Free Splintered Heart by Emily Frankel

mouthwash and gagged. "Heavens Marian, he's heard you gargle a thousand times," she scolded herself for being embarrassed.
    Taking one final check in the mirror, the satin ribbons on the shoulder straps of the negligee seemed too fussy. Suddenly the ruffle, the hand embroidered lace, the transparency all seemed too much. For a second, she wondered if the gown shouldn't be saved for another night, but then she snapped off the bathroom light. This was their first real night together in three and a half long, celibate weeks.
    "Ready or not I'm coming," Marian sang out softly, as she entered the bedroom.
    The reading lamp was on. Ferris was lying on his side of the bed on his stomach, sound asleep.
    ++++++++++
     
     
    Chapter 9
    After Ferris left for the office, Marian dutifully began. It was a task she did not particularly enjoy but she took the hamper and dumped the contents in a heap on the bathroom floor.
    With two fingers, she picked up a sock and put it to one side to make a sock pile. She put a pair of shorts aside to make a pile for shorts. She was trying to figure out what was wrong, what was making her so nervous.
    ...It's as if he's avoiding me — he was up and around before the alarm, by the time I got to the kitchen he was finishing his coffee, and then he rushed off to his shower and shave routine. When I came back to the bedroom he was already out of the towel and getting in to his clothes...
    Marian dropped another sock into the sock pile, started a pile for shirts, and put her striped blouse aside to create a pile for Felipe's wife that required more delicate handling.
    ...And while he was combing his hair he was so tense. What's worrying him, he seems depressed? But I'm the one who ought to be depressed, I'm the one who has jet lag! And when I asked him if he wanted a fresh bath towel, why was he so annoyed? He seemed annoyed because I asked him to tell me the name of his new client...
    Marian put two more shirts in the shirt pile.
    ...And then he said he couldn't remember the name! But that's ridiculous, Ferris always remembers names. Why was he so aggravated …?
    Marian opened the cabinet, took out the bottle of aspirin. The light was on and bright white daylight was flooding in from the small window. Her eyes had dark rings. The H lines were definitely there. When she forced herself to smile so that the H was eradicated, the twigs at the corners of her eyes seemed deeper than ever. The woman in the mirror looked grim and unappetizing. Marian bit off a hangnail, felt it prick her tongue. Examined her gums.
    "God you are a sight Marian," she said to her reflection. "No wonder Ferris hasn't wanted to make love!"
    The thought was out. She had let it rise up from that place where miscellaneous fears resided, given it words, shape, form, said it loud and clear and there was no turning back from it.
    The telephone rang.
    Certain it was Ferris phoning from the office to apologize for being so brusk, Marian answered with a perky, "Darling?"
    There was no immediate response.
    Then a woman said, "Is this LE 4-3017?"
    "LE 4-3017?" Marian repeated, "Yes it is. Who is this? To whom do you wish to speak?"
    There was a very long pause.
    "Oh," said a woman's voice. "I must have the wrong number."
    The disconnect was abrupt.
    "What a stupid, rude person," thought Marian, returning to her task.
    She began tossing the soiled clothes into the piles as quickly as possible, not counting, no longer sorting. That was when, in the midst of the soiled laundry Marian found a black-lace half-slip, not her own.
    It was the roller coaster. The thud of the trunk falling. An elevator dropping. She sat there, holding the garment, sweat breaking out all over.
    ...Shiny cheap black nylon, black lace trim — $10.00 maybe, small size, it could fit anyone who was about five feet-two, three, four. The elastic at the waist was stretchy, it would pass over the head and shoulders without messing the hair, black hair — the bobby pins were black