A Cell Phone Call

It was five after eight when Candy got home and I was in the kitchen drinking a beer and working the crossword puzzle from the day's paper when she walked in.

"Hi honey" she said and she bent to kiss me. I turned my head so instead of my lips she got my cheek. She stepped back and said:

"What's wrong?"

"I don't know Candy. Why don't you tell me?"

"Tell you what?"

"I don't know. What do you think you should tell me?"

"How many beers have you had Rob? You aren't making any sense."

"I'm waiting for you to tell me something."

"Tell you what Rob? What do you want me to tell you?"

"A long time ago I had a talk with you about our love life. I specifically said no lying and no sneaking around. Do you remember that little talk?"

She looked at me for several seconds and then I saw her eyes harden.

"What is it Rob? Are you accusing me of something?"

"Is there anything that you can be accused of?"

"Of course not!"

"You are late because of a meeting that your boss called?"

"That's right."

"So that wasn't you that I saw going into room 114 at the Best Western earlier today? Just a figment of my imagination?"

I took her cell phone out of my pocket, set it too 'speaker phone" and pushed the buttons to play her voicemail.

"First skipped message."

"Hey sweetheart, it's me. I'm in room 114 at the Best Western on the parkway."

The message played out as Candy stood there ashen faced.

"No lying and no sneaking around. I made that as plain as I could. You were free to do what you wanted and all I asked for was honesty. Anything else would be cheating and you know my position on cheating."

Candy stared at me for several seconds in silence and I saw tears forming in her eyes and she said:

"I'm sorry. I just couldn't bring myself to tell you. It would have been like I was telling you that you weren't man enough for me and I couldn't bear doing that to you."

I just looked at her with a stony expression on my face. She gave a little sob and then said:

"I'll go start packing."

"That would probably be best" I said and as she walked out of the room I took a pull on my beer and went back to my crossword puzzle. I was doing it ink and some of the words smeared as my tears dropped on them.