Cheating to Survive (Fix It or Get Out) (4 page)

Victoria retrieved a blanket from inside the storage ottoman and the soft, plush material floated over him. Calm, unburdened, safe. He looked a good deal like her father – before her father grew ill and emaciated. She tucked the blanket around his back and then slipped out of the room.

She removed her black pin-striped suit and white button-down blouse, unfastened her pearl necklace, and the wood floor creaked beside her.

Ed entered. His hair spiked upward like a punk rock icon of the eighties. Curls of hair resisted Victoria’s touch and sprung back in sheer defiance. “Is everything alright?”

“Yeah. Why you home so late?” Ed teetered then lurched over to their bed and collapsed on the edge.

“I had the board meeting tonight. I told you this morning before I left for work.”

“I can’t remember what you’re doing.”

“We discussed the 10K fundraiser I’m coordinating this fall. We raised over $40,000 at last year’s race. It’s a great deal of responsibility but I love the challenge and intensity of it. I feel important and—”

“What kind of food did they serve?”

Victoria’s resilient posture crumbled again. “We just had wraps and salads.”

“Did you bring any home?”

“There really wasn’t anything left.”

“Cookies, anything?” Ed scratched his belly. His stained white T-shirt, worn for the past three days, clung to it. The splotch of barbecue sauce had congealed.

“I have to schedule a meeting with
Long Island Perspective Magazine
and I’m anxious about it. I also need to work on our print materials, the flyers need our Logo and I was thinking we could display a video on our website to show—”

“I don’t know what you’re babbling about, but I’m beat. Gonna hit the sack.” Ed crawled to the top of the mattress and managed to square his head in the middle of the pillow but only one leg made it under the covers. Victoria guided his other leg underneath and pulled the covers tight above his shoulders.

She returned to the kitchen, washed the dish and glass Ed left in the sink and then cleaned the counter tops. With the living room tidied, she retreated to her desk and computer in the basement to scratch out ideas for fundraiser prizes.

She leaned back in the chair and surveyed her desk for some incentive. Her Word of the Day calendar remained on March 11th, three days ago.
Confluence
n. The act of merging. A flowing together of two or more streams. “A favorable confluence of factors led to his success.”

Victoria needed some confluence.

Her Aspiration & Achievement board that Sara bought for her birthday last year, empty, except for two pictures – one of Andrew and one of Sara. How disappointing. For years her creativity flowed. Unafraid to take on new challenges, she always sought out ways to enhance her knowledge. Her take-charge attitude never ceased.

She gazed at her framed photo of James Blake and the tennis ball he autographed for her at the US Open in 2005. What a smile. What would it feel like to be young again? Thirty years with the same guy. The same boring tighty-whities.

The second hand hustled on the wall clock. What had Victoria completed? Nothing. Was reorganizing the desk drawers necessary?

The front door clicked open, then creaked. She snapped up, flew out of her chair and ran up the stairs. Sara had returned from her date and Victoria loved hearing her stories, although lately she revealed less and less.

Victoria entered the kitchen just as Sara dumped her pocketbook next to Ed’s tool bag. “Hi honey. How was your dinner, date thingy?” She sounded like Catherine now.

“It was amazing!” She removed her coat and chucked it on the kitchen chair.

Victoria’s eyes shot open. “Is that what you wore?”

Sara had a tight red spandex skirt on. It barely covered her rear-end. Her cropped top showed off at least two inches of stomach. How she strutted around in those heels all night was unbelievable.

“Yup, just bought it today. How do I look? Do you think it made the right statement?”

What statement was Sara trying to make? Tramp for hire? I’m desperate and need a date for the prom? All right, maybe Victoria was being too old-fashioned. Was this what they wore nowadays? On first dates? Didn’t she teach her better?

What had she taught her? Ed and her never cuddled on the couch, said I love you, kissed each other hello or good-bye. What role model did she have to go by? Andrew’s girlfriends didn’t dress much better.

“Yes, it’s lovely.”

“Oh my God, he was such a good kisser! I can’t wait to tell everyone.”

“Everyone? Wait—”

Sara took off towards her bedroom. The door snapped closed behind her.

They kissed on the first date? In that outfit? What else had they done? Had she had sex yet? Victoria forgot what sex felt like. The only person that touched her anymore was her OB/GYN, and she was a woman.

Victoria eyed her white pajamas with the tiny blue flowers. They were as boring and dry as Noreen’s cookie.

Chapter 4
Heather

Heather, Victoria and Catherine sat in silence waiting for her to enter. The tyrant. Four-hundred plus pounds of uncouth, insolence, vulgarity and terror. Feared by the entire food service department and responsible for the resignation of at least ten employees including her own management staff, she kept her dietitians waiting while she finished her morning egg-white sandwich.

They avoided conversation, expecting the conference room door to open any moment with the usual wallop and smash into the grey wall, expanding the hole in the sheetrock. Their weekly meeting triggered anxiety and dread.

Catherine and Victoria crossed and uncrossed their legs nine times between the two of them. Victoria rubbed her palms down her hydrangea blue pants and Catherine cleared her throat in an annoying repetitive manner.

Heather only thought about avoiding her stench. She sprang out of her chair and propped the window an inch before retaking her seat. Outside, a profusion of sunshine burst from the forsythia bushes, and callery pear trees provided a white canopy along the hospital’s parking lot, but Heather focused instead on the housekeeping employee dumping trash into the dumpster. What she wouldn’t give to see a body or two tossed in there.

The door shot open fracturing the already damaged surface. A chip of sheetrock hung, teetered, then crashed to the floor. Jean Vollbracht, the food service director, took one step in and jarred to a halt, her ridged posture disturbed only by rapid gulping of air and nostrils that flared.

Catherine and Victoria flinched. Heather stretched, arms high above her head, and then returned to her seat, easing into it. Her pen whipped up and down between her fingers mimicking her co-workers’ heartbeats.

Jean tramped into the room and slammed her papers onto the far end of the rectangular table directly across from Heather. The air quality as far better on this side of the room.

“Well?” Jean shouted.

Catherine and Victoria glanced at each other and then to Heather who shrugged her shoulders and tossed them a vacant look.

“No one has any ideas for National Nutrition Month?” Her fist pounded the table three times. “Why the hell are you working here if you’re so incompetent?” She opened her mouth wide and swayed her head back and forth mocking their obvious stupidity. Bits of egg lingered on her hefty tongue. Heather’s life could be worse. She could be an egg remnant.

As usual, Jean failed to mention what this week’s meeting entailed. Catherine and Victoria shuffled through blank papers, stared at the ceiling and glanced at the clock. Heather cracked a bubble in her gum and flicked off her high heels.

“Well,” Catherine’s hesitant voice began, “we could discuss the importance of eating five to nine servings of fruits and vegetables a day. It’s so important.” She circled a random word on her paper, avoiding Jean’s blazing eyeballs.

“Fruits. And vegetables? That’s the most insipid, lackluster thing I’ve heard. Done to death.” Jean shoved her chair away with her massive thigh, not because of anger, but because she couldn’t fit in it. She always stood in their meetings.

Heather leaned back, arms folded in her chest and fixed her gaze directly on Jean. “We could talk about the myths of fat. How whole eggs are one of the most nutritious foods. How butter is high in lauric acid and how lard is loaded with Vitamin D, which we’re all now highly deficient in. We can explain how people that order egg-white sandwiches but pile it on a deadly white roll, with fake margarine, sausage, bacon and cheese, are really not helping their cholesterol levels.”

Jean arched over the table and dug her nails into the faux wood grain top, her veins tensed against her skin.

“What if we discuss how patients with diabetes no longer require a snack before bedtime?” Victoria interrupted Jean’s impending outburst. “Educate the staff on how medications have transformed over the years no longer causing that drop in blood glucose levels over night.”

Jean snatched a piece of paper, crushed it into a tight ball, and heaved it at Victoria. “If it’ll save me money and decrease budget costs for my department, do it.” A piece of egg remnant flung from her mouth and whizzed past them landing on the table several inches in front of Heather. “This year our topic will cover all new research on diabetes. We’re doing it this Friday. Get to work.”

“No, I only meant to educate the—”

Jean whacked her folder shut and then stormed towards the door. The meeting adjourned in less than five minutes without her contributing anything.

Before leaving, she twisted her neck back. “Oh, and Heather, in case the hospital policies have eluded you, there’s no chewing gum anywhere in the building.” She clutched the knob with her meaty fist and the door thundered behind her, shaking the walls.

“Too bad I don’t follow rules.”

“Why do you have to enrage her like that?” Catherine whispered.

“I don’t, she’s always enraged.”

“You know darn well she eats that for breakfast every morning.”

“Well then maybe I just educated her on something for a change. Must she always be right? Belittle us and when we do have a good idea, steal it?” She lurched up from the chair not wanting to discuss it further. A dead topic.

“I can’t stand her.” Catherine clenched her right fist as if she might actually do something for a change.

“Let’s not argue,” Victoria broke up their bickering again. “We have a lot of work to do before Friday. Let’s get started.”

****

Heather tried to breathe as three girls tackled her to the ground attempting to keep her restrained. Then the tickling began. Heather lifted Rori up on the soles of her feet but before she could steady her in the air, Laurel and Gia leaped in between the tower and flipped their mom to her side.

Giggles flooded the room while the heat from the fireplace crackled and sputtered. Heather’s strength overpowered the three of them and she freed herself from the assault. She backed into the wall near the couch, arms raised and ready to attack. Heather tried to let out a low growl but it sounded more like a dying chipmunk.

The girls bent forward in fits of laughter, unable to catch their breath. Rori climbed the couch and used the cushion as a trampoline. Gia exploded into a cartwheel then grabbed one of the pillows and hurled it at Heather. She missed and hit Laurel instead.

Laurel’s eyebrows raised several times, then she gave her mom a wink. She lunged at Heather and grabbed her by the shoulders but Heather whisked her around and flung her onto the couch like a two-pound dumbbell.

Rori leaped onto her mom’s leg and plopped her hiney on her foot. Heather pretended she wasn’t attached and stomped around the den with Rori’s tiny body clinging to her calf muscle. Gia clutched two pillows and pounded them in the air like pom-poms, performing a cheer “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!”

“What’s going on here?” Lance charged into the room and silence overtook the four of them. Rori let go of her mom’s leg and Gia placed the pillows down on the rug. Laurel stiffened. Heather’s brow frowned creating deep cavernous folds. He would ruin yet another night.

“We’re playing. You know, having fun.”

“The room is trashed.”

Heather spotted the two pillows on the floor. Messy indeed. She strolled over to them and arranged them into their proper positions on the couch, but not before punching them numerous times. She plowed her fists deep within them. The pillows needed re-fluffing before taking their place on the couch. Nothing should be out of place.

A snarl grew in the corner of his mouth.

“There. All done.” Heather folded her arms.

Lance edged closer until he stood over her. His mouth parted and he inhaled a deep long breath. “If I brought someone from the law firm home with me, this would be an utter embarrassment, do you understand? I never want to witness this again.”

“Witness what?” Heather released her arms. “Your children playing? Do they even know you have children?”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” His volume resounding.

The girls cowered together. Laurel lifted Rori into her arms and caressed her hair. A mother’s responsibility not a twelve-year-olds. The three of them bolted out of the den and toward their rooms.

“It means I don’t think you know you have children, let alone the people you work with.”

“How dare you. Of course I know I have children, their picture’s on my desk.”

“A picture?” Heather shook her head. A photograph to prove his worth. “What picture?”

“The one you gave me. The one from Jamaica.”

“Jamaica?” All emotion drained from Heather’s body. “We went there before Rori was born.” She traipsed into the kitchen unable to look at him further.

“That’s your fault, you never gave me an updated picture. Your attempt to make me look like a fool at the firm.” His hand slammed hard into the kitchen wall. “You’ve never supported me. You want to see me fail.”

“I’ve never supported you? All I do is support you.”

“You lie, right there before me. I’ve struggled at this firm for nine years to make partner and all I hear from your mouth is worthless crap about the kids.”

“Worthless? They’re your children.”