22. Kellen
Twenty-Two
Kellen
When can I see you again? I tried to resist sending the text, but the absence of Beth this week stings. I’ve called a few times, and she’s been distant. I can tell something is wrong, but haven’t been able to get her alone to discuss it.
I’m glad I sent the message, though, because I immediately see the three dancing dots on my phone indicating that she’s typing something back to me. Something that’s taking her quite awhile.
Enough of this. I call her. “Beth,” I say when she answers. “Please talk to me.”
“Kellen.” Her voice is heavy. It sounds like maybe she’s been crying. She sighs. “I could really use a friend right now.”
“I’m your friend,” I assert. “I’m definitely your friend.
What can I do?” She agrees we can have dinner together tonight at her place, and I stop for a very specific sandwich order she messages me.
I don’t begrudge Jake his particular order.
In fact, his sandwich sounds so good I special order myself a similar one.
I never thought to combine butter with pickles and ham, but I’m looking forward to tasting it.
I show up with the food and Elizabeth looks tense as we eat. She keeps flitting her eyes to the clock, nervously spinning her fork around in circles on the table.
“Hey, Jake, I want to thank you for teaching me about this sandwich,” I tell him. “This is really good.”
“It’s French,” he mumbles around a mouthful of sandwich.
I nod. “Yes, I gathered that when I picked it up from the French bakery.” I toss him a wink.
I was surprised Elizabeth mentioned the tiny bakery on Butler Street, since I hadn’t known they made sandwiches.
I also hadn’t imagined there was something there Jake would agree to eat, given his limitations on flavorful food.
When I asked her if I could grab something for us all to eat, she hesitated initially.
I could tell she was anxious about making a special request for Jake.
I gesture at Jake with my water glass. “I just want you both to know I am enjoying my JG special. That’s what I’m calling the sandwich.”
Elizabeth smiles at that and takes a bite of her own, chasing it with potato chips.
I wish I could do more to show them that I’m very comfortable with different ways of looking at the world.
“You know,” I start to say as they both look up at me, distracted.
“My nephew led a meeting today at work. This is Zack I’m talking about now.
He brought a new person in to work at the company who programs computers to learn things.
Anyhow, this guy looks at the world and sees it so differently from me.
And it makes him a real asset to us because he’s already identified a lot of problems for our clients. Then we figured out ways to fix them.”
“Like what kind of problems,” Jake asks, seeming interested.
I explain how a lot of our industrial clients were experiencing landslides that meant they couldn’t get vehicles on their access roads.
“This guy, Ray, put cameras on city buses that drive the same routes every day, so we could study the footage over time and his computer program learned how to identify when the ground is unstable.”
Jake’s eyes light up at this. “That is very sensible. What else can the bus cameras monitor?”
I grin. “I’m glad you asked, Jake. That’s what we’re figuring out right now, in fact. So many possibilities. Liam—“
“The one who is anticipating a baby with Maddie?” Jake’s interruption surprises a laugh out of me.
“Yes,” I tell him. “The very same. Anyway, Liam is very interested in power lines.” I spend the next half hour telling a very interested Jake all about Liam’s pet project at work until I notice that Elizabeth has tuned out and seems to be fussing over something internally.
Eventually, Jake excuses himself to go play video games and Elizabeth looks relieved when he shuts himself in his room to play on the computer instead of their living room system.
“Hey,” I tell her, walking around to massage her shoulders. “What’s up?” I don’t like this, having to pester and dig to find out what’s bothering her when it’s so obvious something is wrong. I wish she would just tell me openly, let me share her burden, whatever it is.
“I am going after Todd for full custody,” she says, nodding her head like she needs to work on convincing herself this is the right choice.
“Oh,” I encourage. “Well, that seems appropriate.” Is that over stepping? The man hardly shows up for his custody time anyway and all that does is upset Jake.
Elizabeth shakes her head. “He’s not happy about it,” she says.
“I just don’t understand what his motivation is, and that makes it difficult to know how to act here.
Like, he doesn’t want the responsibility of parenting Jake, but he also doesn’t want the stigma of losing custody of his child.
I think. I think that’s where I’ve landed about it. ”
I sit down in the chair next to her. “Oh, Beth. That’s a lot.
” I hesitate offering the only insight I have into court and custody situations, from Zack’s mother thirty years prior.
“Mick’s second wife was sort of like that.
Maybe not a direct comparison. She was happy enough to take a settlement check and high tail it out of Pittsburgh. ”
Beth’s eyes seem sad and she squints, nodding. “That doesn’t seem quite the same sort of thing. Although, I think I’d like it if Todd did just move away. Maybe that would feel more final or something.”
We sit in silence for a long while after that, occasionally listening as Jake whoops or growls from down the hall.
I massage her wherever she seems receptive to my touch and I feel like a real slime ball because I keep thinking about how much I’d love to sneak across the street to my house and throw her on my bed to massage her properly with my tongue.
Eventually, she looks at me, really looks into my eyes and the intensity of her stare floors me.
“You said you want to be my friend,” she says.
I nod. “Take my mind off all this,” she says.
She stands up and puts her hands on my shoulders.
I tilt my head up to look at her and she bends to kiss me, desperate and hungry.
I moan softly as she kisses me and then my eyes fly wide as she bites my lip.
My instincts are screaming to slow this down, to talk to her and sort out what’s really bothering her. But the sexual part of me that has lain dormant for so many years is roaring in response to her touch, her scent.
“Make me forget,” she whispers. So I do.
I make her forget until I, too, forget what drew me over here, which was that I wanted her to let me in to her worries.
I can’t help but feel there is something she’s holding back.
But by the time we hide in her garage, frantically wrestling to get her up on the washer so I can slide my hands down the front of her jeans, well.
I forget everything else and sink into the physical sensation of being with her.