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.There had been a message from Frank McMurtry just that morning that McMurtry Landscaping was forced to find another accounting firm.A little something about Stone Accounting filing taxes late and missing the payroll deadline.Frederick felt saddened by this, but the sadness seemed detached, floating somewhere near him but not affecting his life.Frank McMurtry was a good man.He would miss him.Good-bye, Frank.Chandra appeared in the office doorway.“This is how I imagine you, when I think of you,” she told him.“Sitting just as you are, in front of your computer.Have you even moved from the thing since I’ve been gone?”Frederick looked up at her and smiled.Had he moved? He had rushed speeding through a red light.He had driven up and down endless streets.He had dodged Budgie and a Conestoga at Joyce’s.He’d been to Panama Red’s and the China Boat so many times that the man who fills the cigarette machine now knew his name.He had gone barefoot for olives and gin.He had tackled his own nephew from behind a lilac bush.And he had moved through space, as time does, unintelligently, his arms and legs flailing over on Bobbin Road for just a glimpse of her.Had he even moved? Her Majesty wondered.Yes, by criminy, he had moved a fucking lot.“Not much,” he answered.McMurtry Landscaping was becoming a blur in front of his eyes.Was he crying? He mustn’t cry.He heard her walk away and then the sounds of paper bags being lifted.He imagined that she had just flung her purse strap over her shoulder, as he had seen her do so often.Her footfalls came back down the hall to his office.“If I leave you my new phone number, will you promise not to give it to Mother or Joyce?” she asked.Frederick could hear what sounded like pity in her voice.He looked up, pretending surprise that she was there.“Whatever,” he said.“I especially don’t want to hear from Joyce,” Chandra said.“I had lunch with her on Friday and that’s enough for a while.You know how annoying she can be.” Frederick reached for his martini and then turned his chair toward her.“Listen,” he said.“I’ve been to dinner with Joyce and Reginald and I find them to be outstanding people.I’ll be spending more time with them and it makes me uncomfortable for you to talk ill of your sister.” He thought of Joyce patting Robbie’s arm at Panama Red’s.The nefarious witch! But then he remembered.Joyce was Robbie’s mother.She had probably patted his bottom in their early days together.Frederick’s emotions were now like a ball of yarn that’d been on the floor with a cat.They were so tangled that he didn’t know who to be jealous of anymore, who to hate, who to love.The whole world was beginning to look like one big ambush.“Joyce and Reginald?” Chandra asked.“My sister?”“She makes a great vegetarian lasagna,” Frederick said.“And Reginald is a superb history teacher.And who can fault Teddy for practicing safe sex? I feel enlightened just to be near them.”He turned back to his computer.He knew she was staring at him, reading him, divining the truth.She’d done it so many times in twenty-one years that he could feel her eyes on his face.He concentrated on McMurtry Landscaping.“Really.” Chandra said.It wasn’t a question.“Maybe they’ll change their minds now that you’ve assaulted their son.”Frederick remembered Joyce’s angry phone call that morning.If you so much as breathe upon a child of mine again, I’ll have you arrested.He studied the figures before him on the screen.It had been a good month for Frank McMurtry, what with summer firmly ensconced and all.“I’ll leave my number posted to the fridge,” Chandra said finally.“It’s unlisted.” She waited.He wondered what she had expected to find.An angry Frederick Stone? A Frederick Stone ready to slit his wrists in an upstairs bathtub, sticky blood all over the tiled floor? A Frederick Stone ready to forgive and forget on any terms? Didn’t she realize that there were fissures now in his psyche? Cracks large enough for one to drive through comfortably in a Mack truck? Couldn’t she see that he had grown?“Fine,” he said.He heard her footfalls flowing down the hall and into the kitchen.Panic rose in his chest.Again, he had wanted to hold her, to bury his nose into the perfumed smell of her hair, to have her face nestle into his neck.She’d been wearing those faded jeans, what she called her gardening jeans, and the worn flannel shirt she seemed to have been born in.Such familiar things to him, these items of clothing.He had wanted to release the ponytail from its elastic band, unbutton the flannel shirt, and hold her warm breast in his hand.The breasts are paired mammary glands on the front of the chest, composed of fatty tissues and glands.“Not now, Mr.Bator, for Christ’s sake,” Frederick said.“Can’t you see what’s going on here? Besides, where have you been for four days, when I really needed you?” He was ready to promise her anything if she’d come back.But he had seen a show just the day before that had changed his mind: Men Who Chase Women and the Women Who Despise Them for It.Frederick couldn’t remember now whose show it had been, only that he had never seen so many sniveling males in his life.Two of them had even sobbed, broken down on national television and begged for their women to return.There wasn’t an Iron John among them.Frederick thought of his own desperate attempts to find Chandra.What if he had caught the Toyota that afternoon, just weeks ago? Would he have dropped to his knees amid the seagull shit and pleaded with her to return? How many nights would he have called her if she hadn’t moved away from Amy’s house, begging her to return? The universe, the fucking cosmos, something must have had a hand in preventing him from reaching her and becoming just another mewling wimp.He gave no credit whatsoever to The Girls, those three feminist bitches who had once been his friends.When he heard the moving van pull away, followed by the loud muffler on the Toyota, he limped to the window and lifted the curtain just a bit.He wanted to make sure she wouldn’t see him.Once, she did turn to look back at the house, sorrowfully, he thought.He watched as the big orange and white van cut the corner, Chandra following close behind.Then he went directly to the kitchen.Lunch must be almost over since he noticed that the martini pitcher was nearly empty.He found the Post-it note with the new phone number on it
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