The Pendleton Omens - 3. Chapter 3

The phone rang after eleven. “I’m sorry,” Sharon began.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m reading. What’s up?”

“I can’t sleep.”

“Why?”

“I got a call earlier. I was gonna wait till tomorrow to tell you.”

“Yeah.”

“From LA.”

“Scoot?”

“No. Amy. His girlfriend.”

“Which one?”

We laughed at that. But Sharon cut off way too soon.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Maybe nothing,” she said. “This may just be Scoot being Scoot again. But I thought he and Amy were pretty serious, and now she hasn’t seen him for a week.”

“And she called you? I don’t remember them getting engaged.”

Normally, Sharon would laugh at that, too. But she didn’t.

“A week?” I went on. “Tell her she doesn’t have to worry.”

“I did already. Then I tried calling him. This was this afternoon. I left a message on his cell, and he hasn’t gotten back to me.”

“He’s probably working.”

“He takes breaks.”

“Maybe his phone’s dead.”

“He’s not that careless.”

“Maybe he turned it off.”

“You know how often he checks it. It’s how he gets jobs.”

“Well, maybe he’s out of the country.”

“He wouldn’t go without telling Amy. And even if he were, he’d get back to me.”

“I still think he’s working.”

“Probably. But thinking about it, I realized I haven’t spoken with him all week. Have you?”

I tried to remember the last time I’d talked to Scoot. The conversations all blurred together because they were never very long. We mostly used texts or e-mail.

“I can’t remember,” I confessed. “But I think it’s been at least a week. I know I haven’t gotten an e-mail or text from him for a while.”

“That’s why I’m worried.”

“Worried?”

“I said I couldn’t sleep.”

True. But I hadn’t racheted that up to worry.

“Have you spoken with Jamie?” I asked.

“She hasn’t heard from him, either. Not phone, text, or e-mail.”

“Yeah, well, she’s kind of hard to get hold of herself.”

“She’s busy with papers.”

“So she’s said.”

“She’s sweating out grad schools.”

“Only question there is the money.”

“Then she’s just busy, all right? Let her be.”

“Okay,” I allowed. But I was thinking about Scoot again. “I don’t remember him saying anything special, the last time he wrote. But you know how things are. If something interesting comes up, he’ll just take off. That’s why he’s going through girlfriends lately.”

“I like Amy.”

“You’ve never even met her.”

“Well, she sounds nice.”

“I’ve only heard about her. And to tell you the truth, I can’t remember what I’ve heard.”

“I’ve never talked with her before,” Sharon admitted. “That’s another reason I’m worried.”

“How’d she get your number?”

“She knew where Scoot was from. She looked me up. Then she was hesitant to call.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s not sure what’s happening, either.”

I thought for a moment. Noah was sleeping beside me. At least, I didn’t think I was keeping him awake.

“Well, give it a few more days,” I told Sharon. “I’ll call Scoot tomorrow. See if he picks up. And I’ll text and e-mail him. Let’s see what happens.”

Sharon seemed to consider that. “All right,” she finally said. “And thanks. And how are you?”

“I’m fine,” I said laughing. “Thanks for asking.”

When I clicked off the phone, I could tell Noah was really asleep. There was that familiar catch in his breathing he wouldn’t know how to fake. Noah usually went to sleep earlier than I did, though I got up earlier. Six hours of sleep were enough.

“Eight,” Noah offered, in comparison.

That was only the beginning of our differences. People we both knew were beginning to point that out.

“What do you talk about?” Jamie had asked. “He loves politics.”

“I can stand that.”

“And he loves basketball.”

“I like the Celtics.”

“You wouldn’t even know who’s on the team. Where I get the feeling Noah knows who’s played for them every year for the last twenty.’

“There is that,” I’d said, grinning. Which cracked Jamie up. She was the first one in the family to meet Noah. Scoot was in California anyway. And Jamie seemed much easier than Sharon.

“He’s very nice,” she admitted.

“What else could you say?”

“No, I mean it. I can see why you like him.”

She was sneaking around the fact that her father was dating another man. But that wasn’t news.

“I thought I’d been so careful,” I’d told Owen. “I thought Sharon would never know.”

He’d said nothing to that and was a somewhat unwilling listener. But I’d pushed on.

“I never used our computer at home. I never used our phone. I didn’t even use our cell. And I sure in hell wouldn’t use the computer or phone around here.”

We were in Owen’s office, the morning after everything had blown.

“What did you do?” he asked.

“Do you really want to know?”

He’d thought about it for a minute then shook his head. So I never told him. But it had all been out of one bar in Springfield. And it hadn’t been often. I always went to the other guy’s place, and I rarely saw the same guy twice.

“That’s not sex,” Noah cracked when he’d first heard. “I’ve got so much to teach you.”

“I pretty well know,” I insisted. “Though in pieces.”

“Splinters.”

But one of them had shattered my marriage. Someone had seen me coming out of a house where I shouldn’t have been. And there was no explaining.

Just as there was no understanding my connection to Noah. I didn’t set out to fall in love with a man so different from me. I didn’t set out to fall in love at all. I’d ended the marriage, hoping no one besides Sharon would know why. And Jamie. And Scoot. And Owen. I basically did nothing the whole first year besides work and sleep. I wasn’t thinking about it as a new start. Scoot was off in college. Jamie was just beginning. Stupidly, Sharon remained my closest friend.

“Did we do this too quickly?” she asked one afternoon. “Should I have just waited it out?”

“We did the right thing.”

“But we were both so happy.”

I thought about that. “Pretty much.”

“What if I want to go back?”

I hesitated. We were in a restaurant where people still knew us as a couple, and the tables was too close. “There are guys who’ll make you happier,” I finally said.

“I don’t think so.”

“But you don’t know.”

Which she admitted. And I couldn’t predict.

And then I’d hurt my neck. At work. Getting out of a car. And Rob suggested a chiropractor.

“He’s a friend of my brother-in-law,” he’d said. “They play handball when they can. I’ve gone with them a couple of times, but I’m no good at handball. Now put a Frisbee in my hand, and I can sail it seventy feet. Keeps me happy all afternoon...”

“You think he can fix my neck?” I’d interrupted.

“Give him a try.”

And the move that got me every time was when Noah had me lie on the table on my side. Then he wrapped his arms around me and tugged.

“Did you know what that was doing?” I’d asked him later.

“Fixing your back.”

“Did you know what it was doing to me?”

“‘Bout the same it did for me,” he’d answered grinning.

“Then why’d you do it?”

“Best way to fix what you needed.”

I could only laugh.

“Of course, there’s one more thing I gotta tell you,” Rob mentioned. “But I don’t think it’s gonna matter. You have to love having a black guy’s hands all over your body.”

It wasn’t a problem.