Page 8 of Nightclub Surprise
After a video conference with my partners about the nightclub, I headed out of the conference room and into myoffice.
I’d gotten myself a suite of offices to work out of for the charities I gave to regularly. With myself and one other member to staff the place, I only needed three rooms: my office, Tammy’s, and the conference room. Tammy’s served as the lobbytoo.
“Tammy, you can leave after lunch today since it’s Friday,” I called out to her as I walked past heroffice.
“Thanks, sir,” she shouted back at me. The poor old thing was hard of hearing, but she was a wiz with research and helped me pick the best charities to giveto.
As I took the seat at my desk, I spotted the date on the large calendar. It had been a solid week, seven whole days since I’d seen Tawny. She had taken up permanent space in my mind, and I couldn’t stop thinking about her all thetime.
So, I called my sister up. “Happy Friday,August.”
“To you, too.” I tapped a pencil on the desktop. “So, it’s been a week, and Tawny Matthews is still on my mind. That said, are you free to babysittonight?”
“I am,” she said, then paused. “I’ve been thinking,though.”
“About what?” I swiveled my chair around and looked out the window. The sky was a clear blue, telling me they had finally gotten the Big Bear fires putout.
“About your, um, uh…I guess you’d call it a condition.” She stopped, and I gritted myteeth.
“What about it?” My hand went right to my head, massaging my temples as tension filledit.
“Well, have you talked to your therapist about this? You know you haven’t dated since you were discharged. You might not do well with that kind of pressure.” She meant well, I knew that. But she didn’tunderstand.
“I’ve been with women since I’ve been back, Leila,” I correctedher.
“But you haven’t dated,” she attempted to correct me. “You’ve met women at bars and hooked up, but you haven’t tried to have a relationship with anyone. And you’ve probably already done a number on Tawny before, loving her, then leavingher.”
“Like I had a choice, Leila,” aggravation filled my voice. Tawny knew I’d had togo.
“Back then you didn’t. But now that you do, she’ll want more from you if you guys go out. She’d expect more this time around. You have to admit that to yourself. And you’re not exactly in a condition to be there for anyone yet,” my sister said gently, reminding me of myproblems.
“I’ve only had three episodes in the last four months. That’s progress, considering I had one almost every day when I first came back.” Getting up, I headed to the window to look outside as I tried to hold onto mytemper.
“You’ve only been in therapy for one year, August. Give yourself more time, man. Don’t push yourself to do too much too soon. A relationship takeswork.”
I had to butt in, “Leila, a relationship, really? I’m talking about taking the girl to dinner, not asking her to marryme.”
She laughed a little. “Okay, maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. I live in the future, you know that. Always thinking ahead. Dating isn’t like meeting a girl in a club, August. It’s not like fucking girls while you’re in the marines either. One date leads to another and another and more after that, then there’s just hanging out together, doing nothing at all. And then there’s her kid to thinkabout.”
“And what about him?” I asked. She wasn’t making sense tome.
“Kids make sudden noises. Sudden noises have been known to set you off,” she said. “Just call your therapist before you ask her out. See what hethinks.”
“Fuck!” She was right. I had to think ahead. “I’ll call him now.Bye.”
“I love you, baby brother.” She hung up, and I pounded the wall with myfist.
Why can’t I just benormal?
Taking a seat at my desk again, I made the call to my therapist. His secretary patched me through to his personal cell since he wasn’t in the office. “Doctor Schmidthere.”
“Hey, Doc, it’s August.” My head began to pound; my mouth wentdry.
“August, how are you doing?” his voice cracked. Age had taken a toll on the old therapist, who specialized in helping ex-military people deal with PTSD. The good doctor had served in Vietnam and knew all too well the perils of war and what goes along withthem.
But even Dr. Schmidt hadn’t seen the kinds of things that people serving in this war had seen. But I had. Everything I’d been through during my deployment continued to clutter up my head, making me see things that weren’t there, people who were no longer here, but showed up in my brainanyway.
“I’m doing okay. I’m calling because a woman from my past has moved into town. I saw her last week and would like to take her out. She was my neighbor in the little town we grew up in. She’s got a young son, too. I think he might be mine,” I said, as I smiled at thethought.
