When You Go Away by Jessica Barksdale Inclan Read Free Book Online Page A

"You're causing root rot," she'd yelled over her rhododendrons yesterday.  "I can't have that, you know."
         He'd spent the morning at Home Depot looking for parts, and he knew he should put them in before switching the system on automatic.  He'd end up with Mrs. Trimble on his doorstep clutching her wilted plants, dirt flying everywhere from the mangled, drooping roots.
         "Okay!  We're on," Ralph said.  Bob and Ramon walked through the court, and Carl breathed out, needing this match, needing it every day, like some kind of fix.  This habit had started after he and his wife had split up and he found himself free--or empty, he wasn't sure what the right word was—after 5.30, so he'd searched around and discovered this pick up match.  Carl liked the order of the games, the way people rotated in set after set, spinning to see who played, almost all mannerly, spats over bad calls not lasting more than one or two games.  He'd been coming up here for almost thirty years, and once he retired, he was able to start at 2.30, getting in two, sometimes three sets.  So, he was one of the old guys now, one of the men the younger fellas probably hoped they wouldn't get as a partner.  But he was still fit, his legs muscular, his gut not hanging over his pants.  And he still had it, too, not needing that Viagra like Ralph did.  After that last blasted exam, his doctor said his prostate was as smooth and round as a bean.  Not that he'd had the opportunity to use his still firm anything.  He should have remarried when he’d had the chance, but time was never right, the perfect woman just around the corner.  Strange thing was, now life was a straight line, no corners at all.
         And damn if the only woman he'd been close to lately was Mrs. Trimble, which was enough to turn him off women for life.  But tennis helped him stay ready for whoever might show up.  He wanted to play.  He needed to.
         "Let's go," Carl said, standing up and stretching first his right and then his left shoulder.  "I want to beat you all."
     
    On his way home, he took a left instead of a right so he wouldn't have to pass Mrs. Trimble's house.  She was always out front pruning something, keeping her eye on his sprinklers, neighborhood dogs, cats looking for soft dirt to scratch in, unusual cars, someone to talk to.  He pulled his 1966 Chevy Corvair convertible carefully into his garage, immediately pushing the door button behind him.  He could hear the phone ringing as soon as he cut the engine.  He'd forgotten to turn on his machine, so he hurried into the house, pausing only when he thought of Mrs. Trimble, but she didn't have his number so he answered it, trying to hide his breathlessness.
         "Yeah."
         "Dad, it's me.  Are you okay?"
         "Fine.  Fine.  Where are you?"
         There was a pause, the sound of shuffled papers.  Carl imagined Noel’s set face, the way he bit his lower lip when he was thinking.
         "Sorry.  Can you hold on for a second--I'm still at work."
         Carl sat down, putting a hand on his chest, feeling the quick pattern of breath in his lungs.  He was relieved to be listening to the muffled sounds of a business conversation.  If he didn’t have a second to regroup, Carl thought he might turn into an emergency here, his heart pounding as if he'd been playing singles instead of doubles.  As his breath slowed a bit, Carl brought the phone closer, the noises of the Kent Raifson Cleary brokerage office in his ear. When Carl was in commercial real estate, he thrived on the din of machines and voices, the bustle and adrenaline that seemed to fill him, made him wake up for another day, made all the time at home dull as a church service.  Noel was exactly the same, waking at 4.30, driving to the office to be able to check the markets back east and in Asia , managing his accounts, clients, deals.  “Dad,” he’d say, calling from a taxi in Chicago .  “We