Garbage

"No, there isn't," he said. "But if you just disappeared, she could divorce you and then you'd still have to give her half of your assets."

"Okay, what if the condo was all of our assets and I gave it to her?" I asked. He shook his head and thought about it before answering. That was how we spent the remainder of the morning before breaking for lunch. My goal was to come up with a way to get Linda out of my life with as little of our assets as possible. It may have been wrong of me to want to do this to a woman that I'd lived with and loved for more than thirty years who would find herself homeless and destitute, but hey I'm human. All the way to my car I sang my new theme song, "If fucking you over is wrong, I don't want to be right."

There were a few things that Ollie and I had discussed other than getting rid of Linda. We'd also discussed what to do with Dino. Pain and suffering were on the way for him too, but the timing had to be right. If I handled Dino before Linda, then she'd know that something was going on. I had to move money around and make all of the financial moves before I served Linda and then Dino could be handled during the mop up.

On my way home, I transferred half of the money in both my savings and investment accounts into new accounts that didn't have Linda's name on them. I did stop by the plant and have Linda's name taken off of my insurance policies and I unlisted her from my retirement account. In our state, if I died, she'd still get the benefits unless I specifically excluded her in my will. The peon in the accounting office asked me a bunch of fucking questions about why I was doing it. I told him that she'd started a new business and was making as much money as I was so she didn't need it.

"There's no such thing as too much money," he said. He gave me a smile that made me want to choke the life out of him right then and there. Then he gave me a form that Linda needed to sign. I couldn't believe that shit. She actually had to sign a form to be taken off of MY retirement account. I was the one who dragged his ass into that plant for twenty seven years. Linda had probably only been there a handful of times during our entire life together. I just smiled at him and took the fucking form.

I'd already decided how to get her to sign it. I had another form from Ollie that she needed to sign as well. That one put Linda's name on the condo as an owner. I'd given up the idea of throwing her ass out. I was going to leave myself. Only, since I wasn't giving her any money, she'd lose the condo and her credit would be ruined because she wouldn't be able to make the payments. Our condo was worth over a hundred thousand dollars. I intended to refinance it and take a loan for all of our equity out of it. Then I'd move out and leave Linda to her own devices.

I was also going to make several questionable business moves that would lose the bulk of our cash and investments. I wouldn't start tapping into my retirement fund until I was 65 which would give me about 13 years. Hopefully Linda would be dead by then, just in case the law decided to give her a part of it.

As I drove back towards the condo, I was almost cheerful considering the past twenty four hours I'd gone through. I was smart enough to realize that I was still in shock over what was happening to me and that soon probably very soon the reality of the situation would hit me and I wasn't sure how I would handle it.

After locking my car in the parking structure I saw Dino looking at me. He had that little smile on his face that he always seemed to have. Only now I knew why.

"Nice car Mr. Laurel," he said.

I ignored him and kept walking. Before I got to the condo, I changed my mind. I turned and went in the other direction and knocked on Dahlia's door.

She opened the door a crack after a few minutes. "I already told you, I don't have anything that needs to be fixed or looked at. If the situation changes, I'll call you. Please just leave me alone," she said.

"Sorry Dahlia. I just wanted to make sure you were okay," I said.

She opened the door further. "No, I'm sorry, Mr. Laurel," she said. "I thought you were someone else. Would you like to come in?"

"Not if it's going to be a bother," I said.

"No a friendly face is always welcome," she said. I walked into her apartment. She offered me a seat on her couch and told me to wait for a few minutes while she got dressed. As she walked away I decided to do something for her to help cheer her up. I whipped out the ever present iPhone and called the florist.

I told the woman at the flower shop who I was. She remembered me because my order had been pretty big, but also because whenever the occasion dictated it, I ordered flowers for Linda from her shop.

I asked her if she'd sent out Linda's flowers yet and she told me that I'd asked to have them delivered later in the day so they'd probably go out on the next delivery load. I asked her to deliver the flowers to a different condo in the same complex and to tell the driver that if he got them here within an hour there'd be a big tip.

Since the flowers were only addressed to, "the lady of the house," there was no need to change anything else.

Ten minutes later Dahlia came back into the living room. She seemed a little bit more relaxed, but still not herself.

"What's wrong?" I asked her.

"Where should I start?" she asked. "Sorry about before. I thought you were that idiot Dino. He's always hanging around out in my hallway. He knocks on the door at least once a day telling me he needs to come in and check for all kinds of things. But he never finds them and when I ask others tenants, none of them have had their units checked for those things. I think he's just some kind of pervert."

She looked at my face when she brought up Dino's name. I guess my expression must have given something away.

"You don't like him either, do you?" she asked.

"I hate that bastard," I said, harder than I wanted to.

"I'm so sorry," she said. "So you know, huh? I guess I should have said something but I stumbled onto them by accident when I went to take out the trash a couple of weeks ago. They were so busy going at it that they didn't even notice me. I just left my bags of trash outside the building. He's such a pig. And I can't believe that Mrs. Laurel would..."

"Yeah, there are a lot of things I never thought would happen, going on," I said.

"You seem so calm," she said.

"Only on the outside," I said. "Inside I'm a bowl of mush. I'm just trying to keep moving so it doesn't really have a chance to affect me until it's over and done with."

"When did you find out?" she asked.

"Yesterday," I said sadly. "Nothing's been the same since. The whole world seems different."

"So if you don't mind me asking," she said tentatively. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going for the big D word," I said. "Please don't say anything because I want it to be a surprise to both of them, but it's already in the works."

"But don't you need to find out why, she did it. Maybe she was forced. Have you thought about what your life will be like? When my grandpa died, it was like my grandma died with him. That was over five years ago and she's just really getting it together again. For a woman of her age my grandma is beautiful but she just couldn't imagine living without him. What will you do?" she asked.

"Nope," I said. "There was no force used. She was the one who started things off. At least that was the way it went yesterday when I saw them. And I'll do fine alone. I'm young enough to start again if I need companionship. But actually I'd be better off alone than forced to stay with a woman who doesn't really want to be with me. Or one who lies to me."

"I'm sure she loves you," she said. "Maybe, like a lot of women these days, she just wants something on the side. One of my girlfriends was engaged to marry a medical student. In about a year he'll be all done with school and get a great job with one of the hospitals. They've been together for over four years, but she hardly gets to see him. So on nights when she got really lonely, she uhm, went to someone else. I don't know how, maybe someone told someone else, but anyway he found out about it and broke off their engagement. She went crazy stalking him and trying to explain to him that it meant nothing. He had to get a PPO. Anyway, now he's dating a girl who works in the hospital's billing department. We heard that the two of them may be getting married soon and my girlfriend has just never recovered. She still loves him and keeps trying all of these stupid schemes to get him back."

"I guess these days love and sex aren't necessarily connected," she said.

"They are to me," I said.

"Me too, unfortunately," she said.

"That's a good thing," I said. "You'll be much happier in the long run."

"Oh I'm sure of that," she said. "I have another year and a half of school left. And as of last night, I have no way of paying my bills. Once my savings run out, excuse me, I'll be up shit creek without a paddle."

"What happened last night?" I asked.

"Mr. Laurel, last night I went in to fill out my paperwork for the new owners of the company I work for. One of the owners took one look at me and decided that he liked me or something. He made me an offer that I had to refuse. He was just gross. He's some greasy old guy in his forties with a big gut, way too much hair on his chest and a bunch of cheesy gold necklaces. When I said no, he pointed out that I could lose my job. I still said no."

"So that's why you were upset," I said. "What did you do for a living?"

She looked down at the floor. "No comment," she said. "It's not something I want to talk about but it's honest work and it's legal."

I looked at my watch. We still had about five minutes before the florists deadline was over. "I'm hungry," I said.

"Mr. Laurel, I could make us something," she said. "I'm not the world's best cook but I can make a lot of things."

"Actually, Dahlia, I was hoping that we could go out to lunch together. We could kind of share our misery and maybe put our heads together to find solutions to our mutual problems."

"I'd love that," she said. "I really can't cook that well. I try but I just missed out on the culinary gene."

I laughed when she said that. "It took years before Linda could cook too," I said. "She almost poisoned me a couple of times but I loved her so much that I didn't care." Just thinking back on it and remembering how much I'd loved Linda when we first got together hit me like someone had just stabbed me in the heart. I guess up to that point, I'd been only considering the bitch Linda had become over the years and not the beautiful young woman that I fell in love with all those years ago.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Did I say the wrong thing?"

"No, Dahlia," I said. "I was just remembering Linda the way she was."

We ended up going to a small Italian restaurant that was only a few blocks away from the condo complex. We had a pleasant conversation that took away some of my growing depression over what was going on in my life. I guess all of those old sayings about misery loves company can be taken more than one way. We were both miserable, but being together lifted our spirits.

Finally, at about three o'clock in the afternoon, I drove us home. Just as I pulled up to enter the parking structure, I saw a teen aged boy drive in front of Dahlia's condo and hot foot it over to her door. We got there just as he was putting the flowers on her doorstep.

Dahlia's face broke out in a smile. "Let's see," she said. "I know these aren't from my grandma. So who could they be from?" She looked over at me and smiled. The delivery kid came back over to the door. "Do you want to sign for these?" he asked excitedly. Dahlia signed his clipboard and handed it back to him.

"Seems to me I heard something about a tip," he hinted.

"Seems to me it was supposed to be a big one too," I said. "What's the biggest tip you've ever gotten?"

"A thousand bucks," said the kid.

"You're a lying sack of shit," I said, causing Dahlia to laugh.

"Okay my biggest tip so far was twenty bucks," he said.

"I was going to give you fifty," I said. "But you were supposed to have these here two hours ago. The tip was if you'd gotten the flowers here within an hour of me getting off of the phone with your boss."

"Dammit," he said. "That was why she put your flowers in the back of the truck. They were supposed to have been delivered FIRST."

"And that's why you didn't get your tip," I said. His face immediately went into sick puppy mode. "But look at it this way. You got something far more valuable than money. You got experience. You learned the wrong way to handle the job. Now in the future you'll do things in a better and more organized manner. Experience is a good teacher."

"Wow thanks mister," he said sadly. "I'll run right over to best buy and see how many X-box games I can buy with experience. Maybe I can take my girlfriend out using my experience. You have a happy Valentine's Day."

Dahlia was smiling at me and sticking her lip out too. "Oh all right," I said. "But I'm still not giving you the fifty." I gave him twenty bucks and both he and Dahlia were happy. I actually felt good too. Dahlia had kissed me on the cheek and told me I'd made her Valentine's Day a happy one.

I stepped back into my condo at three fifteen. Linda was there and she was pissed. She looked at me when I came in. "Where were you?" she asked.

"Linda, I told you where I was going," I said. "I have some papers that you need to sign."

"Why do I need to sign papers?" she asked.

"Because Linda, I'm going to die someday," I said.

"No you're not," she smirked. "You're going to live forever the way you run and work out. Your body is like some kind of machine."

"Linda, healthy men drop dead every day of heart attacks or cancer. They get into car accidents and all sorts of things. When I bought this condo, I signed the papers alone. I'm updating my will and noticed that your name isn't on the documents for the condo. If something did happen to me, they could throw you out of here and resell the place. Or you wouldn't be able to sell it if you needed any money for medical bills or any other reason."

"You actually think about what would happen to me if you..." she began. "Honey nothing will ever happen to you because I would never let it. We argue sometimes and most of the time it's about really stupid things, but Stanley, you amaze me sometimes. You really do love me don't you?"

"You'd be surprised by the amount of love I have for you, Linda," I said. I was sure that negative numbers couldn't go that far below zero without a special calculator.

I stuck the papers on the desk and Linda, as I figured signed them all, including the one from the plant I'd tucked in between the sheets of the condo papers. Linda had just made herself responsible for paying for the loan I'd taken against our equity in the condo and also had signed herself out of receiving any money from my retirement plan.

She'd only signed them so she could get on with her next set of questions. "So Stanley do you remember what I told you this morning?" she asked.

"Oh Shit," I said. "Linda, give me a few minutes. I need to go into the office." I went into our home office and opened up Microsoft Publisher on our computer. I looked through the greeting card templates and made Linda a Valentine's Day card. I made sure to spell her name wrong to really piss her off.

A few minutes later I went back into the living room. With the biggest cheesiest smile I could muster, I handed her the card. "Happy Valentine's day Honey," I said.

She had the same expression on her face that she'd have had if she bit into a fried shit sandwich. Her mouth dropped open and she looked at me with a mixture of anger and confusion. "Who is Limdy?" she asked.

"You see. That's part of the problem," I said. "Five minutes ago you were sure that I loved you and now because my old fingers hit the wrong keys you're angry. Fuck this. That's why I hate Valentine's Day and all of those other Hallmark holidays. A guy just can't win." I walked into the bedroom and slammed the door behind me.

I got into bed to take a nap fighting the urge to laugh. A few minutes after I got into bed Linda cracked the door and looked at me. As soon as she made sure that I was asleep she went back into the living room and I heard her on the phone.

"No he hasn't given me shit, yet," she said. "Well... wait a minute. He did give me a half ass Valentine's Day card that looked like he did it in crayon. He even spelled my fucking name wrong."

"What? Hell no, I didn't get any flowers and he hasn't mentioned the restaurant. Are you sure your boss said he got us a reservation?"

"What do you mean he might be testing me? Oh I get it. He's trying to get me all pissed off and then he'll just bring out my gifts. Okay, two can play at that game."

A few minutes later the door opened and Linda got in bed with me. She put her arm around me and started to kiss me. I was horrified. But I wasn't going to be whorified. I rolled over in the opposite direction and mumbled, "Leave me alone...Tired."

She actually sat up in bed. "Stanley, are you okay?"

She looked at me like she actually cared. Maybe her mind was just working. "There's something wrong here," she said. "This makes twice you've turned down sex."

"Linda, over the past month or so since we started arguing about it and you told me it would be a long time until we had sex again, I've started to focus on different things," I said. "There are certain things I want to do before I die and I need to start on the list. I guess I overdid the run this morning so I'm really tired." Her eyes got really big and she stared at me.

"Stanley, is there something I should know?" she asked. "Have you been to the doctor lately? What is on your list? Maybe I could help you with some of them. How long do we have?"

Then it hit me. The silly bitch thought that I was dying and I'd made a bucket list. She came back in a couple of times during the evening.

"Uhm Stanley, you don't want to go out for dinner or anything, do you?" she asked once.

"Tired," I said.

"Stanley, Honey, do you remember what day it is?" she asked. "It's Valentine's Day and it's almost over."

"Thank God," I said. "Now things can get back to normal."

"Stanley, are we doing anything for Valentine's Day?" she asked exasperatedly.

"I already gave you a card didn't I?" I said. She slammed the door so hard the whole building shook.

She came back to bed at about midnight wearing a nightgown so thick I thought she was wearing armor. She stayed as far from me as the bed's dimensions would allow and tried to pull all of the blankets off of me. She was so angry I thought she was going to spontaneously combust. It was all I could do not to laugh.

I woke up early the next morning and got ready to go out and run again. While I was in the kitchen grabbing a quick pre-run snack Linda marched into the room.

"Good Morning Honey," I said cheerfully.

"Stanley, where the fuck is my bracelet?" she screamed. "What happened to the restaurant and my God damned flowers?"

"Linda, are you high?" I asked her. "What are you talking about?"

"Someone told me that you'd gone into the jewelry shop and bought me a bracelet for Valentine's Day and got us a reservation at my favorite restaurant," she said. "But all you got me was that dumb assed home-made card."

I pretended that I was hurt and looked up at her. "At least I put some effort into the card, Linda," I said. "What did you give me?"

"I tried to give you what you're always begging for," she said.

"What?" I asked. "Let me get this straight. I'm supposed to spend almost three thousand dollars for a brand new diamond encrusted bracelet. Pay another two hundred for the custom inscription on the back. Drop at least three hundred dollars for dinner at that snooty French restaurant that I don't even like and then still spend a hundred or so on fresh flowers. I'm buying you all kinds of fresh and new things and you want to give me a fifty year old pussy that doesn't cost you a thing. How is that fair?"