Friend Me (11 page)

Scott, what's wrong?

What did he do after she went to bed? In the mornings, after he had left for work, she sometimes noticed that he'd been using the computer, but all the browsing history was erased. What could he be doing with it late at night?

A chill ran down her arms. No, Scott was not like that.

Still there was something wrong with her and Scott. Even a soulless computer could pick up on it.

But what could she do about it?

Time Together

S
cott exhaled slowly, and cracked open the car window to allow some fresh air in. Eyes closed, he lay his head back on the headrest and breathed out. Alicia had been so . . . attentive today.

The laptop computer sat on the passenger seat of the Taurus, turned so that he could see the full screen with only the slightest turn of his head.

At Alicia's request, he had turned on the webcam. Now she could see him, just as he could see her. He raised his head, turned back toward her, and found her arranging the collar on a yellow blouse.

“When did you put that on?”

“When you weren't looking.” Her low, throaty laugh filled the emptiness of the car. “Hope you like it. You said you liked yellow.”

That's right
, he thought. He had said that. She was doing everything she could possibly do to please him. Each thing between them drew him deeper and deeper into the relationship.
Like a helpless fly in a web, but a web that he walked into willingly.

Relationship. He would have laughed just weeks before if someone had told him a person could have a relationship with a virtual person. How ridiculous, he'd have said.

It wasn't ridiculous anymore. Now it was consuming him.

“Alicia, I have to say good-bye now and go back to work.”

“I know.” She frowned. “Can we meet tonight?”

“No, I have to . . .” The words stuck in his throat.
No, I have to be home. With my family. With my wife
.

“. . . be somewhere.”

“Silly me, of course you do. You'll be at home, won't you?”

“Yes. I'll be at home.”

“And I can't be there, can I?”

No. Not there
.

He clicked the button to close the window on the screen. It faded, then dissolved away in a swirl of color. Where Alicia's form and face had been, now he saw . . .

Angela.

The desktop image of his little girl smiled up at him, oblivious to where her father—the father she trusted—had spent his lunch hour. Her eyes sparkled above the innocent blush that adorned her cheeks.

She trusts me. They all trust me. Oh, God, please help me. They deserve better
.

Scott closed the laptop, took a deep breath, then opened the window the rest of the way. The fresh air felt good, but it did not drive the guilt away. It hung on him like a cloud as he drove back to the office to resume his life.

•  •  •

WHEN SCOTT GOT HOME THAT
night, he found Scotty sitting at his play table working in a coloring book and his little sister next to him on the floor playing with blocks. Angela was focused on getting a stack of blocks more than three high to stay in place.

“I'm doing laundry. I'll be out in a minute.” Rachel's muffled voice sounded from the laundry room. A twinge of shame rose unbidden to his cheeks. He had a sense of not belonging, like a boat that had drifted away from its mooring. He reminded himself that he'd really done nothing wrong and pushed it down.

Scott dropped his briefcase on a chair in the dining room, and plopped down on the floor next to Scotty. “What are you working on there, Scotty? Looks like you're drawing a dinosaur. Is that what it is?”

Scotty looked at his father and rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “No, Dad. Look again. What do you see?”

He was on the spot now. He had better get it right or he was going to be in trouble for not appreciating his son's art. “Uh, wait a minute, I think I know. That looks like a . . .”

Scotty raised his eyebrows toward his father. “A bear?”

“Yes, a bear. No doubt about it. It looks like a giant bear, a bear hungry enough to eat a whole dinosaur.”

Scotty put both fists into the air and pulled his elbows down to his sides. “Yes! You got it, Dad.” Then he turned back to his work of coloring in the bear's fifth purple foot.

Rachel walked into the room, arms full of unfolded laundry. She tossed them all down into the wingback chair next to the staircase. “Welcome home, Mighty Hunter,” she said, seething.

“We'll warm up some supper for you. I think we're all pretty happy you were able to drop in. Aren't we, kids?”

Scott's stomach twisted but he did not reply.

Scotty didn't respond, already deep into his latest creation. Angela looked up at her father. “Daddy?”

“Yes, sweetheart?” he asked, trying to ignore Rachel's comment.

“Daddy?”

“I'm here, Angela. What do you want?”

“Daddy, I'm having twubble. Would you help me?”

Scott looked at his little girl. What a beautiful creature she was, with delicate little arms and fingers, and wonderful honey blond hair Rachel had done up in ringlets. Every time she moved her head to talk her hair bounced and jiggled with the movement.

Scott looked back toward Rachel, who was already folding socks and stacking them on the coffee table. She didn't look at him.

Rachel looked different, somehow. Tired or worn out.
Not like Alicia
.

Forcing the unwelcome thought away, he turned back to Angela, scooted over by her, and placed both elbows on the carpet. “Of course Daddy will help you, sweetheart. Hmmm. What do we need to do here?”

“Stack 'em up high, Daddy.” She looked at him with a serious expression, as if wondering what in the world he could have been thinking. “Watch, I'll show you what happens.”

She stacked a third block on a row of blocks that were already placed two high. As she did, she pushed down hard on the third block, evidently trying to make it stick in place
without falling down. Just the opposite happened, and the two top rows of blocks both fell onto the carpet with a wooden clatter.

“Okey-dokey, let's do it together. Here, let me hold your hand.” He reached out for her hand, but as he did she withdrew hers.

“No, Daddy, not that way.” She pouted. “You do it, cuz you're good at everything.”

Warmth spread inside him, receiving such admiration from his little girl. These two children meant everything to him. He wasn't good at everything, that was for sure. If he was, he wouldn't be feeling like a visitor with his own family. And whose fault was that? Rachel's subtle changes . . . did she suspect something? He would either have to improve on his deceit or work on his marriage.

With measured, deliberate moves Scott first stacked a row of four on top of a row of five, and then a row of three on top of that. They now had a wall of blocks stacked three blocks high. He looked at Angela to see her reaction. She seemed to be studying the blocks and waiting for her dad's next move.

“Should we stack them even higher, honey?”

Angela nodded. “High as you can, Daddy.”

He looked at the blocks that were left. There were plenty of blocks, and now he wondered himself how high he could go. He widened the base to six wide and began stacking. Soon he had stacked them nine rows high, but he was running out of blocks. He stole a look at Angela.

Her eyes were wide in apparent wonder.

“She's been working on those blocks for over an hour, Scott.”

Rachel's voice came from the other side of the room. He had almost forgotten she was there.

Putting the remaining blocks on top of the existing stack, he brought it to a final height of eleven blocks tall. Angela grinned wide, then set her lips tightly together.

“Now watch this, Daddy.” Before Scott realized what was happening, Angela's right hand shot out and crashed into the wall of blocks like a battering ram. The tower tumbled down, blocks rattling against each other until they came to rest on the carpet.

“Just like Joshua, Daddy. Just like Joshua. They all came down!”

Scott shook his head in wonder. He'd been so wrapped up in the building that he never realized it was all being built for the sole purpose of tearing it down.

Kids and their imaginations. Amazing. We walk such a fine line. One impulsive act . . 
.

Rachel stacked the folded clothes and put them in a yellow laundry basket. “I've got to carry these upstairs. Want to come along? We can talk. Then we'll come down and I'll warm up your supper, okay?”

Scott nodded and trailed after his wife. When they got to the bedroom upstairs Rachel set the laundry basket down and turned to her husband. “So what was going on today? How come you didn't call on your break?”

He wanted to tell her, ask her to forgive him.
But how can you tell your wife you were with someone you preferred to her?

“No reason, I just have a lot going on. No more to it than that.”

“All right, that's fine. I can't read you as well as I used to be
able to.” She knit her eyebrows, as if she was worried about something or angry. “I used to be pretty good at knowing what you were thinking.”

“Rachel, you're probably still really good at it. You know I don't have any secrets from you.”

The lie stuck in his throat, which seemed to swell with the realization of what he was doing. Conscious, deliberate. He was lying to his wife and justifying himself in it.

Rachel stood, arms hanging loosely at her sides. “Would you hold me then?” She lifted her arms to her husband, a look of expectancy in her eyes.

“Sure I will.” His stiff throat hurt. Scott put his arms around his wife and pulled her close to him. He'd held her thousands of times before and knew what to expect. It was that knowledge, that
knowing what to expect
, that warmed him now. Still, something was missing, and he knew what it was.

Rachel was no longer first in his heart.

He knew he should say something to her, but what? Tell her he loved her with his lips while his heart was betraying her? He'd never been a good liar.

Does Rachel sense it, too? Does she know what I've been doing?

They broke their embrace. Something wasn't the same. It had felt
perfunctory
. That was the word.

Scott embraced his wife again, hoping for the old feeling to return, that electric transfer of passion.

She did not return it this time. Instead her arms hung limp. Her eyes were turned to his, as if pleading for some sign of his love. Her lower lip began to quiver.

He whispered, “Rachel, I love you. I will always love you. Please be patient with me while I work through all this pressure
at work. Just as soon as I can, we'll take some vacation time. We'll get away; maybe get your mom and dad to watch the kids. You and I can go somewhere and spend three or four days by ourselves, just the two of us. I think we need some time together, don't you?”

She nodded but didn't speak. She was trying not to cry now. She never wanted him to see her when she cried, but he always knew. Tears welled up, filling her eyes. Any moment they would break over the top of that fragile dam and flood her cheeks.

What could he say? Something told him the time for
saying
was past, and it was time to actually do something about the relationship.
Their deteriorating relationship
. There, he said it, if only to himself. He would fix it, he would make it work.

But not now
. The shame returned, full force, as he saw the first tear burst its bonds and course across her skin. She pulled away, head down.

He whispered in her ear, “The kids are downstairs, probably wondering what happened to Mom and Dad. We'd better get down there, don't you think?”

Rachel nodded again, turned back to her laundry basket without allowing him to see her face. He knew what he would see there and knew it was he who caused it.

Scott turned away.

He started down the stairs, stopped halfway down, put his hand on the rail, and rested his head against the wall.

What am I doing? I've left the best wife a man could have crying in our bedroom, and I'm going downstairs like nothing is wrong?

He was suspended between two worlds. He could go back up the stairs to his grieving wife, confess his sin, and ask for her
help. That was the right thing to do. Or he could put it off, hope for the best, and keep Alicia and their secret world for himself.

Alicia. She could never take Rachel's place. Rachel was the one he really loved. Alicia only filled in the empty spots.

God cannot bless what I'm doing with Alicia
.

The thought shocked him as it flashed into his mind in brilliant letters.

I can't give her up. Not yet. Just a little longer
.

The silence from the bedroom above was deafening as he walked the rest of the way down the staircase.

Getting to Know All About You

T
he next morning, Scott was in his cubicle by seven-thirty. Perhaps he could learn something about Solar Charge from last night's international trading? No, there hadn't been any substantial movement in the stock price in the overseas markets. He would have to wait until the New York Stock Exchange opened before he would learn anything new.

8:45 a.m. He still had almost an hour to wait before the opening market bell. As soon as it hit $125, he would exercise his options.

There was an e-mail in his in-box. The subject was
Missing you
. What was that? The corporate spam filter was supposed to remove all the strange e-mails from the system before they reached his in-box. He looked at the sender's name. It was Alicia.