скачать книгу бесплатно
“In what manner did you express those feelings?” Danforth asked.
She stared at him evenly. “His Hummer may never be the same again.”
“Oh, yeah?” Tonya said, leaning in, her eyes wide with anticipation. “What exactly did you do to it?”
Monica’s chin rose another notch. “I put a flowerpot through the windshield.”
“That’s it?” Tonya slumped with disappointment. “So why did you get arrested for assault when it wasn’t a human being you beat up? I mean, it’s a crime to destroy personal property, but—”
“He was in the driver’s seat at the time.”
Tonya sat back, her grin returning. “Oh. Well. Now you’re talking.”
“And what was the disconcerting news that sent you on this rampage?” Danforth asked.
Susan drew back. Rampage? As if she were Godzilla ravaging Tokyo?
“I don’t see the need to go into the details,” Monica said.
“Part of the therapy is recognizing what triggers your anger, and unless I know your threshold—”
“Fine,” Monica said. “If you must know, he promised me a job, then turned around and gave it to somebody else. So you see, what I did was perfectly understandable.”
“No, Ms. Saltzman. What you did was criminal.”
Monica opened her mouth as if to reply, then closed it again, a slightly more refined version of Tonya’s screw you smirk edging across her face.
Danforth scribbled something in his notebook, then turned his gaze to Susan. “You must be Susan Roth. Your occupation?”
“I’m an E.R. nurse.”
“Please share with the class the act of violence that caused you to be here today.”
Good Lord. This was beginning to feel like third grade show-and-tell and the Jerry Springer show all rolled into one.
Susan told her story, emphasizing just how much of an intrusive little geek Dennis was before she revealed what led to her handprint on his throat. She thought she’d been pretty comprehensive, only to have Danforth bug her for more details.
“I just threatened him,” Susan said. “That’s all.”
“Verbal threats frequently precipitate physical violence. Once spoken into being, they have a way of manifesting themselves into reality. It’s the continuum of violence. What did you threaten to do?”
Susan looked at the other women, who were suddenly paying close attention, then back to Danforth.
“If you must know, I threatened to rip off his balls and toss them into the hospital cafeteria’s soup of the day.”
Danforth’s already pale complexion turned as white as Elmer’s glue. Gradually he moved behind the lectern, as if he felt the need to have something substantial between Susan and his privates.
“I see,” he said. “We’ll…uh…be doing some cognitive restructuring exercises aimed at preventing that kind of behavior.”
Tonya turned to Danforth. “So you actually think if she doesn’t have all her cognitive whatever restructured, someday she’s actually going to tear the guy’s balls off?”
Danforth cleared his throat. “I’m merely saying that if one can control one’s verbiage, one can frequently control one’s behavior.”
“It wasn’t as bad as it sounds,” Susan said. “Really. I swear it wasn’t.”
“So you have no remorse for the act,” Danforth said. “You’re merely sorry you were arrested for it?”
“Well, no, I didn’t mean—”
“We’ll be working on that.”
Susan glanced at Monica, then Tonya. They matched her subtle eye roll with ones of their own, bringing them into conspiracy together with a single common thought: No matter what this idiot says, sometimes when people get out of line, you just gotta let ’em have it.
Danforth launched into a lecture about the difference between assertion and aggression, and, for the next hour and a half, Tonya interrupted him every few minutes to ask him to define the terms he was using, such as cognitive distortion and neuroanatomy of anger. Susan got the feeling Tonya didn’t give a damn about the definitions, but she sure liked messing with Danforth. Monica spent most of the class wearing a distinctly bored expression as if all of this was so not worth her time.
Susan occupied herself by going over her mental to-do list, which she had to kick into action when she got home: check to make sure Lani had done her homework; do a load of laundry so she’d have something to wear to work tomorrow; pay the overdue electric bill; call Don and remind him about Lani’s basketball game. Then take a shower, climb into bed and dream of a world where money was plentiful, conflict was scarce and she had at least a few hours a day when she wasn’t somebody’s mother, somebody’s nurse, somebody’s ex-wife, or, in Dennis’s case, somebody’s worst nightmare.
Finally, at ten till nine, Tonya asked Danforth if he thought there was any difference between being angry, being livid and being pissed off. He looked at her dumbly for a moment. Then he took off his glasses, rubbed the bridge of his nose and dismissed class.
Susan left the classroom and headed for the bathroom. Tonya and Monica followed. They each went into a stall, and a few minutes later they were standing at the sink.
“Could you believe that guy?” Tonya said, swiping on enough lipstick to send Maybelline stock soaring. “I’ve never seen such a self-important little creep in my life.”
“He’s definitely on my top-ten list,” Monica said, touching up her makeup with the precision of a micro-surgeon. The compact she held looked unfamiliar to Susan, which meant it had come from somewhere besides Walgreens.
“Cognitive restructuring,” Tonya muttered. “Please.” She held up a middle finger. “Wonder how he’d like to restructure this?”
Monica raised an eyebrow. “You’re not a particularly subtle person, are you, Tonya?”
“As if you are? I noticed you made a pretty obvious statement with that flowerpot.”
“Yes. Well.”
“Not that I don’t admire you for it. A boss who promises you a job and then gives it to somebody else had better expect a faceful of broken glass.” Tonya leaned into the mirror to wipe a stray bit of lipstick from the corner of her mouth, which made her too-short denim skirt hike even farther up her thighs. “And the little geek you went off on deserved it, too,” she said to Susan. “So what if you threatened to castrate him? You were in a hospital, weren’t you? They’re doing wonders these days with all kinds of reattachment surgeries.”
Susan smiled. After her ex-husband, her daughter, her coworkers and a certain Dallas County judge had acted as if she were criminally insane, she liked having somebody’s stamp of approval, even if that somebody was just as criminally insane as she was.
“And if your husband cheats,” Susan said, “I think he should expect a few flying dishes.”
“I agree,” Monica said.
So they’d reached a consensus. They’d all been railroaded. Susan suddenly felt a weird kind of camaraderie she hadn’t expected, as if it were the three of them against Dr. Pompous.
She said goodbye to the other women and left the bathroom, thinking about the hundred other ways she could productively spend this one evening a week. Then again, the women’s magazines always said that a working mother needed a hobby or activity away from her family and coworkers that was uniquely her own. Courtesy of the criminal justice system of Dallas County, it looked as if Susan had found one.
CHAPTER 3
Later that night, Tonya pulled her Ford Fiesta to the curb in front of her house, half expecting to see Kendra Willis’s car in the driveway getting cozy with Dale’s 4 x 4, while Kendra was in the house getting cozy with Dale. But the only other car she saw was Cliff’s old Buick with the bad transmission, which was undoubtedly leaking fluid all over the driveway.
The living room blinds were open. The two men sat sprawled on the sofa with their feet on the coffee table, which meant they were probably watching Monday night football, and that irritated the hell out of Tonya. Her husband was in there drinking beer and watching the game with one of his firefighter buddies, while she sat out there with her hands clenching the steering wheel and her heart tied up in knots.
Two weeks ago, after the court proceedings, she’d given him the cold shoulder—no talk, no sex, no nothing—just so he’d never forget how pissed she was. When he hadn’t seemed to care about that, she’d gotten progressively more frustrated, until one day she lost it a little and gave him an ultimatum. She told him that if he didn’t apologize for everything he’d done and swear he’d never look at another woman again, she was going to leave. He told her he wasn’t apologizing for anything. Then he went into the kitchen, grabbed a beer and a sack of pretzels and headed for the living room, where he sat down on the sofa and flipped on a NASCAR race.
It stunned her so much that she said fine, packed some clothes, her toothbrush and her makeup and told him she’d be in the apartment over her hair salon whenever he came to his senses.
A week later, she was still there.
Go, she told herself. Drive away. Go back to your apartment and stay there until you get that apology you’ve got coming.
But deep inside she had the most horrible feeling that the week she’d already waited would turn into two weeks, then three, and then Dale would realize he didn’t need her after all and she’d go to the mailbox one day and the divorce papers would be there.
Tonya lit a cigarette and took a hard drag, forcing herself to think. Finally she decided that the house was hers, too, so of course she had a right to walk in anytime she wanted to. And she looked just hot enough tonight that she was sure to get Dale’s attention. He’d always told her he didn’t like her wearing this particular skirt around other men because they couldn’t keep their eyes off her. Maybe if she strutted through the living room, Cliff’s gaze would wander a little, and then Dale’s possessive streak would take over and he’d want her to come home. Men weren’t like women. Sometimes you had to get right in their faces to remind them of what was important.
She took a last drag on her cigarette and ground it out in the ashtray, before popping a few Tic Tacs. After checking her makeup and putting on more lipstick, she took a deep breath and got out of the car. On the way to the door, she made up a reason why she’d dropped by just in case Dale didn’t jump right up and beg her to stay. But she hoped he would, if for no other reason than that he hadn’t had sex in a week.
Unless he’d gone back for another round with Kendra Willis.
Shoving that horrible thought aside, Tonya stuck her key in the lock and opened the door. Dale came to attention right away, and when their eyes met, she smiled. Just a little. And when he sat back on the sofa, his face stoic, her heart crumbled.
“Now, don’t you boys get up on my account,” Tonya said, with just the right amount of offhanded sarcasm, as if she really didn’t give a damn about any of this. “I just came by for a few things.”
She went into their bedroom, where she found the bed neatly made. That didn’t surprise her. Whenever she told other women that Dale actually did housework, they always said, All those good looks, and he helps out, too? It had always made her feel so good to be able to give them a superior little smile that said, you bet he does, and he’s all mine.
But that wasn’t true. He wasn’t all hers. Not anymore.
She pulled back the bedspread a little and gave the pillowcases a sniff, relieved to find no evidence of Kendra’s god-awful perfume. They just smelled like Dale. She leaned in closer and inhaled again.
“Tonya?”
She spun around to see Dale leaning against the door frame, his arms folded, those big, beautiful biceps bulging.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I told you, honey,” she said, dropping the bedspread and heading for the closet. “I came to pick up a few things.”
She opened the door and blindly pulled a few sweaters off hangers, then grabbed a pair of shoes.
“Those are sandals,” he said. “It’s forty degrees out.”
“Fashion before comfort, you know?”
“Did you go to your first class tonight?”
“Of course I did. Legally speaking, I didn’t have a choice, now did I?”
“Because we’re not going to work this out until you learn to control your temper.”
“We’re not going to work this out,” she said, “until you stop screwing other women.”
The moment the words were out of her mouth, she wished she could yank them back. Making him mad wasn’t going to help things. A little shaky, she turned to grab another sweater.
“Why are you really here?” Dale asked.
“To get some things, like I told you. Oh, yeah. And I was thinking maybe you’d want to give me that apology I’ve been waiting for.”
“It’s the other way around. You assaulted me.”
“Yeah, and you cheated on me.”
“I’ve denied that all I’m going to.”
“And you called the police on me, too. That was really low.”
“It wasn’t the first time you’d thrown a few dishes around. Enough was enough.”
“But calling the cops?” She rolled her eyes. “Didn’t the boys down at the station house think that was a little wussy?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“They’ve all met you.”
The insult hurt more than she would have imagined. “You’re six-three, two-twenty! Like I could actually hurt you?”
“Size doesn’t matter.”
Tonya snorted. “Is that what Kendra Willis told you?”
He turned away. “Take the clothes and go.”
As Dale disappeared down the hall, Tonya felt her eyes tear up. No. Don’t you dare cry.
She sniffed a little and blinked a lot until she finally got herself under control. Then she strode out of the room with her sweaters over her arm and that stupid pair of sandals dangling from her fingers.
Damn it, damn it! How had everything gotten all turned around? She hadn’t wanted to fight with him. She’d wanted to make up with him and enjoy all the perks that went along with that. She missed his big, strong body wrapped around hers at night, his warm breath against her ear, the slow, steady beating of his heart. Just the idea of him holding another woman like that was more than she could bear.
She went back into the living room, where Dale and Cliff were whooping up a storm over a Cowboys touchdown. At the sound of her footsteps, Cliff turned around. His smile evaporated, and he gave her a look that said he hoped she wasn’t thinking about grabbing a few cups and saucers to use as projectiles.
Dale didn’t bother to look at her at all.
Tonya left the house, resisting the urge to slam the door behind her. She got into her car and reached down to start the engine, only to have her eyes fill with tears again.
Men cheat.
She’d heard her mother say that since Tonya was old enough to remember. With three cheating husbands, her mother probably knew what she was talking about. The minute you give a man an inch, she always said, he’ll take a mile.
And her mother had never given an inch. Not one.
