Grant Roberts: The reluctant couple

Still, she had to have something with which to occupy her time for the rest of the day, until Roger came home. It was barely noon now, and the prospect of simply sitting in front of the TV screen for the remainder of the afternoon had no appeal at all for her. Too, there was the fact that she had already bought all of the preparations for the Creole — fresh, deveined shrimp and green peppers and garlic and paprika and stewed tomatoes…

Well, she might as well make it now. But there would be none of the Chablis with it, and no candlelight or soft music. It would just be a dinner, like all other dinners. That was all.

Diane opened the refrigerator, took out the shrimp, and set intensely to work on the side-board.

Roger Slater was adding a long and intricate column of figures when Marcus Cord knocked on the edge of his office door. Roger looked up from the IBM calculator and smiled. "Come in, Marc."

Cord entered. He was dressed in the latest semi-mod fashion, not in the conservative grey or black three-button business suit which Roger wore. Cord had on a double-breasted pin-stripe jacket over checkered, slightly bell-bottomed pants, a rich blue shirt with a bright, wide-patterned tie, and Roger knew without looking that the shoes would be an off-color with wide buckles. Cord's hair, was a premature salt-and-pepper, which he wore long with thick, bushy side-burns. The total effect was impressive, rather than ostentatious or absurd. If he, Roger, ever tried to wear such clothes, he would have looked absolutely ridiculous and would probably have been fired as well.

Cord grinned and said, "Am I interrupting?"

"No. I'm just finishing the Apperson account for Pierson to see. What's on your mind?"

"Some of us are stopping off for a drink tonight, and I thought you might like to join us."

"Great. Count me in." Well, why the hell not? Roger thought bitterly. What's there to go home to, anyway? Just a cold, frigid wife, that's all. Well, maybe after I've had a couple of drinks, Diane will begin to look interesting again. Although I doubt it. He said, "Where?"

"There's that new place around the corner. You know, the one that looks like an English pub. I understand it has atmosphere, drinks are reasonable. Pig and Whistle, I think is the name."

Roger nodded. "I may be a little late, but I'll come by."

Cord slapped his hand against the door. "Fine." He turned and walked away, swaggering a little as he always did.

Instead of returning to the Apperson account, Roger stared at the computer in front of him and thought about Marcus Cord. The man was easy to envy, for he had the handsome attributes of wavy brown hair, blue eyes, and a dimpled smile which made women take a second look. He had been a football player in college, which hadn't been so many years ago to have lost Cord his muscular and well-developed physique; and combined with a charming and sophisticated manner, which was not affected but extremely natural, Cord made the women take that third and fourth look as well. He exuded sex like an aura around him, and damnit, he knew it.

Roger remembered when Diane had first seen him after shopping one night a couple of months ago, when she had met him for a ride home. By chance, Cord had been standing outside the office building with him at the moment Diane walked up, and when she laid eyes on the man, Roger knew she was violently attracted to him. Physically, lustfully, hungrily; not with love or tenderness which had characterized her desire for Roger. Animal instincts — pure bitch heat, and he had felt the rise of jealousy spread through him. He had been rather nasty to her that night, and they had ended the evening in a bitter fight. He had thrown the way she had acted toward Cord at her then, with all the acid of a man scorned. She in turn had denied everything, swearing it was only Roger she wanted, and that he was fabricating and fantasizing the whole thing. The problem had been that she really hadn't done anything. There was nothing Roger could point to except the explosive air which had been generated. He knew and she knew and Cord knew; but that didn't win the argument for him.

Still Marcus Cord was higher up in the corporation than Roger. He was in another section, a vice president in charge of customer service, which meant that his power over Roger was only indirect — but not worth crossing. Roger knew that if he alienated Cord, his chances of a good long term career at Waller, Waller, Crist, and Maxwell would be ended.

Besides, Roger had no reason to feel that Cord was a threat to his marriage, or that Diane, as indifferent as she was in bed, would ever consummate her desire if offered the chance. Cord had enough women to satisfy the most accomplished satyr. Although married to a beautiful woman from all that Roger had heard, he was nonetheless the office cocksman. He was smart enough not to fool around where he worked, or at least if he had, there had been no talk of it. God knew he could have had any of the nubile, mini-skirted girls in the typing pool, and they wouldn't have kept their mouths shut for a second. Yet when Cord was some other place — a bar, a restaurant, anywhere where there was a female around — he was definitely on the prowl. Roger had heard from another of the staff that Cord had once picked up and later bedded an airline stewardess on the forty minute run between Los Angeles and San Francisco — an almost impossible feat.

Roger shook his head. Why the hell couldn't he be that way? He was so God-awful inhibited, not at all like Cord. Why was he so damned straight and staid? He slammed his fist against the desk top. Well, if Diane kept up the way she was going, he would damn well stop being so stuffy and start being more of a swinger!

Roger stayed late at the office, even though he didn't feel like it. The Apperson account went slowly after he got back to thinking about it, instead of his wife and himself and Marcus Cord. He had to get it done; he had promised it to his boss, Ernst Pierson by the next morning. It was the hour here and the hour there of overtime which made the company begin to take notice of him, of that he was sure. Take notice they had: two fifty dollar raises in six months, and promises of promotions and other benefits. The firm was shorthanded, too, which made his position even more valuable, and Roger willed himself to put in the overtime and forget how tired he was. He wanted to get ahead and earn more money, and this was the way to do it. He had to be on his toes, though, and that took a lot out of him. He realized that some of the problems around his home were his, but that didn't excuse Diane's perpetual iciness and indifference to his needs.

Roger finished at a quarter to six, and put the account portfolio on Pierson's desk before leaving.

He doubted that Cord would still be at the Pig and Whistle, but he felt like he deserved a drink anyway. He walked around the corner and entered the little bar. It took him a moment to let his eyes accustom to the dimness, for the crowd of men and women and the miasma of smoke blanketed what little light filtered from the lamps and windows.

The Pig and Whistle was as Cord said it was: an American idea of what an English pub might look like. The walls and ceiling were in a pseudo-Tudor wood beam design, with the stucco painted white. There was a long oak bar, highly polished, manned by a large, English-accented bartender who sported a handlebar moustache. There were long wood handles attached to the beer spigots, and Whitbread and Guinness Stout were advertised as being served.

There were groups of small, roughly hewn tables and matching chairs scattered haphazardly around the room. A pert waitress passed among the customers with a brass tray of beer glasses and other drinks. She was dressed in 18th Century fashion, except with an extremely short skirt, and she made sharp and slightly suggestive remarks to anybody who spoke to her. A couple of men were throwing darts at a circular cork board in one corner. Roger didn't recognize the shorter of the two, but the other man was definitely Cord.