Andrew walks right on past me, heavily sighing and stepping over his fallen keys. “Judging by the whiskey on the counter, I do know what your problem is,” he says snidely.
Just the same, he proceeds to fetch himself a glass.
“This isn’t a joke, Andrew!” I storm into the kitchen, coming up to him and pulling his outstretched arm down, away from the cupboard.
“Just what do you think you’re doing, Jackie?” he says tersely. “You’ve obviously had enough booze for the evening.”
He yanks free from my grip and pours himself a glass of whiskey.
“Don’t change the subject,” I say, my voice registering at a lower level of volume now that I’m way past angry and headed towards delirious rage.
“I’m sorry I’m home so late,” he says in an overtly exhausted fashion, but not in a way that conveys he’s actually tired from a long day at the office. He’s obviously tired of having to have the same damn discussions. And frankly, so am I.
“It’s not that,” I say, wagging my head vehemently.
“Okay then. I’m sorry that I didn’t have time to return all of your calls?” He gives me an interrogating look.
“Bingo!” I stick a pointed finger at his chest.
“Jackie,” he says with an easy sigh. He takes a drink, pauses for a moment, then takes another drink before removing an envelope from his suit jacket pocket. He retreats to the living room, to his favorite chair in the corner.
“Robin had her baby today,” I say in a trembling voice. The cold of the kitchen floor, like the marble foyer, is ice to my bare feet. I’m forced into the living room, nearer to Andrew, where I can find some comfort on the plush, white rug.
“Good for Robin.” He takes another sip of whiskey.
“And you missed it. This was important to me, Andrew. You promised you’d be there!”
“On the nineteenth, yes, when the surgery was scheduled.”
I take a timid seat on the armrest of the sofa. “Why didn’t you call me back?”
“Business, baby doll.” He smacks his lips after another drink, then casts me a smug grin.
“It’s always business with you.”
“Mmmhmm.” He shakes open the contents of the envelope, his eyes dancing across the page.
“But not tonight, was it?” I say declaratively. “Not tonight!”
He doesn’t respond, but just looks to be more involved in the envelope’s contents.
“Tonight,” I say, staring down at my bony, trembling fingers. “Tonight was not business, was it?”
He shakes his head, confusion written all over his face. “What the hell are you talking about, Jackie?” He pulls himself forward onto the edge of his chair, the paper held loosely in his hand. “Just how much did you have to drink?”
“Don’t pretend I have a drinking problem, Andrew!” My voice rises in anxiety. “It’s not fair and it’s not true and I hate when you do that!” I can feel the swelling of tears begin, but I tell myself not to break. Not yet.
“I know I drink to try to fix things. Sometimes.” I pause, regaining my composure so I don’t fall into a sea of tears. “But it’s not so bad anymore. I’m really trying.” Another pause. “And that’s not even the issue, Andrew. Don’t change the subject. Don’t make this about me.”
“Isn’t it always about you, baby doll?”
I can feel my cheeks redden in rage.
“I’m sorry I’ve obviously upset you,” he blurts out effortlessly.
“I have one little drink in the evening because I’m emotional.” I bite my bottom lip, the tears aggressively fighting their way forward. “Everyone acts like I’m a screwed up mess or something!”
Andrew stands and puts a hand on my knee. “Jackie, baby,” he whispers. He pushes up my chin. “It’s been an emotional day for you.” He gently kisses my forehead. “Robin had her baby, you weren’t able to get through to me—”
“Exactly!” I sniffle, the tears really ready to burst from the starting gate with each word I speak.
“Let’s get you ready for bed and call it a night, okay?” He searches my watery blue eyes and is about to press his lips to mine when I jerk back.
“No,” I whimper, moving behind the sofa.
“No?” He holds out his hands in supplication. “Jackie, I think it’s time you calm down and get some sleep. You’ve been drinking, and you’re upset and—”
“No!” I bat away the warm tears that are trickling down my cheeks. “No more games, Andrew. No more!”
“Okay,” he says with a surrendering hand motion. “I’m not up for this game you’re playing, so I’m going to take care of some more business, take a shower, and I’ll call it a night.” He returns to his seat.
“You’re sleeping with her, aren’t you?” I did it. I finally got out what I wanted to say all along. Dr. Pierce, Emily, everyone had told me to be honest, so here’s honest!
Andrew’s eyes narrow, needle-thin, and he looks breathless. Guilty, perhaps?
“You are,” I say, feeling my whole body begin to quiver.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You know!” I scream. “You know exactly who and what I’m talking about!”
“You’re ridiculous. I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
Andrew’s so calm I can’t help but think that I’ve hit the nail on the head. He’s in shock that I’ve found him out, so now he’s just going to play it cool.
“I’m right,” I sneer. “I’m right and it kills you.” I hold my arms open. “Go on!” I coax. “Be honest with me. Tell me you were with her tonight. That you’ve been with her every night. Oh!” I throw my hands up flippantly. “But not the nights you’ve come home early for your poor, pathetic, unsuspecting wife! Throw her off the scent now and then—”
“Okay,” he says, standing and tossing the paper into his chair. He strides over, whiskey glass in hand. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jackie! You’re obviously intoxicated, and I think it’s time for bed.”
He reaches out with his free hand for my arm, but I stumble back. “No!” I scream. “I’m not drunk and I’m not going to bed!”
“Jackie.” His voice is hoarse. He approaches me again.
“No!” I quickly pick up the cerulean glass vase from the end table and hold it out to my side. “Just tell me the truth, Andrew. You’ll hurt me more by denying the truth.”
“Oh this is absurd, Jackie!” He folds his face into a knot of complex emotions. “Put the vase down and let’s go to bed. I’ll go with you. Business can wait until tomorrow.”
“Because it also waited for tonight,” I accuse, my lips curling in a contemptuous way, “when you were too busy fooling around with her and ignoring me!”
“Enough!” he yells. “You’re not making any sense. Who was I with, Jackie? Huh? Tell me! Who?”
I lick my lips and slowly shake my cocked head. I can’t believe it, I think. He’s a liar.
“Tell me, dammit!” he shouts, causing me to jump.
I raise the vase higher. “Tell me the truth—admit it—or I’ll smash this.”
Abruptly his whiskey glass goes flying, crashing to the marble floor, and as my eyes follow the sea of shards flying about, Andrew has his hands firmly gripping the vase.
“Knock it off, Jackie!” He tries to yank free the vase from my hands.
In a flurry of emotions, and a small portion frightened of what Andrew will do now that he’s thrown the first of what I fear will be a few more glass items of the evening, I let go of the vase and slip under the space between him, his raised arm, and the sofa.
“No!” I scream. I begin a mad dash to the kitchen.
“Dammit, Jackie!” he howls, vase still raised. “What is this all about? This paranoia?”
I take cover behind the large island, as far from Andrew as possible.
“Nikki,” I spit out, the name leaving an acrid taste in my mouth.
“What about Nikki?�
� He looks positively flummoxed.
He plays the part so well, I can’t help but think.
“You’re sleeping with her. I know it! That’s why you miss my calls. That’s why she doesn’t pass the messages on. That’s why she’s such a bitch to me!” I pick up the half-empty bottle of whiskey on the counter and hold it upside down by the neck. “You’re fucking her.” I wave the bottle. “Confess or I’ll break this!”
“Dammit!” he shouts, unexpectedly throwing the vase across the room, where it shatters loudly in the far corner of the living room.
I suck in a quick breath of air—definitely did not see that coming. Then I dart my attention back to Andrew. He’s nearing me, fury filling his eyes, covering his face, shading crimson his cheeks.
“No!” I shriek at the top of my lungs, slamming the bottle against the granite counter. Whiskey and glass fly all around, and the amber liquid and confetti-like pieces of the bottle caught in the booze begin to course down my legs, my arms.
I’m in shock. All I can do is stand here in the toxic puddle and stare at the broken chunk of glass in my hand.
Shaking, I slowly pry open my hand to see a small, fresh slice in my flesh, blood dripping down my wrist.
“Christ, Jackie!” Andrew says in angst, immediately at my side. He takes the glass piece from my hand and tells me not to move. He reaches for a kitchen towel.
“What the hell are you doing, baby doll?” He carefully bandages my hand with the white towel and picks me up, the crunch of the glass popping underneath the soles of his loafers.
He sets me on the cool counter and instantly tends to my bare feet.
“Thank god you didn’t move,” he says, examining my soles and in between my toes, carefully spreading them apart and dusting away any possible glass pieces. “I don’t think you’ve cut your feet.”
“Just tell me,” I say, staring at the now rose-colored patch of cloth that’s covering my hand. “You’re sleeping with Nikki, aren’t you?”
Bent down, blowing soft breaths on the bottoms of my feet, he puffs out a heavy breath and slowly looks up at me. His face is of the serious kind—the type of face you expect to be greeted with when your husband says, “Yes, I’ve been seeing her for some time now.”
“Just tell me,” I repeat, voice steady and icy. We’ve gone through all this mess, let’s finish this business once and for all.
Andrew crumples up a paper towel after drying off my pinky toes and gives them one last glance for any signs of lodged glass. With both hands placed on my kneecaps, he looks deep into my eyes and says with such simplicity, “No.”
The tears that I can no longer hold back spill forth in a surge.
“I don’t know where you got this idea, Jackie,” he says. He moves some broken glass around with his foot.
“She doesn’t give you my messages; you don’t return my calls.” I sniffle and rub at the tears on my face. “Something that was so important in life—important to me—you missed tonight. And you say it was because of work.”
“It was!”
“Then I don’t know what’s more pathetic.” Another sniffle. “You not being there for me because of work or because of your mistress.”
“I don’t have a mistress, Jackie!” he growls, slamming a fist on the counter. “And you can’t expect me to leave multi-million- and -billion-dollar deals to be there when your friend has a baby!”
“It’s not even the fact that you weren’t there tonight, Andrew,” I say, beginning to gain enough composure to hold back fresh tears. “It’s that you didn’t even have the decency to spend thirty seconds to call or text me. You just ignored me!”
He doesn’t say anything for a while. His eyes are trained on the small disaster on the floor. “You’re really going to have to grow up, Jackie,” he says solemnly. “You’re going to have to accept that I work. I live to work.”
“And Nikki,” I scowl. “Just accept that you’re fucking her?”
He fixes me with a chilling stare.
I wait, on tenterhooks, both eager and frightened of what will come next.
Then he says in an icy voice, “And you’re going to have to accept that Nikki is my secretary.”
Another loud crunch of the glass, and Andrew makes his leave of the kitchen.
“And your mistress!” I shout. “I have to accept that she’s your mistress, hah?”
“Goodnight, Jackie.”
“That’s it?” I plead, twisting around on the counter towards him. “Goodnight? No more discussion? Place is a wreck, goodnight?”
“I don’t know what more to tell you.” He turns around, his shoulders sagged and face long. “Be careful when you get off the counter.” He removes his cufflinks and saunters off to the bedroom.
When I’m sure he’s concluded the evening and so-called conversation, ready to pop a sleeping pill and crawl into bed, he says from down the hall, “Call Marta in the morning and make sure this mess is taken care of.”
Chapter Eleven
Relieved of the closing duties after a long six-hour shift at the café, Emily removes her teal-colored apron, imprinted with The Cup and the Cake in pink stitching, and places it on the center of the café table. “So you’re, what?” she asks me as she takes a seat. “Just not talking? At all?” Her lips are slightly parted.
Sophie, apron still on as she and her extra set of hands, Chad Harris, are closing up shop for the night, takes a brief seat in between us.
“Not talking, period?” Sophie tosses in quickly, a baffled look flashing across her face. She darts her attention for a moment towards the kitchen when a loud clang sounds—Chad making himself undoubtedly known as he washes and puts away the pots and pans. She rolls her eyes and returns her attention to me. “How long can this go on, Jackie?”
“Yeah, well,” I say nonchalantly, but deep down I’m torn up. Andrew and I have quarrels, as all couples do. But throwing-things, breaking-things, accusing-of-cheating, not-fessing-up-to-cheating, and no-longer-on-speaking-terms-for-days kinds of quarrels? That’s not healthy; we’ve gone too far.
“You need to move immediately into reconciliation,” Sophie says with determination. “Learn from me and my pathetic relationship experiences: Silence is not golden in situations like these.”
“Get talking again,” Emily says. She twists at her heavy collection of leather cuffs and bracelets on both wrists. “And, Jackie, when I said serious heart-to-heart with Andrew, I didn’t mean to do it when you were high on emotion, distressed, and sipping the sauce.”
I lightly chuckle and say, “We’ve had fights like this before, Em. Broken glass isn’t anything new.”
Speaking of broken glass, another loud bang-bang-clang sounds from the kitchen, and Sophie lets out a loud groan. “Dear heavens…” she mutters. She cranes her neck around and shouts in the direction of the kitchen, “Chad, you break it, you replace it.”
“It’s all good!” Chad’s deep and raspy voice shouts back, eliciting a heavy roll of the eyes from Sophie.
“That boy,” Sophie says under her breath. “Someday I’m going to be able to afford real help—no offense at all to you, Em,” she claps a hand on top of Emily’s, and Emily nods. “I appreciate him offering to help me out around here, but sometimes he really gets under my skin.”
“Chad and Sophie,” I say, feeling prickles of relief as the topic of conversation is changed, however temporarily and briefly. “The day you two don’t get under each other’s skin.” Emily shares a giggle with me.
Chad Harris is Conner’s best friend, and so naturally a mutual friend among us girls. He’s got a career in marketing and in his off time paints, even selling some of his work here and there. But on the occasional evening or weekend he’ll lend a few hours to the always-in-need-of-help Sophie at the café. He doesn’t need the work, nor the extra cash, but like Emily he wants to help out a friend.
“Anyway,” Sophie says, the balls of her cheeks turning a twinge pink. She smooths her apron and sits up taller. �
�That’s neither here nor there. We’re off topic.” She knocks on the small tabletop. “You and Andrew have got to get your shit figured out. Pardon my language, but seriously. This is ridiculous. You’re married.”
“Married people go through bumpy patches, too,” Emily pragmatically points out. “This too shall pass.”
“I don’t know,” I mumble, scratching at the base of my neck where the tips of my bleached-blonde hair come to an end. “I want to believe that, but I’m just so tired of this hot-and-cold, hot-and-cold crap.”
“You’re Jackie,” Sophie says with a wide smile, “if you weren’t hot and cold—up and down—you wouldn’t be you.”
“The mentally imbalanced friend,” I say in jest. “Oh what a grand honor.”
“What I think she’s saying,” Emily cuts in, “is that you and Andrew have always been high on drama—living life in the fast lane, so to speak. It’s glitz and glam, it’s really bad lows, it’s passion… It’s not anything new for you two. It’s just particularly difficult right now. I’m not making excuses, just trying to put things into perspective.”
I nod.
“But it’s nothing you can’t work on,” Emily adds, flashing a warm smile. “If you try.”
“I’m so sick of trying, girls,” I bleat. “So sick of it.”
“You can always try harder,” Emily says.
Again, a loud clang sounds from the kitchen, this time louder than the previous noises. Sophie bites her tongue, her cheeks turning red now, but as the noise subsides so does her apparent frustration.
“All through Valentine’s and no conversation,” I carry on. “That’s pretty bad, girls. We didn’t do a damn thing for the holiday! And I so thought he had a trip up his sleeve…” I sigh, plunking my chin into my hands. “Thought we’d be going to Hawaii or something. We didn’t even talk! So effed up, huh?”
When Girlfriends Let Go Page 9
