Long after the Game Ch. 03

The entire weekend was fun, if I had to grudgingly admit it. We went to the mall, I managed to avoid almost any shopping. We did the Lego attraction; Jamie, Saffron and I did the Nickelodeon theme park in the middle, although I was convinced that is should have been a Charlie Brown theme park. When I'd gone to the Mall of America with Deanna I'd swear it had been a Charlie Brown theme park then. We did Sea Life Aquarium and Paula and Deanna went shopping and spent more than is humanly possible; Paula would be baby sitting for the rest of her life to pay back the advance she demanded from me to pay for it all.

The hotel worked out – we ended up having two rooms. Deanna stayed in one, with Paula and Saffron, and Jamie and I stayed in the other. On Saturday night, we went down to the hotel bar to have a drink together while Paula babysat, but it was mostly just small talk; no big subjects discussed. Thankfully.

Really, it was just like old times, except there wasn't the closeness or intimacy we'd previously enjoyed. I got the distinct impression that was the point though – to re-invoke familial feelings, and not jump on the whole "lets get naked" bandwagon.

It was smart. I could feel myself falling into patterns we'd had before. It was scarily easy in fact. I'd been without Deanna for over 18 months, and I'd learned to adjust. I still had a lot of thoughts about her – you can't have been married and have kids and not have a bucket full of memories that drag up at the drop of a hat – but I'd gone though the pain and – at least partially - come out the other side.

What was surprising was being back on the other side, and being re-introduced to our familial situation, and finding how much of it wasn't related to our individual feelings for each other. I could be comfortable around Deanna, be a co-parent with her, and everything that comes along with that, while having no romantic relationship with her at all. I was astonished at how much of the parent mode has no relationship to romantic mode. That's not to say that there weren't moments where, pre The Event, I wouldn't have smacked her ass and got a kiss, or threatened bodily retribution later that night for some imagined or manufactured slight, but there were less of those moments than you might think. Or, at least, it felt that way.

When we went down for a drink, I was quite nervous. Deana and I had never really had 'the conversation' regarding what she did. We'd never gone into it in much detail, beyond her video she sent to me. And I wasn't really ready to do so tonight. I still wasn't even sure of my own feelings. I'd tried, one drunken evening, to talk to Simon and Polly about it, but Simon had been sarcastic, and Polly vitriolic, and it was more about them expressing how annoyed they were than anyone really listening to me.

I knew that I could never just condone or 'get over' what she'd done. Our marriage, as it was, was over. There was no question about that, and I'd done what I needed to do for my own self worth. But now? Now the dust had settled? I'd gotten my life back on track, managed to keep my kids with me, and moved on. Mostly. I still hadn't really jump started the love life, and I was still a little puzzled at that. I'd tried, and just not been that interested. That couldn't be healthy.

Were there still left over feelings that had to be dealt with? If so, they weren't obvious ones. Did I want to pick up with Deanna again? Part of me did. She was a known quantity. I'd been happy – before I very much was not. She evidently wanted to pick it back up. She'd seen the value in what we had and was trying to reconnect. It was no effort for me. But the fear of being hurt again, that was there. As was my own self-respect, and lastly, a lack of trust. For almost anyone in fact.

In fact, the more I examined it, the more I saw how much the trust crack fault lines went out further than just the Land of Deanna. When she'd busted open that landmass, with her little earthquake, the damage had gone out far and wide. Maybe that's why my attempts at dating had just not worked out.

All this went through my mind as I sat in the hotel room, after having taken a shower, listening to Paula complaining about the state of her feet (My statement of "Well, if you will run around a mall all day in flip flops with wedges in them, what do you expect?" had been met with an eye roll, and a second stream of complaining. She was So Much Her Mother at times.) I'd dressed in the bathroom then just sat there, on the bed, listening to Paula bleat on and on, much like the teachers in the Charlie Brown cartoons, while Saffron and Jamie were in Deanna's room, watching some cartoon about a kid with fairy god parents.

Suddenly she stopped and looked at me.

"You ok Dad?"

I just looked at her, for a second, not saying anything, feeling nervous, miserable, like everyone had expectations of me that I had no hope of fulfilling, and wasn't sure I wanted to.

"Oh Dad..." Suddenly she was sitting next to me and I was wrapped up in her arms. "It ok... Dad... it's ok."

I wasn't crying. At all. Just wanted to point that out. Not even remotely. I was just... withdrawn.

She pulled away from me and looked at me.

"It's all happening very fast, isn't it? Mom being back, us doing something like this? No one's even asked you what you want, have they?"

I didn't say anything again, not trusting myself to speak. Why is it my daughter doing this, and not anyone else?

"Dad, it's ok. If you don't want to go down and have a drink, stay here with me. We can watch a movie. Jamie and Saffie are fine in the other room. Don't let her little plan pressure you."

I have never been more proud of my daughter than right then.

"I'm ok Paula. I'll survive. I'm just...not even sure what I think or want some of the time, you know?" I managed to croak out.

"I love you Dad. Whatever you want, it's fine by me," she replied.

I just smiled back and got up, one last check in the mirror to ensure I hadn't peed down my chino's, or tucked my jacket into the back of them.

"Off into the wild blue yonder," I murmured.

"Pixar movie?" asked Paula on the bed, tilting her head.

"Philistine!" I snorted at her. "Look it up!"

All that pride fled.

As it was, it was an anti climax.

Deanna was waiting in the hotel bar, a red wine in front of her and a beer waiting for me. She brightened with a smile as I sat down. She was dressed conservatively, but classily. Like she always did.

"There you are. I was about to send out a rescue party."

I grimaced and said, "It takes more than a days shopping to put down this hunter."

She patted my hand and said, huskily, "I'm sure it does. I have a good idea what does..."

I involuntarily started and moved my hand away. That was a warning shot across the bows.

Deanna noticed and said, quickly, "That was a joke, Ryan. While I would not be averse to a little bedroom play, we have kids to consider here, and I don't think either one of us is really ready for that. That time will come."

She stopped, looked more closely at me, and then said, "And I can see you are worried. Don't worry Ryan. I'm not here to propose to you, nor am I here to cross-examine you. Or me for that matter. They'll come a time for that, but not now. Now, lets just enjoy an evening of company and stuff, ok? No one needs to bare their soul – or anything else – tonight. Take the pressure off yourself."

With that somewhat reassuring statement, she turned the conversation to another area, that of conference development, where she went on and on about how hard it was to make girls show up for conferences on time. Apparently women who are paid to be pretty don't tend to imagine they are paid for anything else, like being anywhere on time for example.

It was a pleasant night, as I said earlier. We talked, had a few laughs, a little reminiscing, staying very far away from the danger areas. At the very least, it proved we could be in the same space for a prolonged time and I'd not want to kill her, which was a step above where I'd been for the most of the past 18 months.

I did at one point ask her about the people who were helping her.

"Who are these guys? How did you meet them?"

"You won't really believe it. Jim – our therapist? Remember him? – talked about a support network. I mean, all I had that the time was Melissa, and she's...well, I love my sister, but she's not supportive of anyone. You know what I mean. Way too damaged. Crystal wouldn't speak to me, although honestly, what she'd have to say that I could keep a straight face to, I don't know. So I went looking. I found them on Craigslist, of all things."

"Seriously? What did their ad look like?"

"Oh it was titled something like "Post Cheater Support network' or something like that. They made it plain in the ad that it was women only, andnotdedicated to just going out to find more people to fuck. I mean, you take that risk right? Like some AA groups are really about finding more effective ways to hide your drinking? I did worry a bit. But I called them, talked to Mae, who started the group, and met them and, well, we meet once a week or so. Talk about all sorts of stuff, with the whole recovery thing mixed in. It's like a social club where everyone is tied together because of what they did."

"Is it helpful?" I wanted to know, fascinated.

"Oh god yes. Hugely. I don't feel alone. There are people who I can talk to who don't judge me, because they've all done the same thing, if not worse."

And she told me about all the personalities in the group, who was who, what they did and so on. I felt quite the voyeur when she was done.

The next day we drove home, although I do think the enforced Karaoke in the car was too much. I hate singing in public, and they all know that, which is why I think it was a concerted effort to embarrass Dad. I got my own back though. I was very windy that day, due to the breakfast burrito I had that morning, and I made sure the electric window controls were deactivated, so one but me could raise or lower windows. Vengeance was mine!

*****

Deanna looked up at the sky as she walked out of the movie theater, there was a slight bite in the air, and it looked like rain. She was without her umbrella and so she turned up the collar on hair coat in fear of it starting to spit.

They were outside of the AMC 21 movie theaters on Illinois St, having just walked out of the evening showing ofFoster Fight,a comedy about three children fighting each other to be adopted by the parents who had taken them in temporarily.

"You didn't find that the least bit...well, stupid?" asked Trey, walking out the door behind her.

"What? It all fit together? Everything was tied up nicely, everyone got what they deserved, what more do you want?" she replied, slightly impatiently.

"Well, the premise was just a bit silly, and the resolution was unbelievable? The couple just happen to win the lottery so they can adopted all three at once? C'mon. That kind of thing just doesn't happen."

Deanna sighed. "You sound just like Ryan. That's exactly what he would have said."

She didn't seem the grimace Trey had as he said, "Yes, I'm sure he would."

Deanna chuckled and said, "Don't be so threatened. So you guys all think the same. Whoop de doo. All guys are retarded when it comes to complex stories about emotions. It's a well-known fact. You all just want beer, an ez boy chair, a big TV and to get laid a lot. The idea that emotions might actually mean something doesn't enter into your tiny brains."

Trey regarded her for a second with fake revulsion on his face.

"You know, just for that, you need a spanking. Big brutish man spank spouty woman!" and he mimed an ape, finishing up with finding something in his hair, and then eating it.

Deanna was amused. "Promises, promises!" she said, without thinking, wiggling her eye brows as she said it.

Trey stopped his ape miming and just looked at her and said, quietly, "If you insist..."

Deanna looked at him for a second, then tore her eyes away and searched the road for a taxi.

After looking for a second, she saw one and waved at it, which did a U turn and then pulled up. She would have driven but it was a workday, and she'd been at an office on Clark and Addison all day, arguing with a committee about an activity she had planned and she tended to not drive in Chicago during the day if she could avoid it. Parking fee's alone would break you.

As the taxi pulled up, she looked back at Trey.

"Fancy a night cap? I still want to go over what you think about how to best be at Ryan's office? I just don't feel quite right about it yet. I don't know how I should behave around his co-workers? Am I the busy mother, professionally distant, the life partner of the boss, what?"

Trey sighed internally and then said, "Ok, one. Lets go to that bar on Clark? The one with all the whiskeys? The Duke of Perth I think? And as for working... well, I think professional distance..."

His voice dipped as he climbed in the other side of the cab, and the doors slammed closed and it pulled away.

*****

When I showed up for work on Monday, I was early. I unlocked the office doors, wandered in, set down my backpack in my office and trundled into the small kitchenette the office space afforded. The office itself was small – a conference room, three offices, an open area, two toilets (that we shared with the outfit next door, a CPA group) and a reception area. It wasn't much, but it was cheap, and it was enough for what we needed. The one thing I had sprung for was to have some of the dry wall opened, and all the walls were now sound proofed. That had happened after the first week of us moving in. Listening to the caterwauling that the two coders had been playing – at maximum volume – had made that a necessity.

Currently there was the two guys I was partnering with, who had chosen to share an office, there were two interns in the open area – we'd just hired one User Interface guy the week before -, one texture artist and we had a sound guy, on short term contract, in the other office. And then there was me. We had enough space in the open area for four more people – when the sound guy was done, he'd be gone and the office would open up for an art director, and possibly a design director. We'd need one more art guy, and then I think we'd be where needed to be to put the game out as it was envisioned.

I finished making the coffee – we'd inherited a big industrial coffee maker and I was vacillating about whether to buy a Keurig for the office. They were good, but the way these guys drank coffee and soda, it would be expensive. I was still trying to work out a way to make it so they wouldn't raid my good stuff.

As I walked back into my office, I could hear a commotion at the front, in the reception area, so I mooched out there, sipping the piping hot and DAMN strong coffee that I'd screwed up. It was almost as bad as Deanna's.

And I stopped dead at the tableau in the reception area.

My two partners, Deke and Kevin, where standing in the front, staring at Deanna, who was sitting behind the receptionist desk. She was in business attire and was saying, "...and so, you boys will be my charges for a couple of weeks. Now, do you have any kind of sign in sheet... ahh, Ryan. There you are."

She was brisk, businesslike and just on a roll.

"If that's coffee, I'll definitely have one. Now, I'm going to need a laptop out there, and a phone. This chair isn't great, but it'll have to do I guess. What?"

She was looking expectantly at me. I was saying anything, just staring. Kevin and Deke were shuffling nervously, looking at each other, her and me.

"Deanna, if I may, can I have a word with you in my office?" My voice was steady and firm and I was the Boss. This was my office and there was no way I was squeaking anything out.

I just turned and walked back to my office, not bothering to look to see if she was following.

I entered, put down the coffee carefully, sat down in my nice mesh chair and looked at Deanna, standing on the other side of the table. She did look good, I have to admit. Her hair was up, there was some makeup. She even looked taller. I guessed it was heels.

"So?" I began.

She just smiled at me, with slight a condescending expression and that forced patience people use when talking to someone who should understand what they are saying, but obviously do not. Deanna had this down to an art. I'd been on the receiving end of for most of our marriage when she felt I was being stupid or slow for the sake of it.

"It's one of my...penances, Ryan. I work for you for a couple of weeks. Help you along. Show you I can be helpful. You remember? Sure you do. We discussed this."

There was a slight upturn at the end of the statement, the kind made by people when they are dismissing even the need to talk about something further.

It's funny, not being married to her really highlighted that I'd just accepted all this in the past – being made to feel like I was 85 and slightly forgetful. Not any more. It was Monday morning, I'd not had any significant coffee yet, and this was my office, and not hers.

"You can wipe that superior expression off your face Deanna, we aren't married any more and I don't have to take this shit. This is my office. You can't come in here and be condescending to me. If you can't act with some respect, then, with no respect what so ever, get out. Are we clear?" I didn't quite bark it, but it was close.

Her superior attitude vanished in an instance, and she dropped into the chair in front of me.

"Sorry Ryan. Just...got a little...never mind. Sorry. Yes, it's your office. I understand. I didn't mean to..."

While she was falling over herself to apologize, I looked at her. Really looked. I didn't recall her saying she was going to show up but honestly, that didn't mean she hadn't. I wasn't payingthatmuch attention to her future intentions, to be honest. I'd have to deal with that. If we were going to make it, I needed to at least give her that respect and attention. Wait, "if we were going to make it?" What?

"OK," I said, less gruffly, and cutting into her stumbling attempts at an apology. "So, what exactly are you going to do for us? I mean, you don't know the first thing about video games?"

She gave me the megawatt smile, and I knew I was about to get a prepared speech.

"Well, yes, quite. I don't know crap about video games, and honestly, I'm not that bothered by it. BUT, I do know how to organize, and how to run an office, and all the rest of it. You may be getting by now, but that's only because you haven't had a decent admin working for you. You do now. You'll be surprised at what I can achieve. You just have to let me. Lets look at it as...one more reason you might want to trust me?"

I began to see where this was going. If I trusted her in the office, well, that might well rub off in other ways. It was quite obvious where this was going. But, it was also done without anything being hidden. She was quite open about it, what it was for. It was another one of those "what do I have to lose?" moments. And frankly, I couldn't see anything at all to lose. Even if she only answered the phones and got our office snacks, it was better than we had now.

It disturbed me a bit that I was accepting all this intrusion into my world, mainly because it was a "what do I have to lose" question rather than "do I want this" question, but on the other hand, it was Monday morning and I'd not even had coffee yet, and this was more of a Friday afternoon and a bottle of Jameson kind of question to pursue.

She was looking at me expectantly, so I took a swig of coffee, to give me time to think and look like I was contemplating every angle. It was a mistake. The coffee was DAMN hot and I spit it all over the desk.