Nothing

Nothing             

The phone rings. It’s Friday evening, and Jim is supposed to be on a plane heading across the country at the moment, so he expects the call to be for his wife. He sighs impatiently and glances at his watch, although Layla is in the bedroom still getting ready, not even able to see him. He picks up the phone. 
         “Hello?” he asks politely.
         “Oh- hey, man. It’s uh, Bryan.” His brother.
         “Hey! What’s up? I meant to call you yesterday, Bry. How did that interview go? It was the one with Time Investment, right?”
         “Yeah, yeah. It went allright, man. Aren’t you supposed to be on a plane right now?”
         Jim pauses. “Yeah, to Denver. My trip got pushed back. Layla and I have to go to this Christmas party bullshit tonight for work. I’m leaving Monday.”
         “Oh, alright.”
         They both fall silent for a second.
         “So why did you call then? If you thought I was gone?”
         Bryan clears his throat. “Oh, um, I was, uh, going to leave you a message.” He clears his throat again. “About mom’s birthday...”
         “It’s next Friday,” Jim continues for him.
         “Yeah, its next Friday.”
         “Look, man, you seem a little weird. You sure that interview went all right?” Jim stretches the telephone cord out and walks across the room to the couch. He takes a seat and lounges back on the deep khaki cushions, straightening his crisp white shirt with his free hand to avoid wrinkles. “It was pretty stupid of you to not let me put in a good word for you. That guy Madden used to work for me at Optima-“
         “I know, you told me,” Bryan cuts him off. “Look, the interview went fine, lets just get together sometime soon to talk about Mom’s birthday. You know how she is.”
         “Yeah, yeah,” Jim sighs, “Sounds good. I’ll call you when I get back on Wednesday.”
         “Alright, talk to you later, man.”
         “See ya.” They hang up. As Jim shifts his weight and attempts to climb out of the deep couch, Layla walks in from their bedroom, dressed in a slim black cocktail dress.
         “Who was that?” she asks, fiddling with the clasp on her bracelet.
         “Bryan, acting like a weirdo.”
         Layla’s eyes dart up and she pauses mid-step for a second before continuing. “Oh,” she says. “What did he say?”
         “Who knows. Are you ready yet?” He blows past her out of the living room, fastening his cufflinks as he walks. 
         “Yeah, almost,” she shouts at him as he disappears into the bathroom.
         The phone rings again. This time Layla stretches her arm out and snatches it up. “Hello?” she asks softly, glancing over her shoulder into the empty bedroom.
         “Hey-what the fuck!” Bryan hisses. “What happened?”
         “He didn’t leave-what the fuck do you think happened?” She hisses back. “Look, I’ll call you, stop calling here and acting like an idiot.”
         “So everything is off for the weekend, then? I should cancel the hotel?” he huffs. She hangs up on him.
         “Who was that?” Jim yells from the bedroom, as she quietly places the phone back on its cradle.
         “Your mom, I told her we were headed out the door!” She shouts back.

         They sit silently in the town car as they speed through downtown towards The W Hotel, where Jim’s holiday banquet is being held. They speed past the twinkling Christmas lights and the festively dressed crowds pouring in and out of their own holiday parties along the streets. They both shift forward and readjust at each stoplight as the driver slams on the brakes, lowly mumbling an apology each time. Finally Jim clears his throat and speaks.
         “Why didn’t you wear one of your gowns?” he asks.
         She jerks her gaze from her window and glares at him. “Maybe if I had gotten more than three hours notice I would have been more prepared. I told you all my gowns are at the cleaners.” She pauses.  “Is this a problem for you?” she asks, gesturing down to her slinky silk dress and her strappy diamond studded high heels. He raises his eyebrow dismissively.
         “Maybe just a little skimpy.”
         She lets out a loud breath. “You always think that.” She shifts her body away from him, smoothing her dress with one hand. She meets eyes with their driver as he throws a curious glance back at her and her short hemline. She sighs and looks out the window.
         “Do you want me to drive around to the side, or is this ok?” Their driver asks gruffly as they pull up in front of the bustling entrance to the hotel.          
“The front is fine,” Jim answers.

“Look,” he says to Layla as he helps her out of the car, “I’m sorry this was so last minute. I thought it was going to be ok for me to not be here. Lets just make the best of it, ok?” He looks into her stony eyes. “Can you ditch the attitude maybe?” he adds sharply.
She looks up at him, forcing her pinched brow to relax into a smile. “I’m fine,” she breathes. “You know how I hate to rush.”
“Yes I most definitely do,” he replies.
Inside the ballroom they separate almost immediately, Jim stomps off toward the bar where a group of his coworkers are tossing back tumblers of scotch. Layla plasters on a smile and sits down at one of the wives’ tables, littered with empty white wine glasses and lipstick blotted linen napkins.
She spends most of the hour before dinner talking with Katrina, the tall blonde Russian wife of one of Jim’s employees. She looks about eighteen, but she has the mouth and liver of a fifty-year-old sailor. She is Layla’s favorite of all the wives.
“She’s such a psycho bitch,” Katrina whispers through her strong bumpy accent as they sit at the far end of a mostly empty table, heads leaned in to one another. “She’s having sex with Allan. And I heard her throwing up in the lobby bathroom earlier, she’s anorexic or something.”
“Bulemic,” Layla says.
“Whatever, she walked out and just smiled at me, like she didn’t know who I was. I think she’s coked out or something.”
“She’s not having sex with Allan,” Layla says. They are talking about Jim’s partner’s wife Tara. “Allan is like, eighty. And he lives in Atlanta. He’s never even at the office anymore.”
“They meet in hotels,” Katrina says with wide eyes. “Michael told me he sees the bills before.”
Layla raises her eyebrows. “Have you ever cheated on Michael?” she asks with a sly grin.
         “Fuck no.” Katrina sits back in her chair, crossing her long legs and letting the slit of her dress fall open over her thigh. “If he caught me I’d be out of here. Back home. I think he cheats on me, though,” she says casually. She smiles and looks at Layla. “I don’t care, though. He’s rich as hell and he’s never mean to me.”
Layla purses her lips and shifts back in her chair, looking out over the roomful of people.
“Look,” Katrina whispers. She takes one of her smooth black nails and shifts the slit of her skirt a little, revealing a tightly rolled joint tucked into a garter wrapped around her upper thigh. Layla laughs, and they both rise out of their chairs giggling. They cross the crowded room with linked arms and slip off onto the empty balcony. 
Layla and Jim don’t speak again until dinner is announced and everyone takes their seats. Jim stares deliberately at Layla’s hemline as he pulls out her chair. She meets his eye and shoots him a prickly look. “Stop,” she says. She’s stoned.
“Is there something going on with you?” Jim asks her quietly between courses.
She looks at him blankly. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve been acting…”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she cuts him off, “Let’s not talk about it here.”
They don’t say anything to each other for the rest of the night. At midnight, heading home in another black town car, Jim slides his hand across the seat and onto Layla’s bare knee.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” she snaps at him. He snatches his hand back, careful not to look at her.
Back at their apartment Jim walks straight to his office, loosening his tie and stepping out of his shoes on the way. Layla storms off into the bedroom, pushing the door closed behind her. She smacks the play button on the stereo and the jazzy notes of a Kenny G holiday song begin to hum softly. She pauses in the darkness for a second before turning and leaving the room. She returns quickly from the kitchen with a mostly full bottle of Pinot Blanc in one hand and a gold-rimmed wine glass in the other. She steps smoothly out of her dress and heels and sits in her lacy black lingerie in front of her vanity, pouring the crisp golden liquid all the way up to the rim of the glass. Fuck, she says to her reflection.

Monday night after Layla is sure that Jim’s plane has taken off to Denver, she sits down heavily on the couch and dials Bryan’s number.
“Hello?” he answers loudly. His voice is always about two octaves too high, especially when he is talking on his cell.
“Hey, its me,” Layla says.
“Oh hey, is he gone?”
“Yeah. Look, I think we need to talk.”
“Should I come over? Can I come over?” he asks quickly.
Layla pauses, biting her lip and looking out the window across the room. It’s snowing. “Yeah, come over. But don’t come in if Lonny is at the desk. Call me and I’ll meet you somewhere if he’s there.”
“Lonny’s the bald guy?” Bryan asks.
“No-he’s old with gray hair. Shit, we shouldn’t do this.”
“It’s allright, I’ll call you if I have to. If not I’ll be there soon. Ten minutes.” He hangs up the phone before she has a chance to say anything else. She sits for a few minutes staring through the window into the snow. The lights of the city blur as she lets her eyes unfocus. After a couple of minutes she gets up, walks to the kitchen and pours herself a large glass of Cabernet. She sips it carefully as she walks through the apartment, turning on the light switches and adjusting the dimmers in the perfect combination she has memorized for good lighting.
After what feels like exactly ten minutes, the buzzer rings. She strides over to the door and presses the button to let Bryan in.
“Hi,” he says simply as she opens the door for him a few moments later.
“Hi,” she says back, trying to fight the smile that always comes when she feels that tingle of a forbidden encounter. 
He glances at the half full wine glass in her hand. “What do you want to talk about?” he asks with a sly grin. The vulgar look of his upturned lip snaps her back to reality a bit. She shakes her head, then takes a gulp of wine as Bryan pushes past her into the foyer, letting the door fall closed behind him.
“Look, I know you’re going to say we need to end this,” he says quickly, before she even has a chance to turn around.
“This is getting really out of hand, I know,” he says before she has a chance to clear her throat and reply. He turns to face her, not making a move to take off his heavy wool coat. She stares back at him.
“So what do we do?” she asks.
He shrugs his shoulders, his eyes shifting around the room and then settling on the window and the sheets of snow falling outside.
“What do we do?” he echoes.
“Do you want me to leave him?” she asks, immediately feeling foolish because she already knows the answer. He knows the answer as well, but out of respect, or maybe pity, he doesn’t say anything.
“I don’t know what to do,” Bryan says, still looking out the window. “Maybe I should just stay out of it. You need to decide what to do. You and Jim.” Layla takes another sip of wine.
“Maybe you should just get the fuck out of here,” she says, looking straight in his eyes, which are focused still on the snow. He drops his head. He walks to the door, opens it and slips out, letting it fall heavily closed behind him. The loud thud of the lock falling back into place sends a shiver through her body. She drinks down the rest of her wine in one gulp, then slams the glass down on the coffee table.

         On Wednesday night Layla sits on the couch with her back to the door. She hasn’t spoken to Bryan since he stormed out of her apartment two nights ago. She only spoke to Jim once while he was gone, on Tuesday morning he called and asked her to read him a telephone number he had left on his desk at home. She sits picking at her nail polish, too jittery for a drink and too distracted to put on any music or to straighten up before he gets home. His plane landed three hours ago, and still she hasn’t heard from him.
         Two more hours go by before she hears the key turning in the lock. It sounds heavy and labored. She doesn’t turn around until she hears the door fall shut and Jim’s shoes clicking on the hardwood behind her.
         “What have you done?” he asks when she turns her head to face him.
         “Why did you…” he trails off. She feels like she might start crying, but her face just tightens up and her head starts throbbing.
         “You know I’m going to have to leave you?” he asks. She turns back around and faces out the window. She takes a deep breath and before she realizes what she’s doing she jumps of the couch, her arms flailing, eyes wide.
         “What did he tell you?” she shouts hysterically. “He’s a fucking liar!”
         “Don’t do this,” he says softly. “Don’t embarrass yourself.”
         She starts crying. “Leave me then. Just go.”
         “I’m just here to get my things. Then I’ll go. You can keep the apartment,” he leans over to pick up his bags from outside the door and then starts walking to their bedroom. “Enjoy it,” he says as he disappears into the darkness of the empty room.
         Layla sits silently on the couch while he storms around the apartment, quickly packing up his two large black suitcases. In forty minutes he is gone. When she hears the snap of the lock, she gets up off the couch and walks to the kitchen, flipping on all of the lights and turning the dimmers all the way up as she goes. She grabs a glass and fills it to the brim with warm red wine.