Lonely Too Long

by Gerald So

Fighting for position at LaGuardia's Departures area, a lime-green VW Beetle cut me off.

I hit the brakes. For a long second, we were the only two cars, the only two people in the world. Coming out of it, I heard my wife say, " . . . two weeks, unless—"

That was all I needed. "Don't think about 'unless'. Mom isn't out of the woods yet. She's lucky to have you."

"Aww." She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. Good husband.

My mother-in-law's been battling pneumonia the past three months. In that time, with mercy missions to her bedside, Rachel's been home—that is, with me— a total of nineteen days.

"Anything special planned while I'm gone?"

I'm a financial advisor. Relatively low stress, regular hours. She wasn't asking so much as encouraging me.

"Hmm. Two weeks, you said? I'll probably go through five books, ten TV dinners . . . "

"Thirty episodes of Law & Order . . . "

"You know me so well."

"TNT is crazy with that show."

I pulled up to the curb, put my flashers on, and popped the trunk. When a skycap arrived to take her two suitcases, Rachel looked at me as if I were the noblest man in the world.

"I'll miss you," she said.

I brushed her bangs away from her face and kissed her dimple. Then she was gone.

That night I checked Angel's Flight by Michael Connelly and Ice by Ed McBain out of the library, nuked Salisbury Steak for dinner, and flicked on TNT. By the next night, I was in Florida with Shauna Tuttle.

* * *

"This is my wife," Elmer Tuttle said. He was the firm's first client, my boss's oldest friend.

I reached across the conference table to shake her hand, feeling a spark when I did. My heart pumped faster. My vision seemed sharper. I saw red highlights in her blond hair. I smelled her perfume. I even heard subtleties when she said, "Shauna."

Blanking on my own name, I said, "A pleasure."

"We were married over the weekend," Elmer went on. "I'm writing her into my will."

She was twenty-seven; he was seventy-eight. I just nodded. Elmer had outlived all his relatives. Shauna was his first wife. He left her everything the Tuttle Tire empire had brought his way.

He came down with pneumonia around the same time as Rachel's mother. Two weeks later, every member of the firm attended his wake. When I offered condolences, Shauna moved to kiss my cheek, instead licking my ear.

We met once more at the office while Rachel was away. Dressed in a gray business suit, Shauna kept the conversation to asset management. As she stood to leave, she slid me a card for a hair salon on Long Island. On the back, she'd scribbled a Florida phone number.

* * *

I couldn't catch my breath. Above me, the bedroom and Shauna's face spun. I think she was trying to perform CPR without knowing how. Just kept pounding my chest. Adrenaline kicked in at last, and I grabbed her hands.

"Get off!" I yelled. It came out a wheeze, but she got the message.

Slowly my breath came back. Before I could speak, Shauna said, "You're no fun anymore."

"Not since the groin pull, huh?"

"Fuck you."

"Please, no more."

She flipped me off and stormed into the bathroom.

Shauna's idea of fun was loud, bronco-busting sex twice a day. Four days into it, I thought I could keep up. Eight days into it, my groin said otherwise.

I held my tongue as Shauna got dressed and left the house. I knew I'd been dismissed.

* * *

I hadn't lost all sense. I fielded messages on my cell phone and home machine every day I was away. I flew back two days before Rachel to wipe out all traces of the affair.

With one day to go—during an episode of Law & Order— I realized I hadn't been careful enough. I couldn't recall what I'd done with the ticket stub.

Of all things. The ticket stub for my return flight from Orlando to New York.

I turned off the TV and sat on the bed to think. The silence scared me. I went to the bathroom, washed my face, and looked in the mirror.

Eyes bloodshot, five o'clock shadow scruffy.

When did I get old?

I shaved, dried off, and went back to the bedroom.

"A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind.”

Yoda's words got me through law school, and they helped me focus now. On the return flight, I'd read the middle chapters of Ice . I showed my return ticket going through security at LaGuardia.

I could've tossed the stub in the trash right there, but no, I used it for a bookmark. During the cab ride home, I got back to Ice .

I watched my own fingers dialing the cab company. Shaky. Guilty.

After one ring, a gravel-voiced guy answered, "Ace Cab."

"Yes. I called for a cab from La Guardia yesterday."

"And it never came?"

"No, it came and brought me home. I'm wondering if I left something in the cab."

"What's your name?"

I hadn't given it. "Bruce Downing."

"Phone number?"

"The number I called from yesterday?"

"Yes."

"That was my cell phone." I gave the number, then heard the clacking of a keyboard.

The gravel voice read back my name and number and the time I called. "I'll transfer you to Lost and Found."

"Thank you."

I waited, drumming my fingers on the nightstand through a Muzak version of "Africa" by Toto.

"Lost and Found," a woman answered.

"Yes. I'm trying to locate a ticket stub from my flight into LaGuardia. I may have dropped it in your cab."

"Name?"

"Bruce Downing."

"Hold, please."

I held through R.E.O. Speedwagon's "I Can't Fight This Feeling Anymore."

"Couple of ticket stubs here. None of them says 'Downing.'"

Shit.

"Sir?"

"Sorry to bother you. Thanks."

More sitting, more thinking.

I imagined Obi-Wan Kenobi saying, "Use the Force, Bruce."

I'd taken Ice to bed last night. When I felt sleep coming, I put the book on the nightstand. I didn't finish it. I returned both books that morning.

But last night, the last thing I saw was the ticket stub, peeking out at me.

Did I dream that?

I went over what I'd done that morning. Looked under the bed. In the bedroom closet. The bathroom. The hall. The hall closet.

Nada.

Finally I checked the clock on the nightstand. 6:16. Monday night. The library would be open.

Telling myself to be calm, I started the car and let the engine warm. The library was ten minutes away.

Striding in, I went straight for the book search terminals. I looked up Ice and recognized the call number of the copy I'd returned.

It showed as "Available."

I rode the elevator to the sixth floor and slowly walked the aisles. There it was.

Recalling where I'd left off, I checked there first. Nothing.

Idiot! They inspect the books when you return them!

I kept enough composure to bring the book down with me to Circulation. That might help determine who inspected and reshelved it.

The goth girl minding the desk said, "Could have been any of several people. You're welcome to look through our Lost and Found."

"Please."

She brought out a small plastic bin containing two sets of keys, a Swiss Army knife, a pager, and half a pack of Big Red gum.

"Any luck?"

"No. Listen, thanks anyway."

By the time I got home, I'd convinced myself not to worry. Whoever found the ticket stub wouldn't know what it meant. The important thing was, it was nowhere in the house.

* * *

The next day, I met Rachel at LaGuardia, taking the suitcases from her hands.

Five minutes from the house, my cell phone rang, playing the gavel sound from Law & Order.

"I'll get that for you, hon."

With my hands on the wheel, I couldn't stop her. I could only listen to her side of the conversation.

"Hello . . . I'm his wife . . . Oh, I'm sure he did . . . Thanks for calling."

"Who was it?" I asked.

"Sunrise Travel. Hoping you enjoyed your trip to Orlando."

Fuck.

I didn't give her time to brood. I pulled to the shoulder and told her everything, the most I'd talked to her in months. It was a while before she spoke, but when she did, she said, "I'm going to need some time. Turn around."

"Why?"

"I'm going back to Mom's."

* * *

This story first appeared in the December 2005 issue of Skive Magazine