The Sound of Broken Ribs(4)

She was barely aware of leaving behind her small secluded neighborhood. Her run took her deep into wooded country by way of back roads. Soon enough, she was a mile from the nearest help and moving farther away every second. That was fine. She had her cell phone on her—strapped to her bicep. She even had her mace clutched in her left hand. She’d be fine.

*

Belinda needed answers. She dialed her husband’s cell phone. He answered on the fourth ring.

“Hey, Babe,” said Dan, his voice carefree.

“What the fuck happened to the rent money?”

“Yeah.” Dan’s jovial tone remained. She wanted to reach through the line and throttle him. “You see, about that…”

Belinda waited. She watched the digital clock on the microwave click from 9:47 to 9:48. Nothing but silence in her ear. She’d given him too much time already. He could have no excuse for what he’d done to them.

To her.

But she waited. Whatever Dan was going to say, she wanted to hear it. She unconsciously tapped her foot in time with the beating of her heart.

The clock on the microwave flashed from 9:48 to 9:49.

He still hadn’t said anything.

“Dan, are you going to answer me?”

Nothing. Belinda glanced at the face of her smart phone.

CALL ENDED.

“Goddamn it,” she groaned. When had she lost the call? No matter. She pressed Call again and mashed the phone to her ear once more.

Her call went directly to Dan’s voicemail.

Even though there were a dozen reasons for her call to have gone to voicemail—Dan had been driving and was now out of range; he’d forgotten to charge his phone and now it was dead; he was trying to call her back at the same time she was trying to call him—Belinda knew that none of those reasons would be the case.

She knew the truth.

The call hadn’t dropped out. He wasn’t out of range of a cell tower. His phone’s battery wasn’t dead. They weren’t playing phone tag.

Her husband had hung up on her.

And then he’d turned his phone off.

She tried one more time, but again, the call went directly to his chipper-voiced recording: “You’ve reached Dan Walsh. I’m a lying sack of shit who can’t be trusted and can’t come to the phone right now because I’m a goddamn coward who’s betrayed his wife. Leave a message after the beep.”

Okay. So maybe that wasn’t exactly how his voicemail message went, but she thought it fit better than his current one did.

Belinda called his office. No one answered. Not even his administrative assistant—Belinda thought the title was silly, but thought of it in that regard to keep from calling Melody Barker a secretary, as she had on more than one occasion. Melody had always passive-aggressively corrected her. “You know, they call us administrative assistants nowadays. A secretary is a non-conforming gender stereotype most commonly associated with females. I identify best with Administrative Assistant. Makes me sound like less of a slave to a master and more of a partner in this company.”

Belinda, now more than ever, wanted to tell Melody Barker to get fucked.

But she couldn’t tell Melody to get fucked if the fucking bitch didn’t answer the goddamn motherfucking phone.

Calm down. Calm down. Calm down…

Belinda knew why Dan wasn’t answering his phone, but there was no reason for Melody not to be answering the office phone. She wondered if the administrative-assistant-identifying slut was in the restroom, powdering her sloppy vagina.

Calmdowncalmdowncalmdown…

And then the worst possible case scenario flickered to life on the screen of her mind.

Dan is sitting in his office. He answers his cell phone. His wife’s voice crackles loud enough so that the audience can hear her ask “What the fuck happened to the rent money?” Dan smiles, says, “Yeah. You see, about that…” He ends the call, drops the phone, stomps on it, picks up his computer tower, drops that on the dropped phone, and then he jumps up and down on the pile of smashed electronics like a kid on a trampoline.

Melody comes in. She’s naked. She’s playing with her tits like a porn star. “Ready to go, stud?” she asks, sounding like the Slutty McSluttenstein she really is.

“Yeah, babe. Let’s do this!”

Both asshole and whore hop into a convertible Trans Am with a flaming bird on the hood. They drive off into the sunset with KISS blasting on the car stereo because only assholes and adulterers listen to KISS and Dan is both.

“I swear to God, Dan, if your ass has run off with your secretary, I’m going to nuke your testicles from orbit and take a shit on your ashes.”

She gave Melody one more chance not to be the whore Belinda imagined she was.

Melody answered this time, slightly out of breath.

It was hard to breathe with a cock in your gobbler.

“Walsh Real Estate. How may I help you?”

“You can fucking tell me where my husband is, Melody.”

“Bee?” Melody sounded confused, likely because Belinda’s tone said that Belinda was not to be fucked with right now and Melody had only ever heard Belinda be sweet and pleasant and overall waspish.

“You damn well know who this is. Where—the fuck—is my husband?”

“I—I don’t know. He was here a minute ago. I ran to the restroom, and when I came back, he wasn’t in his office. Are you all right? Did something happen?”