Chapter 1: Tom's Story

I attend a conference every year. It’s a week of catching up with new stuff. It was in San Diego this year. The City itself is okay, if you like health nuts. But it’s a five-hour flight from the East Coast. And I have spent so much time packed into an aluminum tube with 250 total strangers that I have developed a severe allergy to air travel.

The first day was registration and the inevitable “Welcome” cocktail party. I disposed of the schmoozing by 8PM and called Janet from the room. She was her usual chipper, sarcastic self. She is a lot better looking woman than I deserve and I have loved her since the day I met her. But her jaded take on the world is what I really adore.

She told me that it was beautiful and sunny on Long Island and she had spent the day in the garden. I told her that it is always beautiful and sunny in San Diego and I had spent the day in the clutches of the travel industry. I told her I was going to go down to the hotel bar to have a nightcap and try to hit the hay before 10:00. We closed with the lovey-dovey endearments that all traveling couples sign off with.

I walked into the bar which was just a patio overlooking Mission Bay. Janet usually accompanies me on long trips but she had to close out her school year. So, I was a bachelor for the next four and a half days. I fortify myself before I turn in. I don’t sleep well without her next to me in bed. I ordered a brandy as a pseudo-sleeping pill.

A couple of my San Francisco colleagues joined me while I was sitting there. Bill is a network geek and frankly boring. Jane is a geek too but she is well known in the trade. The standard joke is that her boobs will take twenty IQ points off any man; simply by the distraction. That isn’t fair, because she is first and foremost a smart and effective woman. She just happens to be wrapped in a Double-D package. Naturally, the joke ALSO holds true. I was mesmerized by the jiggle.

She and Bill were obviously hammered. People get that way on “welcome” day. The newfound freedom from daily routine tends to express itself in too may “first” drinks. And network wonks are not big drinkers anyway.

Bill sat down six inches above the wicker chair and almost crushed it falling backwards. Jane lowered herself carefully into her seat; looking for all-the-world like she was docking the space shuttle. I said with cheerful irony, it looks like you have been here a lot longer than I have.”

Bill volunteered, “They have wonderful Margaritas.”

I said just to make conversation, “How many have you had?”

He looked at Jane and they both shrugged.

There was part of me who wanted to get away from them. I didn’t not want to wrangle two drunks. But I have an unfortunate tendency toward rescuing. I know that it’s a personality flaw and it frequently gets me in trouble. I said, “This place is big and confusing. Let me help you two to your rooms.”

Bill demurred but Jane said, “Would you please? I’m not sure I could find it.”

I knew what she was talking about. Destination hotels are like a village. And unless you were born there it is hard to decipher the various “Casa” this’s and “Villa” that’s.

She gave me her key card and we walked for what seemed like a quarter mile through the resort vegetation to her room. All the time she was chastely holding my one arm with both of her hands to keep her balance. Her ankles were occasionally turning on her four inch FMPs. But nothing catastrophic happened.

When we got to her place she spun toward me in a familiar fashion and said, “Thank you for walking me home, would you like to come in for a drink.”

I am not exactly worldly-wise but I knew what THAT meant. Every conference I’ve ever attended turns into a fuck-fest. That usually goes on in various combinations and permutations throughout the week for both the unmarried and the married participants. I was sure that Jane, who is a stunner anyway, was just kicking off the ball.

But I was not, and never have been interested in any aspect of fucking around on my wife. Besides totally complicating your life, any form of casual sex is always the first nail in any marriage’s coffin. That truism applies whether it is no-strings-never-see-you-again sex, or if you fall in love for a week and nobody finds out. Once you open the door to infidelity it’s impossible to close it again.

I said, trying to be tactful, “It was my pleasure escorting you back fair lady but I’m exhausted.” She looked disappointed.

When I ran into her the next day she was particularly friendly, almost dewy eyed sentimental. She said, “Thank you for just bringing me back. I was very drunk.” I got the message and it made me feel good to know that I was one of the few who had not taken advantage of the free pass.

The conference ground on in a boring haze.

Janet was different when I called her the second evening of the conference. In fact, she was SO different that I checked to see if I had dialed the right number. Instead of being her usual brisk and good humored self she was distant, almost cold, talking to me in monosyllables. I thought, “What the fuck?”

But then again, I have days like that, when the troubles of the world carry over into our relationship.

Janet’s heritage is mostly Italian. So, her temper is like a tropical storm. Something will set her off and there will be violent thunder and driving rain. Then the sun will come out and it will be like it never happened, no repercussions, or grudges.

She was obviously in the middle of one of those occasional monsoons. She wouldn’t be reasonable until she had calmed down and so it was pointless to ask her what the problem was. Instead, I said as cheerfully as possible, “You are going to owe me some serious makeup sex for the way you are treating me tonight, I’ll see you at JFK day after tomorrow at 6:45, I miss you.”

She bulldozed right past my attempt at humor and said with heat in her voice, “You are going to have to take a cab home. I’ll be at Sarah’s.” Sarah is her older sister.

I was baffled and disappointed. I said mournfully, “What! I haven’t seen you in five days and you’re going to be visiting your sister?”

She said with no emotion whatsoever, “I am going to be there for the rest of next week. I will see you next weekend” and then terminated the connection without a by-your-leave.

I was crushed and frankly confused. We had never been apart for two weeks in our entire 17 years together. It was obvious that something serious was going on. It must involve Sarah and it had put Janet in a funk. Maybe Sarah was dying?

I couldn’t imagine that it would involve me in any respect. Since all I had been doing this past week was sitting through droning lectures and having the occasional drink with my colleagues. I knew that Jim Murphy, who was an employee of mine, could vouch for me.

He had come in on the same flight and had been with me all the time at the conference, except for today, when he had unexpectedly flown home. However, I was certain that his early departure wouldn’t affect his ability to vouch for me, since Janet had already gotten strange.

Murph was ten years younger than me and something of a protégé. He was good looking and smart, and that made him a bit too full of himself. But he was young and basically a good kid, full of Irish charisma. He was at our house a lot and Janet, who is closer to his age, knew him well and liked him. I hated to admit it but I was sure he could charm her out of whatever was wrong with her faster than I could.

My guess was that Janet had gone feral because Sarah was having one of her interminable marital problems. And Janet was pissed about it. Sarah’s husband fucks around on her and every time she catches him there is this extended period of family turmoil, followed by a tearful reconciliation. In fact, marital strife almost seems like a hobby for those two. And Janet gets pulled into the argument because she has always been the “responsible” sister.

The problem is that Janet absolutely hates being put in the middle. And since she can’t take it out on her “victim” of a sister, I am the designated scapegoat. This had happened several times in the past. But I was always physically present when it did, so I was able to talk some sense into Janet before she left to deal with whatever Sarah’s latest trauma was.

Janet is passionate in everything she does. I mostly benefit from that passion through a superlative sex life. So, I decided a long time ago that the best thing I could do was to roll with the punches; in the occasional times that I was the target of her ire. So, as I flew back home I reconciled myself to being all alone for a bloody week.

It wasn’t that I didn’t have things to keep me occupied. We were in the middle of a major overhaul of the security at one of the larger defense installations on the island. The problem with DoD contracts is that you are frequently accountable to people who know a lot about securing physical things but don’t really understand the special circumstances of securing something in the virtual one.

They need to be led through all the intricacies of that kind of operation, while telling you that they “know best.” So, I had five consecutive 10 hour days explaining to an Air Force, Major General that “defense in depth” was not just a simple matter of assigning a user ID and a password to the help. It was an excruciating process but I liked the money.

I had been expecting Janet, when Friday evening rolled around. But she was nowhere to be seen. Her cell was off. I had called her a couple of times during the week just to check in and chat but I got the same monosyllables and curt treatment, so I backed off. I knew she would get over it.

I was lonely and I might add that her brutal treatment hurt a lot. So, I called up Murph to see if he wanted to grab a beer and discuss ways of talking my wife down from her current snit. But he was not answering either. It looked like it was going to be another night of watching baseball by myself.

Janet finally appeared in the middle of the morning on Saturday. She looked grim. I tried to hug her hello but she brushed right past me and on into our bedroom where she dropped her travel bag and came out with a memory stick in her hand, very distant and unfriendly.

Chapter 2 »