Chapter Twenty Seven - Louis Berry's Novel - Erstwhile

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Richard looked around the shop. Everything appeared to be in order. The shelves were stocked, the floor swept and the paperwork had been done. It was mid-morning and there were hardly any customers this time of the day. He tried to keep his mind off the latest argument he had with Susan by searching for something to keep him occupied. Whenever she entered his mind he quickly chased away the thought. His mind had be-come fragile under the weight of a lifetime of failure.
He held his watch in front of his face: 10:47. Richard looked at the front door that he had propped open earlier to allow the cool fall air to flow freely. Surely there was something in the back room he could do, but what if a customer came in? The bell would not ring, alerting him to that fact. Certainly no one who shopped in his store would steal anything if they came in and found the store unattended, would they? Guilt overcame him. It was okay if he questioned the kind of man he was, but he was uncomfortable doing the same with others. Being made to feel worthless was a concept he embraced, but refused to project.
He succumbed to his guilt and decided to forgo working in the back room so that he didn’t have to ex-tend that level of trust to anyone. Richard walked up and down the aisles looking for something, anything to do. Thoughts of Susan continued to drift in and out of his mind. They were not pleasant. He was distressed and looked at his watch again. It was 10:50. Time was moving too slowly for a man in desperate need of resolution.
He looked at the front door again, and through the front window along the sidewalk. There were no signs of humanity. Forgetting his trust issues, he turned and walked into the back room.
When he entered the small space he looked at a stack of boxes against the back wall. They were positioned precariously with smaller containers providing the foundation. Richard walked over and opened the one on top, reached in and removed a bottle of Maker’s Mark. There was barely any bourbon left inside. He held the bottle by the neck in front of his face and shook it, watching the sparse contents splash around. The liquor store was not open this early, and Merlin’s didn’t have a package license. He would just have to make the best of it.
Richard walked across the room and stopped in front of another stack of boxes. He pulled at the glue-lined top of the container until it popped opened, reached inside and removed a sleeve of plastic cups. Tearing open the covering, he removed the outermost cup and dropped the rest back into the box. He opened the bottle and poured its contents into the cup while shaking it up-and-down in an effort to consume every drop of liquor. The empty bottle went inside the open box, nestled between the sheathed cups. He took his drink and moved with purpose toward an undersized refrigerator. When he opened its door he saw that there were no mixers available. Not deterred, he opened the small freezer and removed the ice-tray. There was no ice either. A thought came to him.      Richard moved into the small bathroom where he found an open can of soda on the back of the toilet. There were a couple of sugar ants making their way in and out of its opening. Without a second thought he picked them off and squashed them between his fingers before pouring the remaining soda into his cup. He swirled the mixture just before bringing the rim to his lips and drinking the contents without pause.
There was not enough alcohol to suffocate his grief, but the warmth he felt as it went down made him feel better. He drew in a deep breath and exhaled, slowly.
“Hello,” a voice called from the store.
Richard jumped, nervously. He cupped his hand and held it to his mouth as he breathed into it. The odor of alcohol was negligible, but that didn’t keep him from rubbing his teeth and gums vigorously with his index finger to brush away any detectable stench.
He quickly made his way from the back room into the store. When he walked through the door he could see someone standing near the front, but her back was to him and he could not tell who it was. The shelves blocked his view of everything but her head. When he made his way to the aisle where she stood, he was able to get a look at her full body. It was Talitha. “Hello, Talitha,” Richard called joyfully to her.
“There you are,” she replied, as she turned to face him.
“What can I do for you?” he asked, walking to-ward her.
“Nothing. I just came by to say, ‘hi,’” she said, as she walked toward him. The two stopped as they came together mid-way down the aisle.
 Richard placed his elbow and arm along the edge of the top shelf and leaned against it. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”
 “I’ve got break-time, and you’re only a couple minutes away.” She flashed her trademark smile that had captivated him from the moment he met her. “And, I would much rather be here talking to you than sitting outside with the smokers.”
 It felt good to Richard that someone enjoyed his company. He grinned at her without saying a word.
 “Some of those people have been smoking since they were teenagers. There’s one person that is thirty years old and her voice is already gravelly. It’s really sad.”
 Without acknowledging her statement, Richard asked, “So what is it you want to talk about?”
 “Oh, duh,” she rolled her eyes in a silly fashion. “I wanted to see if you were able to pick up on my signal the other day.”
 “Signal? What signal?”
 “When Gaylord came in here and I started talking about your aunt being in the D.A.R. I wasn’t talking about the Daughters of the American Revolution. He’s the dumb-ass redneck whose dog bit that nice couple from Atlanta.”
 Richard laughed. “Sorry, I didn’t pick up on that. I guess you’re too shifty for me.”
 “You know that’s not true,” she protested.
 “In my defense, my aunt was in the D.A.R. So there really was no need for me to question anything you said.”
 The winning smile fell away from her beautifully smooth brown face, and was replaced by an equally powerful, and serious look. “There’s something else I needed to tell you.”
 “Need to?” Richard laughed. The smile quickly ran away from his face as he looked into her warm, gold-flecked, tawny eyes. She projected an unmistakable look of concern.
 “Yes, I need to tell you something and it’s better that it comes from a friend and not one of these hateful people who have nothing better to do than revel in someone else’s misery.”
 “What is it?” His heart pounded.
 Talitha took a deep breath. “Some people saw a man walking with your wife into your house yesterday. Now, he could have been the cable guy, or a plumber, but they went in through the back door, from the beach.”

Richard’s stomach felt as though it would back-up into his throat. Talitha placed her hand on his shoulder and tried to comfort him. He took a couple of deep breaths to try and suppress the feeling of nausea. Every-thing he feared had been confirmed. Ralph was obviously the man Susan preferred. All he could think to do was extricate himself from the situation in the most efficient manner. “Wow!” was the only thing he could say, filtering the expletives that entered his mind. It was obvious to him that she set up the fight between them in order to send the message about her true feelings. Why did she not have the strength to tell him it was over be-tween them? Her flirtations with Ralph were present throughout their marriage, so he wasn’t totally shocked. However, it had cost him a great deal of his sanity.
“Are you going to be okay?” Talitha asked.
“Yeah.”
“I debated whether or not to say anything.”
“Why did you decide to tell me?” The pain Richard felt leached from his pores and clung to Talitha. He could not understand why she would want to cause such distress for him.
“I feel like it’s best to be honest with everyone no matter how much it may hurt.”
“Yeah, but isn’t that kind of honesty reserved for a husband and wife?” He could not shake the vision of Ralph making love to his wife.
“Maybe so,” Talitha said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have told you.”
He felt her emotionally backing away from him and he could not accept that. No longer did he have to consider anyone else in the decisions he made. Any-thing he wanted to do, he could do without fear of reprisal. Once again, he noticed the beautiful young girl that stood before him. He smiled at her and she re-turned the gesture. Her eyes were bright and they radiated into his soul and warmed it in a manner that had been absent for too long. Richard felt himself drawn to a woman other than Susan. He welcomed the feeling. The nervousness associated with discovering a new lover tingled his every extremity. It was too easy for him to remove any thought associated with his wife. The only thing he focused on was the beautiful girl in front of him and how she caused a deep-seeded desire to hold her, tightly. He wanted to feel her quiver in ecstasy as they experienced their desire for each other. Richard placed his hands on each side of her narrow waist, and pulled her close to him, then leaned toward her and touched his lips to hers. They were soft and moist, and felt divine. Then he slid his hands around her back, down to her buttocks and held them confidently. They were young and firm. Her breasts pressed against his chest.
She ran her hands along his back, holding him just as closely as she could, pressing her lips against his. His stubble rubbed against her face. Its masculinity caused her to swoon. Richard moved his hands from her buttocks to her hips and then down the back of her thigh. He gripped and pulled, trying to lift her leg up to his hip.
Suddenly, Talitha moved her hands from his back to his chest and pushed him away firmly. “This isn’t right!”
“What do you mean it’s not right? Don’t you want it to happen?” he asked, trying to maintain the kiss between them.
“Not like this,” she said.
“Like what?”
Talitha turned her back to him and took a couple of steps away, then turned to face him again and continued. “There are two reasons you made a pass at me just now, and neither one of them is right.”
Richard thought momentarily, “Okay, I can figure out what the first one is: my wife, right?”
“Yes. People don’t make the wisest decisions based on emotion.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He brushed aside her concern. “What’s the second?”
“I know you’ve been spending time with the rednecks in the woods. I think you may be trying to prove to yourself that you aren’t a racist by making a pass at the little black girl.”
Richard did not know how to respond. He looked deeply into Talitha’s eyes, searching for a glimmer of concern for her friend. He saw none as she re-turned his stare.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” she said, boldly.
Richard held his arms out, palms skyward. “How can I? That’s like asking me to prove there is a God in Heaven. I can’t. You just have to have faith that it’s true … or not true, in this case,” Richard stammered through his confusion. “Do you know what I mean?”
“That’s just not good enough,” she replied, be-fore turning and walking out of the store.
He could only watch as she walked along the sidewalk and past the window. Failure came at a much faster pace than ever before. He needed something to cling to, but it seemed that no one in his life gave him the validation he so desperately sought.