Chapter 3

The phone rang. I looked at the caller ID. Wasn't a number I recognized. I was getting mad, thinking of who had the gall to call me this late, or a wrong number or ... I answered. "This is Steve."

The voice on the other end was familiar but tearful. Brenda. "Steve, I needed somebody to talk to."

"Okay, Brenda," I said. "I'm here."

"I moved out today, Steve."

"Whaaat?!?!? Baby, what happened?" I was shocked.

"I found out he's been cheating on me for years with a woman at work. I felt so bad about what you and I did, you know, but it turns out WE were karma for what he's been doing to me." Her sob was changing to something I'd never experienced, Brenda mad.

"How'd you find out?" I asked.

"That's the horrible part, Steve. My daughter broke the news after he went off on me about something. SHE knew. Said she kept hoping that we'd fix our marriage, Steve. And the stupid fucker had no intention of telling me or anything, just keepin' his thing going on the side."

"Well, Brenda ... what's next?"

"I'm filing for divorce in the morning. I know an attorney. But I moved out. Tomorrow I'll get an apartment."

"So where are you right now?"

"At my daughter's house."

"It's safe for you to call me from there?"

"She's in the kitchen, and she knows you're my friend."

"Are you staying there tonight?" I asked.

"I could. But..."

"You can certainly stay here, baby, if you think that's prudent. I mean, he might have you followed."

"I'm not worried."

"What will you tell your daughter?"

"That I have to get away tonight, and that we, her, me, her sister, we need to have a family meeting tomorrow."

"But..."

"Steve, I need my friend tonight."

"Are you okay to drive?"

"Of course."

"Come on. The garage'll be open. Park in it."

"Thank you, Steve. I need my friend tonight."

I pulled on a pair of pants. I still slept in a T-shirt and drawers, and that T-shirt was enough for now if I added pants to the mix. And I went into the living room and waited. Thinking. Thousands of thoughts coursed through my mind, because that's how my mind works.

I considered. I surmised. I analyzed. I'd known Brenda for several years, always the competent and pleasant co-worker, even though in our official capacities we seldom crossed paths. And I considered that in the past three months, I'd known her in a most unprofessional sense, as a friend and more, a happy, enthusiastic lover, a funny, pleasant, intelligent companion, somebody both fun and challenging to converse with. Half the world would look at here and think "over-weight, over-age, over the hill", but I had found otherwise.

In the back of my mind, though, was that line we'd both crossed, having to do with marriage vows. I knew how I hurt when my wife had left, even though we both had given up on having a real marriage long before. It was the idea of failure. And then I'd turned around, against my own self-imposed rules, and now I'd been heavily involved in a very sexual relationship with a married woman.

No! Scratch that! I was heavily involved, and it was MORE than sex. I wasn't a horn-dog grabbing his erection at the thought of meeting Brenda on one of our strangely synchronized out of town forays. I was looking forward to sitting across the table from her, talking, seeing the eyes alternately soften, then flash, then twinkle as we rode a conversational roller coaster, and I relished kicking back, half-clothed, in bed or on the odd sofa together, laughing at a TV movie, and yes, I savored making love with her and sleeping with her and waking up to her soft, plush form in bed with me the next morning.

But she was married. Operative term: WAS.

I was still running through the stack of 'where the hell is this going' routines in my head when the flash of headlights illuminated the drapes. I went through the kitchen, though the laundry room, and opened the door into the garage. Brenda's car pulled in and I hit the switch to close the automatic garage door.

I opened her car door; she swung out and leapt at me, wrapping me in her arms before I had a chance to spread mine to hold her.

"Stevestevesteve..." and then the floodgates opened.

I'd seen luggage in her back seat, but that could wait. I had a crisis, and it was wrapped around me, sobbing.

"Let's go inside, Brenda. Then we can talk, okay?"

Her head nodded assent, the sobs softening, and we walked inside. No! Not the bedroom. We walked to the living room. I eased her onto the sofa and I sat next to her, our separation a compromise between chaste and familiar.

She didn't let that distance stand. "Steve, please just hold me."

I slid closer and took her in my arms. She had hers folded between us, a pose that would have been interpreted as a means of insuring propriety under other circumstances. This time, it was because she wanted to be completely held.

I assessed the condition of the Brenda in my arms. No make-up. Hair brushed, clean, fragrant, but not her normal 'fixed' for work. She was wearing stretch jeans and a loose cotton blouse. That meant that she'd gone home from work today, done her evening shower, and finished it and was, as she put it, 'bumping around the house.'

I rested my cheek against her head, allowing little tendrils of her perfume to tease my nose. Finally, she heaved a sad sigh.

"Baby..." I whispered.

"I'm still 'baby' to you, Steve?"

"If you still want to be."

"Where did I run to, Steve? Where?"

"Here."

"Then I can still want to be 'baby'?"

"Are you okay?"

"A marriage of twenty-four years just flew apart." Her eyes flashed, some of the life-light showing in them, that light that I doted on. "I'm just PEACHY, Steve, okay!" Sarcasm. Was that a good sign?

She took a deep breath. "Sorry. You need a kiss." It was longer than two friends leaving a party, but it wasn't one of those 'we're heading for bed' kisses, either.

"What do YOU need, Brenda?"

"Someone to talk to." Her grey eyes connected with mine. "Right now."

"I'm here for that."

She sighed. "First, this isn't YOUR fault. Apparently my husband has been doing this woman for years. All this time I thought that the reason he was so distant with me was that I'd changed. Okay, I have changed. I'm older. I've gained weight. But so has he." She sat back a bit on the sofa. "But that started YEARS ago, and I was twenty pounds slighter, and quite a few wrinkles younger. And he still..."

I was supposed to listen.

"Ellie ran into them while she was on a DATE." Those grey eyes flashed. "Can you imagine? You're out on a date, and you see your DAD curled up in a booth with somebody who's NOT your mom? She confronted him. He talked his way out of it, the first time. It happened again. He told her that WE were working through 'issues'. And all that time, HIS out of town trips..."

I twinged. It must have been noticeable.

"No, Steve. NOT the same. We, he and I, we were under the same roof, but the marriage? He'd tossed that out YEARS ago. I don't feel guilty." She looked at me, her expression telling me that she was worrying about ME. "You shouldn't, either. We're adults. If things would've been right at home, what we did, what I wanted, that wouldn't've come up."

I dared to lean forward and touch her cheek.

She continued, "This afternoon when I got home, I did the normal thing, walked in, stuck something in the oven for dinner, showered. He and I and Ellie were at the table eating because her husband's working an evening shift at the hospital, and he started in on me about the out of town work and how I should be there to make sure the house gets taken care of and the bills paid because he, by God, has to work out of town, too, and he started getting louder and more abusive, and Ellie uncorked on him about the reason he worked out of town was so he could drive over to meet his floozy like he'd been doing since she was seventeen."

Brenda's eyes started wetting up again. "I said 'floozy'? And Ellie told me everything she knew about him and that woman and how long and where and 'Mom, why don't you check his cellphone calls and his credit card statements?' And when I looked at him, I knew it was all true, because when he gets mad and he knows he's wrong, he shuts up. And he wouldn't say a WORD."

"I started asking questions, and he started on about how I was fat and old and Ellie started yelling at him and he left. Ellie and I talked for a long time. She told me to move out and get an apartment and a lawyer. She wanted me to go home with her, but they have a tiny little apartment until they close on their house, and so I told her that I had other places to go. Friends." She looked almost shy. "At least one."

"What's your plan, sweetness?" I asked.

"Just like Ellie said. Call a lawyer I've heard about in the morning. Look at an apartment. Lock down all the bank accounts and credit cards." She looked serious. Her confidence was coming back, then it waned again. "Steve ... for until I get an apartment..."

"You can stay here."

"I'll be discreet."

"You be whatever you wanna be," I said. I rethought. "Uh ... yeah, you need to be careful. What would people say?"

"I know," she said softly. "And I WILL get an apartment. But it may take a few days. Do you mind if I hang out here? He's not gonna be home for a few days. Another out of town trip, conveniently enough. But I just don't want to stay there."

"You're here, Brenda. You get a choice of where to sleep. I have a spare bedroom..."

"Why would I be concerned with that, Steve?" she asked softly.

"Because I don't want to be the kind of sleeze-ball that takes advantage of a woman under an emotional strain."

She looked at me, vestiges of that twinkle in her eye. "Oooo-kayyyyy then. Would you be the kind of sleeze-ball who would deny his best friend comfort when she really, really needed it." She paused. "WANTED it." She leaned forward and our lips met.

I breathed Brenda for long, savoring moments. When the kiss finally waned, she said, "I have some things in the car."

"I'll go get them."

She followed me into the garage. "Steve, I'm perfectly capable of carrying my own bags."

"So am I," I said. I brought them through the house.