DRIVEN TO DISTRACTION, by Marcia Talley

When Harrison keeled over and died I didn’t think I’d marry again, but Mama said, “Life goes on, Marjorie Ann. When you fall off a horse, you have to climb right back on.”

Given a chance, Mama would have matched me up with one of Harrison’s law partners, right there at South River Country Club as they converged on the roast beef carving station after the funeral, but I have my pride. I waited a respectable year before marrying Stephen, who swept me off my feet with the lean, rawboned, good looks of a Montana rancher, a laid-back wrangler who spoke fluent U.S. Tax Code. The way Stephen handled Harrison’s estate was nothing short of dazzling.

Stephen was clever with gadgets, too. In his office at home, he had a desktop computer, a laptop, a scanner, three monitors—one as big as an over-the-sofa painting of the Last Supper—two cameras that scanned the room like disembodied eyeballs, and wires that snaked kudzu-like around the table legs. I pretty much kept out until cleaning day when I’d have to run the vacuum and dust his office myself. Theresa refused. The blinking and beeping unnerved her. She was convinced the machines would steal her thoughts, and to tell the truth, I half agreed with her.

The last thing Stephen needed was another piece of electronics, so for his fortieth birthday, I gave him a fabulous five-course dinner at Northwoods Restaurant and a gift card from American Express. He reached across his crème caramel, gathered up my hand and pressed it to his lips, his green eyes flashing “thank you” in the candlelight. By the way he glanced at his watch, I suspected he wanted to skip the after-dinner glass of Remy Martin and rush straight off to the mall, but, fortunately, it had closed.

I hoped he’d use the card at Nordstrom or Eddie Bauer, but the next morning Stephen left the house early and was probably waiting at Circuit City when the doors slid open. He came home lugging a box labeled MapMasterIV, and spent the rest of Saturday morning holed up in his office, reading the manual. After lunch, he plopped his new toy onto the dashboard of his pickup and drove off, happy as a clam.

Sunday morning when I eased into the passenger seat of the BMW, I found Stephen balancing the MapMasterIV on his knees. He plugged its cord into the cigarette lighter socket and jiggled what I took to be an aerial up and down. He leaned sideways, so close I could smell his Drakkar Noir aftershave, adjusted the MapMaster on its bean bag base, positioned the whole shebang on the dashboard, and punched a few buttons. Then he backed carefully out of the driveway, grinning. “Just listen,” he said.

Drive point two miles west and turn right.

The MapMaster was female and she spoke in a calm, non-judgmental voice, like the 411 information lady.

Obediently, Stephen turned right onto Dogwood Lane. “It’ll direct us to church.”

“You know how to get to church.”

“Of course I know how to get to church, Marjorie Ann, but it’s interesting to see how the MapMaster will route us.”

Drive one point seven miles south and turn right.

Stephen tilted the MapMaster slightly in my direction so I could see the bright yellow display. He tapped the screen with his index finger. “Here’s our route in pink. That’s the interstate over there, in red,” he explained, as if I were a particularly slow and difficult child.

Continue point five miles and take ramp right.

Stephen flipped on his turn signal and eased the car onto the interstate. “It’s fantastic technology,” he beamed. “Uses the global positioning system. It gloms onto satellites, figures out where you are, then gives you driving directions.” He waved a hand. “It comes pre-programmed with hotels and restaurants, or you can put in a street address.…” His voice trailed off. “I’ve got it programmed for St. Margarets.”

Drive four point one miles and exit right.

I watched as Allen Parkway, our usual turnoff, receded in my side view mirror. “Why didn’t you turn back there, Stephen?”

Stephen stared straight ahead, one hand resting lightly on top of the steering wheel. “I wanted to see where Marilyn would route us.”

“Marilyn?”

“MapMaster. M. M. Get it?”

I rolled my eyes toward heaven. Where in the marriage vows did I promise to cherish a guy who names his toys after dead movie stars? I sighed. “Well, I can understand why, uh, Marilyn might be helpful if you’re driving in a strange city and don’t know where you’re going,” I grumbled. “But if you already know the way, why waste time fooling around?” I swiveled the screen toward me and studied the buttons: Find, Route, Menu.

“Don’t mess with it, Marjorie Ann! You’ll screw up the settings.”

“Okay, okay.” I raised both hands in self-defense. “I won’t touch your precious whatzit.” I folded my arms across my chest and settled into my seat, wishing I could turn on the radio, but I knew better. Stephen wouldn’t be able to hear MM over the sound of NPR.

A few minutes later, MM chirped, In four hundred feet turn right.

Stephen pulled off the expressway and, following MM’s instructions, wound through a public housing project and an industrial neighborhood until at last, by some miracle, we turned onto a street I recognized and I could see St. Margaret’s steeple directly ahead.

Arriving at destination on right.

“Well I’ll be darned,” I said.

Stephen eased into the parking lot, switched off the ignition and grinned like a schoolboy. “Ain’t technology grand?”

Even Reverend Nelson’s interminable sermon on life lessons to be learned from the parable of the Prodigal Son didn’t dampen Stephen’s enthusiasm. After the benediction, he hustled me out to the car, not even pausing on the chapel steps to shake the good Reverend’s meaty hand. “Toilet paper,” I reminded my husband somewhat breathlessly. “And milk.”

Stephen drove the few blocks to our Whole Foods market and waited while I went into the store. When I returned to the parking lot carrying my purchases, Stephen demonstrated how to set a waypoint. “You just drive where you want to go, Marjorie Ann, and press the Mark button.” A number popped up on the screen. “Now you use this rocker pad to rename the waypoint. W … H … O … There. Whole Foods.” Looking over his shoulder, I noticed that Stephen had already set up waypoints for his office, Home Depot, Golds Gym, B&B Yachts and our home, of course. He punched the waypoint labeled “Home” and peeled out of the parking lot, tires squealing.

Between Whole Foods and Home, the bypass around the construction site on Truman Street threw MM for a loop. Off route. Recalculating.

“Why it’d do that?” I asked.

“It’s a new road, Marjorie Ann. Marilyn doesn’t know about it.”

MM dutifully recalculated and wanted us to go up Route 2 and take the Route 100 by-pass, but Stephen decided not to.

Off route. Recalculating.

The woman was far more patient with my husband than I was.

As soon as possible, make a U-turn, she recommended politely.

“You could make money,” I mused. “Designing special voices for this thing.”

“What do you mean?”

“You can already select a language,” I said. “So why not come up with some alternate voice chips,” I suggested, “like the nagging wife. Instead of saying ‘off route, recalculating,’ she’d say, ‘You missed the turn, you idiot! But do you ever listen to me? Nooooh.’”

The corner of Stephen’s mouth twitched upward.

“Or,” I continued, warming to my invention. “You could punch in a waypoint for your mother. Then every time you by-passed her house it’s ‘So, Mr. Bigshot. How come you never visit your mother? Make a U-turn. Now!’”

Stephen joined in, dredging up a Beavis and Butthead voice from somewhere in his reckless youth. “Whoa, Dude, Like there’s a fork in the road. Huh huh huh. Fork. Get it?” He chuckled, a rare event, and turned to study me over the rims of his sunglasses. “You patent that, Marjorie Ann, and we can both retire to the south of France.”

Truth is, Stephen made excellent money as the head of his own firm. We could retire to the south of France like, any minute, if he wanted, but Stephen preferred to spend his money and his spare time on boating or golfing or off-roading in the Arizona desert. The previous weekend he’d dragged me to the GM dealership to check out a Humvee. As if.

I squirmed in my seat. MM had selected a route home that didn’t involve a freeway. If she didn’t hurry up, the milk would spoil. “I think you should just go straight up 32,” I said, feeling testy.

Stephen ignored me.

“I’ll bet this route is ten minutes longer.”

“Than?”

“Than going straight up 32.”

“Where’s your sense of adventure, Marjorie Ann?”

“I don’t know, Stephen. I think I lost it back in 1998.”

MM was feeling testy, too. Off route. Recalculating.

Stephen slapped his palm against the steering wheel. “Damn!”

I flinched. “Why’d she say that?”

“I missed the exit. I was listening to you, Marjorie Anne. Can’t you keep quiet even for a minute?”

I turned my head and glared out the passenger-side window, my eyes shooting darts into the trees, my mouth clamped shut, feeling glad that Stephen was leaving town the next day for the annual AICPA tech conference in Las Vegas. He was giving a talk on the paperless office. Paperless, ha! Good thing nobody at the AICPA had to empty Stephen’s wastepaper basket or they’d ask for their money back.

I would have gone along—the Venetian Hotel has lagoons with gondolas floating through it, et mind-blowing cetera—but Mama was having an eyelift and I felt obliged to stay home and hold her hand. So while Stephen spent his days holed up in frigid conference rooms and his nights playing blackjack on The Strip, I spent mine fetching and toting for Mama. I bundled up her newspapers for recycling, cleaned out her refrigerator and scoured the shelves at Blockbuster for Russell Crowe DVDs. She invited me to the film fest, but I think it was because she wanted me to make the popcorn.

Mid-week, I was taking a break from Mama and getting a pedicure when she rang through on my cell phone. “Can you pick up Elroy in Shady Side?”

Elroy was Mama’s handyman. His truck had “broke down” and Mama was too hopped up on pain killers to drive down there herself.

I didn’t feel like going anywhere and told her so.

“Do you want to pick dead leaves out of my swimming pool, Marjorie Ann? Or mow the lawn?” Without waiting for an answer, Mama started rattling off directions to Elroy’s, but I tuned out about halfway through. I had Elroy’s address. I had Stephen’s MapMaster. Piece of cake.

Stephen had left the MapMaster locked up in his truck, so when I got home from the beauty parlor, I moved it into the BMW. When I plugged it in, MM politely informed me she was acquiring her satellites, then waited for me to press Find, then Addresses. I used the rocker key to spell out, number by number and letter by letter, Elroy’s address, then pressed Go To.

MM, bless her little batteries and computer chip heart, got me to Elroy’s and back to Mama’s without a hitch.

I was backing down her driveway, mere seconds from a clean getaway, when Mama popped out her front door, waving her arms. “Trash bags, Marjorie Ann! I need heavy-duty trash bags. And bug spray!” I waggled my fingers so she’d know I’d heard her, then punched Home Depot into the MapMasterIV.

I hardly ever go to Home Depot, especially from Mama’s house, so it didn’t particularly surprise me when MM directed me off the freeway and onto a quiet street in Morningside Heights. I was surprised when she advised me to turn right into a cul-de-sac and absolutely astonished when MM announced that I was arriving at destination, smack dab in front of a cute little Dutch colonial.

I recognized the house. It belonged to Cheryl, from church. She sang in the choir with Stephen. At the Ferguson wedding they’d sung a duet, “One Hand, One Heart,” and there hadn’t been a dry eye in the house.

Why had Stephen set a waypoint for Cheryl? I felt dizzy, wondering if all the hours they’d spent practicing “One Hand, One Heart” had escalated into Two Hands, Big Breasts.

Deeply suspicious, I selected the waypoint Stephen had set up for Gold’s Gym and pushed Go To. MM directed me out of the cul-de-sac, back onto the freeway and through the center of town. Gold’s Gym had long disappeared from my rear-view mirror when MM instructed me to turn into Foxcroft Acres, a new development on the south side of town.

Arriving at destination on right.

I eased my foot onto the brake and stared at the name on the mailbox: J. Barton. I recognized that name, too. The “J” stood for Julie and she was Stephen’s personal trainer.

So, Julie had set up private practice in her home? Helping my husband with his pushups, perhaps? If Stephen hadn’t been in Las Vegas, I would have beaned him with one of his own five-pound, handheld dumbbells.

I slammed the accelerator to the floor, and peeled out of there. Mama’s trash bags and bug spray would just have to wait.

The waypoints labeled “T&E” and “Russell” turned out to be just that, the Art Deco building housing the city’s most prominent accounting firm and the office of Russell Herman, Stephen’s attorney, respectively. But when I followed MM’s directions for B&B Yachts, she took me miles out of town, down Route 214 and onto a narrow country road that ended in a long wooden pier.

Arriving at destination.

The BMW’s tires crunched on the gravel as I eased onto the shoulder and cut the engine. Just ahead, at the water’s edge, stood a cluster of summer cottages that had been converted into year-around homes. A child of perhaps three or four rode a tricycle around and around on the blacktopped driveway of a white clapboard rancher adjacent to the pier. I scrunched down in the driver’s seat and watched the kid pop wheelies, my head swimming. What the hell was going on?

Almost immediately, the garage door yawned open and a woman appeared, her hair a nimbus of gold against the dark interior behind her. I scrunched down even further. When I dared to peek again, she had hustled the kid into a car seat and was backing her PT Cruiser out of the garage and down the drive.

B&B Yachts? Hah! I knew what was going on. Stephen was leading a double life. He probably had mistresses, maybe even wives and children, scattered all across the city. The county. The state of Maryland. Maybe even the world!

After all I’d done for the SOB! I watched the dust kicked up by his girlfriend’s tires swirl down the road behind me and remembered a moment just before our wedding, at the rehearsal dinner. I had been leaning over the sink in the ladies room, touching up my lip liner, when Mama took me aside and in one of those priceless mother-daughter moments, came the closest she ever came to discussing sex with me. “Remember, Marjorie Ann. Give a man steak at home, and he won’t go out for hamburger.” Well, I’d been giving Stephen filet mignon twice a week since our honeymoon, so what the hell was he going out for? Tenderloin?

When the dust had settled, I climbed out of the car, hoping that a walk in the spring sunshine might clear the sick visions out of my head. I strolled to the end of the road and stepped onto the pier. To my left, three sailboats bobbed quietly, water chuckling softly along their sleek fiberglass hulls. To my right, a half dozen kayaks were lined up on a narrow strip of sand, each stern bearing a TWHA stencil to show that they belonged to the Truxton Woods Homeowners’ Association. If I took one out for a paddle, probably nobody would notice or care.

I reached the end of the pier and sat down on the rough boards, dangling my feet over the water. A soft breeze lifted my hair and cooled the hot tears that streamed down my cheeks. I turned my face toward the afternoon sun. As far as I was concerned, Stephen could take a long walk off a short pier.

I sat up straight. Where had that come from? Perhaps the snowy egret elegantly fishing in the shallows had whispered the suggestion into my ear. A long walk off a short pier. I scrambled to my feet, brushed off the seat of my slacks and hurried back to the car to fetch MM.

With the MapMaster tucked under one arm, I returned to the beach and selected what appeared to be the most seaworthy kayak. I switched MM to battery power, then laid it carefully on the bottom of the boat. I plopped down on the sand, rolled up my pant legs, removed my shoes, and set them next to MM. When I was confident nobody was looking, I eased the kayak into the water, climbed aboard, and paddled to a spot about fifty feet off the end of the pier where I figured the water would be nice and deep. I balanced the paddle across the gunwales and lifted MM onto my lap, my thumbs hovering over her array of buttons.

I had been half listening when Stephen showed me how to set a waypoint; I hoped I wouldn’t foul it up. Following his instructions as I remembered them, I punched the MARK button to capture my present location, somewhere in the middle of Calvert Creek. When MM asked me to, I used the rocker pad to scroll through the letters, carefully relabeling my new waypoint: “B&B Yachts” and obliterating the old one.

When Stephen came home from Vegas on Friday it was all I could do to remain civil, wondering with whom he’d shared his king-sized bed at the Venetian, wondering who had been his lucky charm at the blackjack tables, wondering who had been his partner for the two-for-the-price-of-one buffet dinner special at The Mirage. I could hardly bear for Stephen to touch me, wondering as his fingers caressed my cheek exactly where those hands had been lately.

Monday night, no surprise, Stephen called on his cell phone to say he wouldn’t be home for dinner.

“Where are you now?” I asked.

“Just leaving the gym and heading back to the office.”

In the background, MM chimed in. In point three miles take ramp right.

I paused, doing my own recalculation. Ramp right. From his gym to the office was a straight shot down Fairmont. No right ramps anywhere in that scenario. “I see,” I said, each word a frozen shard.

“It’s tax season, Marjorie Ann. Need I remind you? I’m working late. I have a lot to do.”

Drive one point three miles then exit left.

Where had I seen an exit left recently? Ah, yes. On the way to whomever lived at “B&B Yachts.”

Inside me, something snapped. “Lies, Stephen. All lies.”

“What are you talking about, Marjorie Ann?”

I held the receiver to my ear, silently seething, listening to Stephen pile excuse upon sorry excuse while in the background, turn by turn, MM was confirming what I already knew. In a few minutes, Stephen would be heading down a dark, dusty country road, where a beautiful blonde awaited him in a white clapboard rancher adjacent to a pier.

“Marjorie Ann? You still there?”

“As far as I’m concerned, Stephen, you can go straight to hell!”

“You can’t …” Stephen began, followed by, “What the—?” and seconds later by the nearly simultaneous explosions of shattered glass and deploying airbags.

And MM’s voice, softly reassuring. Arriving at destination.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Marcia Talley is the Agatha and Anthony award-winning author of All Things Undying and eight previous mystery novels featuring survivor and sleuth, Hannah Ives. A Quiet Death, next in the series, will be published in May.

Marcia is author/editor of two star-studded collaborative novels, Naked Came The Phoenix and I’d Kill For That set in a fashionable health spa and an exclusive gated community, respectively. Her short stories appear in more than a dozen collections. A recent story, “Can You Hear Me Now?” is featured in Two Of The Deadliest: New Tales Of Lust, Greed And Murder From Outstanding Women Of Mystery, edited by New York Times best-selling author, Elizabeth George.

Marcia is immediate past President of Sisters in Crime, serves on the board of the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the Mystery Writers of America and is a member of the Authors’ Guild and the Crime Writers Association. She divides her time between Annapolis, Maryland and living aboard an antique sailboat in the Bahamas with a husband who loves to sail and a cat who doesn’t.