Holes in My Armor

Commuting. Hell. Or commuting hell. Two views of the same snake pit.

It was Tuesday, I think. It might have been Monday, but then I usually remember Mondays better, start of that wonderful invention they call the work week. So since I don’t remember exactly, it must have been Tuesday.

Driving into Seattle as usual, north on I-5. From home—Auburn.

Then the weirdness. Tara. Oh, crap.

+

Couple of things first. Have to get this out so maybe later I’ll remember my mood. People like to know these things, I guess. Frame of mind. Whatever.

How were you feeling, Clay?

Well, Doc, I was feeling normal that morning, just basking in my normal hatred of commuting. How’s that for feeling?

Doc: Fairly normal, I’d say.

Someday history will laugh at commuting: colossal waste of time, gargantuan waste of fuel, enormous psychic drain. Big words for the big picture. But my personal view? Thread the needle between the lane-changers and tailgaters, and you’ve got a chance. Barely.

Correction: I was feeling normal plus quite a lot of time stress. That’s fancy talk for thinking you’re going to be late, which is exactly what I was thinking.

+

OK, start with some SUV maniacs and sprinkle in a few eighteen-wheel cowboys. And then add a 7:30 A.M. meeting. I just hoped crunch time wasn’t literal.

I kept telling the dashboard clock to slow down, but it didn’t listen. Do clocks ever listen? I doubt it, but for a little while there I convinced myself this one did. What a fool, huh? Yeah, but it didn’t take long for me to be a bigger fool.

Fool and Tool. No, not an auto parts store, just two short words that rhyme. But for a reason maybe. If you’re a fool, then you’re probably somebody else’s tool.

Next time I’ll get to Tara. Have to prep, work up to it, brace myself. Not easy.

+

I lied—to myself. Not ready for Tara yet.

Who’d ever be ready for the likes of Tara?

Some basics then. My office was in the Belltown neighborhood just north of downtown Seattle. Normal start time was 8 A.M. sharp. Normal as it goes. Then the boss called a special meeting to lay out new profit strategies. Whatever that meant. A directive from the head office (Chicago), I figured. Something that would be all but forgotten in two or three weeks. Even so, I needed to show up on time and have my face seen. Otherwise, I could imagine the consequences.

Clay, there you are. Could you step into my office?

Sure (with piercing pain in temples). What’s up?

We had an important Chicago meeting this morning, Clay. Just wondering why you didn’t see fit to make it on time. (Eyebrows raised.)

Who needs that?

So with new profit strategies at stake, I was motivated, hand in glove with Chicago.

I cleared the S-curves on I-5 and saw that northbound traffic was actually moving past Boeing Field at a reasonable speed, so I had real hope of making that 7:30 meeting.

Until the dirty white delivery truck cut me off—and slowed down.

+

Watch it, you bastard!

I think that’s what I told that delivery truck, though I may have used stronger words. My memory on that is a little fuzzy now.

Funny thing. I was driving in a little Chevy—with a windshield. And it contained my anger, bounced it right back to me. The glass also kept me from crawling out on the hood to wave my fists. Naturally, no one could hear me, so I got brave and barked out a couple of other choice remarks not worth entering into the record.

Enough about my crude language. Small potatoes. Not sorry either.

+

How it went down on I-5 that day: The first thing I had to do was ease up on the gas and let a little space grow in front of my car to avoid running into the stupid delivery truck. I know, a truck can’t be stupid, at least not in the way a driver can, but in my book any truck, with or without driver, that lacks the wisdom to change lanes safely is, ipso facto, stupid.

Sidebar: I have to read legal documents at work sometimes, and ipso facto was my favorite phrase of the day. I just liked the sound of it.

The other thing: With the giant red pickup moving up on my tail, I needed to finesse the rolling slowdown without hitting the brakes. The damn thing crept so close that almost nothing else showed in my rear-view mirror. It was supersized, and the grill sparkled like a toothpaste commercial on 400 percent zoom.

The cab of the pickup wasn’t visible, so I just assumed a driver was perched up there somewhere, probably high enough to talk with the tower over at Boeing Field. That’s the airport owned by King County, not the airplane company. It’s the old airport close to downtown, but it still handles a lot of large jets, including test flights by Boeing. That’s what makes it confusing at first. But I’ve been around Seattle long enough to sort out these things. Almost feel like a native sometimes.

I glanced back at the pickup again and noticed something encouraging. Maybe the tower told the pickup driver to back off. See, I actually noticed a moment when the truck started getting smaller in my mirror. I started breathing again. Relief, yeah, which tends to occur when you realize your fellow commuter won’t actually be imprinting tire tread on top of your car.

Stable then, or almost. I looked again at the dirty white delivery truck in front of me. Visualize the comic panel: Clay Sutler returned his steely gaze to the delivery truck.

That was me: steely eyed. And the delivery truck was still stupid.

+

Whether that delivery truck could pass a fourth-grade math test wasn’t the question. Funny, huh. Cartoon truck with puzzled look hunched over a little desk, front tire curled like a hand around a No. 2 pencil. The point was that I really needed to get around that guy. My 7:30 meeting was getting closer and closer, but the clock still wasn’t listening. We’ve all been there.

So, I eased over to the left side of my lane, opened my eyes wide, and saw a huge yawning gap ahead of the truck. It looked so inviting. Getting to the gap was another matter.

OK, imagine a BLT sandwich, and imagine that the cars on either side of me were the bread slices holding the sandwich together, and imagine me as the bacon in the middle of that sandwich. Right. Couldn’t change lanes, couldn’t go forward, couldn’t go back and couldn’t do much of anything except be the bacon. And sizzle.

+

All so typical. A minute before the delivery truck cut me off, the same truck was tailgating me. Stuff like this always makes me wonder. Why bother with this commute? I mean, really. The job wasn’t bad, but it didn’t pay enough. That meant a cheap little used car and a second-rate apartment 30 miles from work. The Squeeze—my name for it. You can feel it— the relentless vice, tightening, pressing into the ribs. Me, straining to be thinner inside the vice, maybe not even there at all.

I had to get out. I needed that promotion.

Maybe I’d move up to Belltown, walk a few blocks to work, pay a lot of rent for something in a high rise, be close to Pike Place Market, clubs, panhandlers, street crime. I’d have to think about that, run the numbers, walk it through.

I caught the Sounder train into King Street Station once in a while, then hopped a bus through downtown. Trying to make connections can be frantic, but those are usually good days, not like when I need a car on the job. Just my luck, that Tuesday on I-5 was a car day.

OK, pledge to self: Talk about Tara next time for sure. Say it. Ready or not.

+

I remembered staring at the back of the delivery truck and thought there had to be a better way of living. That made me pretty close to normal, I guess. Sometimes I wanted to be normal and sometimes I didn’t. That day I wanted it both ways. I also decided I’d like to share my thoughts with that driver in a dark alley. Maybe that was normal, maybe not, but it’s what I was feeling.

How do you feel, Clay?

Disgusted, Doc. Yeah, that’s how I feel. Disgusted.

Doc: Well, at least you’re not repressing.

I finally noticed something on the back of the truck. It was a sticker, scratched and grimy like the whole damn vehicle, but I got the idea: an 800 number to call Bad Driving Reports.

I’d wanted to call a thousand times before but guess I never thought it would matter. Somehow that day felt different. After all, why should I take all the abuse? The truck driver wasn’t going to jail if I called. Just a reprimand for him. But it would be something. The idea made me feel good.

Fortunately, I had my phone on Bluetooth. Hands free calling. It can look silly, but I found it useful for work calls when I had my hands on the wheel. Safe and legal. Important, I guess, if you care about that sort of thing.

I made the call.

Bad Driving Reports, a woman cheerfully answered. This is Tara. How may I help you?

There I did it. Tara.

Have to stop now. Rest. Regroup. More Tara to talk about, so much more. Don’t know that I can. But I have to.

+

There’s a theory that talking through this sort of thing gets it out of your head. God, I wanted this out of my head.

One thing about Tara’s name. I didn’t really know then how it was spelled. Could have been Tera, could have been something else. Nobody ever said the truth was easy.

Hi, I said to the woman on the phone named Tara. I’m on northbound I-5 and just got cut off by a small white delivery truck. Then he slowed down and boxed me in. And a minute earlier, he was tailgating me.

Oh, I’m sorry, Tara said in a raspy voice. Was there a collision?

No collision. Just a lot of bad driving on his part.

All right. I’ll need the truck’s ID number. It should be on the back near the phone number you called.

Right. I gave her the number. And after another question, I gave her the location of the incident. I wondered where her office was and if the Seattle details would mean anything to her, but the call ended before I could ask.

+

Montana. Something about Tara’s raspy voice reminded me of my old hometown, Lucas. High school maybe. Or it could have been a movie back then, some actress.

Go west, young man.

I did. Stopped at the water’s edge. Puget Sound. Learned how to pronounce it, learned I was in Seattle. Decided to stay a while. Not sure it was a good idea, not sure it wasn’t. Bounced around a few colleges until a degree stuck, moved around the area some, maybe California next, maybe east. Couldn’t go west much more without dealing with a big ocean. But the words sounded good.

Go west, young man.

I read somewhere that Horace Greeley might have never actually said or written that. Some dispute there. Greeley might be some kind of hero, but I thought he was mixed up. He dropped out of school at fourteen, pursued utopia, made himself a newspaper editor, promoted political reform all over the place and a couple of political parties to boot, had Karl Marx as a European correspondent, ran for president, had seven kids but chose to sleep in a boarding house away from his wife (explain that, huh?) but went mad when she died, then died himself in Pleasantville.

Pleasantville! God’s truth, or so I read. But nobody ever said the truth was easy.

+

I had to admit, I felt virtuous. I think now that feeling that way means you’re not virtuous. I don’t know, but that’s the way it was for a few minutes out there on I-5 after I called to report that truck.

How are you feeling, Clay?

Virtuous, Doc. Like I’ve done crazy good and the world’s going to thank me.

Doc: Not a good sign, Clay. Aim for humility and don’t feel so virtuous about it.

When you’re feeling virtuous, humility has to wait, wait for thoughts like these: Good citizens like myself could rid the highways of idiots like that truck driver and his idiot truck.

See, I thought my call worked. Because—well, as if by magic, the truck changed lanes again and let me pass. Pretty smart for an idiot truck.

My mood lifted, I remember. Felt good for at least a mile.

How are you feeling, Clay?

Good, Doc. I did something good and I felt good.

Doc: That’ll change.

It did. Soon enough, Tara called me back. Well, of course. Probably saw my cell number on her caller ID and wrote it down. Or maybe it stayed in her computer log. Either way, she had it. Crap, I should have thought of that. I didn’t want to answer the phone, but decided to be a nice guy and pick up. Hello.

Hi. This is Tara—from Bad Driving Reports. You just called me, correct?

Tara’s voice was a little raspy still, a little sexy. Maybe not Montana, but I liked it. That’s right, I told her. I called about the truck cutting me off. And then after you hung up, the truck moved over and let me go by. It was like a miracle, Tara.

Oh, good. A miracle. I’ll put that in my report.

I had to laugh. All right.

The reason I called is that I forgot to get your name.

My name? Isn’t this supposed to be anonymous?

That’s not our policy, sir. We have to have a name on the report in case we need to clear up something or get back to you with progress on the case.

The case?

Yes, sir. I know it’s a little formal, but that’s the word we use. So if you’ll just give me your name...

I don’t know, Tara. I’m a little concerned about privacy. You know, identity theft. Maybe we should just skip all this and close the case.

Oh, I’m sorry. I can’t do that now. Only a supervisor can close a case. I probably shouldn’t tell you, but I could get in trouble if I don’t put your name in the report. You see if I don’t get your name, our security team will track your phone number and find your name.

Really? You guys would do that?

Yes, sir. And that would cost the company a lot of money because the security team is very good and very fast. Of course, they’re very expensive, and that means it might be a long time before I get a raise. You know, it’s really not fair. I already told you my name.

I braked as traffic slowed ahead. Now that the stupid delivery truck was out of the way, my focus was back on the dashboard clock and being on time for that 7:30 meeting. I was tempted to say my meeting, but it wasn’t mine. It was Chicago’s and I was just planning to attend. An invited guest.

But giving my name? I had to think about that. Tara had given me her first name, and she wanted my full name. Not exactly an even trade. But she sounded so pleasant and a tad sexy. And she was probably right that the company would turn up my identity anyhow. You’d have to live in a cave up in the mountains to have any privacy these days. And certainly if I filed a police report, I’d have to give my name.

OK, I said. It’s Clay Sutler.

Oh, thank you, Mr. Sutler. She confirmed the spelling, then asked, And your address?

I don’t know about that, Tara. Maybe we should have coffee and discuss that. It’s kind of personal, you know. I smiled to myself. Might as well have a little fun with her. I didn’t know if she was local and could actually go out for coffee, but that wasn’t important. I just wanted to make light of her question and see how she responded. And if you want to get personal, call me Clay.

I’m sorry, Mr. Sutler—Clay. My coffee break isn’t for another hour. And you know that security team will find your address anyhow, and then there would be a black mark on my record for costing the company so much money. I’ve been perfect this month, not like some of the other people in my office.

Perfect. I bet you have been. I envisioned her face, her hair, her body. Maybe it really was perfect. All right, here it is. And I gave Tara my address.

Thank you, thank you. Now, Clay, since I have you on the line, I’d just like to go over the report again to make sure I have it right.

Do we have to, Tara? I’m in some heavy traffic right now, and I need to get to work.

I’ll be quick, Tara said. Just tell me the location of the incident again.

I told her. And I mentioned the color of the truck again. I couldn’t tell her the truck’s number again because I couldn’t see it anymore. But I was able to tell her the lane I’d been in. I thought she might ask for GPS coordinates, but she didn’t.

I think that will do it then, Clay.

Good. Despite her alluring voice and the possibility of her perfection, I was tired of her questions. Now I really need to drive and get to work.

All right, Clay. Have a good day. And call anytime there’s a problem.

Call anytime. Sure. And answer more questions, or the same questions. Sure. No wonder I’d never called before.

+

Tara.

Bogart would have told me I should have tumbled to her. But I was so trusting, so foolish.

Chapter 2

I concentrated on driving to work. I got off the freeway downtown at the Seneca exit and managed to make most of the lights on Sixth, found a good parking spot in the garage and sat myself down at 7:28 for the 7:30 meeting.

Coffee cup in hand, I tried to stay awake through the accounting report. Then my eyes sprang wide at the news that the Seattle division wasn’t carrying its weight. It wasn’t in last place, but almost as bad. We finished the previous quarter in the bottom twenty percent. The company would be looking at changes in the weeks ahead.

Oh, joy. Great inspiring news.

After the meeting, I jumped into my job and tried to look conscientious. With profits dipping, a little hard work couldn’t hurt.

About three that afternoon, on my second company errand of the day, I got a call in my car.

Hello.

Is this Clay?

It is. I didn’t need caller ID to recognize her voice. Then I realized I hadn’t thought about her since the morning commute.

Clay, this is Tara from Bad Driving Reports. We have a little problem.

Problem?

Yes, it seems that you gave me the wrong ID number for that white truck.

Couldn’t be. I read it off as I was talking to you.

Hmm. I remember that now. But the problem is that the vehicle with that number was twenty miles away in Woodinville at the time you called.

Then two trucks must have the same number.

Oh, my company wouldn’t allow that.

So you don’t believe me, Tara?

Oh, no. I believe you. I’m just trying to reconcile your incident report with the response we received from the company that owns the truck.

Sounds like a mystery, Tara. Don’t know what to tell you.

This company says it had a dark blue truck on northbound I-5 this morning about seven. It was coming up from Tacoma. So I’m wondering if maybe I wrote down the wrong color. Then possibly the ID number would work.

My chest tightened. What she was saying made no sense. The truck wasn’t dark blue. It was white, dirty white. I remember that distinctly, and I was very clear about that when I called.

I was afraid you were going to say that.

I pulled back into my office parking spot and killed the engine. Look, Tara. I have to go do some work. I’m sure this will sort itself out in a day or two.

Sort itself out?

Right. Glad you understand. OK, bye.

That banging was my head hitting the steering wheel again and again. I really wished I’d never called Bad Driving Reports. The whole business was so inept. And my report was going to fall into a pile of manure. Three phone calls and they couldn’t get it right. And the idea I was at fault—well, that was just way past ridiculous.

+

How are you feeling, Clay?

Do I have to answer that?

Doc: I think you already did. But not virtuous, I take it.

You’re some kind of mind reader, Doc.

+

Nobody ever said the truth was easy.

I didn’t think Tara cared about the truth one way or the other. Whatever worked for her.

+

I drove home without hearing from Tara again, and I ate dinner and went to bed without hearing from Tara. My last thought before falling asleep: She finally gave up.

+

The next morning. Wednesday, I guess.

I was about half way to work, driving by Southcenter mall when my phone rang. I glanced at my caller ID and thought I recognized the 800 number. Right away, I could sense dark clouds forming, but I took the call anyhow. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe Tara would amuse me.

Clay, this is Tara from Bad Driving Reports.

Tara? The Tara? I haven’t heard from you since yesterday.

Well, I had hoped to call last night, but something came up. Anyway, I wanted to give you a progress report on the case.

Progress? Was it possible? Fire away.

Well, my supervisor is upset with me, to put it mildly. It seems that the trucking company is digging in its heels about the location and numbers of its trucks.

Sigh. And shit. Dark clouds for sure, and nothing amusing from Tara.

Then you should drop the account, I told her. If they lie like that, you can’t trust them.

"Mr. Sutler, we cannot lose this account. It’s a really big one, and we need it. I just have the feeling that we didn’t get the report right in the first place. Oh, this is awful."

"You mean you have a feeling I didn’t get the report right. Go on, blame me. Sure. And what’s this Mr. Sutler crap? You’re going all stiff on me. Look, Tara, if the stress of your job is too much, just quit. You have a good voice. Maybe you could get into radio, do commercials."

Clay, please.

Traffic’s getting heavy, Tara. Gotta go.

+

I just have the feeling that we didn’t get the report right in the first place. Unbelievable.

Clay, I was wondering how you are. And how are you feeling?

Doc, do I get to start over?

Doc: Maybe we do get to start over. But if we did, most likely we’d just do the same things again.

Comforting. Have you ever heard of Tara?

Doc: There are lots of Taras in the world. I may have known this one, but I’m not sure. She does sound a little familiar. I probably shouldn’t say this, but she might have been a patient. Well, our time is up for today.

I trusted Tara, but I don’t know that I can trust Doc. He plays it close to the vest. Knows more than he’s saying. If he were real, I’d fire his ass.

+

I kept thinking Tara was going to call again during my drive to work, but she didn’t. Maybe I’d stopped her this time.

Then again, maybe not.

She waited until almost four that afternoon. This time I was busy and couldn’t answer. She didn’t leave a message and I was glad.

The woman was cracking up. Doc was half right. She was a patient. The half he didn’t share: She still is a patient. Any justice in the world and HR would be waiting at her desk first thing in the morning to take her office keys and put her on medical leave. Won’t happen, though. Won’t happen.

+

Time blurs. Lot of mornings, lot of drives into Seattle. The weather changes a little: Rain, clouds, sun, rain, clouds, sun… I thought more about moving into Belltown. But there’d still be mornings—and rain, clouds, sun.

How are you feeling?

Doc, I don’t even know if I can feel. Maybe we should just talk about the weather today.

Doc: I hear it’s going to rain tomorrow.

It’s Seattle, so you’re probably right.

+

Morning again. Light rain. What a forecast, Doc.

Somehow I got behind a black van with its left turn signal blinking and blinking and blinking. That was near Southcenter. Blinking probably didn’t go on forever, just the day before forever. It looked like a plumber’s van. Pipes riding on top, you can tell.

How did these things happen? You’d think a plumber who could fix a dripping faucet could fix a turn signal. Light’s dripping out. Whoa.

The van’s Bad Driving Reports sticker beckoned. Go ahead, it said. Call, please call. Call now.

I didn’t take the bait. No way I’d ever call them again. Emergency, I’d call 911, but I was finished with Tara and her people.

I followed that blinker half a minute. Then my phone rang. I checked caller ID and I knew. I knew. Had the number memorized now. Stay calm, I told myself. Stay calm. What’s that ringing? Oh that? I pressed a little button that made silence. I loved silence.

Up the road I went. The blinker was still going, so I passed on the right.

Nice day, despite the rain.

+

Morning coffee break. I checked messages on my cell and heard Tara’s voice, as sweet and sexy as ever. Insinuating. Hi, Clay. Tara here at Bad Driving Reports. We have a report here that you were following a black plumber’s van too closely this morning on I-5 in the Southcenter area. Just a reminder that it’s not just you who gets to report bad driving. Sometimes you can be the object of the report.

Totally absurd, and that last remark was a little too enthusiastic, I thought. But I kept listening, noting that HR hadn’t taken her keys and escorted her out of the building yet. Love to see that.

Anyway, she said, the report goes on that you didn’t call us about the blinking turn signal that went on forever and ever. You just passed and left that driver to be someone else’s problem. Clay, that’s not like you, and I know you’re better than that. You have pride. I think I can say that by now. I don’t know exactly what was going on out there on I-5 this morning, but this goes to show that anyone can make a mistake. And because of that, I’m going to overlook today’s problem. I just hope you’re feeling well and not coming down with the flu or anything. I know it’s going around. OK, that’s it for now. But call me about your case because I have an update. Buh-bye.

I started to delete Tara’s message, then checked myself and closed voicemail. Maybe the message could be used as evidence. Or something. God, she really was insane. Bonkers. But how’d she know about the black plumber’s van and the blinking signal? And the location, near Southcenter? That gave me the shivers. Spies everywhere. No freakin’ privacy.

And following too closely? Judgment call. Besides, everybody follows too closely on I-5. It’s a way of life. Speed jockeys just cut in if you actually go by the rules. Official spacing guidelines, rules of the road—except they don’t work.

But the black van and turn signal—something else was going on there. I wondered about all those webcams along the freeway, but that theory didn’t compute. The detail wouldn’t be good enough to single out a particular vehicle. Or would it? I’d have to give that some thought. Creepy.

+

I was at my desk, getting ready to be productive, gathering myself. But I had a problem.

Tara was stuck in my head. She hadn’t called my home or office number yet. Thank God. Of course, she had my address. She had her crack security team and could produce my life story in mere minutes while I kicked back with a cup of coffee.

So she had resources. That might really mean something if the whole driving report actually involved anything serious. Of course, it was all ludicrous

On the other hand, it might be something serious. If it was, then I wouldn’t feel safe for a minute.

They really ought to take her keys. You know?

+

Shut her down. I stopped answering the damn cellphone.

Tara’s voicemails piled up. Mostly short, thank God.

Like a moth to the flame, I listened: Call me when you get a break, Clay, I have an update on your case.

There’s always an update. Today is un update of yesterday. And tomorrow? Another freakin’ update.

+

A dream, I think: I shut the door and stood relieved in the darkness. Then I noticed light peeking in around the edges, especially the bottom. I remembered that horror movie. The fog came under the door. Couldn’t stop it.

Insidious, her messages couldn’t be stopped.

What did it take? Death? Whose?

+

Friday afternoon. Cruising toward the weekend. I had a big date tonight with my new girlfriend Francie. Dinner at a first-rate waterfront restaurant. Dress up a little. I was looking forward to this. Could be really nice.

Then a voicemail from you know who.

Clay, I know you’re busy, but I’m trying to work your case and I just don’t feel that I have your full cooperation.

I really hated that word case. It was OK before, but not now. Just one innocent phone call and now it was a case. I was tempted to hang up—does it matter if you hang up on voicemail?—but kept listening to see how far Tara would push.

"Is there a problem, Clay? Because if there is, we should get it out in the open and discuss it. Anyway, I’ve been wanting to give you the update in person—I mean with you actually on the line—but I guess I’ll just have to leave another message. The thing is, the company that owns the truck you reported is really getting upset with this case. And now they’re threatening to sue my company for harassment. Not only that, they’re threatening to sue me personally. I didn’t sleep well last night, let me tell you. But the latest news, and the reason, I’m telling you all this now is that they’re threatening to sue you for harassment. I just thought you ought to know. So call me back and maybe I can help you remember some new details that will satisfy everyone. Take care, Clay. Talk to you soon."

I think that’s what she said. I went out to the stairwell and played the voicemail on speaker a few times so I could hear it better, but it eventually got to me and I couldn’t listen anymore. Just had to muddle through.

They’re going to sue me? I was in a state—a bad, angry, fearful state.

Tara said it all in such a loving way in her raspy, vulnerable voice that I almost trusted her. Was this trucking company really threatening all these lawsuits? Maybe I needed to hire a lawyer.

No, wait. This was preposterous. Why would a trucking company react this way? Somebody there must have a very thin skin. If there really was a mix-up in the ID numbers—I still didn’t believe that—why didn’t this company just slough off the complaint, call it a mistake and pretend it never happened?

I didn’t have the answers, but decided if this nonsense kept up the following week, I’d get a lawyer and tell them all to shove it. Then we’d see who was calling the shots.

Hell of a way to start a weekend.

Sue me? Assholes.

Chapter 3

Home now. I needed to settle down before dinner, clear my mind.

I was going out with Francie. Did I say that before? Anyway, we had a reservation at an excellent place on the waterfront. Classic Seattle, that wet smell, little Puget Sound waves lapping up on the piers, barnacles clinging, sucking creosote. Damp and classic.

Everybody likes that stuff here. It wouldn’t fly in Montana. Well, maybe if you put a cowboy hat on it. Could have a salmon roundup, halibut rodeo. Get along, little shrimp.

+

Drinks with Francie. Years ago, I didn’t know why people drank before dinner. Now, I wasn’t sure why everybody didn’t. Takes away the tension. Some flaw on my part, I suppose. I have plenty of flaws to choose from. Yeah, a full menu of flaws: starters, main courses, desserts. That’d be something to see, flaming brandy over my flaws. A roaring fire.

But the date... Postcard view of Puget Sound. I’ve seen that a million times now, but can’t shake it. I made our reservation for a time around sunset, and the sun cooperated by throwing off its mask of Seattle clouds. Francie smiled and my heart did a flip.

Viewing Francie was even better than looking at the Sound. That deep blue dress shimmered when she moved and caressed her figure so well it almost made me jealous. If that dress could talk…

+

Hunger. We studied the menu, not my flaws, the menu with food. Plus the wine list. Choices everywhere: grilled halibut, pan-fried oysters, seafood fettuccine, crab cakes, razor clams, captain’s plate, salmon prepared three different ways. Hard to go wrong, hard to decide.

Wine. Francie liked the sound of one particular Napa Chardonnay. She’d heard of it. Me too. I never thought how much a bottle could cost in a place like this. It was a different kind of bottle shock: sticker shock. The Chard markup was big enough to feed another customer and threatened to blow up my dinner budget. Bad idea, huh, needing a budget for a night like this. I wanted to operate without limits, not this way. The room grew warmer and my face flushed, right there on chilly Puget Sound.

+

Francie excused herself to go to the ladies room. Kind Francie. Was she giving me a break? Not sure. She said order for her, whatever sounds good. Anything off the menu in a place like this would be great. Another big smile. I could love that girl. Then her hips shimmered away.

Back to the menu. Well, halibut was always safe, but then there were salmon options and crab cakes—so tasty but possibly too rich—not to mention oysters, freshly harvested only a few miles away. That raised the aphrodisiac question, myth true or not. I didn’t want to be that obvious with Francie.

I started to reconsider the halibut with seared onions and dill sauce when my cell rang. Caller ID said it was Tara. Of course. For an hour, I had managed to forget her while basking in the glow of Francie and the Puget Sound sunset.

But this was really too much, interfering with my dinner date. I wanted to tell her to buzz off, and worse. So this time I would answer. Yeah.

Clay, good evening.

Tara, so nice to hear from you. I do try to be cordial once in a while, polish those social graces.

You remembered me. How sweet. So how’s the big date going?

Date? What?

I hear the clank of dishes and silverware in the background. You must be out to dinner. And since it’s Friday, it must be a date. After you asked me out to coffee, I assume you’re single. Who’s the lucky girl?

None of your business, Tara.

Is she hot, Clay? What’s she wearing?

A blue dress, with shimmering something or others woven in. I scratched my head. Tara, why are you calling again? Are you spying on me?

Oh, no, I’m at home. Got my jammies on already. Popcorn and movie coming up. But I was thinking about you, you and the babe in the shimmering blue dress. I think I saw that little number at Nordstrom, by the way. Very chic. And I can tell by what you said that the babe is not at the table right now.

"The babe? My god, Tara, she has a name."

Which you’re not telling me.

Enough, enough. All right, it’s Francie. Why I said that, I don’t know. Another huge mistake.

Well, if that isn’t a babe name, there never was one. Oh, yeah. Francie. I bet you like her.

Tara, you’ve really crossed the line. You’re insulting Francie and harassing me.

Now where did you get such a hostile idea? I’m trying to be helpful.

Then help me and hang up.

Not that way, silly. I’m talking about the menu now. Lots of wonderful entrées, I suppose. Have you ordered yet?

Almost. Just having a drink first.

Where exactly are you? She made a few guesses. The third one hit the mark.

Clicking in the background, then she said, Well, with all those good choices I imagine you’re having trouble making up your mind. So I have a suggestion or two.

What? You’re reading my menu?

Of course. It’s online. Check it out sometime.

Well, that explained one thing. But only one. So tell me what I’m thinking. And let’s hear your idea.

"Well, definitely not the oysters. This is not the time to be discussing aphrodisiacs. Besides, I imagine you’re plenty good in that department."

Jesus, Tara.

"Sorry, sorry. Back to the menu. Here’s what you do. Go with the Alaska king salmon—on that cute little cedar plank. It’s to die for. Francie will