Chapter 18

He offered me his hand with a smile that I would have taken for friendly, if I hadn’t known exactly who he was. I shook his hand and resisted the urge to crush his fingers. Instead, I gave him the same handshake I gave everyone else. He introduced Doris to us as an afterthought. He was watching me with some amusement that told me that I’d sold the fiction that I didn’t know who he was. I gave Doris a very warm greeting suitable for someone I’d just met. She was as amused by the performance as I was. She kept her eyes on him, watching him puff up with the confidence of thinking he was still safe. Poor bastard. If he didn’t deserve worse, I’d actually feel sorry for him over what was coming.

It turns out that Barb wanted us to chat with Brad and his wife for a while. The two of them talked about ... houses. They were engrossed in a long conversation about a property that had come on the market that week. They were so deeply involved that they didn’t even notice when Doris and I slipped away. We went to the appetizers together and looked over the offerings with some interest. I took a plate and gathered up a diverse sample of the table’s contents.

“I was worried you might actually hit him,” she said softly as we grazed. She glanced over at the two, who were still talking animatedly. Whether they were talking shop or discreetly arguing about their relationship and the fallout in our marriage.

“The night’s still young,” I commented, watching him. “I was tempted to crush him like a bug when I shook his hand. It’s more satisfying to have them certain that we don’t know what’s going on.”

Just then, I spotted Barb’s parents approach and Barb introduced them to Brad. He was disgustingly boisterous at meeting the parents. I turned my back and trusted Doris to inform me about any change. She kept an eye out and the two of us chatted a little. “Not that he’ll ask, but if Brad DOES get around to asking what we talked about, tell him I was asking about getting back in shape and things I could do at home,” she coached me.

I nodded. “Fair enough,” I said lightly. “You know the answer to that now. Sit-ups, push-ups, climb stairs, things like that.”

She nodded. “So how did things go with your company?”

“Jane’s gonna stay with me through Christmas. She doesn’t want anything to do with Barb now. Her parents are staying over there with Barb, but she refuses to even go in the house.”

She nodded. “So I guess we’ll start working out again after the holidays?”

“Nope. Call me Monday. Jane’s not her sister and she’s asked me a lot of questions about you, particularly after she saw the containers in the fridge. She’s interested. She knows what we’ve been up to together and she knows that we’re there for each other, but there’s no future for the two of us together. You don’t have to hide or stay away or even give up on getting a little extra affection. She might even babysit for a couple of hours if you’re still interested in that.”

“I’d kiss her on the mouth for that!” she said softly, with a chuckle, then glanced over my shoulder. “In-coming.”

“So, yeah,” I said, changing my whole tone of voice like we were in a completely different conversation. “There’s a lot of different exercises that people can do around the house without much in the way of equipment. If you Google ‘no equipment workout’ a few things should come right up. Watch a few YouTube videos to get a sense of how to do each one right and you should be able to fit it into your day to day life without any problems.”

“What are you two talking about?” Brad asked from right behind me.

I turned and looked at him with a smile. “Your wife asked me for tips about getting fit without joining a gym,” I told him. “She said she has a little boy at home to look after during the day, so she can’t exactly get up and charge off to the gym.”

He nodded. “You any good at these sort of things?” he asked with a touch of skepticism in his voice.

“Staying fit or giving advice?” I asked.

“Either,” he said.

I shrugged. “I do okay in the gym,” I said. “Advice is hit or miss. I usually give people good advice, but it’s not always what they want to hear, so they don’t follow it. People can be stupid like that when it comes to their indulgences.”

“And what advice would you give Doris?” he asked.

I glanced at her and gave her a small smile. “Get in shape for yourself. Don’t do it for him,” I nodded to Brad, “don’t do it because the woman next door is thinner or because your friends are talking about how much they get out of their gym time or because the office slut wears a smaller size. If you’re gonna do it for anyone outside yourself, do it for your son. Carrying extra weight can put you at risk for health problems. Consider it an investment in being there to see him graduate and get married and give you grandchildren to spoil. Those are pretty much the only two people in the world that you can count on to provide steady unwavering motivation. The woman next door could get fat, your friends could start other hobbies and your husband could convince you that he loves your body exactly the way it is and you could end up asking yourself why you’re doing it.”

She nodded. “I hadn’t really thought about that,” she admitted. “I don’t want to miss out on my son’s life because of obesity. Maybe I should look into a serious gym membership.”

“We can talk about that after the holidays,” Brad told her. That was his attempt to get her to back down so that he could save the money that a gym membership would cost. “For now, let’s just enjoy our evening.” He turned toward me. “It was good to meet you, John,” he said with a smile that looked a little smug from my point of view, but I had a good idea what was going on behind his eyes.

“You too, Bob” I said, getting his name wrong on purpose. “Barb doesn’t really talk about work much, so it’s an interesting experience meeting the people that are with her every day.”

We shook hands again and then he dragged Doris away. Barb and her parents were drifting from group to group. True to her word, she’d cut me loose once she’d gotten what she wanted. I looked around and didn’t see Cecilia or Marty, so I went looking for a restroom.

I let myself into one of the stalls and checked my phone. There were no messages and I was wondering what was keeping Sissy. I was losing my mind. I knew four people in this place. My whore of a wife, her parents and Doris. I couldn’t spend my night following Doris around to talk, I’d rather punch myself in the balls than hang out with Barb and her parents weren’t a much better option.

I sighed and went back out to the party. I found a seat off in one corner and looked around the room at the women that had shown up to the party. I generally played the same game that guys have played since the dawn of time. I looked at the women in purely sexual terms. For the purposes of the game, it didn’t matter if they had common interests or great personalities. It was a thought experiment on whether I’d fuck them based on nothing more than the physical. I thought this was probably the worst place to do that, since the women in the room had taken great pains to make themselves look as glamorous as possible, with hair, makeup and clothes that complimented their features.

I was giving up the game as futile when I noticed someone approaching. Tara came and sat with me. “Bored?” she asked.

“It’s really not their fault,” I said with a shrug. “I’m not particularly in the mood to party.”

She nodded. That wasn’t a surprise to her. “Bad week?”

I looked at her shrewdly and gave her a knowing smile. “I suspect you know how my week’s gone.”

She shook her head. “Not really,” she said. “I know Barb came in the other day looking very ... worn out. Then, yesterday, she was distraught.”

I shrugged. “You’re her boss,” I said flatly. “You know what’s been going on around the office. I moved out of the house this week and told her I want a divorce. I’m sick of her and her lover making my life miserable.”

“You know about that?” she asked, surprised.

“I even know who he is. He and Barb are both unaware that I’m not in the dark.”

She looked uncomfortable. “You do?” she asked, her eyes darting around the room.

“Relax,” I told her, making a soothing gesture. “She introduced me to Brad a little while ago to make sure I didn’t suspect or to satisfy his perverse need to show me up and be disrespectful. The relief on their faces tells me that I’ve got a future in Hollywood. I didn’t bust him in the face or even give him a rough handshake. I just acted normal.” That relaxed her some. “She’s been telling me that her lover wouldn’t be here tonight so that I’d come.”

“Why DID you come if you’re divorcing?” she asked.

“Cecilia’s a friend of mine. She asked me to be here. She told me she’d introduce me to some of the available girls in the office. Since I sent Barb to work looking very ... worn out, she said there’s been some interest and encouraged me to be a little slutty. I mean, I’m no competition for my wife, but she’s in a league of her own.”

She nodded sourly about that. “Well, I’m glad that you know. I know I’ve personally felt embarrassed about their affair.”

I nodded. “I’m gonna go way out on a limb and guess that if she wasn’t such a good seller, she’d have been spoken to about it long ago.”

She nodded. “They’re not really going to be my problem for much longer though,” she admitted. “I’m moving up. My promotion’s going to be announced in the new year.”

“Congratulations,” I said with a smile. “What’s your new job?”

“District manager,” she told me. “I’ll be overseeing about a dozen offices around here.”

“Sounds exhausting,” I laughed. “Who’s taking over your job?”

“That’s currently up in the air. Barb’s being considered since she’s been the big seller in the office consistently.”

I looked around, but no one was close enough to overhear. “I wouldn’t,” I advised her. “That’s not just the vindictive husband talking. She’s fucking Brad. She’s doing pretty much whatever he tells her to. If she made manager, she’d make decisions to please him, not for the sake of the office. I could be wrong and she could make a stellar manager, but she’s shown poor decision-making when it comes to him and they’re screwing around at the houses they have keys to. I can’t imagine it’s all happening after work. She carried on the affair since last summer without staying late after work. I’m also told that their affair is the worst-kept secret in the office. Every time she made a decision that favored him, the rest of the agents would get a little more pissed. You’d have to fire her or transfer her within a year and the office would be a shambles while you found a better fit for the job.”

She nodded. “So, if it were you, you’d leave her where she was.”

I nodded. “Of course, if it were me, I’d transfer Brad to an office as far north as possible.”

She laughed about that. “We DO sell real estate in Alaska,” she admitted.

“That works for me,” I said agreeably. “And you were worried I was gonna punch him in the face.”

“A little,” she admitted. “You knock people out for a living.”

“Wanna know a secret?” I asked conspiratorially.

“Sure.”

“Those last two fights ... I thought about being in the cage with Brad. As soon as I did that, it was like something clicked in my head. I was never all that aggressive in my fights before. It was always a fun hobby. This turned me into a mean fighter.”

“So when you decide you’ve had enough of them...”

“Not gonna happen. I’ve already decided that I’ve had enough of Barb’s shit, so I moved out. I wouldn’t touch Brad unless he came after me with a weapon. Then I’d make him cry when he even saw a picture of me years later. You saw what Doug Hastings got? Someone told me he gave up fighting.”

“Not surprising. You beat him like a government mule,” she told me. “So you were thinking about what you’d like to do to Brad, huh? Maybe I should tell him that, omitting that you know whose face to lay the fists on already.”

I shrugged. “I don’t think it’d matter. They’ve been doing a lot to try to set me off. If I didn’t know better, I’d think Brad was planning on getting me to throw a punch so he could sue me for damages.”

“Maybe,” she shrugged and then looked at the room. “I should mingle though. Do me a favor and don’t say anything about the promotion? It’s not getting announced until next month. The feeding frenzy of people looking to fill my shoes will start minutes after that. I don’t need the headache of people sucking up early.”

“My lips are sealed,” I promised. “There doesn’t seem to be a lot of people eager to talk to me anyway. Not that it’s any of my business, but if I was asked for a suggestion, I’d recommend Cecilia for the position,” I told her. “She’s managed to stay in the middle of this without pissing anyone off and that’s a minor miracle.”

She patted my shoulder and then got up to socialize. I sighed and checked my watch. It was nearly time for everyone to be seated for dinner.

I got up and went looking around for someone to talk to. Janice and Arthur were already in the dining room, but Barb wasn’t. I saw Doris by herself and knew where Barb was. I went to the elevators and used the card to access the 12th floor. I went up and found our suite, letting myself in quietly. I crept into the room and could hear the sounds of passion from inside the suite’s bedroom. I looked around the rest of the suite and found that there was only one bedroom. Typical Barb. I took a lovely video of the two of them and then slipped out of the room and went back to the party before they could straighten up and remake the bed.

I got off the elevator and went back to the party. There was still no sign of Cecilia or Marty. I took a moment to get hold of myself and then approached Janice and Arthur. “Hey,” I said lightly. “Where’s Barb?” I asked, dropping into one of the chairs at the table they’d taken up residence at.

“She’s not with you?” Janice asked, surprised. “She said she was going up to the suite before dinner. We assumed that she was with you.”

I gave her my card and told her the suite number. “Now’s your chance to meet her new lover, I guess. Tell her that I said thanks for a lovely evening,” I said, letting my irritation show.

“John, I’m sure it’s nothing like that,” Arthur said trying to get me to calm down.

“Go check then,” I suggested.

“I’ll go,” Janice said, getting up and taking my card off the table.

Fifteen long, silent minutes later, she was back with a grim look on her face.

She tried to give me the card back, but I shook my head. “They were up there?” I asked. She nodded, but didn’t say anything. “You know that she promised me that he wasn’t going to be here tonight. She swore she’d never put the two of us in a room together. This is the kind of bullshit I’ve been dealing with since the summer. You looked around the suite, right? How many beds were there?”

“Just one,” she said.

“So her intention was to fuck her lover in that bed and then make me sleep in the wet-spot. I know she only hired the limo to drop us off and she’s hoping I wouldn’t think to bring cab-fare with me tonight. That’s why she wanted me to ride with you, so I’d be stuck here and it’d be late and I’d be half-drunk. Then she could tell me to just sleep in the bed with her and she’d get me home in the morning.”

Arthur looked disgruntled by this talk. “If you need money for a cab, I’ve got my wallet,” he said. “You have to understand that Barb told us she was absolutely dedicated to getting you to forgive her.”