later, Drew.”
Vivian watched him shuffle off while shaking the disgust from her hair. “He’s an asshole.” Drew nodded. “Listen. I know you’re married.”
Drew crouched forward in his chair and began to speak when Vivian cut him off.
“Meet me after work at Sully’s Tavern. One drink, a talk, that’s it.”
“I’m married.” Drew stretched the word out as if Vivian was hard of hearing.
“One drink. That’s it.”
A car blew past the bay window of the living room. The dilapidated muffler tore holes in the early morning and shook Drew from his dream. Daydream, dream, recollection? He was not sure what it might be called when it happened at 3:30 in the morning on the couch with a computer on his lap.
The glowing oasis of the screen floated in a sea of darkness. The orange pall of the streetlamps crept beneath the drawn shades. The cool hand of February cracked the floorboards and shook the loose windows in their sills. As if maneuvered by a hidden hand, the worn refrigerator motor kicked in and rattled the empty kitchen.
He looked down at his in-box and its newest addition, “Tonight”. Drew glanced to the left and noticed that the “sender” field was empty.
Typical spam, he thought. Delete it and go back to bed.
Instead, his right hand positioned the cursor over the subject line and his pointer finger delivered a click. Drew’s hand trembled as he waited for the message window to open. He felt a flutter in the room as if it were exhaling a dusty, old breath. Shadows cast on the living-room wall twitched. Drew could taste the dust blown from the heating ducts of the old house.
The whiteness of the message body almost blinded Drew. He put one hand toward his eyes to diffuse the glare. The “sender” box was empty. The “body” box was empty. The subject line held a single word, “Tonight”. The seven letters stood with resolve, staring at Drew through liquid-plasma eyes.
“Is short.”
Drew almost dropped the company laptop to the floor. He swore under his breath, thinking about the thousands of dollars he would have to cough up should the laptop be damaged outside the office. The concern passed as the two words came again.
“Is short.”
He shut the lid and waited for the blue and orange lights on the keyboard to fade. Drew set the machine on the table and sat in the still darkness, convincing himself that he had mumbled the words. Twice.
One of the shadows hanging on the wall slid toward the floor like a shelf of ice falling into the Arctic Sea. It crept along the baseboards, and the inky black of the form spread into the kitchen and out of Drew’s sight.
He stood and placed a bare foot on the oak floorboards. The coldness of the century-old wood felt like fire on the soles of his feet. He peered into the kitchen, expecting to see the shadow and hoping it was Molly getting a glass of water.
“What’s short?” Drew heard himself ask. His face flushed red in the darkness, an embarrassment to himself. “Who am I expecting to answer that question?”
The cranky heater in the basement coughed and, with a reluctant clang, fired up again as the thermostat dropped to fifty-five degrees. The air shook Drew, and he swore he saw his breath. As quickly as the chill infiltrated his bones, it disappeared.
He turned and looked at the digital clock on the microwave: 4:03.
Two hours if I fall asleep right now, Drew thought as he plodded back upstairs toward the bedroom.
Chapter 3
The reverberating radio voice claimed that the sale ended in only three days. Drew rolled over and fumbled for the silver cancel button in a line of silver buttons sitting atop
the alarm clock.
“Hmmmmm.” Molly pulled the comforter over her head and rolled away from the source of the commotion.
Drew sat up and rubbed the stubble on his face before swinging both feet out of bed and onto the floor. He heard the kids and decided to shave before they came pounding on the door. The precious moments of privacy in the bathroom would be all Drew would have during the day.
He went through the rest of his morning ritual, and was on the highway by seven with a coffee in one hand and a cinnamon-raisin bagel in the other. The lull of a steady sixty-five miles per hour reawakened thoughts of Vivian in Drew’s memory.
“Do you love her?”
“I’m married.”
“I didn’t ask you if you were married. I asked you if you love her.”
Drew gripped the frosty mug and wished he could climb inside. “Yes.”
Vivian set her wineglass on the table and slung the thin strap of her purse over one shoulder.
“Wait. I really like you and I don’t want to lose you as a friend, but you can’t ask me to cheat on my wife.”
Vivian smiled and failed to hide the tear running down her cheek. “We could have been really happy, Drew. I mean really happy.”
He watched her turn and dart through the happy-hour crowd. Drew tilted his mug to the bartender, applying liquid salve to an open wound.
***
Drew knew better than to check company e-mail after a night of drinking.
At first he gasped. The language and tone felt wrong, like she had written the message in another language and then ran it through a translating website.
“It’s not true,” he said to Molly.
“Then she has a hell of an imagination,” she replied. Molly never responded positively to things when shaken from sleep, but that night Drew felt he had to be direct.
“She’s been hinting at an affair for months, but I never pursued it, I swear.”
Molly swung a pillow behind her back and stared at Drew through bed-tousled hair.
“We met at Sully’s after work. She insisted, and I knew it was not going to be pretty. I ordered a beer, she asked me to leave you, and I told her no. I told her that I love you.”
