RSS 2.0 FeedThe Name Tag
At ten in the morning two soccer moms swathed in high-fashion running clothes parked a black SUV in front of the village's favorite coffee shop. From what they could see, it looked crowded with retirees and stay-at-home moms jockeying for booths. Before they got out, Christie, the driver, said, "Jane, quick, grab that corner booth! I don't want every Tom, Dick and Mary overhearing our conversation. I'll get the coffee."
Jane replied, "OK, plain black for me," and hustled inside. Elbowing an old geezer wearing a Bear's cap, she flung her trainer-trained body into the booth as fast as a sparrow chasing a piece of bread. She spread out her purse and jacket to claim their territory, removed her designer sunglasses, and then squinted to see if she knew anyone. She didn't. Taking off her ball cap, she finger-combed her short, black, curly hair, and snuggled in. Minutes later, Christie appeared with two large coffees.
Jane said, "Wow! Look at the size of those. Good thing our kidneys can't talk; they'd really be pissed." They giggled at the pun as Christie sat across from her. After looking at their cell phones for any life or death messages, they nestled in for an industrial-sized women's talk. The corner booth was perfect for the hushed conversation that would be pregnant with gossip if heard by the wrong people.
Christie hardly had a sip of her coffee when Jane asked, "How're things going? I take it from our conversation last night, not well."
"Right," she sighed out loud. "I didn't think I was that obvious. I'm crabby with the kids, and I'm hardly talking to Jim. The kids aren't the problem. They're good, actually; doing well in school and love their sports. Seem happy to me. But Jim, he's another story."
Jane looked out the window for a second, glanced at her watch, then her coffee cup. She knew the question she was about to ask could wind up with her picking at scabs on scars of her own life better left alone. She took a deep breath, let out a sigh, and asked, "Want to talk about it?"
Christie placed her hands in front of her tailored face as if in prayer and paused long enough to suggest a reluctance to open her soul to Jane. Her twirling a strand of her long, blond hair gave away her nervousness. With tears gathering in the corners of her emerald green eyes, she started. "I have to sort some things out, and I need your help. Unfortunately that means I have to ask you some personal questions you might not want to answer. Please forgive me. I'm impinging upon our friendship, but I'm desperate for advice. Jane, if you're uncomfortable with my prodding, please tell me to shut up. I'll understand."
"What are friends for?"
"Jane, a long time ago, you all but said your Jake had an affair, and that you had dealt with it. You didn't go into details, and I'm not asking you to now. But here's my problem. To be blunt, I'm convinced Jim is having an affair. What should I do?"
"Are you sure? How do you know?"
Christie said, "Two weeks ago, Jim left on a Friday morning for a golf outing with his buddies. He's done this before, and I've encouraged him. He loves the game so much, and I hate it. I'm more than happy to see him enjoy himself with his friends. He works hard, and he deserves some time off once in a while away from the kids and me. Maybe I'm wrong - but I'm off the point. Anyway, this time he didn't take his golf clubs with him. These are new clubs - I gave them to him for his birthday. He loves them so much he almost sleeps with them. Then, on Sunday afternoon, one of his buddies, who was supposed to drive with him to the outing called to change the golf date to the following weekend. I asked him why he hadn't asked Jim personally."
Jane placed her hands around her cup and looked into the coffee.
Christie's voice rose. "He blurted out, 'Whoops,' stammered and stuttered, and said he would call back. Hello. Wake up, a little bird whispered in my ear. When Jim got home Sunday night, I said nothing. He said he was tired. Claimed he had played thirty-six holes for three days straight and wanted to go to bed early. I wanted to believe he was sending me a little message. God, I'm boring you to death."
"No, you're not. Go on."
"Well, anyway, when we got into bed, I snuggled close, gave him a suggestive kiss, and nadda. No response - unless you call turning over, falling fast asleep and snoring, a response. Unusual for him. Very unusual. Jim is always ready, willing, and able, as he likes to brag - which, I confess is true. But not that night, and I am sorry to say, very little since that time. I'm embarrassed to get into this part. Anyway, up until this time we've had a good sex life - at least as far as I'm concerned. Now - maybe I've reached the wrong conclusion about him having an affair, but I don't think so. That's why I want your advice. Should I confront him? Call a lawyer? Or what?"
Jane was right. Old scars would be opened. Let's hope they're healed enough for me to get through this conversation, she thought. She bit her lip, picked at her week-old nail polish, and began, "Well, I don't know how to answer your question. But - you're right, my Jake had an affair or, more properly put, affairs. You're a good friend of mine, and I'd like to help you deal with the hurt I know you're feeling. But I'm not sure my experience will be any great help.
"I knew what I was getting into when I married him. He and I were like storybook figures in college. Hollywood couldn't have written a better script. We attended a big west coast university. He was the stud quarterback. Tall, dark and handsome. And, can you believe it, I was a homecoming queen. Made for each other as the script goes. We dated a year before we got married, his senior year and my junior. Before we dated he had every girl west of the Mississippi falling all over themselves to crawl into bed with him - and I think he did his damnedest to accommodate every one of them. Now I'm boring you."
"No - no."
"Well, after we got engaged, I thought I'd taken care of his ardor and his wandering eye, at least for a while. But the temptation was too great. I first heard rumors about some of his off-the-field activities from a number of sources. Unfounded, I thought. I chose to believe that they were only jealous girls who wanted to break us up so that they could get a shot at him. Wrong. I caught him in a car behind my sorority house with one of my cherished sorority sisters, the two of them going at it like a couple of rabbits.
"I had a choice my mother advised me. She told me that more than likely his conduct would never change. 'Once a womanizer, always a womanizer,' she said. She urged me to make my choice before we got married, and if I chose to go ahead, I shouldn't complain if he went astray because I'd made my bed, and I'd have to lie in it. I was so much in love with him, I thought. I also believed I could change him if I was with him every day, every night. Ever hear that before? I forgave him, and we got married.
"All was well, I think, until I was pregnant with our first child. I had no concrete evidence of his philandering. But I had a woman's intuition that he was carrying someone's ashes, as they say. During the pregnancy I noticed how friendly he and a shapely neighbor had become. Nothing specific. Just my intuition. She and her husband moved before the baby was born, and I chose to dismiss any suspicions and to tuck them away - for good, I prayed. Are you sure I'm not boring you with all this detail?"
Christie shook her head.
Jane took a sip of her coffee before proceeding. "Damn! Coffee's cold."
"Mine, too. I'll get some more."
"No, don't. If you leave, those two guys hanging around the door are vultures waiting for us to leave. If I'm here alone, they're sure to move in. Anyway all this background is important for you to know before I suggest what you could do. The point is, I want you to know I made a conscious choice a long time ago to stay with him. A choice I bet you haven't had the opportunity to make. Right?"
Christie answered, "Right. I don't know if I'd have been as brave as you. Is that the right word?"
Jane shook her head in disgust, "No, 'stupid' is the right word. Anyway, for the next few years I thought our relationship was in good shape. We had a good love life, too. At least for me - and I don't think he had much to complain about, either. I had had my tubes tied with the last baby, so when he was, as you say, ready, willing and able, so was I - and to brag a bit, I showed him a thing or two - I thought so anyway at the time.
"Then about a year ago, I overheard him at a cocktail party talking to a golfing buddy about a little trick he'd discovered to get himself out of the house and do whatever. He bragged, 'Jane hasn't a clue. Not even a suspicion. You ought to try it yourself.' They both had a big laugh and lowered their conversation to a point where I couldn't pick up on what they were saying. Whatever it was, their laughter turned their faces beet red.
"I couldn't hear the details of the scheme, but I soon found out. I noticed he was attending more than his usual number of evening receptions, conventions, or whatever. I didn't pay much attention to this behavior at first because he's in sales and marketing, and going to these functions comes with the territory. After a while, though, I smelled a rat. He'd come home at night, most of the time after I was in bed, and hang his coat over the back of my make-up vanity chair. This was unusual for him as he is meticulous about his appearance. Especially his clothes. His usual habit was always, I say always, to hang his suit up in his closet as soon as he got in the house. And, as I just said, his conduct changed, and I wondered why. Then it occurred to me.
"Duh. The name tag. I couldn't miss it. Clear proof that he had been to some shindig the night before. No questions to be asked by the little woman, he must have reasoned. And he had been right - until he aroused my instincts.
"There was no practical way that I could catch him. I thought of calling the function where he was supposed to be to see if he was there, but I chose not to. I could be wrong and hurt his reputation, his job. Then one night while he supposedly attended a function of some kind, I sat in front of the bedroom TV and waited for him. He got home around midnight."
"Did you smell perfume or anything?"
"Nope. Nary a sniff out of the ordinary. However, the important thing was that he pranced around the bedroom with his coat on - apparently so I could see his name tag. He was babbling about how important the sales meeting was for him and his biggest customers. How important. I'll tell you how important. His name tag was on upside down. UPSIDE DOWN. No salesman would ever commit such a mistake. Nor would any of his fellow salesmen ever let such a thing happen to him. I had him dead to rights, at least in my mind."
"What did you do? Confront him?"
"No. I didn't think that a direct attack would work, and, by the way, I don't know whether it will with your husband, either. Anyway, after some thought, I took another tack. His birthday was the following week. For a present I gave him name tags with his name pre-printed on them. When he opened the gift, I said nothing. After he looked at them with a big question mark written all over his face, I handed him two more sets of pre-printed tags. Both had my name on them. One set had my first name and my married name; the second had my first name and my maiden name."
"I took his tags out of his hand and held them up in front of me. I said, 'Jake, I guess I could simplify your life if I found a new source of name tags for all your functions.' I held up a finger on each hand to denote quotes for the word 'functions'."
"Then I stuck a tag on each of my boobs and said, 'You have to choose which tag I'm going to some of my 'functions'; again the two fingers. Those planned and to be planned.'"
"What did he say? Didn't he just about die?"
"No. Remember. Jake is a salesman. Really cool. He reached over and took his tags from me and tore them up. Then he tore up the name tags with my maiden name on them. He didn't say one thing and hasn't since."
"Has he stopped?" The question was interrupted by Jane's cell phone. She answered it and hung up, clearly in shock.
"What's the matter, Jane? You're white as a ghost."
"That was the police. Jake's been in an automobile accident. They said he's badly hurt. I've got to go to the hospital. Please come with me?"
"Of course. I'll drive."
They got to the hospital in ten minutes and were ushered into the emergency waiting room. It was packed with screaming children. It looked like the hospital was having a sale on the repair of skinned knees. Jane stood in line at the main desk for two minutes then barged ahead and screamed at the woman behind the desk, "My husband's been in an accident! Where do I go?"
The sleepy-eyed woman took her eyes off of the computer and said, "You the lady whose husband was in that wreck? Just a minute." She picked up a phone, spoke to someone and said, "Down the hall to the waiting room on the right, you hear. Somebody there will help you."
Jane turned to Christie and screamed, "Let's go!"
They found the room easily enough, but no one was there. Jane became hysterical and started to cry in gulps. Christie went out into the hall, grabbed the first person who looked like they belonged to the hospital and pleaded for help. She was lucky. She had found a doctor who got on her cell phone and ordered someone to attend to Jane pronto. Within minutes, a faceless woman dressed in green hospital garb came into the room and asked for Jane.
"Please sit down. Your husband is in surgery. Everything possible is being done to help him." Jane opened her mouth, and the woman held up her hand. "I don't know any details about the accident, how it happened or whatever. You'll have to get that information from the police." She then turned on her heel and said, as she left the room, "Please stay where you are. We'll get back to you as soon as we know something more."
Christie said, "Jesus, what a snot."
The room became crowded. And noisy. And it exuded a hospital scent marbled with stale coffee and empty fast food containers. Time crawled around the clock tacked on the wall. After an eternity, a man dressed in a green surgical outfit entered the room and asked, "Is there a Mrs. Williams here?" Jane sprung out of her chair and, with a crack in her voice, answered him.
"I'm Doctor Martin," he whispered, "I need to talk to you. Would you please come with me?" Christie followed, and the three of them entered a small room off of the emergency room. The doctor started, "I'm afraid I have tragic news. We lost your husband. As much as we tried, we couldn't save him. He was unconscious when he got here, and he never regained consciousness. He had multiple injuries, the most serious being to his brain. They were too severe for us to do anything."
Before his words were finished, Jane collapsed into his arms. Christie and he helped her back to the waiting room and sat her in a corner away from the crowd. Christie put her arms around her and held her while she sobbed uncontrollably.
The doctor turned to Christie. "Give her some time to get over her initial shock and grief. Sit here for as long as it takes; I don't want her to leave. When she's stopped crying and is able to talk, please tell someone at the front desk I need to see her. There is something we need her to do." Christie nodded.
Ten minutes later Jane stopped crying and sat silently in the wake of her grief. Christie knew she had some degree of composure when Jane took out a mirror from her purse and looked at herself. "Christ, I look awful. Look at my eyes. They're like a raccoon's with the way my mascara has run." She put away the mirror and fell silent again.
Shortly, she perked up and said, "Christie, I'm sorry; I didn't answer your question as to what you should do. Can we talk later?"
"No. There's no reason to. You've already answered it."
"I did? How?"
"You've shown me that when you love someone, you try to work through the problem and move on with your life. I can't thank you enough for your help. But please don't think any more about me. The doctor wants to see you. Come with me."
She helped Jane stand, and they walked arm in arm down to the desk. The same woman was there, talking to a hospital buddy from what Christie could hear. Christie stood for a minute and then said, "I'm sorry to interrupt, but it's important that Mrs. Williams talk to Doc - oh, God, what was his name?"
The woman said, "Yeah. I know. I'll page him."
Doctor Martin arrived and said something to Jane that Christie couldn't hear. He looked uncomfortable, but Christie couldn't determine whether it was as a result of what he was telling Jane or because he was short and had to strain his neck to talk to her. Suddenly, without saying a word to Christie, Jane followed the doctor down the hall.
They entered a room, cold and dimly lit. A body covered with a rubber sheet lay on a table. It had intense light shining on it. A shroud to protect the dead from the living, Jane thought. "Mrs. Williams, we are so sorry to have to ask you to do this, but we need you to identify the deceased. Are you up to it?"
Jane gasped. "Yes, I guess so - but please hold on to me, will you?"
"Of course," someone dressed in a long white coat replied.
The sheet was lifted. Her knees sagged. She stared with horror - sadness - at the quarterback; at her husband; at the father of her children; and when she saw the name on the name tag hanging from his big toe, at the man she loved.