Free Stay Tuned by Lauren Clark Page A

edge of the newspaper. “I’ve got that meeting in Montgomery. Be back tomorrow.” He checked his watch. “I’m leaving in an hour. Can you still pick up the dry cleaning?”
    Sweet Jesus. He didn’t just say that. He might as well have hit me with a hammer. A flash of indignation pierced my heart.
    “Get your own dry cleaning,” I snapped at him.
    I expected Chris to say something, anything. Yell back at me, at least. Instead, with a hard look, he turned, picked up his keys, and walked out of the room. The front door clicked shut behind him.
    I stomped up the stairs two at a time. Tears stung the corners of my eyes. In the safety of the bedroom, I locked the door and threw myself on the bed. Face buried in the sheets and blanket, I couldn’t breathe. I raised my head and sucked in air. Suffocating myself was not an option.
    Ugh! I rolled over on my back. Hands on my head, I stared at the tiny bumps on the ceiling. The ceiling above the bed we were supposed to share. Share? That was a joke. I wasn’t sure we shared anything except a mortgage anymore. One thing was certain. I didn’t know my own husband. He didn’t know me. He’d rather be at work. Or in Montgomery. At a meeting he didn’t bother to tell me about. Again.
    What if he wasn’t going to work…?What if he’s not…?
    Stop being so paranoid. It was a misunderstanding. He’s distracted. You’re stressed.
    In a gold picture frame, Chris’s face gazed at me from the top of my dresser. His perfect white teeth gleamed at me from across the room. Without thinking, I took a pillow and aimed for his chin. The soft plush padding bounced off the wall, missing my husband’s photograph by a good two feet. I reached for another pillow, and then stopped myself. I was no better than Alyssa if this was how I was going to react.
    Okay, I promised myself. I would be positive. I would figure out what was bothering Chris. I would focus on work and make the best of it—with grace and confidence.
    With renewed purpose, I pushed myself off the bed and looked in the mirror. I brushed a strand of hair from my eyes and smiled at my reflection.
    I could handle my job at the TV station and my husband. For the rest, I needed reinforcements, maybe a small army. I needed my best friend.

Chapter 16
     
    As luck would have it, Candace didn’t answer. Calling or going to see my mother might only make things worse. And even if I had Dr. Phil’s personal cell phone number, I doubted he or his staff would take my calls.
    My heart ached. I was kidding myself about everything being fine. Chris and I had really drifted apart. We were standing on the edge of a cliff, about to fall off or get pushed. When had this happened?
    My memory archives gathered a hazy blur of dirty diapers, baby spit up, fights about sex or no sex. Not to mention Chris’s too-frequent business meetings and my stubborn desire to go back to work—which he didn’t support—once I realized five-year old Kelly wasn’t the least bit fazed about spending her days in the classroom.
    No ah-hah moment sprang to mind. Just a steady stream of his-and-her obligations. It seemed like I blinked, and Kelly graduated from grade school, Chris moved up in his firm, and I took on more responsibility at work. I blinked again, and Kelly was driving her red VW Bug out of the driveway to Berkeley.
    I liked my life. I loved my husband and my daughter. And if Chris was miserable, he certainly hadn’t mentioned it.
    But like the movie Groundhog Day , our lives had become a Bill Murray re-run. These twenty-four hours of our marriage would be a repeat of every other twenty-four hours we’d had for the past ten years. And so on, and so on.
    When was the last time we talked? Really had good discussion about meaningful things?
    There used to be a time when we never ran out of things to say. Now, I couldn’t seem to keep a conversation going more than a minute.
    I began to panic. Candace would have a plan. Candace would have solid,