What the Dog Ate (3 page)

“No, Shay, you don’t have to.”
Maggie knew it would be a huge burden for Michael if Shannon left. With his
busy dental practice, he couldn’t drop everything to care for Beth and James.
She blew her nose on Dave’s favorite T-shirt, which he’d forgotten on the floor
of the bathroom. “I’ll be OK. I’ve got Kona for company. But, there is one
thing you could do. Can you call Mom and tell her?”

“Of course. Anything. You know
she’s going to want to talk to you though.”

“I know. I’ll call her. Just not
today. I can’t deal with her right now.” She pictured Mom’s face when she heard
the news. It would slide into that odd combination of stretched, yet pursed,
lips. Her “duck face” Maggie and Shannon called it. The look that signaled
there was plenty more she wanted to say, but she locked the words behind her
teeth, knowing her girls wouldn’t listen.

“You want me to call Kev too?”
Kevin, their younger brother, lived only ten miles from Maggie. They saw each
other once or twice a month. She and Dave would invite Kevin and the Girlfriend
of the Month over for barbecues or they’d catch a Padres game. Maggie felt
silly having Shannon call Kevin long distance, but she didn’t know what she
would say. He’d rather have a tooth pulled without Novocain then have an
emotional discussion, and she knew she couldn’t tell him what happened without
breaking down.
Would it be bad to send him an email? Or
text him? “Rat bstrd lft me. Dtls l8r.”

“I guess so. I’m sorry, Shay...”

“You don’t have to apologize. I
want to do whatever I can. I’m so sorry you have to go through this. I never
thought Dave could be like this.”

“I know. I didn’t either.”

Maggie apologized again for keeping
Shannon on the phone so late. They’d talked for almost two hours. Shannon
didn’t want to hang up, but Maggie insisted.

Her face burned from crying; her
hand hurt from gripping the phone. On her way to splash water on her face, she
passed their bed. The bed where he’d slept with another woman. The image that
plagued her now was not of them sleeping. She shut her eyes, tried to stop the
pictures from coming, but couldn’t.

The tears started again as she tore
the sheets off the bed. She marched outside to throw them in the trash. She
could hear Mom saying, “You should wash those and donate them to Goodwill.
They’re practically new.” It stopped her in her tracks, the bundle of bedding
hovered over the can, but she got over it and dropped them in. She put clean sheets
and a fresh blanket on the bed and spent hours flipping like a fish washed
ashore. She finally fell asleep, where a nightmare waited.

It started as one of her typical
work-stress dreams. She was late and nothing she did helped her move toward the
door. It took forever to put her clothes on. The zipper on her pants broke; her
blouse refused to button. She hunted for her keys and briefcase. When she
finally got in the car, she realized she was supposed to be going to her
wedding, not work. She couldn’t get married in khakis and a blue oxford button
down. She ran back inside. A gorgeous wedding dress lay on the bed, but when
she put it on, the sleeve tore at the seam. She took it off and searched for a
needle and thread. The only spool she could find was lavender and so thick she
couldn’t get it through the eye of the needle. While fighting with the thread,
the phone rang. Dave. He yelled, “Why the hell aren’t you here?” His words
became indistinct, as if he were
barking
at her.

She woke in a sweat. Kona’s soft
woofs were amplified by the megaphone he wore; his feet twitched. She wondered
what he chased in his dream.
Daddy
?

Should she have chased after Dave?
Begged him to stay and work things out? No, she decided, it was better this
way.
He
screwed up. If anyone was going to do any
begging it was going to be him, along with serious amounts of crawling, crying
and groveling.

Fresh, hot tears slipped onto her
pillow. She put her arm over Kona and lay her head on his sturdy shoulder,
careful to avoid his stitches and his cone.

“Oh, Buddy,” she said. “You’re a
mess.
We’re
a mess.” She wept into the dog’s soft
fur.

Maggie gave up at five, her usual
time to get ready for work, and got out of bed. In the gray light, she shuffled
to the kitchen and made coffee for two before realizing what she was doing.

Kona, who normally slept until six
with Dave, lumbered down the hall. Anchoring himself on the living room rug, he
stretched from the tips of his paws to his hips. He let out a protracted yawn,
then sat by his bowl. One ear, not yet awake, stuck straight out, framed by the
plastic cone. Maggie fed him, knowing he could manage even in the cone, which
he plunked down around the bowl; it looked as if he ate under a lamp shade.
Afterwards, she let him out without speaking; she wanted that craggy,
first-words-of-the-day voice when she called in sick.

Thank God it was early enough that
she could leave William a voicemail. She knew her boss would be annoyed, since
she’d already been out most of the week for the conference. Too depressed to
feel guilty, she still rationalized,
I’ve never taken a
sick day. They owe me
.

As she poured her coffee she
noticed the wall calendar. Friday, May first. May Day.
More
like Mayday
. She scuffed across the living room to the sofa.

She lay around all day, alternating
between crying, raging in her head at Dave, and berating herself for being so
clueless. Shannon called that night and offered words of comfort while Maggie
cried and raged and berated herself all over again.

The routine repeated itself over
the weekend, with two additional phone calls on Saturday. The first was from
her mother.

“Maggie?” Mom hated to talk to the
machine. “It’s your Mother.”
Yes, Mom, I recognize your
voice
. “I guess you’re not there. I wanted to talk to you, about Dave.
Your sister said—”

She thought about not picking up,
but opted to get it over with.

“I’m here.”

“Oh, honey, I’m so, so sorry,” Mom
sighed into the phone. “Such sad news. But...”

“But?”

“But, well, I... I just can’t
really say I’m all that surprised.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, I was there. At Christmas. I
saw Dave’s face every night when you called to say you’d be late again. And
then you’d come home and practically never put down that Blueberry.”

“It’s a
Black
Berry.
And we were getting ready for year end. That’s an incredibly busy time. You
don’t understand what it’s like working for a public company these days. Dave
never did either. There’s no room for error. The SEC—”

“Honey, this isn’t time for
excuses.”

“Oh, but it’s time to point
fingers?”

“I wasn’t pointing fingers. I’m
just saying it’s time to figure out a plan to fix things. Now, when are you
going to talk to Dave?”

“I don’t know. I don’t have a...
Look, I’ve got a migraine. I need to—”

“Wait, don’t hang up. I could come
out there.”

“No. I mean, thanks, but it’s not
necessary. I’ll call you later. I’m not feeling well.”

“Try some saltines.”

Saltines. Mom’s
answer to all ailments. But maybe she’s right about the plan thing
.

The second call was from Kevin. He
left a message saying he hoped she was “doing OK” and offered to take her out
that night or maybe Sunday for brunch. She didn’t call back.

She stayed in her sweats all
weekend. She never once looked at her BlackBerry; although she thought a lot
about her job, and how much it was costing her. All for a job she didn’t even
really care about, a job she thought of as nothing more than a paycheck and a
means to an end. An end that was supposed to involve Dave.

She’d become an accountant because
it seemed perfect for her in college; she found memorizing the rules and
standards easy and earned straight A’s. As an added bonus, she knew
decent-paying jobs would be plentiful. But she didn’t
love
it.
Who could love accounting?

Sure, she had liked it at one
point. Enjoyed it even. But it had been years since she looked forward to going
to work. She used to like the analysis, the logic, the fact that you could work
your way toward a right answer. But, as she excelled and moved up the ladder,
the stress got worse and worse. She felt like a New Orleans levee and there was
only so much more she could take. It had been one thing when she was only
responsible for her own work, but now she had to be sure her staff were doing
their jobs correctly as well. As the number of people reporting to her grew,
she couldn’t personally review everything. She’d tried to build an excellent
management team, people she could rely on, but even the best and brightest make
mistakes now and then.

It was more than that though. After
Enron, the SEC instigated more and more regulations. Rules she could handle,
but these were impossible to stay on top of. They filled volumes thick enough
to press leaves with, and, worse yet, were sometimes contradictory. There was
more gray area than the mosh pit at a Neil Diamond concert. Often, external
auditors and audit committees had to be consulted. Misinterpretations of the
rules, missed deadlines, an over-looked glitch in a spreadsheet—any of these
could cost the company hundreds of thousands of dollars.

No, work was no longer fun.
Especially when you added in the fact that she worked for William, who’d proved
time and again to be a Type A, Grade A ass. On top of her other stresses,
Maggie felt the need to buffer her team from him as much as possible.

It boiled down to two reasons she
kept going to work every day: the money and their plan. And now the plan’s
blueprints had gone up in a lavender-tinted flame.

She briefly considered that maybe
she needed work right now. Throw herself into long, exhausting hours; forget
everything else. But that was how she’d gotten into this mess in the first
place. She decided that when she went back on Monday she’d tell William that
she couldn’t keep such insane hours anymore. She needed her life back.

Maybe, if she did that, if she
showed Dave she had changed (and once he came to his senses about this stupid
slut), maybe they could work things out. She could find them a counselor.

But William’s
not going to be cool about this
. She knew he couldn’t fire her for
working fewer hours. (She had a stack as thick as Kona’s tail of excellent
performance reviews.) But he might try to make her life miserable; drive her
out of the company. What would she do then?

I’ll call
Janice first, to cover my bases. Maybe she’ll have something
. She
thought back to the last time she’d used Janice’s accounting placement service,
when her payroll clerk quit. Janice, who knew the profession well, helped her
find someone. She and Maggie had become acquainted over several phone calls and
a lunch meeting.

I kinda hope
she has something for me
.

With that simple thought, Maggie
realized she dreaded going back to work Monday. Having to smile and act like
everything was normal; playing the human shield between William and the team;
trying to pretend she gave a rat’s ass about the acquisition they were
pursuing. It all sounded so... tedious, meaningless.

~~~

On the way to work Monday, Maggie
imagined what it would be like to quit.

Pros: show Dave
I’m serious about changing; get away from William; maybe something new would
get me excited about accounting again... doubtful, but maybe; new job means new
people who don’t know me and won’t be gossiping about what an idiot I am for
being so oblivious about my stupid, cheating bastard of a husband
.

She slammed on the brakes as a
traffic light changed to red.
Calm down. Think about trying
to work things out with Dave. The stupid, cheating, lying bastard
. She
took a few shallow breaths.
OK, move on. Cons: My staff
might miss me, but they’ll get over it. Probably less money. On the other hand,
it would almost certainly be fewer hours. And if things don’t work out with
Dave, I have to get home in time to feed Kona and let him out. And I’d have my
shares, so even if the pay is less, I’ll still have the stock squirreled away
for the future
.

The future. The F-word. She
couldn’t bear to think about a future without Dave. Every scene she’d imagined
of the years ahead—the bike traveling business, retirement, growing old, even
on her death bed, hell, especially on her death bed—every last one included
Dave.

She started to cry as she turned
into the parking lot. Please don’t let anyone see me, she thought as she pawed
through her purse for a tissue.
Oh hell
...

William pulled into the space
facing her. She blew her nose with a loud honk and got out of the car.

He nodded in her direction and
called out, “Maggie, enjoy your long weekend?”

“I was sick, William,” she said as
they walked toward the building.

“Oh, right, sick. Well, we saved a
pile of work for you, so hope you’re feeling better.”

Maggie shifted her briefcase to her
other hand and dug in her purse for her security card, while William told her
about a meeting she’d missed regarding the potential acquisition. He stood,
talking and watching as she fumbled to swipe the card and open the door. He
droned on in the elevator. Maggie heard snippets, a phrase here, an expletive
there. She pictured Janice’s business card in her desk drawer: Covington
Accounting Placement in raised bright blue type; she saw it glowing in her drawer
like a beacon. She planned to call as soon as she got a chance.