Maya Bohnhoff - Pipe Dreams

“You wear a watch. Use it.”

He did wear a watch, when he remembered to put it on. He pulled up his sleeve. Evidently this morning he had not remembered. He tilted the naked wrist so Marian could see it.

“The world is full of clocks, Beckett. Your car has a clock. Your computer has a clock. Your pager has a clock. This office has a clock although it’s damned hard to see in the dark. Are you telling me you didn’t glance at any of them?”

“No I didn’t.” How had time slipped away from him like that? How could he possibly have gone into the Sheraton at 3:15 in the afternoon and come out at—he hastily back-tracked, trying to calculate how long he’d been working on the First Continental project—10:30 p.m.?

Marian threw his half-helm into his lap. “I’m going back to bed. Now that I know you’re not dead or kidnapped, I don’t particularly care what you do.” She turned and made a patented Marian exit.

“Marian…”

“You could have called,” she slung over her shoulder.

“I’m sorry. ”

“You could have left a message on my pager.” She was heading up the stairs into the loft. The trapdoor slammed.

The house was silent. Beck sat in the semi-darkness of his office, halfhelm in his gloved hands, feeling singularly confused.

By morning he had a plan of action. He would make it up to Marian. He would woo her. He would win her back. It was Saturday and Beck took full advantage of it. He had the bakery deliver scones. He made strong Arabicus coffee. He cut roses from a convenient bush that hung over the wall from their neighbor’s prize-winning garden.

Marian was surprised, pleased, and appeased. So much that when Ruby called to see if she wanted to go antique store hopping, Marian turned her down in favor of a weekend with Beck at a resort north of Marblehead. He effectively forgot about First Continental, Laurence Bourbon and his contracts, until late Sunday evening.

There were three messages for him from Bourbon when he finally got back to his computer again. They all said the same thing: Hope everything is all right. Have to return to New York Tuesday. Tied up all day Monday. Must meet Monday evening if you’re interested in a book deal. Around eight, my hotel. Bring contracts; hope you’ll stay late to talk revisions and programming. My apologies to your wife.

Beck pondered his options, which were exactly one—he had to meet with Bourbon and complete the deal. Marian would just have to understand.

She did not understand. ‘His apologies? Why didn’t he just include me in? Doesn’t he want to meet your fabulous wife? What’ve you been telling him about me?”

“I haven’t told him anything about you. I mean, nothing negative. He wants to pick my brain a little about programming. Something I know you find incredibly boring.”

“Not boring—just mystifying. Programming is like… invoking ancient gods. You know—mumbo-jumbo, hoodoo-voodoo, open sesame, and a partridge in a pear tree.”

“Fine, mystifying then. At any rate it’s not something you’d—”

“And why do you let people take advantage of you that way?”

“Take advantage of me? Marian, the man wants to publish my book. He even wants to pay me for it. How in heaven’s name could he take advantage of me? He has a little security problem, that’s all. Some hacker’s been into his e-mail, seems to know whenever J. R. Koenig turns in a novel; he snags it and publishes in on the Internet before it can get to press.”

She whistled. She could do that. It was something he vastly admired; just now he found it annoying. “And you’re so fascinated, you’re going to give this guy free advice.”

“We hardly need the money.”

She shrugged and he read into the shrug all sorts of censure. “Did you ask about Ibrahim X?”

“He had nothing to do with that, personally.”

“His house still published the book.”

Beck got up from the sofa they shared and headed for his office. “I have some work to do.”

“Avoidance tactic,” she called after him. “That’s cheap, Beckett. Really cheap. Ruby says—”

“I’m getting damn tired of what Ruby says,” he muttered.

“I heard that.” She got up and followed him from the room, something she never did during their rare arguments. But then, he never swore. “You never swear,” she accused him. “What’s gotten into you? And why this sudden antipathy toward Ruby?”

Beck flopped down in the chair behind his desk and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I’m tired. I’m keyed up. I’m on the verge of maybe publishing something—”

“Well, hell, if publishing something’s going to make you behave like a witch with sore tits, I’m not sure I want you to get published.”

He looked at her, balefully, he hoped. He’d never looked at anyone balefully before, so his face wasn’t quite sure what it felt like. “Maybe that’s the problem, Marian. Maybe you don’t want me to get published… for reasons known only to yourself.”

She turned and left the room, leaving him free to make whatever late-night dinner plans he desired. He dropped Bourbon an e-mail at the Sheraton confirming the engagement, and dove into his government project files.

It was very late when he finally crawled into bed—or very early, depending on how one looked at it. He was frustrated. He wanted to be writing fiction, not noodling computer code, and the effort to keep his mind on his work left him irritable and sapped. Yet, when he’d switched to a piece of short fiction around one A.M., he’d quickly discovered that guilt was just as debilitating a disease as frustration.

He gave up at about 1:30 and rolled onto his side of the bed, perching there horizontally as if he were sleeping on the edge of a cliff. Marian did not, as was her habit, trespass onto his dream turf and he did not trespass onto hers. They slept the entire night on either side of an imaginary line that bisected their mattress with perfect parity.

She was gone when he awoke in the morning, having evidently risen before the alarm went off and disabled the system. It was a cheap and childish thing to do and made Beck ten minutes late for his first class. He was determined to get even, which was strange. Halfway through the afternoon, he realized he’d left his computer’s memory core at home. That was also strange. He swore he’d put it into his briefcase just as he’d done every morning for the last five years, but it wasn’t there when he opened the case, and in its place was a copy of Voice from a Burning Bush. Obviously Marian’s work. Fuming further, he went home to get the core.

Ruby’s car was in front of the house when he got there. His lip curled in distaste. He had always liked Marian’s business partner, but lately he’d come to realize how much she reminded him of a pit bull in a Christian Dior suit. The image was funny. He was almost laughing by the time he entered the house through the kitchen door. The women were nowhere in sight, but he could hear their voices. Probably haggling over some piece of wallpaper—should the Feinmans have a nice rose pattern or Navajo white with a holographic life-scene? He slipped into his office and got the core from where Marian had left it in a potted plant; he caught the obvious symbology. God, but she was unsubtle.

Core in hand, he headed back out into the kitchen, reaching it just as Marian and Ruby did. The two women were lounging along side-by-side, arms about each other, eyes locked in an intimate smile. He stopped and stared at them staring back at him. Marian started to pull away from Ruby, but the other woman held her fast. Beck’s blood felt like liquid nitrogen. This could not possibly be happening. Marian was completely and unrepentantly heterosexual. He’d have bet his life on it.