Chapter 7: The Funeral

On Sunday morning Barry wakes to find Tammy’s side of the bed empty.

“How can she be up and about after last night’s bender?” he asks himself.

Barry throws the covers aside and heads into the kitchen. There is no sign of Tammy. He retraces his steps and opens the garage door. Her car is gone, but then he remembers that he picked her up at the office. He continues to retrace his steps and retrieves his phone from the bedside table.

“Didn’t want to wake you so took an Uber to the office. Will be home late.”

So much for continuing the conversation that was started last night. Barry didn’t bother with a reply.

At 10:30 PM Barry hadn’t heard anything else from Tammy all day. He had gone for a run, done the laundry, and finished the Netflix series he started. It got marginally better the last few episodes, but it still wasn’t anything he would recommend, let alone rave about. He enters the kitchen and throws down a couple of shots of tequila, then to the bedroom and it is lights-out.

The next thing Barry registers is the alarm on his phone at 8:00 AM Monday morning. He silences it, and with the phone still in his hand, he looks to the other side of the bed. As expected, it is empty. He looks back at the phone and doesn’t see a text message.

Tired of the games Barry texts Tammy’s number. “I assume you’re at work?”

Without waiting for a reply he puts down the phone and hits the bathroom for his morning routine. When he’s showered and dressed he looks at his phone. Technically, there is a response from Tammy. “Yes.”

Barry wants to throw the phone against the wall. Instead he sighs deeply and goes to make coffee before getting started with his own Monday morning work.

When he gets to his desk and fires up his calendar he sees that he has multiple meetings across the day. He hates these kinds of days. Too much talk and not enough work. He resigns himself to his fate and dives into what coding he can get done before his 10:00 AM meeting.

At one minute before ten his phone beeps. Expecting a lame-ass message from Tammy he hits the screen to wake the device. There is a text message so he opens the app and hits the first message without looking. The message is not from Tammy.

Barry is looking at an image of a petite woman leaning against a door jam in her bathroom. A crooked arm is raised above her head and her hip is slightly cocked to the side. The other arm is extended in front of her with a camera pointed into the mirror. Her straight brown hair stretches almost to her waist and partially covers a breast. The other breast is fully exposed, along with her shaved pubis. The nakedness isn’t what has Barry’s attention. The woman has an angelic face with the most remarkable green eyes and beguiling smile.

Barry finally closes the image and sees the accompanying text.

Sara: Good morning, Barry. This is me. All of me. Hope you enjoy.

Barry reopens the image. His dick is rock hard and he wants to relieve himself, but he sees that he is already late for his meeting. Reluctantly, he takes one last long gaze at the angel on his phone in an attempt to memorize every detail, and then closes the image and enters his reply.

Barry: You are an incredibly gorgeous woman. Words just don’t do your beauty justice.

Barry: You don’t know how hard it is going to be for me to delete that image, but rules are rules.

Barry: No need to reply. I’m already late for a meeting so won’t be available. Bye.

To Barry’s dismay he selects the message thread from his text message list and clicks on the delete icon.

When he gets into the meeting he finds that the host has not yet arrived so his tardiness wasn’t even noticed. When the meeting starts he realizes this will be a long one. The goal of the meeting is to to provide t-shirt sizing for several features that are being requested by a potentially huge client.

The meeting runs a full two hours, and the material is no where completed, which takes Barry into his lunch break. There are slim pickings in the fridge so he opens the pantry to find a box of mac-n-cheese. He boils water, adds the noodles, and then the cheesy powder mix, a shot of milk, and a little butter and that’s lunch. The makeshift lunch only takes twenty minutes so Barry decides to squeeze in a run before his next meeting.

The sun is directly overhead which makes the 82 degree day seem much hotter. He didn’t plan his strategy very well and started with a much too quick pace. When he returned home he sees that the loop took him a full fifty minutes today. Somewhat disgusted with himself he jumps in the shower to get cleaned up before his next meeting.

When he exits and begins to dry himself he thinks of Sara and the photo she sent. He retrieves his phone and mimics her pose by leaning against the shower stall and pointing the camera into the mirror. Before he snaps the picture he gives his dick a few good tugs. He smiles and clicks the shutter several times.

Working from memory he enters Sara’s number and attaches one of the pictures. He then enters a message to go with the image.

Barry: Hope you had a good flight. This is me. All of me. Hope you enjoy.

He clicks send. Next he deletes the text message, and finally, he opens his phone’s gallery app and deletes the photos.

The non-stop meetings continue for Barry for most of Tuesday and Wednesday. By Thursday the reviews are over and to-do items have been divvied out to various people and groups before another round of meetings occur and the features are either included in the road map or postponed to a future date.

The lack of meetings works in Barry’s favor on Thursday morning. At exactly 10:00 AM his phone beeps signaling a received text message.

Sara: Good morning.

Sara: Great picture the other day. Like you said, very hard to delete, but rules are rules.

Sara: You there? Don’t want to send a bunch of messages if they’ll sit on your phone all day.

Barry: Here. How are you doing? Funeral today?

Sara: Great that you are available.

Sara: Yes, funeral today. At 1:00. Visitation last night. Was awful.

Knowing there really wasn’t much to say Barry waited for Sara to continue with her story.

Sara: As soon as we arrive mother-in-law makes a scene.

Sara: Blames me for Reggie’s death – my ex.

Sara: WTF? Like I wanted him to hit me? Or get a divorce? Or years later get drunk and take a bimbo home? Getting a handjob on the bike no less?

Sara: Then she takes one look at my son and suggests I was having an affair with some malnourished geek. Her Reggie could never father something that small and weak.

Sara: Yes, she said something.

Sara: A cousin of Reggie’s was nearby and said to cool it.

Sara: I thought he was going to help, but then he says: The little pussy probably gets the shit beat out of him at school. Doesn’t need a grown-ass man putting him down.

Sara: Darren, my son, started to cry. When I called him by name it got his grandmother started again. How dare you not call him Reggie?

Sara: Then she recanted. Such a little bastard child doesn’t deserve to be called by his father’s name. If that’s really his father.

Barry: Other than ‘sorry,’ there are no words that I can pass along to make this better.

Sara: I know. I’m just happy to have a friendly ear.

Barry: How are the kids?

Sara: Numb. Darren is scared to go anywhere near the family. He stands at my side and looks at the ground the whole time.

Sara: It was a closed casket. Heard that the mortician at the funeral home tried his best, but the facial damage was too severe. Guess he looked bad after the accident, and then downright gruesome with all the makeup.

Sara: I think Denise, my daughter, is starting to realize this is not a nice family. She may be getting a perspective on why her dad and I are no longer together.