Chapter 7

All things in life are the result of changes, big or small, that take place from one moment to the next. A man and woman who enter the same elevator, and therefore meet, and decide to go on a date, which works out to the point that they marry and have children, could have completely different lives if either of them had taken the stairs. Any time we drive somewhere, we operate a four thousand pound hunk of metal, making it hurtle down the road at high speed, while other hunks of metal just as heavy move just as fast in the opposite direction, only three or four feet away, maybe even less. If either vehicle strays just twenty-four inches, everything could change in an instant for all parties involved.

When Claire got home, she found the house empty. That was a relief. At least she could take her shower and not have to worry about John trying to come into the bathroom to talk to her or rake his eyes over her body or whatever.

Things changed the next day when Angela Bickerstaff called her.

"We need to have a chat," she said, curtly.

"When?"

"I can make some time tonight after work. Do you drink?"

"Yes," said Claire.

"Great, because after the day I've had I'm going to need a drink. Meet me at Rusty's at six-thirty."

"Okay," said Claire. "How will I know you?"

"Just ask the bartender for Cuddles."

"Cuddles?"

"My nickname. Puts the men off guard. Makes them think I'm harmless. Then I sneak in, and hoist them by their own petards."

"Okay. I'll see you then.

"Bring your bank account numbers," said Cuddles.

"I have amnesia. I don't even know what bank I use," said Claire.

"Have you got a check book?"

"Of course! I didn't think of that."

"Bring it. I'll have some documents for you to sign."

"How will we know if I have enough in my account to cover the check?" asked Claire.

"I don't want the checkbook for that. It will have the bank, account number, routing number, and all that jazz on it. I'm going to have you sign documents that will let me set up a new bank account for you and change your direct deposit and some other things. We're going to separate your money from your husband's money before things go any farther."

"Oh."

"See you then."

"Wait. Where's Rusty's?"

"It's on Monroe, downtown, between a place that sells antiques and the Fulton building. That's a four or five story office building."

"Okay, bye."

Cuddles turned out to be that girl in high school who wasn't popular because she was overweight, wore glasses, and had bad skin. People had made fun of her. She hadn't been asked out on dates. High school had been miserable for her.

So she went to college, and then to law school, and now she made her living sticking it to the people who had made her life so miserable way back then.

Some of that extra weight had melted off of her naturally, but she'd also tried to improve her appearance. She wore contacts now, and casual clothing of excellent quality. Her skin had cleared up. She met a guy in law school who was the male equivalent of herself, and they had, somewhat fearfully, entered into a relationship. That worked well for both of them. He did corporate law and brought in the big bucks. Cuddles, a name her husband had given her, righted wrongs and didn't really care about the money.

She tended to categorize people, at least initially, as the kind of person she thought they'd been in high school. What that meant was that everyone she met got put, at least initially, into one of three categories: The good, the bad, or the ugly. She knew that wasn't a valid sorting method, but it happened automatically and she couldn't do much about it. What she could do was then evaluate what kind of person they were presently, and then go from there. She "recognized" Claire as "one of those jock girls". That type had ignored her in high school, but hadn't tortured her either, so Claire got an initial status of "good."

"I got the police report, and we need to talk about that, but first, tell me about this amnesia," she opened, sitting across from Claire in a booth in one corner of the dimly lit bar.

Claire explained about the accident, and her spotty memory.

"So, what do you want from this divorce?" asked the lawyer, taking a healthy sip of her drink.

Claire, sitting in another of the soft chairs, frowned, and took a sip of her cocktail as she thought.

"Out of the marriage, I suppose."

"Okay. What do you want to take with you and leave for him?"

Claire's frown deepened.

"I really hadn't thought about that," she said. "Isn't a fifty/fifty split the usual?"

"It can be," said Angela. "But some people want to leave the other with nothing, out on the street, destitute."

"I don't want that," said Claire. "I'm not vindictive. At least I don't think I am."

"What an interesting thing to say," said Angela. "You don't think you're vindictive? Usually people know. They may not admit it, but they know."

"Because of this amnesia thing I'm kind of in the process of discovering who I am," said Claire.

"That must be rough," said Cuddles. Her attitude shifted and her next words were harder.

"How much do you know about the police report?"

"I didn't want to say things over the phone, but I know what it was about."

"Have you talked to him about it?"

"Not about the assault part. He admitted that he was with a prostitute though."

"How did that happen?"

"The next morning, when he woke up, he sort of babbled it out."

"Well, grounds for the divorce won't be a problem," said Angela.

"There's more," said Claire.

Angela took a sip of her drink while she waited.

"That night, after the accident, Cindy - she's my friend - Cindy had brought me home from the hospital and put me to bed. Anyway, he came home. He didn't know I'd been released, and when he found out I was there, he tried to force me to submit to anal sex."

"Jesus," whispered Angela. "Yeah, you got grounds."

Claire finally took a gulp of her own drink.

"Has he ever hit you?"

"I doubt it seriously," said Claire.

"Why?"

"Because when he tried to make me have sex, I kicked him in the chin and knocked him out cold. My basement has this workout room in it for stuff like mixed martial arts, and there's one of those white outfits there that would fit me but not him. It has a black belt on it. In that situation with him, I didn't even think about what I was doing. I just did it automatically."

"Good for you!" said Angela. "How much does he make?"

"I don't really know. He's a supervisor at IKEA. My friend told me I make a lot of money, though, probably more than him. I think it used to be the other way around. Apparently I worked for the government at one time, before I went to work at Martin. My friend says I'm highly paid at Martin."

"This is fascinating," said Angela.

"Not for me," said Claire.

"Sorry."

"It's okay," said Claire.

"Okay," said Angela, moving on. "I think the hooker and the attempted sodomy will be enough to convince a judge to let you out of the marriage. But before we get to that point, you need to be prepared for things to get shitty. The first thing to do is separate the finances so he can't raid the bank and disappear once he's served with papers. We need to find out what percentage of the combined income each of you contributes, and we'll use that as a basis for what you can remove from the existing account to put in your new one. That way he can't accuse you of robbing him in this process. After that, you'll need to decide how you want to split up the remaining assets. Do you own your residence, or are you just renting?"

"I don't know," said Claire, helplessly.

"We can find that out," said Angela, dismissively. "Firm assets like that can't be run off with anyway, so we can identify all of them with his help."

"You think he'll help?" Claire sounded skeptical.

"He's going to want things. We make him give us a list and the rest is yours. Then it's just a matter of negotiating what, on his list, you want to move over to your list."

Claire thought for a moment.

"You want to know something awful?"

"Sure. I love awful," said Angela.

"The only things I can think of that I want, other than my clothes, is the stuff in the basement gym and..." She stopped.

"And what?"

"It's kind of personal," said Claire.

"I love personal even more than I love awful."

"It's a ... sex toy," said Claire, whispering.

"Well, we can't let him get his cheating mitts on that, now can we," said Angela, grinning.

It was only then that Claire realized their meeting had caused her to be a no show to run with Chad.

But she'd told him that could happen.

She decided she'd try again the next day.

The next day at work went really well. Claire was pretty sure that was because she felt like she was making progress, if separating herself from the husband she couldn't remember, and didn't love, could be called progress. To be fair, Chad wasn't part of that thought process, at least not a major part. Granted, whenever she used her dildo, she thought about him, but she didn't intend to seek some kind of relationship with the man. At least not beyond that of a good running partner. He was interesting, but she had enough on her plate without introducing that kind of stress into her life.

Her files seemed to flow across her desk, as if they, too, wanted her to move on with her life. She saw Cindy a couple of times and they spoke once, but Cindy's boss had a working lunch he needed her to be at, so Claire found the company cafeteria and ate there. It was heartwarming that so many people stopped by her table to say they were glad she hadn't been hurt worse, but nobody wanted to sit and eat with her.

She did not, in fact, think of Coach Morgan until almost three in the afternoon, when she finished a file and suddenly felt antsy and in need of some motion. Sitting all day made her feel leaden and sluggish. The next file could wait. On a whim, she went and found the locker Cindy had told her she had, in the locker room off to one side of the little company gym in the west wing. There was no lock on the handle, which was convenient, because if there had been one, she would have had no idea where the key was, or what the combination was, if it was that type.

She opened it and a musty cloud of air issued forth. She decided that must was a product of the running shoes in the bottom of the locker, because the running clothes were clean and neatly stacked on the top shelf of the cubicle. A small back pack hung from a hook on the side of the locker and instinct told her she sometimes ran home, using the pack to carry her street clothes and purse. She wondered, briefly, what she did about her car on those days, but she was pretty sure she didn't just run around town and then come back here to get her car. She'd have to remember to ask Cindy about that. Maybe John brought her back to get her car. She thought about that. Naw. Probably not. The only thing she knew of that had ever gotten him away from the TV was wanting to watch her fuck herself with her dildo.

Again, on a whim, she sat down on the bench that went down the middle of the room and got into the running clothes that were in the locker. After packing her day clothes into the backpack, she stretched and then slipped the pack on. She jogged out of the locker room and into the atrium. Howard was there and waved, smiling.

"It's good to see you running again, Mrs. Bonneville," he called, verifying her feeling that she had left work this way before.

She stopped, long enough to lean toward him and say, "You can call me Claire, you know."

His eyes opened wide, and he shook his head, darting a look to each side, as if they might be overheard.

"No I can't," he whispered.

"Do you have a girlfriend?" she asked, looking at his ring finger again.

"Yes, Ma'am," he said, looking puzzled.

"When I invite you and your girlfriend over for supper some night, you can call me Claire then, okay?"

He grinned. "Yes, Ma'am!" he said, in a completely informal, formal way.

Then she was out and onto the pavement. She had no destination or route in mind. She just wanted to run. Only after she'd put seven or eight street lights behind her did she realize she was headed in the direction of the high school. That was when she thought about Chad. It felt good to be running. It felt even better to think about Chad while she did that.

It was early, in the sense that Chad would probably still be engaged with his players, but she let her feet carry her to the school, and around it to the football field. She wasn't surprised to see the field was crowded with boys, running this way and that. A football arced up into the sky, to fall neatly into the arms of a running young man. A whistle blew and the activity, which had looked disorganized to her eyes, assumed an order as everyone began to move in varying stages of urgency toward the school building. Apparently this practice was over.

She saw Chad, standing with another man. They were looking at paper on a clipboard Chad was holding. Two boys ran up to join the men, but then looked past them at Claire. One of the boys said something and both men's heads turned toward her. After a split second of uncertainty, Chad's face broke into a smile, and he waved her over. As she approached she heard Chad being asked who she was, but she couldn't determine who was doing the asking. She arrived in time to hear Chad pronounce her as his running partner.

"Sheee-it, Coach," said one of the young men. "You run with her?!"

"Watch your mouth, Johnson," snapped Chad, suddenly firm and unsmiling.

The boy was insolent. That was clear to her in an instant. Chad's warning bounced off of him like a nerf dart.

"Well if you can't keep up with Coach, I'd be happy to run with you, lady," said the boy.

"I wouldn't want to show you up in front of your little friends," said Claire, sweetly. "That's why I run with a real man."

"Snap!" laughed the other boy. "She got you good, Derrick."

"No girl could beat me," bragged Derrick.

"Hit the locker room, gentlemen," said Chad, warning in his voice.

"No, Coach. She's the one who threw out the challenge." The boy sneered at Claire. "How about we go around the track once, just so you find out what a real, real man runs like," he offered.

"Just once?" Claire put her hands on her hips. "What are you, the kicker or something?"

"I'm the quarterback, Lady," growled Derrick.

"I said -" Chad's voice was cut off by Claire, reaching to touch his forearm.

"Then you shouldn't have a problem doing a mile," said Claire, her voice sugary sweet.

"Claire," said Chad, softly. She looked at him. He was frowning.

"Surely you let them run. Am I too late? Are the boys all tired out from their practice? Is he wearing cleats he can't run in? Maybe you're right. I wouldn't want him to embarrass himself, trying to run around the track four times after all that hard work on the practice field."

Chad ignored Claire now, and looked at his quarterback.

"Trust me on this, Derrick. You do not want to do this."

"Sure I do, Coach," said Derrick, grinning. He sat down on the ground and got sneakers out of his bag, exchanging his cleats for them. "In fact, I think I have eight laps in me. Is that too much for you, lady?"

"Ohhh, you poor, poor boy," said Chad, softly.

"Eight it is," said Claire, businesslike suddenly. "How much of a lead do you want?"

"Me? Lead?" He laughed. "Lady, I got at least ten or fifteen years on you. If anybody needs a lead, it's you. In fact, you want Coach to call you an ambulance for when you have your heart attack?" He laughed, thinking he was clever.

Chad wasn't feeling sorry for Derrick any longer. He nudged the man he'd been talking to, and said, "Watch this. You're going to enjoy it."

"You want to stretch first?" asked Claire.

"No," said Derrick, truculently.

"Okay," said Claire, and she took off running.

She stayed tantalizingly out in front of Derrick for the first lap. He began undoing his equipment and tossing pieces of it away as he tried, but could not quite catch up with her. Halfway through the second lap, she let him catch up and run even with her. She turned to smile at him.

"This is fun!" she said. "Isn't it?"

He was breathing deeply now, and the first inkling that something was terribly wrong was seeping into his mind.

"You're psycho," he panted.

"And you're all balls and no legs," she said. "When are you going to start running?"

"Right ... now!" He put on a burst of speed and she let him pull away. They were approaching their start point. Chad waved merrily toward both of them. Claire saw that a number of the other players had decided to come watch this little impromptu contest, instead of going to the showers. She almost felt bad for Derrick, because her breathing was completely normal. She hadn't even begun to run yet.