The other junior editors had been after me to join them in their post-business-hours outings, but I’d been ducking them, making one excuse or another to beg off. I didn’t want to tell them that I’d given up booze, I didn’t want them to know I was now going to the gym every day, and most of all I didn’t want to admit the reason why.
But of course I was foolish to think I could maintain the façade for long. Sure enough, one afternoon I got a call from Candy at the front desk that I had a visitor. When I went out there, I saw a man whom I was sure I’d never met before. Nevertheless, he gave me a pleasant smile and asked, “Alex Stevenson?”
“Yes?” I said curiously.
He reached under his arm and handed me an envelope. “Mr. Stevenson, you have been served.” With that he bowed to Candy, turned and walked away.
Candy had already been through a few husbands so she knew exactly what had just happened. Even if she hadn’t, the expression on my face would have been a dead giveaway. “Oh, Alex, I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know you and Glenda were having problems.”
I nodded at her words and turned to walk back to my desk, not trusting my voice to say anything. Of course I’d been expecting something like this, but the finality of the divorce petition still had a real impact on me.
The envelope was sitting unopened on my desk when the clock reached 5:00, and then my three best work friends were standing in front of me. “Come on, Alex,” Marie said, grabbing my arm. “You’re coming with us.”
I tried to protest, but the three of them wouldn’t relent and I had no real will to resist. When we got to the bar, they all looked at each other when I ordered a club soda with lemon, but no one said anything. Finally, Jacob seized the bull by the horns. “Okay, Alex, Candy told us about what happened earlier today. Come on and spill it: what happened with you and Glenda?”
And I did. I hadn’t intended to air my dirty laundry in front of my friends, but it had been festering so long inside me that once I started it all came out, even the details of my humiliating encounter with Glenda in her office.
“That bitch,” Tommy exclaimed, “I bet she shacked up with Connor – ouch!” He turned to Marie with an accusatory glare. “What’d you kick me for?”
But I ignored their little interplay and seized on what Tommy had been saying. “‘Shacked up with Connor’? Are you talking about Connor James at her law firm? What does he have to do with Glenda?” I demanded.
“Well, after we saw him sucking face with her, it was pretty obvious – oww! Dammit, Marie, that really hurts!”
“Don’t you know when to keep your mouth shut?” Marie hissed at Tommy, as he stood there rubbing his shin. Then she turned to me with an apologetic look on her face. “I’m sorry, Alex. The three of us went out to dinner back in March, and afterwards we stopped at a bar and saw them together. The way the two of them were behaving it was pretty obvious what was going on.”
I did some quick mental calculations. “No, that couldn’t have been her. She was taking a night course back in March.”