It was Saturday afternoon and Guy was in his office. He had told his wife that he was behind on a problem as a result of all the excitement earlier in the week. That was actually the truth. He was behind in his work. Maggie hadn't believed him and followed him to the office. She had called him on the office phone every forty-five minutes after he had arrived, just to see if everything was okay. Like he actually believed that excuse.
After spending half of the afternoon trying to figure out why a hydraulic system at a factory kept blowing its seal, he was now watching a video of his wife cheating on him with tears rolling down his cheeks. It had only taken one day to get a video catching her in the act. He wasn't sure if she was just that busy or if his timing had been fortuitous.
He watched the action on the computer monitor with a sick feeling in his stomach. Knowing that she was cheating on him and seeing it were two different things. This hurt; this really hurt. He thanked God that no one was in the office to see him crying like a baby.
He mumbled, "She's going to pay for this."
He thought about the suggestion of opening a website documenting her cheating. He could see how it could make some money. With so much interest in reality shows on television, an uncensored reality show on the internet could really rake in some money. He wouldn't go that far.
In thinking about his problems, he thought about the other three people he had met the day of the robbery. Cody had disappeared. He doubted anyone would ever hear from him again. Cody had looked like a broken man when he had last seen him.
Selena was seriously depressed. Since their offices were in the same part of town, he had gone to lunch with her a couple of times. He enjoyed her company, but it was clear that she wasn't handling the breakup with her boyfriend very well. He wasn't in much of a position to talk. He wasn't dealing with his wife's infidelity very well either.
He hadn't heard from Max in a while and wondered how things were going in terms of finding a job. The last time they had talked, Max and his wife seemed more concerned about their daughter than his lack of employment. Of course, hearing Cody's stories about his daughter had probably made them fear for their daughter.
He could understand that. He had a daughter and two boys. He wasn't worried about them. His daughter was sharp, but well behaved. His sons were doing well in school and helped around the house. It had all seemed like a perfect family. He marveled at how appearances could be very deceiving.
He had come up with the excuse of kidney stones as a reason for not being too interested in sex. He didn't know what effect kidney stones would have on a man's sex drive, but neither did she. It did help explain his discomfort when urinating and his general grumpiness. The net result was that his wife wasn't pressuring him for sex.
His eyes drifted back to the video playing on the computer monitor. He thought about the website. He kept wondering how his kids would react if he were to create one and they learned about it. He couldn't kid himself, they would find out about it. If he didn't have kids, he would have charged ahead with the website and be damned with the consequences.
He removed the CD from the computer and put it in his desk drawer. He headed home with a heavy heart. It dawned on him that he had been dreading going home for months now. He wondered why he hadn't noticed that before now.
He pulled up in front of the house. His oldest son, Sean, was outside shooting hoops. Guy walked over and asked, "How's it going?"
"Not so good. Mom's on the warpath," Sean said.
"What happened?" Guy asked.
"I don't know. She keeps saying that she's tired of being trapped in the house with nothing to do," Sean said.
That had become an increasingly more frequent complaint. The kids were pretty self-sufficient and she was bored. She didn't want to be a housewife and she didn't want to have a job. Life was passing her by and she was tired of it. Guy wondered how he had missed the signs.
"I'll talk to her," Guy said tiredly.
He was trying to keep things low key until he decided what he was going to do and how he was going to proceed with the divorce. He didn't want the kids to have to deal with a lot of drama. Based on the expression on Sean's face, that wasn't likely. There was plenty of drama all ready.
He entered the house. Maggie said, "Take me out tonight."
"Where?" Guy asked.
"I don't care. Just take me somewhere," she replied.
Guy said, "We went out last night."
"So?"
"I'm tired," Guy said.
Maggie said, "I don't care. You aren't stuck in this house all day. You get to go out and do interesting things while I"m stuck here."
"I wouldn't say spending the whole day at work is interesting," Guy said.
To hear her description of what he did for a living, one would think that he was some sort of super spy. She talked about his job like it involved traveling to exotic locations, embassy parties, visits to the casinos of Monte Carlo, and car chases through the hills of San Francisco.
That he was a troubleshooter for a hydraulics's company was an inconvenient counter to her fantasy. It was his job to figure out why some pieces of equipment suffered repeated failures while others lasted forever. When he traveled, it was to some pretty cruddy locations. At times it was a dirty nasty job involving equipment that was filthy with grease and oil.
"How about a movie after dinner?" Guy asked.
"No."
Guy asked, "Well, what do you want to do?"
"I don't know. Something exciting," Maggie answered.
"I'll see if there is someplace where we can go skydiving. Jumping out of an airplane with parachutes would be exciting," Guy said sarcastically.
He was thinking that he'd like to pack her parachute.
"Don't be ridiculous," Maggie growled.
Guy said, "You wanted exciting. That's the most exciting thing I can come up with."
"You're making fun of me," Maggie shouted.
"Give me a clue. What in the hell do you want to do?" Guy asked finding that his patience was coming to an end.
"I don't know! You come up with something," Maggie said.
Guy said, "I'm not the one who is bored."
"If that's the way you're going to be, I'm going out alone," Maggie said.
"Fine," Guy said.
When Maggie left, Sean came into the house. He looked at his father and shook his head.
"What?" Guy asked.
"Something is wrong with Mom," Sean said.
"I know," Guy said.
His daughter, Ellie, and his youngest son, Bill, came into the living room. Ellie said, "Mom has been a total bitch all day."
"I'm sorry about that kids," Guy said.
Bill asked, "Have you been having an affair?"
"No," Guy answered sharply.
"If you are, Mom will take you to the cleaners," Ellie said.
"I'm not having an affair," Guy said.
He was dismayed that he would even be asked that question. His wife was the one cheating and he was having to defend himself? That didn't set well with him at all.
"What about that night you didn't come home?" Sean asked.
"I got drunk after the robbery and passed out," Guy said.
He had basically told the truth about that night. The exception was that he claimed most of the drinking had been done after the robbery rather than before it. He also claimed to have passed out at Cody's house rather than Selena's.
"Mom is convinced that you were shacked up with a bar slut," Sean said.
"Shacked up with a bar slut?" Guy asked.
"You know, staying at her place," Sean said.
"You guys know me better than that," Guy said.
Bill said, "I don't know about that. I never thought I'd read in the newspaper about you taking on an armed gunman."
"I lost my temper," Guy said. "I had a bad day, I stopped at a bar for a drink, stopped the robbery, drank too much, and passed out. I came home after I woke up the next morning. What more can I say about it?"
"It just doesn't sound like you," Ellie said. "You're not the kind of guy who beats up people."
"Mom doesn't believe you," Sean said.
"That's her prerogative. It doesn't change the truth," Guy said knowing that it was her guilty conscience at work. Wanting to change the subject, he asked, "Did your mom make dinner?"
"No," Ellie said.
She crossed her arms and studied her father. She was half convinced that he was hiding something.
"What do you say we all go out for some pizza?" Guy asked.
"That's a winner," Sean said. The other two kids agreed with him.
Guy waited for them to get ready to leave the house. Standing there in the living room, he came to the conclusion that this situation couldn't last much longer. Having his kids accuse him of cheating on his wife was the last straw.
He went over to the telephone and dialed Max's number. When Max answered, he said, "Max, this Guy. I want to go ahead with the website."
"You've got videos?" Max asked.
"Yes," Guy answered.
Max said, "I'm sorry to hear that. I was hoping there might be a different explanation. You know – an encounter with a dirty toilet or something."
"I've got your email address. I'll send you the material Monday."
"Okay," Max said. "I guess my wife and I will go out and buy a computer tonight."
Guy hung up the telephone. He dialed another number. When his boss answered, he said, "Joe, this is Guy."
Joe asked, "Did you solve the problem with the DermaCorp hydraulic system?"
"No. I looked over the logs they sent us. I don't know if they are running the pressure too high or if the cheap parts from China are no good. I'm going to have to go out there and see it in operation," Guy said.
Joe asked, "Will you be leaving tomorrow?"
"I figure I'll go out Monday evening and come back Tuesday night. The flights aren't so crowded Monday nights," Guy answered.
"Sounds good to me," Joe said.
Guy hung up. He turned and saw that Sean was watching him. Guy said, "Don't go into mechanical engineering."
"Why?" Sean asked.
"As a mechanical engineer you get to go to places like Camden, New Jersey," Guy answered. "What a pit."
"Isn't that kind of a dangerous place?" Sean asked.
"Like I said. It's a pit," Guy answered.
"Mom's not going to be happy," Sean said.
"Well, it's trips like this that pay the bills," Guy said. "If you're smart, you'll get into computers. That's where the money is. You'll stay in a nice clean office all of the time."
"I like computers. I think I'd like being a programmer," Sean said shrugging his shoulders.
Guy said, "You want to get into the people side of the computing business. Something like a systems analyst rather than a programmer. The closer you are to the customer the safer your job is. We're outsourcing all of the real work overseas. Manufacturing has all but disappeared in this country. By the time you're my age, there won't be a manufacturing job left in this country."
"Really? I'll have to look that up on the web," Sean said. That was always a good statement to suggest interest without actually commiting to doing anything.
Guy said, "Don't believe all the garbage about how outsourcing really means more jobs here. I've watched the sales of hydraulic systems drop every year as more and more manufacturing places go out of business."
"That's interesting," Sean said even though he wasn't interested in the least little bit. He was looking forward to getting some pizza.
"I'm hoping there's enough business to last me until I retire," Guy said with a sigh.
That seemed to get Sean's attention. Considering that he was going to be heading off to college soon, the last thing he needed was to discover his father was unemployed. He asked, "Are you worried about getting laid off?"
"Not anytime soon. We've got a bunch of legacy customers that will keep us busy for a while. A lot of the products are thirty or forty years old. They'll have to be fixed or replaced. Ten years from now? Who knows," Guy answered.
"So you're serious about me going into computers?" Sean asked.
Guy nodded his head. "Yes, I am. You need to be careful though. Like I said, the closer you are to the customer, the more secure your job will be. You want to be the one who talks to the customers about their needs. They can't send that job overseas when your customer is here."
"Sales?" Sean asked.
"Heavens no! Stay away from sales," Guy said. "I should introduce you to Max. He knows all about sales and salesmen. He's also out of a job."
"You're right about sales. There's no money in sales," Ellie said, "I'm going for law. That's where the real money is."
"Law?" Guy asked. This was the first that he'd heard of his daughter being interested in law.
"Class action lawsuits. There's a ton of money to be made there," Ellie said. "The pharmaceutical companies can't win. They can't know all of the side-effects of their drugs. As soon as one crops up, instant lawsuit. A good lawyer can walk away with two hundred million dollars on one good case."
"What if they pass tort reform?" Guy asked.
"There's always divorces. You know what they say, the only ones who get rich in a divorce are the lawyers," Ellie said.
"You're a depressing kid. You know that, don't you?" Guy said.
"Hey. I read the blogs. I know which side my bread is buttered on," Ellie said with a shark-like smile.
"Scary," Guy said. He wondered if she'd represent him in his upcoming divorce. He was half tempted to ask.
Ellie said, "If you're cheating on Mom, I'll make sure you pay through the nose."
"What if she's cheating on me?" Guy asked.
"Are you crazy? We're talking about Mom," Ellie said.
Bill said, "Let's go get pizza. I'm hungry."
"Good idea," Guy said.
He watched the kids leave the house. He could see that they were all convinced that he was guilty of adultery. Not one of them accepted his explanation of what happened the other night. He followed them thinking that she was definitely going to pay for her actions.