John looked at his naked ex-wife in his bed. He should have seen this coming; this long day wasn’t over with yet. Not quite, anyway.

“No,” he said resolutely. “You remember the deal. It’s the couch for you again tonight.”

“But John! It’s so uncomfortable, and you need to unwind.”

“What the hell makes you think that spending the night with you is going to unwind me any? Even if we agreed not to have sex you know damn well what’s going to happen and I don’t need the baggage, not with everything else that’s going on right now. Out, Mandy. This is my bed. It’s not yours.”

“But John! You need it, and I want it badly.”

“Mandy, if I needed it that badly I’d go take a plane to Las Vegas, or maybe call up a friend of mine who’s not too far away. Right now playing hide the salami with you is out of the question. I told you before, I’ve never knowingly fucked another man’s wife and I don’t intend to start now.”

“But I’m not going to be married much longer. You know that.”

“Look,” he sighed. “Go out to Nevada and get that divorce. When you come back, if Sally and Teresa are gone, I’ll consider it. I’m not saying I’ll do it, but I’ll at least consider it. But don’t think that getting it on once or twice means anything more than getting it on once or twice. Given my track record I’m not up for much more than that right now, anyway. Now get out of my bed and head for the couch. My house, my rules.”

“You’re really being a hard ass about this, you know,” she said as she sat up.

“Yes I am. There are limits, after all. I have enough shit going on in my life as it is without getting into playing mind games with you. I don’t need this right now, Mandy. What I need is about twelve hours of uninterrupted sleep, and maybe, with luck, no more new trouble in the morning.”

“It’s Sally, isn’t it? You’ve had me before, and you haven’t had her, so you’re holding out for her.”

“You can believe what you want to believe, but no, that’s not it at all. I’m not the guy I was in high school, Mandy. Not even the one you knew in college. I like to think I’ve become older, wiser, and more careful. I’ll just point out that Sally hit on me several times before you showed up and I turned her down each time.” Well, that wasn’t quite true, he thought, but there had been statements made and questions asked that could easily have been parlayed into a roll in the hay if he’d wanted to. “But like with you,” he continued, “that would open up doors I really don’t want at this point in my life. There’s a better chance that you and I could make things work than Sally and I could. But for any number of reasons it’s an issue I don’t want to get into right now.”

“Well, all right,” she said as she got up unenthusiastically. “Maybe you’re right. But I’d at least like to sleep in your bed. That couch is awful uncomfortable.”

“Tough,” he said. “Sleeping with me, even if it’s just sleeping, is too iffy right now. Look, maybe it would be best if tomorrow you loaded up your stuff and went over to your dad’s.”

“I don’t want to do that,” she shook her head as she stood before him naked, a tear coming to her eye. “Joe might be able to find me there. I don’t want him to find me.”

“You’re welcome to stay here for a few days,” he said, “but on the couch. You really need to get your butt to Nevada, and probably the sooner the better.”

“I’m . . . I’m not quite ready to go just yet,” she cried, the tears rolling down her face. “I’ve got to . . . I’ve got to put a few things behind me first.”

“That’s all right, I guess, so long as it doesn’t involve being in bed with me,” he said. “But don’t let it drag out too long. That’s as good a reason as any for you to stay on the couch, to give you reason to get out of here.”

“All right, I’m going, I’m going,” she said. “Damn, John, you sure aren’t the guy I knew in high school.”

“No, I’ve grown up a little. Maybe I’ve grown up a lot. See you in the morning, Mandy.”

John watched her walk out the door, closing it behind her. Maybe that was the end of that, he thought. Christ, even if I wanted to, after today I don’t think I could have done any good anyway, and I really doubt I would have enjoyed it.

It took him a minute or two to do a few things before going to bed, but soon he was there, and thankfully, by himself. But that nice relaxed feeling he’d carried out of the hot tub was gone now, and there was nothing he could do but to lie awake and think.

The hell of it was, he thought, that if the circumstances had been even a little bit different he could have enjoyed having Mandy in bed with him. He couldn’t help but reflect on his ruminations earlier in the week, of how she’d been the best of his wives and near-wives. They really had good times together, and if she’d been willing to stick it out just a little bit longer they might have been able to make things work. A few days earlier he’d have been willing to take a swing at it, Joe or no Joe. It was clear to him now that she was interested in trying to make a go of it again, but it didn’t seem like such a good idea. That didn’t rule out the possibility of a fun evening or two sometime in the future though. Maybe.

Now that he thought about it a little, it seemed like she’d changed since their years together as much as he had. She’d become more flighty, maybe even more so than Sally. Sally had, at least, been trying to find a place where she could settle down and raise Teresa; from the bits and pieces of story he’d picked up about her, her moving on had mostly come not because she’d wanted to but because she’d had to. When you got right down to it, Mandy was the one who would leave to chase a will-o’-the-wisp, rather than Sally; she’d sure done it enough in the years they’d been apart, if what he understood of her history was correct.

One thing was clear: there was no point in making any rash decisions about Mandy. There might be a future there, but it didn’t seem very likely. If things did seem to be going that way, he’d need to be very careful, take his time, and see how things went. That would seem to rule her out as a live-in too, as that would almost automatically take things a step or two further than he really felt like going at that point in his life.

But maybe that was just his exhaustion and frustrations with the last few days talking, too. One thing seemed pretty clear: this was no time to be making major decisions in this matter. What he’d told Mandy still seemed to stick pretty well: go to Nevada, get the divorce, come back, and he’d consider it. Maybe all the shit of the last few days would have blown away by then and he could make a more informed decision.

Sleep didn’t come easily, but it did come eventually, after hours of lying awake with some of the issues of the last few days churning through his mind, not the least of them Mandy. He may have dreamed about some of those issues, or at least been awake thinking about them; it was hard to tell. However, eventually he became aware that there was sunlight beyond the drapes of the bedroom, so it must be morning and he must be awake.

He lay there a while, mentally flipping a nickel about rolling back over and trying for another forty winks, or getting up to face whatever new crisis was going to be waiting beyond the bedroom door. Finally his bladder made the decision for him. When he finished with that, he decided he might as well get up and face the day. That involved getting dressed; while he, Mandy, and Sally may have been willing to run around in the nude after Teresa was asleep, it didn’t seem like the right thing to do while she was awake.

He settled for a set of sweats; the odds were that he was going to try to go back out to the office sometime today and try to make some progress on the work that had been stalled all week, especially the Tomtucknee Regional bid, but that wasn’t dead sure. As badly as it needed to be done, just lying around the house and unwinding had some appeal, especially if Mandy would stay off his ass about the night before.

When he stepped outside the bedroom it was fairly bright in the house; obviously it wasn’t the first thing in the morning, and it looked like a fairly nice day out there. Teresa was up and intently working at the computer, although what she was doing on it was anybody’s guess. Mandy had obviously been up; the couch was clean, and the blanket and sheet were folded up.

Sally proved to be in the kitchen, working on something that involved food. “Oh, John, you’re up!” she said. “I’ve been wondering if you were going to sleep all day.”

“It has potential,” he smiled. “I really needed some sleep. I mean, I really needed it.”

“You looked exhausted when you went to bed last night,” she grinned. “You look almost human this morning. When do you want to have dinner?”

“I probably ought to eat something now, but I can hold off having much if we’re going to be eating soon.”

“I’m making a meat loaf for us,” she said. “I’ll have to warm the oven up, and then it’ll take forty-five minutes, so I suppose we’re looking at an hour, at least.”

“That’s going to be strange. I’ve rarely cooked anything as complicated as a meat loaf. I have it in a restaurant every now and then, but I don’t think it’s been done in the house since I’ve lived here.” He glanced at the clock – it was after eleven! He must have come close to sleeping around the clock, or at least been in bed around the clock. No wonder he felt a little achy! “An hour sounds about right to me if it does to you,” he announced. “I’ll have a bowl of corn flakes or something to hold me till then. Where’s Mandy?”

“She decided to run over and see her father,” Sally smiled. “She said not to hold dinner for her. She doesn’t plan on staying long, but she thought she ought to at least touch base with him.”

“Probably not a bad idea,” he replied, thinking of the night before when she didn’t want to get her father involved in her troubles. Maybe she’d been doing some thinking, too. Maybe she got the message last night. And maybe pigs would fly, too. It didn’t seem like she would give up that easily. “So what else is on for today, besides dinner?”

“I can’t think of much of anything. I expect we’ll have Carlos here sooner or later, and possibly sooner. I think he and Teresa have been batting e-mails back and forth to each other all morning.”

“Good. Teresa needs a friend or two, and Carlos seems like a good kid with a big heart.”

“I think so too. Maybe he’ll make this tough time go a little quicker for her.”

“I’ll tell you one thing that needs to get worked out,” he said after a moment’s thought. “We’ve got to do something about Teresa and school, and we need to do it soon. I have visions of her not being in school touching off another pissing match with some bureaucratic bozos who think they have the law on their side. That’s something none of us need right now.”

“I suppose you’re right,” she sighed. “It would be a lot easier if she weren’t in the wheelchair. If it weren’t for that, I suppose we could just take her to the nearest school and sign her up. But then, if she weren’t in the wheelchair it wouldn’t be an issue, either.”

“Yeah, well, that’s the way it is, and we have to make the best of it. That’s something that’s going to have to be dealt with soon, maybe tomorrow. The trouble is that tomorrow shows all the signs of being a world-class tail chase, between cops, insurance companies, work that should have been done last week, and who knows what else.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t try to deal with it,” she suggested. “Dealing with school officials can be a pain in the ass, at best. I mean, ask me, I know. I’ve done it a lot more than you have. If Mandy is still here, she could take us over to wherever it is we need to go.”

“I don’t know if she’ll be here or not,” John sighed. “Last night she was talking about getting on the way to Nevada to get her divorce going, and, well, I encouraged her to do it. But if she’s back later today I suppose we could ask her to stick around for a day or two to help you get through that issue.”

“That’s a possibility. I feel like Teresa and I have already asked an awful lot of you, and you’re not getting a lot in return.”

“I’m getting all I need. I get my house cleaned, I get to see a smiling kid. I feel like I’m helping out a fellow class of ’88 member. On top of that, I get home-made meatloaf. What more could I ask?”

She turned and looked directly at him. “John, there’s a lot more you could ask, and I’d probably be willing to give it to you. I know what Mandy did last night, at least a little. What’s more, I have a pretty good idea of why she did it. John, all you have to do is ask.”

“I’m not asking,” he said. “I thought I made that clear. Yeah, Mandy was trying for a pre-emptive strike on me, but I caught her at it. I’m not ruling out something happening with her in the long run, but not now. If you know that much about it, you know I told her I wasn’t going to consider it while she’s still married and while you and Teresa are still here. Anything else gets too complicated. I want to think long and hard about what I’m doing before I get back with her, if I ever do, and that means now is not the time.”

“Yeah, I guess I can understand that,” she nodded. “But John, after she leaves for Nevada, well, that’ll make things a little less complicated. If you want to then, I’m willing.”

“I appreciate the thought, Sally,” he smiled, “but probably not. What would Teresa think?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time Teresa has seen me involved with a man,” she sighed. “I’ve tried to keep it from being too blatant, but she’s no dummy. She’s known what’s going on. If anything, she knows too damned much, given her age. I told you before, John. By the skin of my teeth I’ve never had to sell myself to support her, but I would if I had to and I’ve come close.”

“I think that’s the point. I don’t want either you or her to think that I’m putting you in that position just so you can stay here while she heals up. You’ve accomplished it without having to do it in bed. Like with Mandy, it would be nice but I’m not that damn desperate. If I were, I have alternatives, and that includes a flight to Nevada.”

“As if you could find the time for a flight to Nevada the way the last few days have gone,” she grinned. “John, I realize this whole thing has caused you a lot of stress, and I don’t want to add to it. You have been incredibly nice to Teresa and me. I feel like meeting you has been the first really good luck I’ve had in years. I can’t argue with your feelings, John. If that’s how you want it, that’s how you get it.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I’m not ruling it out entirely,” he grinned. “It’s just that right now there would be too much baggage attached.”

“You’re probably right,” she shook her head. “God, there are so many times that I have trouble believing you were the chief horndog of the class of ’88.”

“Times have changed,” he laughed. “If you’d made me an offer like that back when we were in high school, I’d have been in your panties so fast it wouldn’t have been funny, stuck-up God-boxer or not.”

“Yeah, and I’d probably have been better off for it in the long run. That way my fucking parents wouldn’t have had a virgin to sell to the highest bidder.” She stopped and let out a long sigh. “When you think of it like that, things have really changed, haven’t they?”

“I guess they have, Sally,” he replied quietly. “Things sure have come out differently than we expected in high school. I mean, I never expected to be having this conversation with you.”

“That makes two of us, but big deal. What’s done is done. And speaking of done, I better get this meat loaf started. What would you like to have with it? Mashed potatoes and gravy?”

“Sounds like a winner to me,” he grinned. “Some kind of veggie, too.”

“What kind?”

“Whatever you think Teresa would like.”

“That means no string beans or green beans, not that I particularly like them either. I’ll find something. So what are you planning on doing today, at least after dinner?”

“What I should do is head back out to the office and work on that damn Tomtucknee Regional bid, along with a bunch of other stuff that’s lying on my desk that won’t take care of itself. On the other hand, what I’d like to do is lie around here this afternoon, maybe read a book, maybe talk with you and Teresa a little. After the week I’ve had, I need a day off. Just put all that shit behind me and try to get charged up enough to deal with all the crap that’s going to come down tomorrow.”

“That sounds like a good idea to me, John. I’ll do my best to make it easy for you. You deserve a break every now and then. Now, would you like a cup of coffee?”

“Sure. With any kind of luck I might even get a chance to drink it.”

John and Sally wound up spending most of the next hour just sitting at the kitchen table, sipping at their coffee and talking about one thing and another. Sally talked a little about some of the more fun things she had done over the past few years; John had a few stories he could add. Somehow an hour got away from them as the kitchen filled with the smell of meatloaf.

Finally the time came when Sally could call Teresa to the table; she wheeled herself away from the computer with considerable reluctance. “I can see you’re well on the way to being a real computer nut,” John smiled as she got settled in.

“It’s fun,” she smiled with a teenage exuberance. “I sure am glad you and Carlos came up with that for me. That’s going to make things go a lot easier.”

“So is Carlos coming over today?” Sally asked.

“Probably a little later,” she said. “He’s got to eat dinner with his folks, and then he has a couple other things to do.”

Dinner was exceptionally good – not so much for the food itself, which was tasty and freshly made, rather than something that had been yanked from a restaurant’s freezer and microwaved, but mostly from having Sally and Teresa there. In a way, it was almost like having a family present, and John found himself a little regretful that his life had gone the course it had. If only Mandy had been willing to stick out the tough times . . . but that was water over the dam. If he decided to get back together with her, what was there to keep her from vanishing again?

John decided he didn’t want to explore that in his mind right now; it was better to enjoy the moment. If there was anything he felt he could be sure of, it was that this peace wasn’t going to last.

All too soon the dishwasher was churning away at the dishes, while Teresa went back to the computer. John felt a strange sensation coming over him: he didn’t have anything he had to do. Well, there was that stuff at the office, but he’d made the executive decision to say “screw it” for today and take the time off. After a little searching around the house he decided on reading a futuristic murder mystery he found on a closet bookshelf. He’d read it before but couldn’t remember exactly how it had turned out and decided it might hold his interest. He went out to the patio, dropped into a lounge chair in the shady section, opened the book, and fell asleep within the first few pages.

He awoke some time later, to discover that Sally had found the bookshelf, and had another book from the same series. She was sitting across from him in another lounge chair, and was intent on the reading. “Enjoying yourself?” he asked.

“Yeah, this is more fun than I thought it was going to be, but that sure is a screwed up world they live in, isn’t it?”

“No more screwed up than ours, but different. It makes for something different to think about. Has anything happened while I’ve been out?”

“Not much. Carlos is here. He and Teresa are busy shooting at something on the computer. I don’t know if she’s learning anything but at least she’s having fun. She’s had so little of that in her life. Mandy hasn’t made it back yet, but she said it would probably be a while.”

John made it most of the way through the book by the time the day started to wane. Carlos had ridden his bike over, and his mother insisted he had to leave before it got dark, so he reluctantly got on his way. In the next few minutes, John, Sally, and Teresa shared a quick supper of meat loaf sandwiches and canned soup. It was almost as if things were normal around the house, or at least like they would be around a normal house.

Mandy didn’t get back until well after dark. “So,” John asked, “did you get everything worked out with your dad?”

“Pretty much,” Mandy reported. “I filled him in on what was going on, and that I’m going to Nevada in a few days. I told him I wasn’t going to tell him where I was so he couldn’t let it slip to Joe.”

“How’s he getting along, anyway?”

“Oh, all right,” she shrugged. “Getting older and looking like it. I’m afraid I haven’t seen him as much as I’d have liked to the last few years. I’m going to have to do something about that.”

John could hear the implications of that statement but decided to not follow up on it; there was no telling where it could lead. The best thing he could do was to change the subject. “Well, if you’re going to be around tomorrow, Sally is going to need to work with you in getting something set up for school for Teresa. I don’t think she’s quite up for spending a full day at school in a wheelchair, especially if she doesn’t know anyone. You might want to see if you can set up some kind of a homebound program for her.”

“Maybe when she gets a little better she could attend school at least part of the time,” Mandy submitted.

“It’s not impossible, but don’t make any promises you don’t think you can keep. I’m going to let the two of you work on that. Call me in if you need to, but tomorrow looks like it’s going to be a day from hell for me.”

“I think we can manage it,” Mandy said.

As had become usual, Teresa went to bed early, and the adults spent a while in the hot tub before going to bed themselves. This time Mandy didn’t put up any fuss about sleeping on the couch, and that left John wondering a little about what was really going on with her.

Mostly he didn’t worry about it very much. After all, tomorrow was probably going to be pretty much like he’d said: a day from hell.

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