by Claire Adams
"Thanks, Trish," I said as I returned the hug. Trish was my best friend at Marks Air. We'd been hired at the same time and had gone through three weeks of training together. If it hadn't have been for Trish, I might have quit the first week. She was everything I was not. A tall, curvy redhead with a voice that sounded like cream poured into whiskey, she commanded the attention of everyone, but particularly men. She was constantly fending off the advances of over-amorous passengers and pilots alike, and as a result, had developed an exterior shell that I strived to emulate. She was an expert at telling people to go to hell and having them look forward to the trip.
"You tell the old man yet?" she asked as she scanned the terminal for possible dinner options.
"Not yet," I sighed. "Tonight, though. Maybe I'll make him something special for dinner and break it to him easy."
"You'd think the jerk would be happy about you getting promoted," she said. "I mean, you'll get a raise and a more regular schedule."
"The raise will be great and he'll love it," I said. "The schedule, well, I think both of us look forward to the time we don't have to spend together more and more these days."
"Why do you stay with him?" she asked point blank. "If you are both miserable, why do you maintain this farce of a marriage?"
"Because," I said, not quite knowing how to answer her question without laying myself bare to a host of other questions.
"Because what?" she pushed. "Because you feel sorry for him? Because you are worried about how he'll respond? Because you're concerned about being judged by society? Wake up, buybacks, it's 2015, not 1950."
"You don't understand..." I trailed off, knowing that she did, in fact, understand.
"The hell I don't," she shot back. "The hell I don't."
"I know," I said softly. "I'm just worried about how he'll take it. You know how he struggles with the injury and how down he can get. I just worry that..."
"Emily Anne Martin Warner," she said in a stern voice. "You are not responsible for the feelings of the entire world. You are not responsible for making a man comfortable with the choices he needs to make. A man, I might add, who has had time and opportunity to come to grips with the changes that we all have to deal with. Life happens, deal with it."
"I know, I know," I repeated. "I'm just trying to think about how I can tell him without making him feel like less."
"And, people wonder why I am still single," she huffed. "I'm going to point them toward your marriage when they ask."
"Don't be mean, Trish," I said sadly. "We're all doing the best we can."
"I know, sweetie," she said with a contrite look as she pulled me to her and hugged me again. "I'm sorry. Sometimes I get all high and mighty in an attempt to defend my own life choices. It's your life, you choose and I'll be there to help you deal with the consequences."
"Thanks, Trish," I smiled as I stepped back and looked at my watch. "Oh crap, I need to get to the gate! We leave in an hour and I am in charge of business today. Gotta run! I'll see you later this week?"
"Yes! I'm on the Thursday flight!" she yelled.
"See you then!" I yelled over my shoulder as I sprinted down the concourse with a smile.
No matter how Tom reacted to the news of my promotion, at least I knew I could talk about it with Trish on the flight to Sydney.
Chapter Three
Austin
When the room server brought the food up to my suite, I had him lay it out on the table like I was hosting a dinner for two so he wouldn't think I was alone. Once he'd left, I turned up the Yankees game and dug in. The burger was a perfect shade of pink and was so juicy that I ended up licking it off my hands as I devoured it and the accompanying crispy steak fries. When I'd finished my meal, I sighed, cracked open another chilled Deschutes Black Butte, and leaned back to watch the Yankees stick it to the Mets, yet again.
Just as the game was winding down and the Yankees were assured of another win, my phone began buzzing. I looked down and smiled as I answered it.
"Hi, Mom, what's up?" I said knowing full well that she was calling to crow about the game.
"Well, the Yankees did it again," she cheered a little too loudly over the roar of voices in the background.
"'Where are you, Mom?"
"Where the heck do you think I am?" she laughed. "I'm at the game, silly boy!"
"What the hell?" I laughed. "Mom, what are you doing?"
"Look, my son is a multi-billionaire and I can afford to take an afternoon off work and cheer on my team now," she replied.
"But how did you get tickets?" I asked.
"Oh, I have my ways," she assured me.
"Mom, you didn't buy those tickets from a scalper, did you?" I scolded.
"Don't ask, and I won't tell," she warned. "But no, I didn't. I got them from a friend who couldn't go and needed to unload them at the last minute."
"Mom, this sounds somewhat shady," I began.
"Austin Edward Marks, do not lecture your mother," she said in an ominous tone.
"Okay, okay!" I laughed, giving up. "How was it?"
"How do you think it was?" she shouted. "The Yankees won!"
I looked up at the television screen just in time to see the banner flash "YANKEES BEAT METS 6-2" and see the crowd let go with a huge roar that seemed to shake the stadium. My mother continued talking, but she was drowned out by the crowd, so I hung up and texted her.
Austin_Marks: Talk later! Love you!
Mama_Marks: OK. Want to hear about dates! Love you 2!
My mother was relentless when it came to marrying me off. She wanted to see her only son married and producing grandchildren so that she could spoil them in the way that she'd wanted to spoil me, but wasn't able to. I loved her for her attempts to set me up with women she deemed appropriate, but it never quite clicked, so she was constantly disappointed.
I tried to reassure her that it wasn't her fault, but she seemed to assess every failed date with the attention of a war general and double down as she tried again. I'd protested, but it had gotten me nowhere, so now I just gave in and figured that at least it was giving her something to do. Besides, I wasn't around enough to have to go on many of the dates, so really all it ended up being was a string of infrequent nights out with good girls who were the daughters, and sometimes granddaughters, of my mother's closest friends.
There are worse ways to spend an evening, I thought as I looked around the suite and noticed that the lights had come on in Central Park. I stared down at the city for a long time, thinking about how different it looked from this vantage point.
I'd come a long way from the little one-bedroom apartment on Evergreen Avenue in Brooklyn, but I wasn't sure that I was any happier than I'd been back when it had been just my mother and me.
She'd worked as a secretary in Manhattan before I was born, but when I was small, she changed jobs and became a librarian in Brooklyn so that she could be home when I got out of school. I'd walk the three blocks from my school to the library and find her packing up her bags. She'd always have a new book or magazine for me to read and would always tell me that I had to be careful with it since no one had even touched it yet. There was something about her ability to turn the average everyday thing into something fresh and new that made me feel like I had everything, despite the fact that we lived a pretty meager existence.
Our apartment was sparse in its decoration, but my mother somehow managed to make it a warm and inviting home with her thrift store finds. I never had the most fashionable clothing, but she made sure that everything I wore was neat and clean. And although we weren't able to afford lots of groceries, she always focused on buying high quality food from farmer's markets and local butchers. Some years, she would claim a patch of ground out behind our building and plant a variety of vegetables. The patch would often get raided by neighbors and animals, but my mother never seemed to mind. She'd say that if someone needed the food more than we did, then they were welcome to it. Besides, I never went to bed hungry, though looking ba
ck on those years, I think that she often did.
The only time my mother would ever get testy would be when I peppered her with questions about my father. She told me that he'd died in an accident, but she never said when or where or how that had happened, so my young mind was left to weave a story in order to satisfy my curiosity and longing. In the process, my father became a legend in my own mind. He was a hero and someone who I longed to know. By the time I was ten, I realized that my mother would never give up the details of his life, so I began to investigate.
That investigation would lead me to the story that would eventually change my life, but as I sat back and considered where I was now, I began to wonder if it was for the better.
Chapter Four
Emily
It felt like a long drive home from the airport, but I told myself that it would all be fine once I got home. I'd make a great dinner for Tom and me, and then I'd tell him the good news about my promotion. We'd celebrate and things would go back to how they used to be when we were happy and in love.
Pulling into the driveway, I winced when I saw that Tom had, again, put another car up on blocks in the backyard. It wasn't that I was so particular about the yard itself, after all, it just a rock-covered area with some plants that thrive in arid climates. It was more that I felt frustrated by the fact that Tom never cleaned up after himself, so the backyard always vaguely resembled a wrecking yard.
I forced a smile as I popped the trunk of my beat up Corolla and got out. I looped the few grocery bags in the back over my arm and yanked my travel case out so I could haul it inside. Right after we'd gotten married, Tom used to meet me in the garage and bring my bags inside, but the honeymoon phase was long past and now, I did it all myself.
"Hi, honey, I'm home!" I called as cheerfully as possible.
"Hey, babe," Tom called from the backyard. "Come see what Billy brought me to work on!"
"Oh wow," I said as I set the grocery bags down and walked to the backdoor. Up on blocks in our yard was a car that looked to be the size of a small boat. I had no idea what it was, only that it was huge, there were a lot of parts spread out all over the patio, and there was oil leaking from under the hood and pooling on the concrete. "It looks...complicated."
"Damn right, it does!" he crowed. "It's a Buick and these things are incredible!"
Billy stood behind him nodding as he took a pull off of a long neck bottle of Budweiser. I didn't have a good feeling about this, but I knew better than to voice my opinion when Tom was riding high like this, so I smiled and headed inside to change my clothes and cook dinner.
"What do you think, baby?" Tom whispered as he snuck up behind me in the bedroom. "It's pretty amazing, isn't it?"
"It's amazing," I repeated, not quite understanding what was so amazing about the car.
"Billy is going to have me rebuild the engine and then he'll drive it cross country and sell it for double what he bought it for," he continued as he began running his hands up my sides. "I stand to make a sweet profit from this deal, baby."
"That's great, honey," I smiled stiffly, remembering the last time that Tom and Billy struck a deal and how we were saddled with over five hundred dollars of parts that Billy claimed were unusable. With Billy, it was always about how to get the most out of those he used, but Tom couldn't see that and he usually ended up paying the price. I knew better than to say anything, though.
"What's wrong? You don't think it's a good deal?" he whispered as he leaned down and brushed his lips across my neck. I could smell the beer on his breath and wondered how many he'd had before I arrived home. If I knew the exact number, I'd know what was coming next.
"No, it's just that..." I trailed off as he worked his way down my neck with his lips while he worked his way up under my t-shirt with his hands.
"It's just what?" he breathed into my shoulder as he kneaded my breasts.
"I'm just thinking about how to adjust my dinner menu to accommodate the three of us," I said quickly, covering my real thoughts.
"You don't like the deal." Tom stopped kissing me. His voice had an edge that I knew well and didn't like.
"No, seriously, I just had a really long day at work and I was thinking about how I can stretch the groceries so that all three of us get enough to eat," I repeated.
"You're such a wet blanket sometimes, you know?" He gripped my upper arms as he spoke. "Most guys' wives would be grateful that they take on extra work and do something to make a little extra, but not my wife."
"Tom, I'm not arguing with you, honey," I said in an attempt to soothe his bruised ego. "I think it's great that you're working on the car and I was only trying to figure out how to feed us all since I didn't buy enough for three. I swear."
"You think you're so much better than me, don't you?" His voice rose as he got worked up. I knew that once we reached a certain point, there would be no turning back – and no dinner.
"Tom, baby," I said as I turned and wrapped my arms around his neck, burying my face in his chest. "I was only thinking about dinner and about how much I was looking forward to having you all to myself tonight. I'm sorry if I seem out of sorts, but I felt disappointed when I saw Billy here and knew I would have to share."
I leaned back and tipped my face up so that I was looking right into his eyes. I plastered the best customer service smile I had on my lips and then pulled him down so I could kiss him. He wobbled a bit and then leaned heavily into the kiss. He was already drunk, and I knew the evening would be a mess if I didn't get started cooking dinner soon.
"Tommy," I sighed.
"Yeah, baby?" he replied as he bent lower and kissed his way down my collarbone. It was something that used to thrill me, but now only repulsed me.
"Are you hungry?" I whispered.
"Hungry for what, baby?" he replied as his hands once again headed up under my t-shirt.
"Dinner, sweetie, dinner?" I giggled. I stopped for a moment and I held my breath, waiting to see if I'd tamed the beast for the moment.
"Yeah," he mumbled into my neck. "I guess I could eat something. Hey, is it okay if Billy stays?"
"It's fine, baby," I replied. "It's just fine."
He let go of me and turned to leave the room. As soon as I heard him opening the backdoor, I sank down on the edge of the bed and held my head in my hands.
I'd loved Tom from the minute I met him in ninth grade and I'd loved him even more the day we'd stood up in front of the small gathering of our family and friends and promised to love, honor, and cherish each other for always, but now we'd become something so different from what I'd envisioned and I had no idea how we were going to make this work.
Rather, how I was going to make this work.
Chapter Five
Austin
I was half asleep when my phone began buzzing. I ignored it until it lit up for the third time in ten minutes and then grabbed it off the nightstand and checked the screen. I sighed as I hit the call back button and waited.
"Hey, Bax, what's up?" I asked.
"Austin, there's a problem with the Sydney developers on the casino," Bax began. Jonathan Davis Baxter III, or Bax as he was better known, was my second in command and the person I trusted the most, so I knew if he was sounding the alarm, the problem was real. "They're threatening to walk off the job. Can you go calm them down and keep the team moving forward?"
"Why me?" I yawned into the phone.
"Because when it comes to charming the natives, no one, and I mean no one, can do it better than you, buddy," he laughed. "Get your ass on the next flight to Sydney and fix the problem or we're going to have way bigger issues to deal with."
"Why aren't you doing this? You're pretty damn charming, my friend," I asked.
"Because I'm the ugly one," he shot back. "And thanks for reminding me of that. You're a real pal."
"Aw, Bax, don't go to bed mad," I laughed. "You know how they say that it isn't good for a marriage."
"You wish," he sniffed. "You'd be beyond lucky to find some
one as well suited for marriage as I am."
"You're telling me," I muttered.
"Speaking of which, how was the date with Angela or Andrea or whatever her name was?" he asked. "The one your mom set you up with?"
"Andrea, and she was a really nice girl," I replied defensively.
"Yes, like every other nice girl your mother has set you up with over the past three years," he said. "When are you just going to give it up and settle down like a good little son and give her what she really wants?"
"What do you know about what my mother wants?" I asked.
"Oh good lord, all parents get to the point where all they want is grandchildren," he sighed. "Your mother is no exception."
"Good to know," I grunted, nonplussed. "Maybe what I ought to do is knock up one of these girls and give my mother a grandchild without having to mess with the marriage part."
"Don't even think about it," Bax warned. "That's whole mess of trouble that you do not need, my friend."
"Yeah, you're probably right," I sighed. "Alright, then safe sex it is until I find the one."
"Good choice," he approved. "Now, be on the flight to Sydney and solve the problem."
"Will do, boss man," I said as I saluted the phone.
"Don't mock me, jackass," he warned. "I know your mother."
"Point well taken," I said as I tapped the screen and ended the call.
Chapter Six
Emily
After dinner, I did the dishes while listening to the sound of Tom and Billy getting progressively drunker instead of working on the Buick. I sighed as I scrubbed the plates and placed them in the dish drainer before turning my attention to the pans I'd used to cook the fresh vegetables and steak I'd used to make fajitas.
I let my mind wander back four years and smiled when I remembered how young and hopeful we'd been. Back then, Tom was sober and had a future in baseball ahead of him. He'd been a star pitcher at North Las Vegas High and when he was signed to a Triple A team in Bakersfield, he had high hopes of making it to the minor league in two or three years. His baseball salary only paid through the summer season, but he'd been working for Marks Air as part of the baggage and maintenance crew for a couple of years by then and they were willing to give him time off to play baseball while holding his job for him until the end of the season.
