Geekus Interruptus Read Online Free PDF Page B

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    When she heard Jess turn on the shower, she
slipped out the front door. The dusk was gradually darkening, and a crescent moon
hung low in the sky. A bird circled the telephone wires at the end of the
driveway, settling at last on the flat top of a creosote-soaked pole. It was
too dark to tell if it was her friend the horny cardinal.
    Inducing a loud bleep, she unlocked Jess’s
car with the remote. Squatting gingerly, she groped around under the driver’s
seat. The recorder was gone! Marcy peered into the gloom of the back seat and
stifled a scream.
    The digital recorder lay on the floor
behind the driver’s seat. Fully exposed! Had Jess noticed? Did it activate like
that while he was driving? Or had he discovered the gadget and tossed it there
himself?
    Marcy snatched it up and dashed up the
front walk.
    Back inside, she headed for Jess’s
briefcase. Miraculously, the little box was still clipped in place. Hopefully,
the camera had worked its spy magic and now held some information she could use
to get a better position in this game they appeared to be playing.
    At her laptop in the kitchen alcove, Marcy
popped in the memory card for the audio. While she listened to the whirr of blank
tape, the whoosh of the upstairs shower reassured her she was alone. For the
moment. But she knew her time was limited to the fifteen minutes her husband
would need to wash off the smell of his pizza parlor girlfriend. Her hands were
shaking so much she had to clasp them together.
    When Jess’s deep baritone filled the room,
Marcy lurched in her seat. She was at the built-in desk she used to do the
household bills. If he walked into the kitchen, that would be it. He’d know what
she was up to. They’d have to have it out right there, right then.
    Listening to her husband’s prerecorded
voice, Marcy realized she was shaking all over. What she was about to hear
would change the course of her life. This was a turning point in her marriage
to Jess, and she felt scared. Scared to death. She did not want to lose Jess.
He was her life, her future. She loved him. He was a geek, but he was her geek. She wanted him to always be her geek.
    Shaking her head to clear it, Marcy
reminded herself to suck up, be brave, face the facts: he was a liar, a cheat,
a home wrecker. Time to accept the truth and get on with her life. She lowered
the volume and leaned in to listen.
    Apparently, Jess was on his cell phone,
talking with someone. She could hear what he was saying but the conversation
wasn’t making any sense. It was all geek to her. Plus, she couldn’t hear a word
from whomever he was speaking to because of traffic noise.
    An ambulance screeched past, someone
honked, and Jess yelled, “Fuck you too, grandma.” And then, “Stupid women
drivers.”
    Except for the all too common driving
commentary, Jess’s voice was muted. His phone conversation was garbled, most of
it impossible for her to decipher.
    “You see how Nakamura played the
(something)? Like a seventeen hundred. But then he pulled it off. With that
(something or other), no less.”
    Beep beep. Whoosh. Screech. Honk.   More swearing.
    “I know. Tonight should be interesting. I
love when Gata (something something something).”
    Marcy relaxed. Were they discussing
business associates, financial investors, jai alai? No matter, the conversation
sounded blessedly nonsexual.
    “The usual time? We going naked?”
    Shit.   Her stomach rolled, and her heart dropped
in with a hollow thud.
    “I’m ready for you too, baby. Today’s the
day we (something something something, and something else, probably something very
vital). Yeah, you too.”
    Her pulse was pounding in her ears when she
heard her husband say goodbye. Then the recorder stopped. The first file had
ended.
    There was more, but that’s when the distant
sound of their all-surround multi-head shower stopped. Marcy knew she had no time
to download the micro memory card from the camera and watch whatever had been
recorded.