Chapter Thirty-Seven

It had taken half a bottle to get up the courage. She of course felt wrecked the next morning with Benjamin’s dog breath in her mouth and a lone sock near her ear. But something had told her Whitney’s mother would be scary. And her stray hunch was right.

Denise recounted the conversation with a palm full of Advil and a coffee, black. She had twenty minutes to get to the office, and she looked like had gotten ready in far less time than that. She considered the contents of her fridge but decided against cooking when her stomach rebelled against the idea of leftover Chinese or scrambled eggs. She had won a small victory but had never felt lonelier. She had looked the beast in the eye and won.

“Can’t say many have managed that feat, Denise. I’m even scared of her!” George Jennings’s voice felt like washing mud off her feet in a cool pond. She blushed at the odd thought, but George had always left her blushing, that thought causing her to blush even more. He was her dad’s age for crying out loud. No, actually, he was twelve years younger but still managed to hang with the older crowd, his lion’s heart earning him respect even with those who had hardly earned any themselves.

“Why’d you do it, George? Why’d you give me this case?” Denise rested her back against the refrigerator door, one she’d decorated in her father’s post cards and afterthought magnets he sent from his trips. The corner of the Rocky Mountains poked her in the shoulder.

“Denise, you’re the best I’ve got. I mean that. You work hard, you care. And considering I’ve got a lot going on right now, I figured I could trust you with this one.” She could hear the swallow through the phone. George’s wife, Bethanny, cheated on him, left, and still managed to weasel her way to a solid alimony package. But George never bad mouthed her or cracked jokes at her expense. Denise could hear only sadness in him, and it frightened her that maybe it was because it was becoming the one language she knew best. “My buddy, Walt, is a good egg and is wrapped up in the family drama. If I can’t be there to do him this favor, then I knew you could.” Denise wasn’t so sure, the memory of the phone call doing its best to make her doubt herself again. But there it lingered, George’s sadness, and before she had the chance to blush at the thought of rocking him in her arms like a child, she softly got off the phone. 

She moved to the couch partly numb and tried to imagine life as Marge Marksmen. It was a practice recommended to her by Pastor Luke. She used to visit him regularly in his office as she was completing her master’s degree and every little sideways look or backhanded comment put her on edge. She once found herself trailing a little old lady who had refused to use her blinker when cutting in front of Denise. Not her finest moment, Denise mused as her head beat to the pulse of the memory.

Luke had been so kind. He found no fault in her, just in her reactions. He told her a story once about how he’d thrown a golf club through his living room window when he couldn’t get cable to connect to their TV. Not his finest moment either, he had said. Lately, Luke had looked old and despondent, and Denise had heard the rumors that his wife, Agnes, wasn’t doing so well. She wanted to go up to him and give him advice that would change his heart like his had changed hers. But what could she offer a pastor when her head killed from a hangover and the only sense of encouragement she regularly received was from a fifty-pound panting sack of hair.

“All right, all right, let’s go.” Benjamin sprung on his heels and pawed the air as Denise retrieved his leash near the front door. As he forcefully guided her outside and into Little Rock’s stifling morning air, Denise put on the socks and shoes of Marge Marksmen and realized she had gotten off easier than was to be expected. Denise couldn’t imagine raising an autistic kid, and then there was Whitney’s pregnancy. All those years raising your babies and then your grandchild and then your own kid goes and ruins everything with a bolt of hot anger and a stolen gun.

Denise marveled that Marge Marksmen hadn’t lost her mind.

Benjamin tugged hard on the leash. “Okay, okay but just a quick walk. I’m gonna be late.” Denise tried to ignore the fact that it didn’t matter if she was late or not. She got there absurdly early to begin with and then felt like she’d hardly notice the rest of the day if it weren’t for Branson whose primary concern was Whitney talking him up to the partners. She didn’t know how to tell Branson that George wasn’t the chatting-up type. That he was different, and the difference made her feel weak in the stomach.

When George had first hired her, she had thought that she was serving a purpose and simultaneously making her father cringe at her penchant for bottom-rung living. But she also knew her father didn’t care and was too concerned with his child bride. And something deep down inside of her flipped its switch, and she was no longer at Jennings and Jacobs to torture her father but to remain closely in orbit with a man she was afraid she was in love with.

Denise shook her head hard on the sidewalk. She’d go by her mom’s this weekend and recount happy memories that never existed just to see if she could get her mother to smile. There was a dark hole inside her mother that Denise was always quick to edge her away from. But at the same time, it always looked so inviting. Denise had her faith, and it saw her through, but faith was an act she practiced that never seemed other-worldly enough for her. It was like a heavy jacket she had to remember to put on but kept taking off when everything started to feel a bit too warm. Faith never seemed to get her closer to George.

Benjamin squatted and did his business before Denise realized what was happening. She had forgotten the plastic bag she usually brought to clean up the mess. But there was no bag now, just her empty hand, and she tried hard not to link the mess before her with how she felt inside.