Kenneth knew, as he closed the office Friday night, that his wife Annika would already be home from her job and preparing supper. Annika consistently arrived home before he did, because Kenneth always stayed later than most people at the office. That looked good on a manager, arriving earlier and staying later than everyone else, even later than the other managers. Kenneth knew that when he finally went home and ate supper in front of the big screen, he could always count on Annika folding the laundry or doing something-or-other and then joining him on the couch while texting her various late-night clients, with her brown curls falling over her face and her mouth puckered in thought. He could always count on his kids, Kenny and Jodie, to quietly do their homework at the kitchen table without any whining, and he could always count on a glass of beer and an orderly evening, and Kenneth also realized that he could count on his future, a life many people would envy, no longer having any surprises.
On impulse, while sitting in his extended-cab truck in the parking garage after leaving work late again, he dialed the number of his best friend, Leif. “Hey, let’s go out,” Kenneth urged. “Get a beer somewhere. Change the routine. It’s Friday night, and I feel like I’m going crazy.” A young woman from the marketing department walked by in her high black boots and gawked briefly at the handsome, middle-aged man with the sunburnt Norwegian squint talking on his phone in his truck. Kenneth ran his hand through his still-blond hair and watched her hobble in her tall boots to her Hyundai.
“June expects me home for dinner,” protested Leif’s voice from the cell, “otherwise I would. I totally need a change.”
“So do I. Look, I have an idea. You call Annika and tell her you want me to go out with you,” Kenneth improved. “I’ll call June and give you the same alibi. Come on! Men used to do things like this—go out for a stiff belt before bucking up and facing the home front.” He chuckled.
“Men used to keep brandy in their desk drawers, and have secretaries, and get pensions,” Leif argued, but humorously.
The ruse worked, and Kenneth drove over to Leif’s house to pick him up, and ten minutes later Leif and Kenneth were commiserating at a table in Hazel’s Hangout over beers. “I have absolutely nothing to complain about!” Kenneth complained.
“Neither do I,” grumbled Leif. “June is wonderful. You and I have talked about our wives, and we don’t seem to have the kind of trouble that other men have. June is great with money—she doesn’t blow it all shopping. And even though she works from home she doesn’t let the kids run wild. I have great kids. It’s not like she’s on Facebook all day, griping or playing Farmville and neglecting the house.”
Kenneth nodded. “Annika gets home and doesn’t mind cooking—she says it’s ‘exercise.’ She doesn’t just throw a pot pie in the microwave and zone out in front of the TV, and she never lets the kids rattle her chain. Both of our wives are low maintenance, sweet, and rational. When other men talk about their wives, they sound like they’re describing space aliens! My boss, for example.”
“You remember Dennis McLaughlin?” Leif gestured with his beer. “In the sales department, with the mole? He and his wife are getting a divorce. She’s going for full custody of the kids. Says Dennis was ‘abusive’ with them, if you get what I’m saying.”
“What a crock. She controlled their every move.” Kenneth drained his beer and signaled the waitress for another. “My brother just found out that he’s not really the father of my niece! He never married the woman, but he’s spent the last ten years visiting the kid, paying child support, and now—” Kenneth shrugged.
“Oh, God. That’s horrible.” Both Leif and Kenneth went silent as the waitress replenished their beers. “So, why are we here?” Leif asked. “We don’t have anything close to those problems. But I sense discontent in you, Kenneth—and I can tell you, I definitely feel it. I’ve been restless lately…not exactly unhappy, but…”
“Yeah,” said Kenneth as he lifted the beer to his lips. “But.”
“They don’t really have big screens in here, do they?” Leif looked around the room. “If we can’t watch the game, we could play a game of pool, I suppose.”
A woman walked up to the bar and both men turned to look at her. She looked young, thin, and with long blond hair that was parted on the side and hung straight. Her legs were long and clad in sheer black hose beneath her miniskirt, and her shimmering top was not too tacky, but not too tasteful. “Oh God,” said Leif, and he and Kenneth grinned at each other. “This is like a scene from a bad movie!”
“It’s a cliché,” agreed Kenneth.
“This whole situation is a cliché. So let’s invite her to join us!”
“Aw, man—” Kenneth glanced over at the woman again. “When did we become old?”
They did invite her over. Her name was Michelle. Despite her youthful looks, she was in her mid-thirties and owned her own business, an eyeglass store, which she sardonically called “Purblind, Inc.” She was more articulate than Kenneth expected. As three managers they actually had a stimulating conversation, commiserating about employees, red tape, and pointless meetings that turned into unnecessary turf wars. Michelle convinced the two men to add shots of Drambuie to their beers. They both lost count of how many.
At closing, Leif offered to get the check for all of them. “Let me walk you to your car,” offered Kenneth, and escorted Michelle outside.
She waited until they were in the parking lot to say, “I didn’t drive here. I took the bus.”
“Oh,” said Kenneth blankly, annoyed at her brusqueness. He had not felt that he was drunk, but the slash of cold wind outside made him feel dizzy. Also, he didn’t believe her. “I’m sure the bus stop is cold.” He stared at her quizzically. The bus?
“Maybe I can sit in your car a moment?” she asked.
He nodded before he thought, and now that he was committed he opened the truck door for her. She leaned back on the passenger seat while he sat nervously behind the wheel, his eyes on the door to Hazel’s, waiting to see Leif come out.
“I like you,” Michelle said to Kenneth. “We have a lot in common.” She reached out and pulled him close to her so that his lips touched hers. Leif emerged again from the bar, shoving his wallet into his coat, and pulled up short when he saw the two figures in the truck.
“Uhhhm, look,” Kenneth said to Michelle as he pushed her away. “We shouldn’t do this. I’m sorry—you have the wrong idea.”
“Oh, I have the wrong idea?” Michelle shrilled, insulted.
Kenneth’s heart beat fast, and he tried to swallow, and it sounded like a strangled gulp right out of the cartoons. “I’m married, you see.”
“You didn’t seem to be ‘married’ in the bar!” Michelle retorted, leaning forward on the seat. Her mouth, which had initially attracted him, suddenly seemed enormous, carnivorous. “You never mentioned a wife, and your finger—” She tapped his left hand.
Guiltily, Kenneth reached in his pocket for his ring. He glanced over at Leif, who had started forward again. “Listen, I’m sorry. I’ve had a great evening, but now it’s time to go home.”
Michelle glanced from Leif who was now opening the passenger door, and back to Kenneth. “So can you give me a ride back to my place?” she challenged impatiently.
“Well…” Kenneth glanced at Leif, who emphatically shook his head. “How about we give you cash for a taxi?” He felt for his wallet.
Michelle glared at him. “Taxis don’t show up this time of night except maybe an hour later. Taxis are busy on Friday nights, and now that the bar is closed, there’s nowhere to wait for one.”
Leif shook his head again, but Kenneth sighed. “Okay. Shove over.”
Michelle smiled then and Leif frowned, but the man climbed in next to the woman in the middle, and Kenneth pulled out of the parking lot.
***
Kenneth pulled the truck up to the curb next to a small house in a shabby, unfamiliar neighborhood. “You live here?” asked Leif doubtfully as he glanced around.
Michelle smiled. Her large, rouged mouth appeared to Kenneth to resemble a long slash wound. “Not exactly. I’m meeting someone here.”
She’s not a manager. Kenneth turned back to the windshield, then started and whirled to his left. A tall, well-built man was standing next to the driver’s window. “This is my friend, Happy French,” said Michelle. She made no effort to move, and neither did Leif. Kenneth, after a moment, pressed the button to lower his window.
“What?” monotoned Leif. “His name is what?”
Kenneth extended his hand out the window. “Good to meet you, Happy French. Well, we’d better get going,” he added, exchanging a look with Leif. The both looked at Michelle, who gripped her elbows with alternate hands and smiled.
The pistol was pulled smoothly from French’s leather jacket and aimed squarely between Kenneth’s eyes. Both Kenneth and Leif reflexively raised their hands. “We’ll be needing the use of your truck,” French said pleasantly. He had a deep voice but with a touch of pique, as if he was not used to negotiating.
Kenneth opened his mouth with no plan of what to say. “Look, friend,” he quavered, “we don’t want any trouble. We’re just bringing the lady home.”
“You’re not my friend,” the stranger returned angrily, “and this ain’t her home.” With the pistol he motioned for Leif to get into the back seat. Leif complied and Michelle climbed in next to him, beaming at the two hostages. French, instead of walking around the front of the vehicle to the passenger side as Kenneth hoped, opened the driver’s door and pulled him out, then climbed in and, with his gun trained on Kenneth, told him to get back in too. “You drive.”
Kenneth started the engine. In the rearview mirror he exchanged another glance with Leif, and Michelle’s reflection smiled merrily at him.
French’s instructions took them to another shabby house, where Michelle went in and returned with a large bag of white powder while French kept the gun pointed at Kenneth. “It’s powdered sugar,” she simpered to Leif as she climbed back in. Leif glared at her. He and Kenneth exchanged a glance. “Want a taste?”
“No thanks,” replied Kenneth quietly.
“Drive,” said Happy French again.
Kenneth pulled away from the curb, and soon they were on the highway once more. This time Happy French forced Kenneth to pull up at the edge of a used car lot. “Do it,” French said, handing Michelle a keyring. She disappeared into the darkness and soon a pair of headlights cut through the darkness. They belonged to a BMW Sedan. Michelle pulled up, got out, and went around the back of the vehicle to open the trunk. French, after a leering smile at Kenneth, slid out from the passenger seat and leveled his gun at Leif. “Out!”
“Look, man,” Kenneth quavered.
“Shut up, and both of you get into the trunk,” instructed Happy French.
***
It could be worse, thought Kenneth as he lay next to Leif listening to the solid hum of the BMW’s engine. At least we’re not tied up.
“I made my wife cry,” said Leif suddenly in the darkness.
Kenneth turned his head to him—or at least, to where Leif had to be. He could see nothing. “What?”
“I made June cry. We had an argument this morning. About…nothing, really,” said the other man.
The engine purred, and then Michelle engaged the brake and all was silence. “Stop it,” Kenneth told Leif.
“I don’t even remember why I started it. We so rarely fight, but we have been arguing lately. It was about oatmeal—can you believe that?” Leif babbled, as if helpless against a flood of words. “I started a fight about stupid oatmeal. And June cried. I felt like a dick—I didn’t even know what I was talking about—but I just walked out of the house. I don’t know what’s wrong with me lately. June’s at home right now!”
“I said stop it,” Kenneth said desperately, trying to hear what Michelle and Happy French were saying outside. He heard Leif let out a gasping, wretched half-sob. “Listen to me, Leif. We’re going to get out of this!”
French yelled, “Shut up in there!”
Kenneth’s breath came fast as he heard footsteps come around the back of the car. The trunk was opened. “Get out,” said French. He held the gun on the two men as they complied. French marched them a few steps away from the truck, which stood next to the BMW.
“Now get on your knees,” said Happy French. He aimed the pistol again at Kenneth’s forehead. “The two of you.”
Michelle beamed her aping smile at Kenneth again, and drew a finger across her throat.
A Marine was taught what to do in this situation, Kenneth remembered wildly.
Trying to summon up those memories from fifteen years ago seemed almost impossible when his heart was beating so fast, as if to pound a hole in his chest even before the bullet could tear a hole in him. He knew his mind was racing, and yet another current of thought ran next to it like a side channel: Think, it said, think. Trying to think was half the battle—that much he could remember. “Tell yourself to think,” his drill sergeant had advised, “because if you think about calming yourself down enough to think, you are already thinking. You need that in the heat of the moment.” That was one of the few times Kenneth could recall Sergeant Brown not screaming obscenities at them.
Happy French did not scream obscenities, either; he gestured with barely controlled rage. Kenneth and Leif both did as they were told, Kenneth lowering to first his left knee, then his right one, with both hands still lifted, his eyes on the lethal black hole of the muzzle that was seemingly already boring a hole in his head. Happy French was pointing the gun just inches from his eyes. There was a pause.
Suddenly, Kenneth reached up and grabbed the man’s hand between both of his own. He leaned heavily to his left, throwing Happy French off balance while twisting the gun away from his face. It briefly broke French’s grip on the pistol but French grabbed anew. The two men struggled in the leaves, rolling over and over each other. Kenneth heard a sharp yell of pain from Michelle, and then Leif towered over them. Happy French made a furious grunt as Leif kicked him in the kidney, and the hands wrestling Kenneth’s hands for the gun loosened. Leif stopped standing over French, and Kenneth heard Michelle give a shrill yelp of pain.
Sore, his arm bleeding from a stone, Kenneth climbed to his feet and pointed the pistol at the prone criminal. Michelle was crawling on the ground toward them but Leif put out his foot again and, placing it on her shoulder, forced her to the ground. “Don’t move!” yelled Kenneth, and she lay panting, her upturned eyes glaring through her hair into his in the moonlight.
Kenneth backed away. He did not dare risk taking his gaze from her or from French, but in his peripheral vision he caught the loom of large trees, a remote forest area. The gun was shaking in his hand but Kenneth decided to use that to his advantage. “As you can see, I’m nervous and I wouldn’t want to pull the trigger accidentally,” he said in a very low voice so that he wouldn’t sound scared. As it was, his voice seemed loud in his ears, but it had a gravelly effect that seemed menacing. The criminal slowly sat up, wiping blood from his mouth. “Now, just walk into the woods and keep walking, Happy French.”
“I have her keys, and yours,” Leif said. At Kenneth’s nod, he turned and threw Michelle’s keys into the darkness.
Happy French hesitated, then shrugged and climbed painfully to his feet. He backed away, leering insolently. “Keep going, friend,” Kenneth told him, motioning with the gun. “You’re going to walk all the way home!” They all watched as the man disappeared into the woods.
Michelle trained her cynical eye on Kenneth. “Are you going to point that gun at me now?”
“If I have to!” Kenneth barked angrily to her, but he pointed the muzzle toward the ground. “Even though you’re a woman I’ll kill you if I need to. But that’s not my plan. We’ll leave you here, and you can either look for your keys, or walk back to Stantonville through these woods just like French. But I never want to see you again. Neither of us,” and he managed a sidelong glance at Leif, “want to lay eyes on you again, because I’m keeping this gun. Got it?”
She glared defiantly back at him, so Kenneth nodded to Leif. “Let’s just go.”
They climbed into Kenneth’s truck and left her standing in the woods, and Kenneth saw in the rearview mirror that she had turned and walked in the direction Happy French had gone. Let her then, he thought. He had a feeling that despite her charms, Happy French would return to the BMW with the keys and leave Michelle standing in the woods. Maybe French would beat her up; maybe he would even kill her. Kenneth no longer cared. Next to him, Leif swore and passed a hand over his face. “I know! I’m sorry, man,” Kenneth told him as he drove extremely fast down the dark forest road. “I know. Never again.”
“It was as much my fault as yours,” Leif said.
“Let’s just go home.” Kenneth drove on in silence after that. On the bridge to enter the town of Stantonville, he slowed and rolled down his window. The pistol went through it and landed in the river below with a splash. He drove on then to Leif’s house.
It was after three-o’clock in the morning when Annika, sitting in the dark in the living room, finally heard the key in the front door. It opened, shut again, and she heard Kenneth’s deep sigh. When he flipped on the kitchen light, she was in the doorway. “Oh. You waited up?” he asked without any surprise.
“I was worried about you.”
He rubbed the bridge of his nose, his eyes screwed shut. “Sorry. Leif and I were drinking late. We overdid it, I guess.”
Annika’s heart sank, and she half-expected him to turn and go down the hall toward their bedroom, but instead he came to her and enfolded her in his arms. “Look, I really love you,” he said into her hair. He held her so tightly that it actually hurt, but he quickly pulled back and looked down at her. “I really do.”
“I love you, too,” she said.
***
“At first I thought he was having an affair, and when he came home late that time—” Annika shifted in her chair before the desk. “I assumed the worst. But since that night, it’s been great. He seems less restless. Sometimes I think there is something bothering him, but he doesn’t seem as preoccupied as he used to be. I mean, I sense guilt, but I also feel whatever it is, it’s over.”
“It is over. And it was not an affair. You can be sure of that,” replied Dr. Bedard.
Annika smiled. “Kenneth and I have ‘date nights’ now. We do things together, just like we used to. We get together with June and her husband Leif sometimes. Those two get together, June and I get together—I admit I got into a rut, too.”
“That’s great!” said the doctor. “I told you, no?”
Annika shrugged and reached into her purse for her checkbook. “When I first came to see you and you told me that you didn’t need to see my husband, I thought you were a fraud! But my friend June recommended you, so—” She shrugged.
“But I have ‘seen’ your husband, in a manner of speaking,” replied Dr. Bedard. “Men learn differently than women. I explained that during our first session. Women talk things out, but with men, it’s situational. Dragging husbands to my office doesn’t do much good.”
Check book in hand, Annika searched for a pen. “Sorry to write you a check, but I didn’t want to use my card and have this show up on our joint bank statement. I have a small account in my own name, so—”
“That’s all right,” replied the doctor. “Just so we’re clear, my sessions with husbands are confidential, just as your sessions with me are. My advice is to keep it that way and don’t mention them to him. Put it behind you.” Dr. Bedard pulled out the pen held in her knot of blond hair and her hair unrolled and fell to her shoulders. She handed the pen to Annika.
She looks younger, suddenly! Annika wrote the check and tore it off. “I don’t suppose Ken wants to rehash everything, anyway.”
“Thank you,” replied Dr. Michelle Bedard as she took the check. She opened the I.M. window to message her receptionist, Hugh French. “And no—I’m sure Kenneth doesn’t want to talk about it at all.”
{Image Credit : Photo by David Becker on Unsplash ]
by 
Kristin Harley
Latest posts by Kristin Harley (see all)
- Infidelity, Inc. - May 7, 2023
Kristin Harley–really liked the suspense buildup in this story. Fred Anderen
Thank you!