The Corner Table at Mickey's Pt. 02

"Okaaaaay ..."

"When you talked about 'affection and respect' the other day? I think that goes for me too, with all it implies." She waited to see what that cryptic comment meant, then realized it implied an upper boundary, a definition of their relationship. "So, I think I'm going to not go to San Diego with you. A week away isn't something I can manage."

He heard the little "hmm" she made, but he didn't know if that was disappointment at the implicit statement or "I'm processing."

He went on. "But I'd still like to see you when you're around here. I only ask that you don't rub my nose in it."

"Jim!" She sounded genuinely horrified. "I would never do that. And ditto."

It would have been a lie if he'd said that someone else hadn't occurred to him, but he didn't think it was too likely in the immediate future. "Of course."

There was an awkward pause. She filled it. "I think this is a minor disappointment for me"—she pushed on over the start of his protest—"and a major good idea for you. You're not going to remain on the market for long. And I told you before: the second something else appears, I'm going to bow out. And I will truly wish you well."

≪ Working through lunch.

Mallory saw Jim's text early on Tuesday. Friday and now Tuesday? She called Robin. "Hey, lunch?"

"It was nice. The place was beautiful." Mallory was describing her birthday trip. "We found this little restaurant that had the best food I've had in ages. Josh slipped the maître d' something to get us this little private table out on the patio. It was romantic as hell."

"And?" Robin batted her eyes wildly.

"Yes," Mallory laughed. "And that was quite nice, thank you, and now we're done with that topic."

Robin mocked a scowl and threw a fry. "So what did you do?" After a beat, "Other than that, I mean." Mallory threw the fry back.

"We went ziplining, and ..." As the description continued on Robin's face grew more thoughtful. Mallory finally wound down.

"That was a busy weekend," Robin said. "If you factor in meals and sleep and"—a little eyebrow wiggle followed by an "I'm done" hand raised—"you must have been run off your feet."

Mallory's expression grew less animated, mimicking Robin's. "Yeah. I needed a vacation to recover from my vacation. We didn't spend much time just hanging." She picked at her salad. "In fact, I was going to talk to you ..." She trailed off.

"I'm listening." Robin's voice was encouraging.

"Do you think it's normal that we drive for eight up hours up there, eight hours back, and I don't know how many hours around the area with the radio blaring the entire time?" Had Mallory been looking at Robin's face, she'd have had her answer without going any further. "I mean, we were singing along and busting each other on what songs we liked, but that radio never went off or even down low. He said a lot of romantic things over dinner, and some pretty hot things when we got back to the room, but ..." She trailed off and looked at Robin expectantly.

"No."

Mallory waited. When Robin didn't say anything else. "Just no?"

"No, I don't think it's normal." At Mallory's exasperated exhalation, Robin grinned. "Sorry! Okay ..." She paused and looked away, thinking of the words she wanted. "If you two had been married for twenty years, you knew each other well and were comfortable, maybe. But even then—" She wrinkled her nose.

"After a couple of months of dating ... You've never traveled together. You've never lived together. You hadn't even slept together." That wasn't a renewal of teasing; Robin was in serious mode. "In the grand scheme of things, you barely know each other. In that situation, no, it's not normal."

She paused, debating whether to say what was really on her mind. Decided yes. "To me, that either means he finds you not that interesting as a person ... or that he isn't that interesting as a person. And, since all my friends are super interesting ..."

Jim was glad that he was left mostly alone during his Wednesday shift at Mickey's. He sent Tom and Shannon off for their date and busied himself with pulling everything out from under the bar, cleaning, and putting it back. Whether it was that or just luck of the draw with regulars having their own business, he managed to avoid anything beyond filling drink orders and sending food tickets back to Frankie.

When the couple got back, Shannon said, "How're ya keepin'?"

"Okay."

She gave him a searching look, then a pat on the shoulder and, "Thanks a million again."

Tom helped him finish the last section of the counter. "Thing's okay with Addison?"

"Yeah, we're good. We're just friends with benefits when you come down to it."

Tom nodded. "Figured that. Anything else?"

"Nah."

Tom started to say something, then nodded and moved over to help a customer.

The next day things were a little more annoying. "Financial statements are due. Lori's going ahead," Anthony said.

"I expected that."

"Anything you want to change?"

"Nope."

"Okay. I'll sit down with them next week. You sure you don't want to be there?"

"Not in this lifetime." They both chuckled over that.

Friday, he looked down as his phone buzzed. He was glad to take a mental break from listening to Lori explain to him, with a veneer of patience that barely hid her anger, that he needed to "really think before next week because things are getting serious." The text was from Mallory.

≪ Hey. This is two weeks in a row. What's up?

How should I respond to that? "Hey, I don't feel like seeing you." Or, "How's Josh?" Yeah, fuck that.

≫ Dealing with my divorce.

Single tear emoji. Single tear emoji. Beer glass emoji. Beer glass emoji.

Around eleven he slid in the back door of Mickey's. A glance out front showed it was a typical Friday zoo. His table was, of course, occupied. He debated shoving in among the crowd at the bar. Or ... what the hell. Why not? With a wave to the two in the kitchen, he slid in beside Tom without a word and started filling orders.

They didn't speak for the next hour and a half except for, "A Horsefeather?" Jim asked.

"Beats the fuck out of me," Tom replied and tossed him a bartender recipe book.

When the last of the crowd was shooed and Tom's helper was putting the final load into the dishwasher, Tom held up a bottle of Jameson and raised an eyebrow.

"Sure."

They sipped in silence for a while. Shannon came out. "I'm for bed."

"I'll be up in a bit."

She nodded, kissed him on the cheek, blew one to Jim, and headed out.

"I wondered if you'd be in tonight," Tom said.

Jim shrugged.

"Feel like talking about it?"

The second shrug conveyed, "Not really."

Tom nodded. "When Shannon clued me in, I realized I should have seen it."

"I didn't see it myself."

"Sorry man."

≪ NO excuses this week. Tuesdays are sacred.

He debated. Glancing at the clock, he stepped off the treadmill and went over to sit on the bench outside one of the studios where a group workout was going on.

"Hey, Robin. Join us for lunch today?"

"You buying? You owe me."

"I owe you a smoothie!" he protested.

"Compound interest is a wonderful thing."

"No deal, counselor. If you want lunch, you owe me drinks some evening."

"One."

"Two."

"Deal."

Jim set his glass down. "So, he says, 'I don't believe you memorized them all. What's the capital of Missouri?' She looks at him, 'Easy. M, dummy.'"

Robin groaned. The blonde jokes had become a ritual, the worse the better.

Jim reached for the bill. "I've got this."

Robin looked innocent. "I was told there'd be pie."

Jim looked offended. "Three."

Robin didn't bat an eye. "Contract says two."

"Shyster."

"Newbie."

Jim burst out laughing and called for pie.

As they were leaving, Mallory said, "This was fun. No more skipping Tuesdays," with a little poke in Jim's ribs.

Robin glanced at the two, her glance not obviously sliding to Jim's face. "Any time if I'm free," she said to him.

"And I'll be by this Friday," Mallory added.

Mallory arrived at Mickey's a little late. She saw Jim and a man in deep conversation and dropped onto a barstool. They weren't being particularly quiet.

"The look on her face was interesting, to say the least," Anthony was saying, laughing. "She was practically having a stroke as she told her attorney to freeze every damn dime you had."

"She can't freeze what I don't own. Will the judge allow her to stop what I do have?"

"No. Garrison's a reasonable guy. But she's going to drag you in front of him, I bet."

Mallory's face was tightening as she started to come up to speed on the conversation.

"Tell her attorney that if she does that, the leeway I was allowing her goes away, and she'll get even less."

"Hell no. I want my fees for representing you." Anthony was obviously kidding as he said it.

"Fine. I'll sue her for those too."

"Oh my God! Then the 'You're screwing me out of what I'm owed' harangue will become something even worse. On second thought, I'll talk to her attorney." They both laughed.

Mallory erupted. "You're seriously doing that?"

Jim spun and saw Mallory over his shoulder. "What?"

"You're screwing her out of her share."

"No, I—"

"I guess you managed to figure out some way to hide your money so she comes out of it with nothing?"

"No, I—"

"And now you have the gall to treat it like it's some kind of joke!"

Jim's face closed. It reminded Mallory of another time she'd seen that expression on his face, but too late.

"I should just reward her for cheating on me? Maybe give her my share of our money too?"

He ignored the "I'm not saying that" protest.

"Maybe you think she needs some extra spending money for weekend getaways with her lover?"

Mallory shook her head and tried again, but he continued to talk right over her.

"I know! I could hire her fuck buddy and then tell him he doesn't need to show up for work so they can bonk all they want. Sound good?"

"Of course not! I'm not saying that."

"Then what are you saying?"

"It's just not right to try to crucify her! She fucked up, so burn the bitch, right? Gotta get your pride back! Show her who's boss to salve your male ego that someone else touched your toys. I understand why you might want that ... I really do ... but she was a good wife for a lot of years and doesn't deserve to be destitute and desperate just because you happen to control the money in the marriage."

Jim looked at her like she was insane.

"How is handing her almost a quarter of a million dollars in cash, a paid-for house worth twice that amount, plus half of our savings constitute leaving her desperate?"

Mallory's head rocked back in shock. "A quarter ..."

Jim stared at her, furious. "The on-paper worth of my share of the company now minus what I inherited is about four hundred and eighty thousand. Half of that is just shy of a quarter-million."

Mallory's mind was trying to process the "share" part. He owns the whole thing, doesn't he?

"And she can sell the fucking house if it's too much for her. Between what she gets for that, her half of what I own in the company, and her half of the savings, she'll end up with the better part of a million, almost all of it liquid. Pretty fucking nice nest egg for a thirty-five-year-old who has zero debt."

He looked away, his thoughts obviously bitter before turning back to snarl at the woman now struck mute. "Which, by the way, is because I've paid for every fucking thing since day one, including the undergraduate school loans she brought into the marriage as well as her graduate nursing degree.

"Yeah, she'll have to get a fulltime job but so fucking what? She's a nurse; it won't be hard. Or is having to work for a living when you blow up your marriage just some fucking plot driven by male ego and the patriarchy?" The contempt in those last words curdled the space between them.

Finally, after a very long pause, she said, "I'm sorry. But you—"

"Yeah, well, so am I!" he said, smiling sarcastically as he shoved back his chair and stalked over to the bar. "Put it on a tab, if you don't mind," he said to Tom.

"Sure, Jim."

Jim muttered something to Tom, causing Tom to glance at her, and left.

Anthony had sat silent, shocked, through the entire exchange. Now he stood, his face carefully blank, and said, "I guess you're Mallory. It's good to finally put a face to a name." He gave a nod and a smile—one that never even remotely came close to the eyes staring at her—and headed out himself.

Mallory sat there in shock for a while. Then she moved over to the bar and asked for a seltzer. The other customers' heads turned back to what they were doing. Shannon's head disappeared from the swinging door, not without a raised eyebrow and a look that Mallory found inscrutable.

"What did he say to you, Tom?"

"You won't like it."

"Tell me anyway."

Tom gave her a tight smile. "He said, 'No wonder she can't meet a good guy, she doesn't think they exist.'"

Her face fell at that judgment. She pleaded with Tom, "I thought he was going to burn Lori at the stake and leave her broke, no job, and a house she couldn't even pay taxes on."

Tom's look turned cynical. "So, bottom line, you decided he wasn't a decent guy based upon hearing the tail end of a conversation?"