Textual Encounters: 2 (4 page)

No, you don’t understand. It was different with Christine.

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8:39pm:

LOL x 1,000,000,000!
It’s not different. There’s no such thing as “different.” It’s just a bunch of words attached to a bunch of moments.

8:40pm:

Don’t take this the wrong way. I want to fall in love and be swept off my feet as much as any other woman out there. But Christine was a fraud and the am
ount of energy and faith you’ve flushed away with that fraud is a complete waste, Jake. You deserve better than that.

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Jake

8:42pm:

Are you suggesting that BETTER is you? That YOU are what’s better for me?

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8:57pm:

I sure fucking hope not.
Because I’m just as messed up as any other woman and I can tell you right now that you’re not good enough for me.

8:58pm:

But what I
DO know is that Christine is not the best person for you. It’s time for you to let go of that train wreck and move on.

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Jake

9:00pm:

You’re probably right.

9:03pm:

Want to come over?

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11:43pm:

Sorry, Jake. I’ve gone out with some friends tonight. When you figure your shit out, text me. I’m here when you need someone to talk to.

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Jake

11:44pm:

Thanks, Katie. You’re an angel. I hope you realize that.

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11:45pm:

Damn right I realize it. Now let me
get my fun on tonight.

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Jake

11:45pm:

OK, go have some fun.

11:48pm:

But not too much fun.
I’ll be thinking about you and, as you put it the other day, “aching” for you.

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When I step off the elevator, the familiar hallway
odors tell me that I’m home, as if I spent more than just a couple of nights away. I feel light-headed all of a sudden. I blame it on reading the Samsung while in the car, but just in case it’s something else, I kick my pace up a notch and hurry to the door on the left – the door to the Penthouse that Will and I own. I get the keys out, my hands shaking as I unlock the door and make it inside just in time to vomit into one of three vases on the foyer table.

“Are you okay?” Maria asks, coming around the corner. Our pudgy housekeeper/cook looks worried and, when I pull my head out of the vase, I see the same emotion in her eyes that I found in everyone else’s: pity. “Let me take care of that,” she says, reaching for the vase.

I shake my head and carry the vase back into the hall, heading to the trash room. The last person I want doting on me is Maria. I can bring my own vomit-filled vase to the chute and as I say a quiet goodbye to something Will’s mother probably picked out of a discount department store, I feel the Samsung vibrating in my pocket.

The chute door slips out of my grip and slams shut, but I can still hear the vase shatter in the distant garbage bin. The Samsung vibrates again. I stand still inside the chute room and wait. It vibrates a third time.

I feel ill again, my nerves on edge as I reach into my pants and come out with the phone. Tapping the screen, I half-expect a message from Jake. Something intended for Katie, something that will break my heart all over.

Instead, it’s a message from Katie, her new phone. I realize I’m holding my breath as I read her three consecutive messages:

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Katie2

4:43pm:

Hey, are you home yet?

4:44pm:

I know you were released from the hospital.

4:44pm:

Text back once you’re free.

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I hammer out a quick response.

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4:44pm:

Is this Katie?

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I wait less than minute for her response.

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Katie
2

4:45
pm:

I’m t
he one who called the paramedics last Friday at Toshi’s.

4:46pm:

And
I’m the one who left this phone for you, in case you haven’t figured that out yet.

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I’m frozen.
I can’t move. I stare at the fresh messages on the screen. Like it’s something out of a horror movie – something low-budget with a lame-ass title like
Phone Stalker
– and the thought makes me chuckle to myself.

And that’s when the trash room’s door opens. I almost expect to find Katie there with a knife in her hand and a Grim Reaper mask over her face, but it’s nothing that crazy. It’s just Maria, looking more worried than ever, too. I can’t blame her, considering I’m standing in the trash room (she probably didn’t think that I knew where to find it) with a Samsung Galaxy in my hands. I’m sure I look like a lunatic in her eyes.

Frowning, she opens the door a little wider for me to walk through it. “Are you okay?”

The phone vibrates before I can answer Maria. It takes all of my self-control to not glance at the screen. I nod a little too impatiently and we walk back to the Penthouse together.

“Is Will working late tonight?” I ask once we are inside – the foyer table looks awkward without the third vase, but I don’t mention that to Maria because it will drive her nuts.

“Yes, he has a dinner meeting with some investors. I expect him home around 8pm.”

I nod, the phone vibrating again as Maria and I face off in the foyer. At last, I give her a nod. “I’ll head to bed now. I’m pretty tired from everything that’s been going on.”

She nods a silent response. Except her nods are quicker and even more awkward than mine. I figure this is a tad uncomfortable for her because she knows about the baby, knows that my pregnancy might have something to do with those late nights and early mornings when I came home and headed straight to the shower to wash Jake off and out of me. Or those other nights when she was out and came home late herself, only to find that the upstairs exit was unlocked because Jake doesn’t have a key to lock it when he sneaks out.

“That’s a good idea,” she admits at last. “Please let me know if you need anything.”

I thank her and watch her head back to the kitchen, which is where Maria spends a lot of her time, and then I turn the other way and make a beeline for the bedroom, drawing the phone out of my pocket about halfway there and snapping the screen to life.

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Katie
2

4:48pm:

I’m sorry about your miscarriage. Physically, you will start feeling better soon.

4:51pm:

Can we meet for
an early lunch tomorrow? We need to chat.

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It strikes me as odd that Katie wants to meet me and have an infantile chat. But then again, I
am
the other woman, the one who owns her boyfriends heart and always will.

I start to weigh the possibilities, taking a seat on the edge of the bed that I share with Will, one of just a handful of places where Jake has not fucked me with the passion and style that belongs solely to Jake.

The phone vibrates again and I shudder.

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Katie
2

4:55pm:

Don’t ignore me, Rachel. I can tell you’ve read my messages :-)

4:55pm:

I won’t bite, I promise.
But we MUST sit down and talk. About Jake. It’s pretty important.

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Now I start to get a little worried.
About Jake most of all. I take a deep breath and activate the touch-keyboard and type away.

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4:57pm:

OK, Katie, we can meet. Just tell me where and when.

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Katie2

4:58pm:

When = 11:30am, long after your husband has left for work. So you’re safe.

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4:59pm:

And what about the WHERE?

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Katie
2

5:01pm:

Where = where it all started.

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I don’t understand her
teenage-quality riddle, something she probably stole from the last Twilight: Breaking Dawn movie, or some other equally shitty film.  I refuse to waste time on her games.

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5:03pm:

Can you be a little more specific please? I’m medicated, remember.

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Katie2

5:04pm:

Are you serious?

5:06pm:

That night you and Jake went for dinner. The night you fucked him?

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While I have a hunch about what location she’s referring to, the truth is that there have been many dinners, many indiscretions and I honestly don’t want to pick the wrong spot.

So I ask her:

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5:08pm:

Please, I don’t have time for this. My medication is making me sleepy.

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Katie2

5:09pm:

The night before your wedding. Does that help?

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I can’t help the tears that start pouring from my eyes.
The night it all started.
Of course.

I tap away at the touch keypad.

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5:12pm:

See you there at 11:30 tomorrow.

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With that, I place the phone on the night tabl
e and bury my face in my pillow, pressing down as hard as I can so I can just let it all go. The sadness, anger and loneliness pours out in wild, choked sobs that leave me gasping for air.

* * *

A little before midnight, I wake up to Will’s soft snoring. He likes sleeping with the blinds open and the New York City glow flooding into our room like carnival lights. It may as well be mid-afternoon in Phoenix; I can’t sleep like this because I didn’t grow up here.

I slide out from underneath the sheets, reach into the bedside table and come out with the Samsung. Heading out into the hall, I feel a little guilty about sneaking away like this, but if I’m meeting Katie in less than thirteen hours, I feel I should know a little more about what she’s all about. She scares me a little and the way she speaks to Jake in her texts suggests she might not be the friendliest person in the world.