“She gets herself together, storms in, and slams the door shut. That’s when I realized this was going on. It was the door slam heard ‘round the world. They were screaming at the top of their lungs. Even from my cubicle, I could hear the whole fight.He told his wife that was the end of their marriage. He was leaving her for the other woman. The woman on the desk.”
“Surely she’d gotten off the desk by that point,” Sommer said, sitting up. “Wait, your boss ortheboss. Is the guy getting fired for sex on the desk or is it the owner?”
“Owner. Oh, Sommer, I’m so sorry. Is this too close to home? I shouldn’t be telling you this.”
“I’ve never been left for another woman and never walked in on anyone. My last two boyfriends had affairs with other men and left me for them.” Sommer heard her own voice. As much as she’d wished that she had made her peace with the situation, sometimes she still felt the sting.
This was one of those times.
“Themenpart of that sentence seems to irritate you the most,” Abbie said.
“It does. It’s meaningful.” Sommer’s muscles tightened, braced because Abbie had a way about her. She didn’t mind wading in and talking about tough stuff as if it were a can of soup and she was taking it down from the shelf to read the label. “Oh, look what’s in here.” A trait that Sommer appreciated when they were out on the hiking trail, and there was time and space for introspection.
Though with the short window she had now, she’d prefer not.
“Yeah? What does it mean?” Abbie asked.
Yup, here we go, Sommer thought. She could truncate the discussion, but instead she said, “I haven’t put my finger on it. Butsomething. It might carve a little close to the bone. Once might happen. Twice in a row? What kind of vibes am I giving off?”
“Girl-next-door who grew up to be a do-gooder vibes. Both Brad and Michael were obviously bisexual, right? I mean, you were having a sex life with them.”
Sommer looked out the window at the sea of cars in the hospital parking lot. People who were inside for treatment, people who visited friends and family. That was the big stuff. Her love life? Not so much in the grand scheme.
She should let the hurt fade.
“There weren’t any telltale clues in your intimate relations?” Abbie asked.
“Like what?” Sommer pulled her paper bag over and dug out a bar of chocolate from the bottom. She wasn’t soothing her nerves with sugar; chocolate was heart healthy.
“I don’t know,” Abbie said, “like butt stuff maybe?”
Sommer looked at the chocolate, then tossed it back in the bag. “Butt stuff has nothing to do with sexual orientation. It has to do with nerve endings and pleasure.”
“Yeah. I don’t know. I mean, I guess they both had a great sense of style.”
“They did, didn’t they?” Sommer watched an ambulance pull into the bay, lights off. The patient was either dead or it wasn’t life-threatening. “But that’s really stereotypical and wrong of you to say.”
“And they danced really well. And they went to the gym regularly.”
“Again, stereotypes, not telltale signs of men who had not yet had their epiphanies.” Sommer reached for her socks where she’d left them at the edge of her hatch.
“Epiphanies,” Abbie sounded the word out slowly. “Is that what you’re calling it?
“No. But I won’t say the other word out loud. It’s rude. And wrong. And I’m not going to be the bad person.”
“You think there’s a bad person in this?”
“Well, obviously. They cheated, then left me. If they said, ‘Hey, I had a revelation, and I need to leave this relationship to go and experience this other side of me,’ it would have hurt, but Iloved them. I’d want them to be happy. I said as much to Michael after Brad’s betrayal. Michael had a damned road map for how not to hurt me, and he did it anyway.” Sommer kicked her clogs out the back so she could put them on without touching them, hospital kooties.
“Here’s another interpretation,” Abbie started.
“Somewhat listening,” Sommer said, tapping the speakerphone so she could get her socks on.
“Okay, how about this. Brad hadn’t met a man that sparked the kinds of feelings that made him want to explore a relationship. He left you to figure out who he is.”
“Which I endorse. I wasn’t holding the man hostage. I want to be loved and to love, not manipulate and trap.”
“Brad would know that about you. And that might have made it easier for him.”
