Chasing Rainbows A Novel - By Long, Kathleen Page 0,15
I muttered, just as the barking began and the phone warbled from behind me. I picked up the receiver but said nothing.
“Mrs. Murphy?” Mrs. Cooke’s voice reached across the line.
“I’m sorry,” I spoke using my best recorded-voice imitation. “No one is available to take your call at the moment. Please leave a message after the beep.”
“I know you’re there,” Mrs. Cooke said. “Your car’s in the drive. You need to get a muzzle for that--”
“Beep!” I drew out the word until I heard the unmistakable clunk of my next-door neighbor hanging up in my ear.
Maybe she wasn’t a morning person. But then, who was?
Poindexter stood waiting for me as I eased open the back door. “What part of no barking before eight o’clock in the morning don’t you understand?”
He graced me with a happy dog wiggle before he trotted over to the kitchen counter where I kept his treats. He sat, nose tipped toward the counter, left front paw in the air. If nothing else, the dog had a flair for the dramatic, and who was I to say no to that?
I shook two treats out of the box and tossed them into Poindexter’s bowl.
Now that I was up before seven and had nowhere to be, a major decision loomed before me. What on earth was I going to do with myself?
I waited for the coffeepot to finish its cycle, filled a mug, then chugged a steaming mouthful before I ran through my options.
I could go for a jog.
I shook my head. Too much, too fast. I needed to pace myself.
I could draw up a goal poster, update my resume, surf the Web for charities that needed volunteers. I could sign up to work the food line at the local soup kitchen, offer to read to the blind, take meals to the homebound. Or, I smiled, a flicker of determination lighting inside me, I could purge.
I knew just where to start.
Back upstairs, I stood at the door to the smallest bedroom in our house--the room Ryan had used as a home office.
I’d spent the past few weeks fantasizing about tossing a gas-soaked rag and a match into the space, but the rational part of my brain kept reminding the irrational part that my homemade firebomb would take out all of my belongings as well as those belonging to he-who-sleeps-with-pregnant-slut-bimbos, or PSBs for short.
Ryan hadn’t taken a thing from his office, and I couldn’t help but wonder when he would. Once he took his things, my fate would be sealed, but the truth was, my fate had already been sealed. Any emotional connection between us had snapped a long time ago. Ryan was gone.
I was alone. At my age, chances were pretty good I’d stay that way.
Don’t get me wrong. I still had moments in which I wished I could reset my life. My dad would be alive. My marriage would be intact and Ryan and I would find a way to fix what we’d let break. My life would be what it had been before I fell into the chasm of personal chaos.
After all, if Dallas could write off a whole season, shouldn’t I be able to write off a few weeks?
I slouched against the doorframe and stared at the shelves next to Ryan’s desk. Framed certificates. Plaques. High school swimming trophies.
Swimming.
That seemed an appropriately passive-aggressive sport for a guy who’d grown up to cheat on his wife while pretending to rough it on business trips. Not that I had anything against swimmers as a group.
The crack in my heart began to fuse, fueled by the anger suddenly boiling inside me. The morning sun shimmied between the blinds in the office, gleaming off the crystal trophies I’d worked so loyally to keep dust-free. Day after day. Year after year after year.
I sneered at the little men in their little Speedos.
I’d never nicked or scratched or chipped a single one.
Just look at them. Spotless. Perfect. Extremely fragile.
I snatched one from the shelf and held it, testing its weight. Poindexter tipped his head from side to side, studying my every move. When I tossed the trophy from one palm to the other and then back again, understanding lit in the dog’s eyes. He turned and ran, disappearing beneath the bed in my room.
I tapped the trophy tentatively against one corner of Ryan’s mahogany desk.
Nothing.
I banged.
Nothing.
Then I slammed the perfect replica of the cheating male species against the desk with all my might.
The crystal remained intact. The desk...not so much.