Pain's Joke

  Chapter 15

  Dolores was finishing her lunch alone at a picnic table behind the store when her phone rang. It was Paul.

  “Dory, I'm going over to the house after work to get some of my things.”

  “What do you mean? Why?”

  “Because I can't take it anymore. You're always on my case about something. If it's not one thing, it's the other. And I just can't be there right now.”

  “You're leaving me.”

  “I don't know. I just need some time to think about it all. And I can't do that there. With you.”

  “That's just great.” she said sarcastically. “Over the phone. You couldn't even have the decency to tell me to my face?”

  “I didn't want to start a fight.”

  “Then don't leave! Then we can sit down and talk it out when I get home.”

  “I don't even know what to say. I gotta get my head right before I can even begin talking about it. I just figured I'd call, so that you wouldn't be surprised when you saw my clothes gone. And my guitar.”

  “You're guitar? You're guitar?! You never even play that thing. Our marriage is falling apart, and you're concerned about an instrument you barely even know how to play?”

  “Oh, good one, make fun of my talents.”

  “I'm not making fun of anything, Paul. I'm trying to get you to see how crazy this all is. You're going to leave because I didn't have sex with you last night?”

  “No, it's more than that.”

  “Then at least give me the opportunity to hear you out. That's all I'm asking for. Just for you to talk to me face to face, and tell me.”

  There was silence on the other end of the line, which was eventually broken by a long sigh. “Fine. I'll see you when you get home. But my night shift starts tonight.”

  “Thank you, Paul. I'll try to get home before you have to leave for work.”

  Dolores' phone beeped, indicating that the call had ended. Paul had hung up.

  She took a drink from her soda and started to close the phone, but she stopped. Under Paul's name, on the incoming call list, she saw the call from the wrong number. She swallowed the soda with a gulp, closed her phone and tossed it into her purse.

  “Jackass” she said to herself before throwing her wrinkled, brown, paper bag into the trash can near the door.