“I know you aren’t.” How she was so sure of that, she… well, she wasn’t clear on that part. But down to her soul, she was certain he would do her no harm. “You’d never hurt me.”
“Never.”
After a silence that seemed to vibrate, she said something about soup or food again and he said something like “That’ll be fine” or “That’ll be great.” And then she was over at her refrigerator listing its meager contents like she was declaring them at customs after a European vacation.
Why couldn’t she have gone shopping after work? Or anytime this friggin’ week?
This was a man who needed more than hot liquid tomatoes for dinner.
“I’m really fine.” He sat down across from her place setting. “I’m grateful for whatever.”
Anne closed the fridge’s door and wondered what kind of cologne he was wearing. It was positively… delicious—what was she doing? Oh, right.
“Wonder Bread and butter as a side it is,” she said.
Anne gave him the other half of what was in the pan, started some more toast just like her own, and brought his bowl over. He didn’t start eating, or even lift the spoon she gave him, until she sat down and resumed her own Campbell’s thing, and she couldn’t help but notice that he had perfect table manners.
While they ate, the silence between them was almost tender. And weaving in and around the quiet were currents she didn’t want to look too closely at.
At least for her there were currents—
Pop! went the toaster.
Anne was the only one who jolted at the sound. And as she got up, she blurted, “I think my ex would have killed me last night.”
As the man’s eyes narrowed, she couldn’t believe what had come out of her mouth. Then again, she’d been so desperate not to think of things like the size of his shoulders… or whether he was looking at her… or how his mouth seemed very…
Yes, all of those things had to be kept good and hidden. And God knew there was no better brick wall than Bruce.
“Tell me what happened,” her mystery man prompted as she put his toast on a plate and buttered it. “I know I’m a stranger, but sometimes it’s good to just say things out loud. I know I wish I had someone to talk to a lot of the time.”
How was this big, beautiful man lonely, she wondered as she brought over the carbs.
“You don’t have a—” As she put things in front of him, she fumbled over the word “wife.” “You live alone?”
“I live with an old friend.”
She sat back down. “Oh.”
“He’s taken care of me and whatever house I’ve lived in forever.”
“Oh?” she said with a shot of relief.
“Tell me about your ex.”
Ducking her eyes, she stirred the cooling, congealing tomato soup around her bowl… and tried not to think about how in the right light, it looked like blood.
“I, ah, I met Bruce about ten months ago. I do payroll processing at a law office. My job’s about as exotic as this toast.” She took a bite of her second piece of toast. “He came in to apply for a position as a paralegal and he got lost. It’s a big place, you know, our offices downtown. Four floors, seventy lawyers, support staff of over a hundred.”
She paused as she remembered that first meeting, Bruce in his dark blue suit, his hair all combed back, a briefcase in his hand. His tie had been so straight, the press in his slacks so starched, his shoes buffed to a high polish. He’d seemed focused and directed. Determined and intelligent.
A man with a horizon, as opposed to the dead end she was in.
“Thinking back on it, I realize now…” She shrugged. “Well, it doesn’t matter. He ended up on the wrong floor, and stopped by my desk to ask me for directions. I took him to my boss, who’s head of HR, and on the way, he told me he was in law school at SUNY Caldwell. Starting his third year. Looking at the paralegal thing like a paid internship. I didn’t expect to see him again, but after he was finished with the interview, he came back and told me he thought he’d nailed it.
“A week or two later, we ran into each other on the elevator. He told me he’d gotten the job and asked me out for coffee. That’s how it all started.” She pushed her bowl away. “The women in the secretarial pool kept telling me I was so lucky, and I did wonder why me. There were better options, you know what I mean? But he wanted me.”
The man across from her murmured something. But when she glanced up, he shook his head like he wanted her to move along with the story.
“I think my cheering section was part of the problem.” She wiped her mouth with a paper napkin and sat back in her chair. “I guess sometimes when you think nothing is ever going to change… you take what comes your way, especially if it’s backed up by a bunch of people telling you to go for it because of how good it is.”
“When did things start to go wrong?”
Anne frowned and tried to find the right words. “I ended up in a labyrinth of deception. And the punch line was that the lies were the best part of the relationship.” She glanced across her table. “It was all bullsh—crap. He was married, for one thing. He has two kids, for another. He wasn’t in law school, wasn’t even trying to get into law school. And his coping mechanism for dealing with the stress of living a fake, made-up life was a pathological need for order and discipline. I was part of that. Or I was supposed to be. I wasn’t as good at taking orders as he thought I’d be.”
“If he loved you, he should have—”
“It wasn’t love. For either one of us.” She cleared her throat. “The whole thing came out because his wages this month were garnished for failure to pay child support. Like I said, I’m in charge of payroll for the firm, and I couldn’t believe it when I saw the decree from the court. After stewing about what to do, I went to one of our attorneys for advice, and he got a private investigator to look into Bruce. Within twenty-four hours, there was a whole dossier on him.” She shook her head. “I read it through twice, and then had to excuse myself to go throw up in the bathroom. Good thing it was after hours.”
Pausing, she went to rub the ache behind her eye and bumped into that bandage for the hundredth time. With a wince, she put her hand in her lap. “After I left the building last night, I went over there to let him know I wasn’t going to see him anymore—but I wasn’t going to bring anything else up. The relationship wasn’t working for me even apart from everything I’d learned and I’m pretty sure he was aware of it. What I didn’t know was that the dossier had also been shared with HR. The attorney I’d gone to had taken the investigator’s report to my boss and they’d fired Bruce for lying about his credentials at the end of the workday. I had no clue I was walking into… a storm.”
“What exactly happened?”
Anne closed her eyes. “He blamed me for everything—because he’d guessed that the garnishment of the wages had tipped me off and I’d reported it. But his ranting was so much more than that. He railed against the law firm, and talked about some new opportunity that was going to transform him. And then he just snapped. He grabbed me around the throat.” Her hand crept up to her collarbones. “He was red in the face and vacant in the eyes, so furious that I didn’t think he was even seeing me. And what he was saying… I was terrified. He started out yelling at me, but then it all morphed… he was screaming about how he was going to have power, too. He was going to be bigger and stronger than everybody. Like he was a villain in a superhero comic book. It was a total break with reality, but given all his lying? The delusion was totally him.”