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IT ALL HAPPENS SO FAST. Tim shoves Keith backward. “What the hell are you doing with my wife?” Keith stumbles a bit and grabs the railing to steady himself.
“Hey, easy. Are you trying to knock me off the deck?” Keith protests. Seriously? Tim catches us kissing, and that’s what he’s worried about? I don’t think I’ve ever seen Tim get physical with anyone. It really is shocking to see the man you love rabidly angry to the point of violence.
“Tim...” I trail off.
“What?” He turns to me with his teeth clenched. “What could you possibly say to me right now?” His fists are curled into tight balls at his side; it looks like it’s taking all of his strength for him to keep them at his side and to not haul off and start punching me. He kicks the wicker chair with so much force that it flies backward, and one of the legs breaks off.
It’s a good question. What could I possibly say? I don’t come up with much. I am stammering. I am scared. I don’t even know how to react right now. His expression changes from expectant to beyond disappointment. He’s so far beyond it that his eyes are dark and his fists are still clenched. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look this angry. I wonder if he’s going to slug Keith. I hope not.
“I can’t be around you right now,” he mutters. He reaches inside the back door and grabs his keys off the hook and heads down the deck stairs toward his car.
“Tim, wait!” I call after him. I run down the stairs and grab his arm. “Where are you going? Will you please wait?”
“Bren, I really don’t want to talk to you right now.” He pulls his arm away and opens the car door.
“I wish you’d let me explain...”
“Brenda, no. I can’t right now.”
“Tim, I’m sorry,” I say, pleading with him.
He opens his mouth to speak, and then closes it again. I can tell he’s counting to ten as he stares. His jaw clenches, his teeth pulsing together as he counts. “So, was it some teenage fantasy of yours?” he asks, struggling for composure. “Was it everything you thought it would be, making out with a rock star in our home? You were watching him through the window—were you thinking about kissing him then?”
“Tim, it wasn’t like that,” I say, trying to explain. But then I realize that I don’t know how to explain it. Anything I say at this point won’t come out right. Yes, I enjoyed kissing Keith, but I didn’t plan for that to happen. It just did. Tim’s pretty black and white about stuff like this. For Tim, things don’t just happen. He probably thinks it was premeditated, and how could I possibly prove that it wasn’t?
“Then what was it? All I know is I walked out there and saw my wife sucking face with Keith Kutter. So tell me, what wasn’t it like?”
“I have no excuse. I am sorry, Tim. It was wrong.”
He gets into his car and slams the door shut. He grips the wheel and stares straight ahead. I watch his jaw shuffle side to side, and I know he’s grinding his teeth; he does that when he’s angry. I hope that he’ll just sit there for a minute and shut me out until he collects his thoughts. He’ll probably come out in a few minutes, and then we’ll talk about it. He’ll accept my apology, and we’ll move on. I am watching him—but he doesn’t come out of the car. Instead, he jams the key into the ignition and starts the car, yanks the shifter into drive, and pulls out of the driveway. I need to say something. I need to do something. But what? I am frozen to this spot, watching my husband drive away when he’s so furious with me.
I stand there and wait for him to turn around and come back. In real life, people don’t just drive off when they’re mad, right? Surely he’ll just drive for a few minutes to calm his nerves. Should I wait for him out here? It’s pretty awkward. I can hear the voices from the fan corral on the other side of the front yard. They’re talking, and I wonder if they’ve heard us argue. Do they know about what just happened?
After a few minutes, it’s pretty obvious that Tim’s not coming back, and I feel like a loser, standing out here. Is the crew watching me through the windows? I don’t even want to look back. I turn my head down and shuffle back to the steps to the deck, kicking a few rocks out of my way. I don’t want to go back inside; Keith’s in there. Eventually, the mosquitos help me make up my mind. I go inside and ignore everyone, closing myself and Vito in the bedroom to wait for Tim to come home. I can hear the band and crew downstairs talking in hushed voices; I’m pretty sure they’re talking about me and Keith and Tim.
***
I doze off after two in the morning and wake to the sun streaming through the window. Tim’s side of the bed is empty. I grab the phone off my bedside table and call his cell; it goes straight to voicemail. He probably slept on the couch in the back room at the shop; maybe he just needs some space, and he’ll come home today. I hope so.
I dress for work and avoid the band as much as I can when I get downstairs. I don’t speak to anyone, and they don’t speak to me. A hush falls over the room when I enter the kitchen; it’s pretty obvious who the crew was talking about. Without acknowledging anyone, I pack some leftovers into a container for lunch and head for the door.
Of course, Keith arrives just as I am about to go out. He has a camera strapped around his neck; he stomps up the deck stairs and kicks off a pair of hiking boots—Tim’s hiking boots. I can’t help but raise my eyebrows while he claps the mud off the soles over the edge of the deck. Where is his brain? He borrowed Tim’s hikers without asking—after we were caught kissing last night?
“I didn’t think Tim would mind,” Keith says when he spies me staring at him with my mouth agape.
I snort in response. “And you wonder why I think you’re an asshole,” I shoot back at him.
He ignores me. “I heard some birds in the woods and had to go check them out.” He gestures to his camera. “You have a hawk nest out there. I got some pictures of some babies.”
“Um, Keith?” I ask. Is he really going to talk about birds after what happened last night?
“You also have some juvenile Canada geese out on the pond. Loads of them. They’ll be grown and ready to fly south before we know it.”
“Keith. Would you just stop talking about the fucking birds for a minute? Do you have any idea what I am going through right now?”
Instead of listening, he turns and walks into the house without answering my question.
“And you wonder why people don’t like you,” I call after him. I wait for him to come back, but he doesn’t. I go inside and hear his bedroom door close upstairs. What is it with people walking out on me lately? Doesn’t anyone want to talk things out?
Nope, he’s not getting away with this. I stomp up the stairs and pound on his door. “Keith! We need to talk.” I get silence in reply from the other side of the door. “Obviously I know you’re in there. Remember how you said you want to be more likeable? Well, this is a bad start on that, Keith.”
He opens the door. “Brenda, can we just not do this right now? I have a lot on my mind.”
“Are you kidding me? My husband didn’t come home last night after he caught us kissing, and you have a lot on your mind?”
“My mother called last night. She has a lump on her breast, and she’s waiting for the test results to come back. And I cannot be there with her right now. All I want to do is jump on the next plane and go to Sydney, but I cannot.”
I remember when we were at that stage with my mom. Waiting to find out whether your loved one has cancer is agonizing. I was in college then and still living at home; I was able to be there for her. I can’t imagine what it must be like for Keith right now.
“Oh, Keith,” I say. “I am sorry.”
“My mum is my best friend. She’s the only one who has no expectations other than my happiness. She doesn’t care about my reviews on Amazon or my reputation on Twitter. She is my key to my son. I am not allowed to see him anymore, but she is. She is the one who keeps me abreast of the changes in his life. I do not know what I will ever do without her.”
“Keith, a lump isn’t always a tumor. Many times it’s just a lump. I know that waiting for news on this is very difficult. You really just have to push yourself through your days until you get news.”
“I get that. I figured that getting some pictures of the birds this morning and texting them to her would distract me and make her smile.”
“I know you’re under a lot of stress right now, with the album, your mom, everything. But seriously, taking Tim’s boots after last night wasn’t cool.” I pause. A wounded look crosses his face. “Keith, seriously. You’re going to kiss another man’s wife and then wear his boots?”
“Well, when you put it that way,” he says, and shrugs. “Okay, I am sorry. I won’t touch Tim’s things again.” Wow, an apology. But am I considered one of Tim’s “things?”
I glance down at my watch; it’s time to go to work. Work won’t care that my home life is in chaos, but the last thing I want to do is go in today, when really all I want to do is go off somewhere with Tim and reclaim our marriage.
When I get into work, I duck into my cubicle and try to run down the clock. I can’t focus on anything, and I watch the number of unanswered emails in my inbox tick higher.
Amanda comes into my office and glances at my phone, which is switched to “do not disturb” mode. She raises her eyebrows at the display that now reads eight new voicemails, but doesn’t say anything about it. Instead she asks, “Hey, did you approve the proofs for the brochure?”
“Yes, I did. I left a message for Emily. Did she not get it?” Oh, shit, this would be bad if we had to expedite the printing because she didn’t get the message.
“Oh, she got the message alright.” Amanda pulls a brochure out of the box. “Brenda, what the hell?” She holds it up to me; I take it from her fingers and examine it. Oh, shit. This cannot be happening. “Boxter?” Amanda says. “Really? We have 50,000 of these things, and they’re useless. Expensively useless.” She gestures to the box on the floor.
This seriously cannot be happening. I reviewed that proof. I know I did. I clutch my hands to my head.
“No. Fuck. No.”
“Yes. Fuck. Yes.” She tosses one at me. “This is bad, Brenda. Majorly bad. Didn’t you review the proof?”
“Yes, I... Oh, my God. I missed it. I cannot believe I did this.”
“You need to fix this. We have these going out to the stores—FedEx just picked them up from the printer’s this morning. They are on the trucks going out to the brand new store sites all over the country. You have got to find a way to stop them from getting there. If Baxter corporate sees these, we’re sunk.” She pauses for effect. “I have to go now to catch a flight to New York. You need to make this happen.”
Right there, I can feel the balloon inside me deflate. My hopes for promotion just went down the tubes. She walks out of my cube, and I immediately get on the phone.
“Emily, it’s Brenda. Do you have the tracking numbers for the FedEx shipments that went out for Baxter? Will you please email them to me?” Then I tap my fingers on my desk until my incoming email dings, and I start clicking on the links to see where my packages are. Six of them went out. Two of them show that they’ve already arrived. One was signed for by an E. Miller, and the other one was signed for by G. Lee. I am sunk.
I slouch down in my chair. Amanda is going to kill me. What the hell am I going to do? I kick into action and call FedEx.
“Please, I am begging you. Don’t deliver those boxes.”
“Ma’am, there’s nothing we can do. They’re on the truck. We can’t reach the driver.”
“It’s 2015. You mean to tell me the driver doesn’t have a cell phone?” I ask, suddenly beyond irritated. “Or a CB radio? Or anything? What about emergencies?”
“Sorry ma’am. I am afraid it’s not possible.”
I hang up the phone. Shit. Shitshitshitshit. I press my fist against my forehead. Tears well up in my eyes. I can’t let anyone see me cry at work. I have to get out of here.
I sneak out of the office, not even acknowledging Joy on my way out. I walk down to the beach and kick off my sandals and walk along the edge of the surf to the rocks at the far end. I am still barefoot, so I don’t want to climb onto the barnacle-covered rocks. I want to keep walking, but there’s no other option than to turn back. My mind is blissfully blank, and I want it to stay that way.
It’s pretty awesome to escape to where I can be completely alone, with no Keith, no Tim, no Hydra, no Amanda. Even thinking of all of them for a moment causes the exhaustion to set in. I can feel it weighing on my shoulders; I feel like I just packed on fifty pounds. My limbs are heavy and my feet ache from walking barefoot on the sand. I can see my shoes where I left them at the other end of the beach, and it suddenly feels like they’re miles away. I feel like I will never reach them if I keep walking. So I stop and lie down on the sand; just for a minute to rest. I’ll get up in a bit and keep walking. I should go back to work, but I just can’t.
***
I must have dozed off. I rub my eyes, not realizing that my hands are covered in sand. I feel the sting in my eyes as I wipe the grit out. When I glance at my watch, I realize that it’s seven o’clock. I left work at three. My stomach is growling. I didn’t have the heart to eat my lunch today; it’s still in the fridge at work with my name written on the bag. I can stop to grab a few burritos on the way home. Maybe Tim will be there, and we can talk this out.
When I get back to the house, I hear Toni talking on the phone in the kitchen. Tim’s car isn’t there, and I am beyond disappointed. I haven’t talked to him all day, and I feel like somebody poked holes in my lungs. Suddenly I can’t seem to catch my breath. Why can’t he just come home?
Toni hangs up the phone and takes one look at me when I come in. She probably knows the answer, but she politely asks anyway, “How was your day, love?” I am pretty sure that she and everyone in the crew know what happened by now.
I wordlessly flop into a chair at the kitchen table while Toni brews a cup of tea. She sets it in front of me. I take a sip and feel the hot tears run down my cheeks. She brushes the hair off my face, and, surprisingly, I feel a bit comforted.
She sits down and takes my hand. “Brenda, it’ll be okay. Don’t cry, love.”
“I don’t think it will,” I whisper. “He’s really mad.”
“Well, of course he is. You would be, too. But Tim loves you. He will forgive you.”
Toni sits with me for a few minutes more, but I don’t know what else to say. I grab a napkin from the holder and blow my nose. I know that she has work to do. I can tell that she’s getting antsy; I tell her I am fine.
She squeezes my hand and smiles at me before getting back to work. I wait at the kitchen table until the sun goes down, but Tim doesn’t come home. The band comes in from Del’s and plunders the kitchen for dinner. Keith walks through the kitchen without glancing my way. I hear his footsteps going up the stairs, and then his bedroom door closing.
I fidget with the salt and pepper shakers until they fall over. I don’t bother to right them. I stand up from the table and call Tim’s cell—straight to voicemail. So I call the shop. The machine picks up on the sixth ring.
I grab the burritos and my keys and get into my car. He can’t ignore me when we’re face to face, can he? I have shattered the trust of the one person who means the most to me in the entire world. Maybe I can lighten the mood and win him over with a burrito, at first. Surely he’s hungry, and he’ll laugh that I’d brought one to him. Once he laughs, we can talk again, and I can tell him exactly how sorry I am.