Sisters and Husbands (8 page)

She glanced at the telephone, willing him to call her back. If he did, she could tell him that she understood what he was
going through, that he didn’t need to dump his wife to find fulfillment. They could talk things over and it would be good
for him. After all, she was a psychologist.

Maybe she would try to reach him at Blockbuster. She had never gotten his number there, thinking the job was a stupid fad
that wouldn’t last. That was obviously a big mistake.

She was about to call directory assistance for the local Blockbuster when her desk phone rang. She almost fell out of the
chair when she saw Kevin’s number on the caller ID.

“You called?” he asked when she answered, his voice filled with more than a hint of irritation.

Evelyn almost sputtered. He acted like he was doing her a favor by returning her call. What gave him the right to treat her
like some random slut off the street chasing after him?

She had planned to talk to him calmly and rationally, despite the fact that she had every right to be thoroughly pissed about
his behavior. But that plan had flown straight out the window the moment he called, copping an attitude with her.

“What is going on with you, Kevin? You walk out on me and don’t even bother to get in touch. What the hell am I supposed to
do?”

“I thought it would be best to give us a few days to chill and, you know, clear our heads, given how upset we both were when
I walked out on Sunday.”

“So are you planning to walk back
in
any time soon?”

“I need more time to think things over, Evelyn. You should do the same.”

“What am I supposed to be thinking about? Will you please tell me that?”

Silence.

“I’m waiting, Kevin. What the hell am I supposed to be thinking about?” She didn’t mean to shout, but she couldn’t help it.
He was turning her life inside out.

“You should try to calm down,” he said.

“
I
don’t need to do anything.
You
need to tell me what you expect me to do while you’re doing all this damn thinking. ’Cause I don’t need to do any thinking.
I know exactly what I want. I want us to be a family just like we’ve always been.”

“I hear you.”

“Then what are you going to do about it? And what do I tell people until you decide?”

“I can’t answer that,” he said calmly, too damn calmly, as far as she was concerned.

“God, Kevin. You sound so cold. What’s gotten into you?”

“It’s not just me,” Kevin said. “We’ve both changed. We’ve grown apart. If you think about it, you’ll see that.”

“
I
haven’t changed.
You’ve
changed.”

“Fine, Evelyn. If you can’t see it, you don’t want to see it. ’Cause any way you look at our lives recently, we’ve grown apart.
We want different things. I woke up one day and realized that I couldn’t care less about legal briefs and depositions or even
about my clients. I don’t give a damn about the house or the lawn or driving a luxury car. All that shit disgusts me now.
I don’t need it, don’t want it. The question is, are
you
willing to give those things up?”

Evelyn was silent. She didn’t know what to say to that.

“I didn’t think so,” Kevin said.

Evelyn swallowed. Kevin was right about one thing. He had changed—a lot. But was this permanent? Could they work through it
and perhaps find a middle ground? He didn’t seem to think so, but she wasn’t ready to give up on him or on them yet. “Are
you saying you want a divorce? That you want to give up on us without first trying to work through this?”

“I’m not saying anything now,” he said. “I know it’s not fair to ask you to give all that up, and I really don’t expect you
to. But I need to clear my head and think about what I can realistically live with.”

“And you need to do your thinking away from me. Right?”

“It’s better that way, Evelyn.”

He seemed determined to have this time away from her, and fussing about it wasn’t going to get him to change his mind. “How
long do you think you’ll need?”

“All I can say is that I’ll call you at some point.”

She sighed. “Can you give me something a little more definite? It’s frustrating to be completely shut out like this.”

“It will be soon,” he said. “More than that I can’t say now. I need to clear my head.”

Your head, your head, your head.
Was that why he had shaved it? To clear out all the memories of their lives together. That was what she wanted to shout.
But she didn’t, simply because she knew it wouldn’t do a bit of good. “Fine. Where are you staying?”

“The Wynfield apartments in College Park.”

“Apartment number?”

“Just call me on my cell if you need to reach me.”

“Honestly, Kevin, do you have to be so secretive?” Her lips tightened. “Fine, I’ll call you on your cell.”

“Good. Anything more?” he asked.

Of course there was more. She had a million questions for him, but it was hard to express her innermost thoughts to someone
who so obviously didn’t want to be bothered with her. “That’s it. Oh, wait. Have you talked to Andre and Rebecca? Have you
told them anything about this yet?”

“I haven’t talked to them since I left the house. I’ll probably call them before the week is out.”

“Maybe, um, maybe you should hold off telling them until we decide what we’re going to do. This will come as a shock to them.
It might even affect Rebecca’s studies.”

“Fine. I can go along with that.”

Evelyn let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”

“I’ll call you soon.”

She listened as he hung up, then stood and looked out the window behind her desk. It was hot out and the streets were slick
from several thunderstorms they’d had since Monday afternoon. The heat she could do without, but they had needed the rain
desperately. After a multiweek dry spell, the flowers and shrubs in her yard at home were starting to dry out. The wet weather
should do a lot of good toward replenishing everything.

If only she could figure out how to replenish her marriage. Or was it just too hopelessly dried out? How had it come to this?
The distance between the two of them, the heated disagreements. They had always argued from time to time, but where there
was once fire and passion now there was only bitterness and resentment.

She would wait for his stupid call and she would try to be patient about it. She didn’t have much choice. She hated the feeling
of waiting in the dark until he was ready to bring the light. She hated that he had the upper hand in all of this. It was
demeaning and exasperating beyond belief. But she had to swallow her pride, her feelings, her convictions—all of that and
a whole lot more—if she wanted to try and save her marriage. For now the best thing to do was to get on with her life, just
as she would have told Cathy and all her other clients.

She sat back at her desk, picked up the phone, and dialed the caterer’s number. As soon they finished discussing the details
for the buffet menu, she opened the bottom desk drawer and removed her lunch and that morning’s copy of the
Washington Post
. She opened the bag, took out the tuna sandwich and the apple, and stared at them blankly. Suddenly her lunchtime routine
of eating at her desk while catching up on the news seemed dreadfully dull.

She stuffed the sandwich and apple back into the bag and tossed the bag and the newspaper back into the bottom desk drawer.
She grabbed her Fendi purse and slammed the drawer shut. She needed to get out of the office for a change of scenery. And
she needed something a little more appetizing for lunch.

She had never liked eating out alone, but this was downtown Silver Spring, and there were several sandwich shops between here
and the Metro line. She would pop in somewhere for something a little more exciting than a tuna sandwich before her next client
was due.

She removed a small mirror from her purse and checked her hair, then grabbed her suit jacket from a hook on the wall and left
the office.

E
velyn buttoned her linen suit jacket neatly as she waited for an elevator to take her down from the sixth floor to the lobby
of the office building. One of the two elevators stopped and just as she was about to enter, a couple stepped out of the other
elevator. The three of them smiled at one another briefly, and Evelyn entered her elevator and pressed the button for the
lobby.

That was when she heard her name being called.

“Evelyn?”

She frowned and stuck her hand between the elevator doors just before they shut. They popped back open, and Evelyn stepped
out to face the man she had just seen alight from the opposite elevator, standing there in front of her, the woman slightly
behind him.

“Evelyn Jordan?” he said as the elevator door closed behind her.

She smiled slightly and narrowed her eyes. She didn’t recognize him, but he was using her maiden name. “I’m sorry, but—”

“McKinley High School,” he said. “You graduated in the seventies and you were one or two classes behind me, I think. Reuben
Roberts.”

The smile on Evelyn’s face widened. She remembered the name well. Reuben had been one class ahead of her, and he was a star
on the basketball team, very popular with guys and girls alike. Evelyn and every other girl in the school had a huge crush
on him. At the time, though, Reuben had eyes only for Belinda, whom he later married when they both finished college.

He had changed a lot, Evelyn thought as they shook hands. She recognized the twinkling brown eyes and long lashes from all
those years ago. But gone were the baby cheeks and the deep dimples that had made high school girls swoon. In their place
was a devilishly handsome mature face that Evelyn was sure now made grown women look twice.

“I remember you,” she said. “It’s good to see you, Reuben.”

He reached out and they moved in for a quick hug. Then Reuben gestured toward the woman standing behind him, who Evelyn noted
was much younger. She was also as beautiful as she was impeccably dressed and made up. Although it had been many years since
she’d seen Reuben, Evelyn was pretty sure this woman wasn’t Belinda.

“This is a colleague of mine, Carissa Valentine,” he said. “Carissa, this is Evelyn Jordan.”

The two women shook hands and Reuben laughed.

“I still can’t believe it’s you, Evelyn. You haven’t changed much at all since high school. You look fantastic.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. But thank you for saying it. You’re looking good yourself.”

“Thanks. I remember you had a sister, right? Name is Charmaine?”

Evelyn nodded. “Actually I have two sisters, but you probably never met Beverly, since she’s eight years younger than I am.”

“No, don’t think I did. How is Charmaine? Crazy Charmaine. Yeah, I remember her well.”

“She’s good. She got married about a year ago.”

“Oh? Tell her I said, congratulations. What about you? Married? Kids?”

Evelyn paused for a second, not sure how to respond to the question about marriage. Then she collected herself. There was
definitely no need to go into details about her marriage—or lack thereof—with a man she hadn’t seen in thirty years. “Yes,
we have two children, a boy and a girl. Rebecca is in college. Andre just finished and now lives in Baltimore. How about you,
Reuben? Did you have children?”

He nodded. “Two boys, both grown now.”

An elevator appeared again, and Evelyn stuck her hand in to keep the doors open.

“It was nice seeing you, Reuben.” She nodded toward Carissa. “Nice meeting you.”

Carissa smiled. “You too.”

Reuben reached out to help Evelyn hold the elevator doors, which were doing that thing they do when they desperately want
to close. “Do you work here in this building?” he asked.

Evelyn nodded. “Yes, I have for several years now.”

“Cool. I just moved here from downtown D.C. a couple of weeks ago. I’ll probably see you around.”

“I’m sure.”

They let the doors have their way, and Evelyn realized that she still had a smile on her face when she stepped out into the
first-floor lobby. She couldn’t believe she had just run into Reuben Roberts, easily the most popular guy in the entire high
school when they were there. She would have to be sure to tell Charmaine. Or maybe she wouldn’t. Charmaine used to tease her
relentlessly about the way she got excited whenever Reuben was around.

She opened the door leading onto Georgia Avenue, a busy street in downtown Silver Spring filled with the sights, sounds, and
scents of lunchtime traffic. She clutched her bag a little more tightly and headed toward the restaurants. It didn’t take
long for the smile on her face to fade away as she trudged up the rain-slicked hill, all her recent troubles with Kevin filling
her memory.

C
harmaine’s suggestion was made with the best of intentions—a nice little family outing to a restaurant for dinner on a Friday
evening, with Kenny and Tiffany getting to choose the spot. When she suggested it to Tyrone, she pointed out that it would
be a great way to get Kenny and Tiffany to cooperate on something. That was the idea at least.

She should have known better. Kenny stood firmly in the living room in his baggy blue jeans and baseball cap and stated that
he wanted barbecue at Famous Dave’s. Tiffany, her hands on her hips and dressed in a denim fluff miniskirt and orange cami,
insisted on the Olive Garden, which Charmaine found strange, since Tiffany didn’t eat pasta or tomatoes. But Tiffany claimed
to love the stuffed mushrooms and said she had learned to avoid the things she disliked.

The disagreement between the kids didn’t seem so awful at first, as the whole point was to try and teach them to work together
and to compromise when they disagreed on something. So back and forth they went, with Charmaine trying patiently to broker
an agreement. After nearly thirty minutes of this, neither of them had budged a millimeter. Which was weird to Charmaine because
she knew that Kenny liked pasta and Tiffany liked barbecue. Or maybe it wasn’t so weird, since what they
didn’t
like was each other.