The Stuff That Never Happened by Maddie Dawson Read Free Book Online Page B

that might reveal anything that would cause any further thought about their sex life. He’s suffered enough.
    Padgett just shrugs and looks down at her lap, which probably means she’s reading her cell phone. I swear, this woman has had about a billion messages flashing back and forth through dinner—and I am enjoying an image of her in the delivery room texting away while she’s pushing the baby out, and also enjoying the idea that I am the first person to get this news and wondering how people will take it.
    Clark clears his throat, and says in his momentous, department-chairman voice, “Wellll—you sure you don’t want to tell them, darling?” When she shakes her head, he says, “No? Well, then I will.” He takes a deep breath. “We’re taking a leave of absence and we’re going to travel the world!”
    Grant stares straight ahead.
    Now they’re kissing. Planting little tiny kisses all over each other’s faces. Clark pulls away, and his face is sweaty and he’s grinning, gums showing like mad, like he’s a fool for love, he’s so pleased with himself, and he says, “Padgett here hasn’t seen much of the world, so I have the pleasure of taking her to all my favorite places. And of course, we’re hoping to find a few of our own.” He puts his big bald forehead onto her smooth, unlined one, like a mind meld you’d see on Star Trek , and then they clink glasses, and, tardily, Grant and I toast them, too.
    And then Clark leans forward and says in a low voice to Grant, “I’m going to recommend that you take my place as acting chair.”
    I can feel the waves of dismay coming off Grant, as he tallies up all the time that little mission will take, in addition to his book and his three courses, and the essays he needs to grade. He clears his throat and says this is something he’ll have to think about.
    “It’s a career move that I think you’re ready for,” says Clark, which I know Grant will find to be the most condescending remark ever, given that he is two years older than Clark and was trained at Columbia and is definitely slumming it by teaching here at this tiny little college, and everybody knows it. “It won’t be until the fall semester, which will give you time to finish that book of yours, and who knows but by then you may want to goose up your résumé and maybe get some extra attention from all the important awards committees, eh?”
    Then he and Padgett go all kissy again, and her phone starts clamoring for her attention, and by the time the four of us have walked out to the parking lot, shivering in the cold, Clark has pretty much made it clear that Grant has to take the acting chairmanship—for God, for country, and for love, and I know this husband of mine: in some corner of his mind, he’s actually flattered, if still a bit stiff about the whole thing. He doesn’t like to be told how to feel about anything.
    We drive home in silence for the first five miles, and then Grant says, “Well, I guess it could be a good thing, being chair, you know.”
    “Yes.”
    “I mean, I never would have sought it.”
    “No, of course not.”
    “But if it’s not until the fall … I’m on track to finish this book by then, and I could have an easier schedule, not teach so much, who knows, even maybe do some more research.”
    “I like the sound of an easier schedule,” I say, and he actually reaches over and squeezes my hand and smiles at me. I think maybe he’s going to apologize for being such a jerk and say that once this book is done, another thing that’s going to get some of his time and attention is our marriage. Instead he says, “God almighty in heaven, shoot me if I ever get like Clark Winstanley!”
    “With pleasure.”
    “No, really. Get a gun and take me out to the woods if I ever go off the deep end like that. He’s gone stark raving mad for that woman! And is she just the rudest …?” He shakes his head, words having failed him.
    I do an imitation of Padgett