|
Cheating by Robert Braid
I knew she was cheating on me.
"Hi, honey." "Good morning." "You look exhausted. Didn’t you sleep well?" "Apparently not well enough." "Here, let me make you some breakfast." "No, that’s alright. I’m not hungry. Besides I have to leave for work soon anyway." "Do you want some more coffee?" "No thanks." "Can I ask you something?" "On second thought, maybe I will have some more coffee."
It had started at least a month ago. It was her birthday and I went to the diner where she worked. "Greasy Joe’s" it was called. I knew her boss was a creep and wasn’t surprised when she said that she had to work that night. A real creep. She once told me how he wanted to make the waitresses pay for the coffee they drank while working. He only backed down because he realized that they were sneaking off into the ladies room every twenty minutes to drink a cup instead of staying on the floor where they could watch the customers. He was going to put up a video camera in the john to catch them ion the act until he saw how much they cost. But I’m sure the idea of having a monitor in the ladies’ room sure gave him a thrill. For her birthday I wanted to surprise her. I would have made a cake and brought it in to work, but I knew that her boss would have made me pay just to eat it on his plates, so I just went in to eat dinner and wait till she got off. I brought flowers and wore clothes that I could wear dancing if she wanted to go. We hadn’t been dancing in months. She always used to pester me to go, but she hadn’t mentioned it for a while. I wanted her birthday to be a special night. When I showed up her boss said he had given her the night off. She came home at quarter to one in the morning wearing that awful, pink polyester uniform. She reeked of smoke as she always did when she came home from work. I was usually in bed by that time so I couldn’t understand why she had left her apron on. Who was she trying to convince? That night I was sitting in front of the TV sort of watching some old war flick. She asked what I was doing up so late. I said I couldn’t sleep. She saw the flowers and told me I was so sweet. Then we went to bed. I don’t know if she realized that I knew what was going on. I didn’t want to say anything. I hadn’t actually seen her do anything. She may have just been out with friends. But I knew.
"Do you think this blouse goes with these pants?" "It looks fine. Why?" "I don’t know. I used to wear them all the time but they don’t look right together any more." "It looks fine." "Maybe the pants have faded a bit." "Didn’t you use to wear that outfit when we went dancing?" "I used to, but the pants got too tight around my butt. I guess I should stop washing them." "They look pretty good to me." "I guess it’s time I got some new clothes. I’ve been saving all my tips for so long that I’ve forgotten why." "A rainy day?" "I can afford some new clothes." "A retirement fund?" "You can’t take it with you." "A getaway weekend for two to Aruba?" "And I’m sick of wearing the same things. It’s time for a change. Doesn’t it bother you to wear the same suit all the time." "What do you mean? I have three different suits. Besides, every day I go to the same ugly office and everyday I see the same ugly people. Nobody cares what I wear as long as it’s a suit." "Don’t you care?" "Why should I? If I had my choice I’d walk around that office naked, but my boss didn’t sound to keen on the idea." "But just for yourself. Wouldn’t you like to spice things up a little? Put a little color in your life?" "Sure I would, but I’m not sure that buying new clothes is going to make my life any more colorful. Unless I were to start wearing lingerie. There’s an idea. Think of all the friends I’d make in a crotchless leather teddy with lots of zippers." "That’s not funny." "You’ve obviously never seen me in one."
She also started to spend the weekend at her mother’s, or so she said. Her mother was supposedly having periods of depression and needed to talk to her daughter. I offered to come every once in a while, but for some reason that wasn’t a good idea. My presence apparently made her mother clam up and put on that sweet smile. So I stayed at home and wondered if my girlfriend were telling the truth. It could have been cleared up with a phone call, but I always ended sitting around and watching videos until she came home. I’m really not surprised that her mother feels depressed, though. The poor woman. She had divorced her husband over 15 years ago. It was no doubt a manifestation of some latent ambition to live life to its fullest. I admired her courage, but pitied her ignorance. I guess she thought that she could start a career, make friends and go out and do all those things she had always wanted to do. Horseback riding, cross-country skiing, visit Paris, maybe go back to school. I suppose the years of talk shows and soap operas had finally taken their toll. She’s been temping as a secretary and spending her 2 weeks vacation getting her house in order ever since. I can’t even imagine what she did with herself at home after work.
"Why don’t you start with a new tie." "My Aunt Margaret buys me a new tie every Christmas and birthday. I have a constant supply of fresh neckwear. I barely have enough time to spill coffee on one before she buys me another. God bless Aunt Margaret." "Those ties look like she made them herself out of old dish towels." "God bless Aunt Margaret." "Why don’t you get one that’s stylish?" "That all depends on your definition of stylish. I wonder if Aunt Margaret’s cataract operation went alright." "How about one with flowers?" "I’d rather wear the teddy...... Listen, why don’t you go out and get me one that you like and I’ll wear it? It’ll break Aunt Margaret’s heart if she finds out, but I wont tell if you don’t." "It’s not the same. Your tie is supposed to be your chance to express yourself. It’s not the same thing if I pick it out for you." "A tie is not self expression. It’s conformity. I wear a tie because I have to. It’s my uniform. Having a tie with flowers on it will not make me a more colorful person. It will not make me like my job any more. It will not keep my computer from crashing on me. It will not get me a raise or make the coffee taste any less rancid. It might make my coworkers wonder about my sexuality. And the last thing I need at the office is gossip about where I stick I weenie." "Maybe you should try Starbucks." "I beg your pardon?" "If your coffee is so bad, maybe you should try another kind. Hazelnut, or mocha. You never change anything." "Are you kidding? Do you realize how much of a pain in the ass it would be to convince everyone to chip in the extra fifty cents a week to buy fancy coffee. They’re all so penny-pinching that they haggle the girl scouts for their cookies. They’d never go for anything more than Cafe Gringo." "Well, if you can’t change the way things are, why do you complain so much about them?" "If I could change them I wouldn’t need to complain about them. But there’s nothing I can do about the crumby coffee at work or about the poor girl scouts who are getting ripped off by a bunch of pale-faced losers." "You can change your ties." "But I never complain about my ties. I like them. I never have to worry about which tie matches which suit. None of them match any suit. Practicality is a virtue." "You’ve been working too long at that office." "Tell me about it. I’m just waiting for my girlfriend to strike it rich so I can quit." "Not funny........" "I’ve got to go." "I know." "How about this weekend we stay in bed all morning and play hide and seek." "I think I’m going to my mother’s this weekend." "Again?.........."
What was I to do?
"Mother has been feeling depressed. And I think..." "That’s alright. Don’t worry about it. Do you want me to go with you?" "No. I mean she acts differently around you. It wouldn’t be the same. She wouldn’t talk about ..." "That’s alright. I probably have some work I could catch up on anyway. Tell her I said hello." "Sure." "I got to go." "I know." "You working tonight?" "Yep." "What time do you think you’ll get in?" "I don’t know. Late." "See you tomorrow, then? Same time same place?" "It’s a date." "I’ll be the one in the old suit and checkered tie. You can’t miss me." "You know you’re late?" "I know." "Aren’t you afraid of getting fired?" "Not really." "Then why don’t you quit?" "I would have no idea where to go afterwards. I don’t want to take imminent failure into my own hands. I’d rather have it thrust upon me. If I quit, three months later I would tell myself what a jackass I was to leave a steady job. If I get fired, I could blame it on my boss." "The best would be to get laid-off, wouldn’t it?" "Only for the unemployment checks. But that would run out after a while. It would be much easier to hate an evil ogre than blame my unemployment on abstract market forces. So I just keep hanging on, not trying too hard until someone gives me the boot. What about you? Wouldn’t you love to get fired and blame it on that creep of a boss." "I think I’d rather quit. Just throw my apron in his face and leave." "Why don’t you?" "I don’t know. He’s not that bad." "What?! You talk about him as is he had horns." "I guess I’m just complaining. Besides what would we do for money?" "Long ago I gave up that fear of starving to death. There will always be another job out there. It might not be as good as the last one, but you never can tell until you’ve made the commitment." "What if I try to moonlight. Find a job during the day and work at the diner at night?" "You’d kill yourself trying. You’d get to a point where you don’t know which one you should stick with and you’d end up doing them both and becoming dependent on both incomes." "Why does life suck?" "I wish I knew." "See you tomorrow?" "Same time, same place. And think about this weekend." "I will. Think about that tie." "I will." "Bye, honey." "Love ya."
What was I to do?
|