Hara’s car was in the driveway when Brian got home. That was unusual since his wife usually came home a couple hours later than he did. He pulled in, turned off his car and sat for a moment. Something had to be wrong and he hoped it wasn’t what he thought it could be. He opened the door, quietly shut it and walked to the house. When he entered she was sitting on the couch across from the front door and just glared at him. He took a heavy breath and wanted to say something, but knew right now there was nothing he could say.
Brian closed the door and stood waiting for her to talk. The only time Hara was ever this quiet was when she was angry. Her mascara was smudged over her brown skin and it made the dark eyes that Brian had fallen for years ago look completely black. Maybe she had found out about Amanda. He hoped to God not. Maybe her sick grandmother died. He didn’t want that to have happened since she was the only person in Hara’s family who liked him. She stood slowly and walked over to him and stared him straight in the eyes for a moment then slapped him as hard as she could. “How dare you.”
“Hara, I didn’t—” Brian began knowing she’d cut him off.
“She told me!” She shouted and stepped away, clinching her fists at her sides. “She said you’ve been fucking her since October.” She turned around quickly and screamed, “How dare you!” Brian shut up. He knew arguing with her right now was pointless. “I should have known you were lying when you said you had to cover high school football for the paper. You’ve never watched a game in your life. And this Amanda, how old is she?”
He took in a shallow breath and just above a whisper said, “Twenty-two.”
“You’re thirty-seven! She said she was an intern.” She walked over to the couch and sat again, “A goddamn intern. You’re a walking cliché, you know that? An older man fucking a young intern! My father was right. He told me not to marry a gora.” Brian hated when she used the Hindi term for a white person. She only did that when she was extremely angry since she knew it pissed him off. She shook her head and shouted, “And I took up for you when he insulted you in front of my goddamn family and you do this to me!”
Her father quite simply hated him. He excepted her to find an Indian man, and she married Brian instead. They had met when she was the defense attorney for a man accused of murder. He had volunteered to do a story trying to balance all of the bad press around the case. His story summarized their defense which showed him as being in the wrong place at the wrong time and gave a profile of him that didn’t make him a monster. He was found guilty, but Hara called Brian to thank him anyway and to take him to dinner. He didn’t expect it to be a date, but she showed up in a decidedly unprofessional dress and Brian got the hint. Two years later Brian proposed and five years later this happened.
“She didn’t tell me her last name,” she said knowing Brian would tell her.
“Turner,” he sighed “Amanda Baker.” She didn’t say anything, but her question was answered. She had told him early on that she worried that he’d leave her for a blond haired, blue eyed European woman and Amanda missed that only by having green eyes. “Hara, I didn’t mean to —” Brian began hoping to apologize enough that she would at least listen to him. He had no excuse though. He was a son-of-a-bitch, and he knew it. He thought he was loyal and had self-control, but when Amanda practically took his pants off one late night at work he couldn’t stop. What made it worse is when she asked to him to do it, he did it again. And again. And again. For three months.
“The hell you didn’t!” She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “Get out of my home.”
“Hara…” Brian knew he had no defense.
“Leave, now,” she said calmly and looked up at him as a dark, mascara-stained tear traced down her face, “Please. Just get out of my sight.”
Brian opened his mouth to say something, but there was nothing to say. He opened the door to go outside and said, just barely loud enough to hear himself, “I’m sorry.”
“Just leave,” she said in a breaking voice.
Brian got in his car and simply said, “Shit” as he turned the key. He pulled out and thought hard about where to go. A motel was the obvious choice, but he didn’t want to resign himself to that defeat yet. He fished around in the mess of his car until he found his cell phone and hit the speed dial for Mike.
After four rings he picked up and said, “What’s up?”
“I, uh,” Brian’s voice was wavering. He didn’t want to break down on the phone. “I need to come by and …”
“You OK man?” Mike asked as Brian left the subdivision and turned onto the road leading to 10th Street, which lead through the middle of Jeffersonville, Indiana.
“I,” Brian hadn’t told anyone about Amanda, but this wasn’t the kind of thing you told your best friend and co-worker over the cell phone. “I need to talk to you, it’s important.”
“Well,” the microphone made a rustling sound as Mike sighed, “Jenny just got home and we were going to take Kim out to celebrate her getting straight A’s.”
“Shit,” Brian turned onto 10th Street, heading south toward the river to Louisville. “When will you be getting back? I really need to talk, man.”
“Why don’t you tell me now?” Mike said and Brian could imagine him leaning forward in the chair to listen like he did at work when he was talking to someone for a story he was writing.
“It’s big,” Brian sighed and took his hand off the wheel to scratch his face, “I really don’t want to talk about it over the phone.”
“You interviewed a Senator about the war over the phone for an hour,” Mike laughed, “I think you can tell me whatever you need to.”
“I cheated on Hara,” Brian said and Mike went completely silent, “Remember that intern Amanda?”
“Her?”
“Yeah.”
“And Hara found out?” He asked completely seriously.
“Amanda told her after I broke it off with her,” Brian said feeling his palms sweat. He wish he’d plugged in his headset right now, because he was nervous enough to need two hands on the wheel. “She kicked me out and…” He knew the rest.
Mike was silent for so long that Brian checked his phone to make sure it hadn’t accidentally hung up. He finally said, “Brian, Amanda was talking to Bob after you left today.” Bob was the managing editor of the Louisville Dispatch and Brian’s boss. He was easy to get along with, but if she was talking to him about what was going on … he didn’t want to think about it, but he needed to know. “I really want to help you, but…” he sighed and said trying not to be overheard, “I’m with Hara here and I can’t imagine Jenny thinking anything better. I’m sorry, but you dug your own grave here.”
“Mike I don’t even have a place to sleep, man.” Brian knew what he was going to say, but he tried anyway.
“There’s all sorts of places just off the highway in Clarksville,” Mike said trying not to sound too callous, “You did this to yourself, I’m not going to help you. We need to go. I’ll see you at work tomorrow or something.”
“Alright,” Brian turned off the phone and tossed it in the console between the seats as he went onto Interstate 65 just long enough to get to the Second Street Bridge.
In the twilight he could see himself in the rear view mirror. He wasn’t that attractive, so why did Amanda do anything. His brown hair was beginning to get a dusting of gray which he knew was only going to get worse until he was as white as his grandfather. He was nearing middle age and somehow a young woman comes along and make him feel young again. Dammit, was that the reason why he kept doing it? He sighed as he sat that the stoplight before the bridge. He was way too old to be with a woman like that. The light changed and he accelerated.
No one ever obeyed the speed limit sign saying 35 miles per hour and Brian took it going 60 across to downtown Louisville. He’d driven this too many times to count. Right on Main, left on Sixth and go until you see the guard shack. He had to know what was going on at work. This night couldn’t suck any worse than it already did. His pass opened the automatic gate and he drove in and parked a few spots closer than his usual.
This was going to be it. Bob usually stayed here from noon until well past deadline which was at ten at night. He unlocked the door with his card and walked in past the anteroom with the original printing plates on the wall of some of their most famous headlines. He followed the hall to the left and around the cafeteria to the news room. Two hours before deadline was always a hectic time of day. He went to his desk to check his message and the first one in his inbox was from Bob marked “IMPORTANT”. The message simply read that he needed to see him as soon as he could. He mulled over this for a second and then looked to see if he was in his office. Luckily no. Brian didn’t want to get into it with him just yet.
He looked at his other messages. One from a friend of his in City Hall asking if he knew anything about a scandal that was happening with the mayor. He replied with a boilerplate answer saying that he couldn’t say anything about stories he was currently working on and left it at that.
He looked around again. Bob was talking to the new reporter. It seemed like he was busy, but he needed to get it over with. He logged out of his computer and walked near enough to Bob to be seen. He told the other guy, “I’ll talk to you about it in a little bit, I need to take care of something.” That was an ominous statement. Brian was now a “something”. He pointed at Brian and said, “I need to talk to you” and headed to his office.
When Brian got into his office, with glass walls to the rest of the newsroom, he closed the door and said, “Amanda talked to me today.”
“I know, Mike told me,” Brian felt his heart beating heavy in his chest.
“I think you know what it’s about so I won’t rehash it,” Bob walked around to his desk and ritually picked up a layout sheet and glanced at it for a second. “Is she telling the truth?”
Lying to him would be worse so Brian said, “Yeah, if she told you what I think she did, probably yeah.”
“She said you made her do it,” Bob said gravely looking over the top of the sheet.
“She did it to me—” Brian knew the truth meant nothing right now.
“Look!” Bob pushed the sheet to the table and looked Brian dead in the eyes. “I don’t care if she somehow raped you, you were in charge of her. She said she won’t file suit, if you’re fired.”
Brian wasn’t sure if he said, “Oh God,” when he sighed or not, but he certainly thought it.
“I’m not going to fire you, but I’m not making the final decision on it either.” He got down to just above a whisper, “Everyone knows she was a slut, but that doesn’t matter. What you did was wrong and I don’t want Legal to be all over me on it.” He looked at Brian for a moment and said, “I’ll just say you should probably start looking around for another job because it’s only a matter of time before the lawyers make me do it anyway.” He took off his glasses and wiped his forehead, “Does your wife know?”
“Yeah, Amanda told her.”
“Goddamn,” he shook his head, “You should start talking to a lawyer now so she doesn’t take everything.”
“I don’t want to think about it,” Brian said glumly.
“Alright. I’ll talk to you more tomorrow,” Bob stood and headed for the door, “I need to get back to work. If you want me to, I’ll talk to the manager at the Courier or the Evening News in Jeffersonville and give you a good reference.”
“Fine,” Brian followed him out the door.
It wasn’t as bad as he had expected, but in a way it was worse. He wasn’t fired, but he could watch his job self-destruct in slow motion. He worked his way back to his car and headed back across the river. Mike was right, the Motel Six off of Eastern Boulevard was his best bet. He got a room on the ground floor and set the alarm before stripping down to his boxers and getting into bed.
This was one of the worst days of his life. He lost a wife who was the most beautiful woman in the world. Probably his job. All because of a little slut named Amanda. His was his own damn fault, too. He didn’t want to get into blaming. It had happened and now he had to deal with it. He turned over in the darkness as if to put that thought out of his head and waited for sleep to come. When it eventually did he didn’t even notice.