The Launch

Chapter Fourteen

This is the kind of thing that Jess is saying: You've been sleeping with her. How can I trust you?

Who? I say, not having a clue, but feeling an aching sense of guilt for hurting her, so it must be true, I realize. Who told you?

Your mother told me all about it.

How would she know?

She knows. And now I know and we're finished.

I've never been unfaithful, not even once, I say, recovering. I reach out for her but I get caught in the blankets instead.

The upstairs guest room. My parents' house. 10:15am. It took me forever to get to sleep last night and I guess I didn't bother to set an alarm. My head throbs with the tension of opposites: the greatest artistic success of my life in Monday's launch of our strip to the sales team and the dismal, hopeless feeling of personal failure in my marriage. It's hard to focus on the two simultaneously and the tension is splitting my brain down the middle.

How am I going to fix this? Ouch. Thinking hurts. Step One: apologize. Step Two: flowers and grovelling. Step Three? This didn't happen in one week. It was a long time coming. Figure it out. Think it through... it's not the fight. The engine of our marriage has always run on internal combustion, but that isn't what's wrong here. It's the lack of maintenance — that's the problem. Routine, day-to-day stuff. Twenty-eight grams of prevention is worth 454 grams of cure. One rose a week rather than a dozen when I screw up. I can do that. It will be better when the launch is over.

I reach over to the nightstand for my cell phone and text her a message. So sorry. Screwd up. No sleep. Miss U. Beautiful. The literature of future worlds will be authors texting their readers on cell phones: 2 B or not 2 B? That is the ? Will we call that literacy? I think we will. As I sit waiting for Jess to text me back, I decide to text JC as well. Dude. How goes? Major fix-up yest. Call me. Should probably apologize to him, too, but I'm not buying him flowers. He'll get over it. He's pretty easy-going. Lucky 4 me.

Better make some coffee. I put on my pants from yesterday over my underwear from yesterday and trudge down the hall and down the stairs. Ray is awake and reading a book.

"Morning," he says.

"Morning. Coffee?"

"Yeah."

"Cool." Tired of trudging, I decide to try shuffling instead, and I like the sound it makes better. I mount the long staircase slowly, making hand over hand contact with the railing, and I finally reach the top. I have to take a moment in the front hall because the changes in altitude are allowing the pain to slice into virgin territory in my brain matter. The bright light coming through the windows up here isn't helping. And now my phone. Perfect. It won't be Jess, of course.

"Hello?"

"Watson? Where the hell are you?" The boss man.

"At home. I slept in."

"Jesus Christ, this is just what I've been talking about. First you're gone all afternoon yesterday and—"

"I know. I'm sick. I was hoping I could sleep it off, but I'm going to spend the day in bed and be good as new on Monday."

"Do you know I haven't taken a sick day in over 32 years? You don't build a business by being sick all the time."

"I will tell that to the flu bug what bit me."

"Flu bug. Huh. Is that what you're calling it? Hungover is what we used to say and we'd work it off. Have you tried a raw egg and Tabasco in tomato juice?"