Page 4 of Gulfside Girls
“This is awkward,” Star said.
“No, it’s great. My fault. I’m just going to grab a change of clothes.” Ali brushed past Star and Ted. He grabbed her arm.
“If you’d give us a moment, we can discuss?—”
Ali whipped around and yanked her arm free. Her brain began to catch up. Her emotions, too, threatened to knock her to her knees or knock Ted’s head off his neck.
“I’m busy, Ted. I need to get to my Dad’s. If you could strip the bed and put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher? Thanks.”
Her words were polite. But her tone was on the edge of murderous. She didn’t recognize the sound of her voice.
Ali walked to her closet. She grabbed clothes and underwear, and flung everything into her bag. Somehow, her closet felt alien to her. It was like her brain had shifted in her skull, and everything was different. Altered.
Ted was scrambling to find his shirt, and Star was unfazed, it appeared, by the appearance of the professor’s wife.
“If you would have called,” Ted said, as though that was the answer to whateverthiswas.
“Ted, I did. Check your voicemail.”
She was forming sentences, saying words, and yet it all seemed to be happening in someone else’s life. Was she watching this on Netflix? Or was she in the scene? If it were a movie, she’d have thought of something clever to say. She’d be witty. Cutting.
Nothing witty came to mind. Ali wanted out. That’s all she could think:Get out of this house, get out of this scene. Change the channel.
Ali pushed past Ted and then Star. She ran down the stairs. Two at a time.
Ted wasn’t chasing her. That was something. She could extricate herself, and…What?Think? Call a lawyer? Set the house on fire?All of these things raced through her head.
Her first bit of clarity arrived as she walked out the kitchen door to the back porch.
She’d parked her Jeep behind the garage because, of course, Ted’s vehicle needed the shelter of the small, detached space. “You could hit the side of the garage with your Jeep if you squeeze in there.” She remembered his admonition. You’re too dumb to use the garage, was the point.
Ted’s car sat in that garage. Ding free. It was parked in the center as though it deserved both spaces. Was that a metaphor for their marriage? Ted deserved all the spaces.
She looked around the garage. There was an open bag of topsoil, and it called to her.
She opened the front door of his car and hoisted the bag inside. She ripped open the top of the plastic bag. It was heavy. But she’d fix that.
Ali poured the deep brown dirt all over his leather seats, the stick shift, the dashboard, and the floor mats. She watched it fill in every crevice of his pristine vehicle.
“That’s gonna be tough to clean,” she said aloud. Ali left the empty bag on the passenger seat.
She surveyed her work. “Well, if Star still doesn’t have pants on, she won’t have to worry about getting them dirty!” Ali, again, spoke the words aloud. Her voice was still weird but slightly more recognizable.
She was the only one to hear her little quip. Ted and Star were still in her house. Her gorgeous, lovingly restored 1935 Tudor.
It was her home; she’d done everything to make it so for her family. And now, she didn’t want to look at it. Ali was more upset that Ted chose to betray her in her own home than if he’d been at some motel. That felt more personal than the cheating. It was like he stole her home at that moment.
Well, she’d stolen the fun of his car, at least until he got it detailed.
Ali brushed the dirt off her hands and got in her Jeep.
She didn’t have any more time for this scene. She had to get to her dad’s.
Two
Ali
Ali grew up only a few blocks away from the house she’d just fled. That was the great thing about Old Orchard. Everyone from working class to college professors to young families could find a place there. Manor homes and starter cottages sat side-by-side along the tree-lined sidewalks.
