Good Time(52)

Those words are terrifying, by the way. You’ve been served. I know they’re just words, but until they happen to you you have no idea how you’ll react. How your heart will pound in overdrive the second your brain realizes that something serious is taking place.

They’re just words.

I think I’m falling in love with you. Those are just words too. Unrequited words.

We’d talked or texted every night he’d been gone. Every freaking night. When he’d called on Monday night I’d smiled throughout the call because I’d loved hearing his voice over the phone. Loved knowing he’d wanted to talk to me when he couldn’t see me. Loved knowing that he’d made time for me even though he had an insanely busy week in Reno.

Tuesday night we’d exchanged a series of racy texts. Racy, dirty, lusty texts.

Or maybe, maybe that was my imagination? Maybe I wish you were here so I could bend you over and give you my cock really meant I’m horny, not I wish you were here.

Or maybe he was telling me that he did want me, but not in the way I want him. There’s so much to Vince I still don’t know. Maybe I don’t know anything.

I text him, in case you’re thinking you’d react differently. That you’d pick up the phone and call. Or wait until he’s back in town and ask him about it face to face. Or maybe you think you’d jump on a plane and fly to Reno, searching every courtroom until you found him.

I’m a reasonable person. So I texted.



Me: got the paperwork





And then I waited. I waited twenty minutes before sending a second text. I drove to work, alone with my overactive imagination. Shaky with nerves. Wondering if I was imagining this entire thing. If I was imagining how good things were between me and Vince. If I was imagining the paperwork that was sticking out of my handbag, even now. Mocking me as I side-eyed it while coasting through the parking garage at work, looking for a good space.

Except it’s still there when I park. District Court. Clark County, Nevada. Vincent Thomas Rossi vs Payton Elizabeth Tanner.

It’s sweet the way he knows my middle name. I didn’t know his. Why did I never ask? I had an entire ten days up to this point to ask. I’m a terrible wife.

I put the car into park and check my phone. No reply. It’s fine. It’s so fine. I get it. I want him to know I get it so I send another text.



Me: it’s fine





I toss my phone into my bag and head inside. I don’t have time to dawdle while I hope for a reply because I’ve got less than ten minutes to get to my desk. Getting served with annulment paperwork has thrown me a bit behind schedule this morning. I set my phone face down onto my desk and deposit my handbag into the bottom drawer. I wiggle the mouse so my computer will spring to life. I brood, because it’s not fine. I watch the clock on my computer and flip my phone over checking for a text no fewer than five times. Nothing. Every minute is an eternity in which I envision ways this ends badly.

An hour later when Vince calls, I nearly send him to voicemail. Mostly because my imagination is raging out of control. But as I’ve said, I’m very reasonable. Or at least on the scale of reasonableness. The low end, I know. I’m not a reasonableness overachiever but I have a very firm grasp on the concept.

So I answer the phone.

“Hey,” I say. Because that’s how you answer the phone when your husband who you’ve just met but have fallen very hard for has you served with annulment paperwork. Annulment is a word that means to take something back. To cancel. To retract. To reverse. To undo.

It’s the worst word ever.

It’s the worst feeling ever.

Worse than the time the Girl Troopers dumped me. Worse than every time my parents got divorced. Worse than being cheated on sophomore year in college. Worse is a word that means icky. The ickiest.

“Payton.” He exhales into the phone. He has a great phone voice. Deep and seductive. Composed and captivating. But right now he sounds rushed, distracted. “What paperwork, Payton?” There’s a lot of background noise. Voices, commotion, possibly the ding of an elevator. He’s busy, clearly he’s busy. So busy he forgot today was the day I was being served. Or perhaps he didn’t know when I’d get the paperwork. If I’d gone to work even ten minutes earlier, I’d have missed the server this morning.

I allow myself a brief fantasy in which I did leave for work early. A fantasy in which the server spent weeks attempting to find me, never in the right place at the right time. Weeks in which Vince fell madly in love with me and put a halt to the unraveling of our marriage. ‘Madly’ is the only word in that sentence that makes any sense at all though. A drunken lustful night cannot possibly work out in a rosy happily-ever-after way.

“The annulment paperwork. I’ve got it.”

“What do you mean you’ve got it?” I hear him tell someone in the background that he needs a minute, the words not spoken directly into the receiver, but as if he’s tilted the phone away from his lips. I can picture him, even without seeing him. I can picture what he’s wearing and how he’s standing. I can imagine his shoes, polished, and his tie, knotted. I wonder if he’s wearing a tie I’ve seen before, or one I haven’t. Likely one I haven’t because he surely owns more ties than I’ve had time to see. I imagine his phone pressed to his ear, held in place by two long fingers and a bent thumb. No case on the phone. A thousand-dollar piece of glass and metal that he carries without a case. I asked him once if he worried about breaking it. He shrugged like it was nothing and said he’d get a new one if something happened to it. I didn’t think he’d break it, though. I thought the phone simply knew better than to dare slip from his grasp.