silence. Trixie bounded up to me and planted her nose between my butt cheeks, her usual greeting.
He gave the leash a little tug but didn’t make mention of Trixie’s seeming love of my ass. Trixie’s ass love was the most lovin’ I’d had in two years. “Hey, Alison!” he said, a big smile on his face. “Boy, I haven’t seen you in a dog’s age,” he said, laughing. “No pun intended.”
None taken. “Hi, Jackson.”
“Where the heck have you been?” he asked, pushing back a lock of his light brown hair. I could see that he had recently stocked up on whatever superhold hair gel he liked to use; individual strands of hair were artfully arranged atop his hair in a messy, Abercrombie & Fitch model kind of do. He realized that his question was probably self-explanatory. Where had I been? Living somewhere else while my house was being cleaned, fumigated, and repainted. He looked down at the ground.
“Oh, here and there,” I said, bending down to pet Trixie. I stole a look at him from my crouch; he didn’t seem like a drug- and alcohol-addled, anger-obsessed murderer. But, hey, you never know. I wondered if I should be a little more concerned about him, but the look on his face was pure fecklessness and the vibe he gave off was not threatening in any way.
“I’m really sorry about Ray,” he said in that condescending way that made my skin crawl.
I nodded a thank-you at him.
“What a mess, huh?” He toed the ground with his fancy nonathletic sneaker. I didn’t think any serious athlete would be caught dead in an orange sneaker with pink trim, but that’s just one woman’s opinion.
“Yes, it was a mess,” I concurred.
That out of the way, he decided to commence with the small-talk portion of our conversation. “Did you take a summer vacation?” he asked. Holy subject change, Batman.
Jesus, we’re going to have a whole conversation, I thought. Did I take a summer vacation? “Yes. I went to Quebec.”
“Très bien!” he said. “Parlez-vous français?”
My last name is Bergeron and my parents were French Canadian. What do you think? I tried to be nice. I didn’t want him murdering me in a drug-induced rage. “Yes, I do.”
“Moi, aussi!”
“Great!” Or more appropriately: fantastique! I plastered a big grin on my face. “I’m kind of in a hurry, Jackson. I’ve got to run,” I said, opening my car door. Trixie sat beside me, looking up at me with her sad/happy dog face.
He put his hand on my arm. “Listen, I know we had a rather unpleasant spring.”
I’ll say.
“Things are better, though. Terri and I are in counseling and I think we’re going to be able to work through everything.”
What planet did this guy live on? First of all, why did either of them think I gave a rat’s ass about their marriage? I lived through a marriage that couldn’t qualify as remotely happy and yet I only confided that in my best friend. Okay, and my priest. Secondly, his wife was painting him as a crazed substance abuser and murderer and he’s living on Sunnybrook Farm. “That’s great, Jackson. I wish you the best of luck,” I said. I looked at him closely; nope, not scary at all.
“You know how this is, Alison. Either you throw it away,” he said, looking at me pointedly, “or you try to work things through. We’re going to make it,” he said with a confidence that really wasn’t warranted, given what I knew.
I was one of the “throw it away” people he was referring to, so I didn’t have a reply. When your husband’s penis has as many stops as the local Metro North train line, I think you have the right to “throw it away.” I smiled again.
“Terri’s been taking night classes at your school, too. She wants to finish her degree,” he said.
“Great.” My guess was that she had declared a biology major what with Ray having been head of the department.
We stood, looking at each other for a few seconds. He reached out awkwardly and gave me a hug. I let my arms hang at my sides and waited for him to release me.
“I’ve really got to go,” I reminded him.
He let me go. “Oh, and Terri has hired Magda to do our house cleaning!” he said. “I forgot to tell you.”
“She’s a great cleaning lady,” I said. Magda could really spread her gossip wings cleaning that house. I got into the car and gunned it out of the spot,