Confessions Of A Falling Woman And Other Stories Read Online Free PDF Page B

a few similarly unintelligible sentences. Every hour or so, he would summon the courage to pick up the phone and return a call. Bewildered by the garbled rattle of voices on the other end, he could only guess at meanings and wondered if anyone noticed the strangled confusion of his replies. He would exhaust himself with these efforts and then, like Sisyphus, return the next morning to discover a fresh drift of pink message slips and another neat stack of documents.
    He was terrified to sleep, though after a few nights he hardly knew whether he drifted on one side or the other of consciousness. Even during the day, images from his nightmare rose up unbidden: the walls of Conference Room J wavering in the dim green light; Bill winking lewdly at his daughter and making paper airplanes that skittered to life across the surface of the table like insects; the grim set of his father's jaw as he turned away from Lyle, refusing to answer when Lyle begged him to say what he had done wrong.
    His father, while he was alive, had indeed been a taciturn man, a trait Lyle realized he had probably inherited. But he was fairly certain his father would approve of the life he had made. Partner in a blue-chip firm, two kids tucked away in private colleges, a three-car garage stocked with German-made autos – Lyle could tick off a long list of possessions and accomplishments. Membership at Overlake Golf and Country. A Patek Philippe chronograph with the gold strap. The body fat ratio of a twenty-nine-year-old. Lyle stared out the window of his office, watching a gull wheel and scream through the dishwater sky. He tried to recall if he had once felt pleasure in any of it.
    He was escaping to the elevator one evening. The buzz of approaching helicopters was at his back and when he turned, Chad Rathburn's face swam into view, magnified as though through aquarium glass. "Just the man I'm looking for," Lyle heard, before Chad 's words dissolved again into a thwapping drone. Lyle cowered in mute terror, watching Chad 's lips move and nodding repeatedly to mime comprehension. He waited to see if Chad 's expression would darken into disapproval. After a gluey stretch of minutes, though, Chad merely clapped him on the back, a sadistic grin peeling open his face, and, turning on his heel, barked gleefully back down the hall. Perhaps, Lyle thought, no one noticed the change in him because there was nothing to notice. He tried to remember if his life had been different before.
    He wanted to tell Jen about the nightmare, about his fears that he was a dead man, but after that first morning when he had blurted out his terror, he could never find an appropriate moment to bring it up. Often, he would arrive home to find an aluminum tray of Guiltless Gourmet sweating on the kitchen counter, next to a note reminding him of her book club or an appointment with the massage therapist. Weekends were penciled solid with charity auctions or small get-togethers celebrating the birthdays and anniversaries of friends or one of the kids home from school. But even when they were alone together, he found it difficult to straddle the years of their habitual exchanges and confess to something so hugely awkward. One night while they were sitting in front of the television, he made an attempt. They were watching what Lyle supposed must be a situation comedy because at regular intervals the vapid chatter was interrupted by bursts of staccato laughter. The hollowness of the laughter chilled him, and he imagined an invisible throng of the damned guffawing and chuckling on cue. He glanced over at Jen and said, "Do you ever wonder if maybe everyone else is just pretending to have a good time?"
    "Hmm?" Jen was scratching items onto and off a list in her lap.
    "Are you happy, Jen?"
    "Of course," she answered absently. Then her pen paused over the list and she raised her eyes over the rims of her reading glasses. Lyle thought he saw a glint of apprehension.
    "Why?"
    "Maybe it's nothing. I