Read Online Commuters by Emily Gray Tedrowe - Free Book Online

look—and his scar, of course, was unmistakable. “I didn’t recognize you.” Meanwhile, Bob had half risen, but effectively pinned into the booth by the table and the unmoving ladies to either side of him, he gave up with a shrug and then sat down and blew her a kiss. This last was so awkward and strange to Rachel, agesture she’d never once seen him perform, that she flushed hot with distaste.
    “You know Maureen, Rachel. And this is Dara Moss—both in my class.”
    “Hello,” Rachel said. Her iced tea arrived. Bob was explaining something interminable about how one might consider this a subcommittee meeting, a micro-version writers’ group within a bigger writing class, ha ha, everyone chuckling, Rachel got the point. They were talking about words on paper. Meanwhile, Rachel stood directly in front of their booth and sucked deeply on her iced tea.
    How was it that the very traits of Bob’s that she once loved the most—his sunny, unflappable nature, his single-minded ability to focus, and that friend-to-one-and-all attitude—had become the things about him that annoyed her most?
    “Well, I’ve got to get back to the store,” Rachel said, shaking the keys. “But Bob, can I talk to you for a second?”
    “Sure,” Bob said. He smiled up at her. Everyone waited. “Oh—did you mean?—right. We’re at a good break point. Maureen?”
    Maureen agreed, but then she pointed to a question mark on her page and asked a question about that and the three of them went on for at least another minute, wrapping it up, and then Rachel lost it. She turned to go.
    “Don’t worry about it,” she said loudly, over their protestations. “No, I don’t want to interrupt. We can talk at home. It’s just…the check to the club bounced, so maybe we should talk about that. Bob. When you get a chance.” The ice rattled loudly in the bottom of her plastic cup. Had she drained the whole thing already?
    In silent unison, the two women slid out of the booth and left without further delay.
    One of them touched Rachel lightly on the arm as she passed. “Don’t you just hate when that happens?” she said, in a friendly, conspiratorial whisper.
    Left alone, Bob rubbed at a spot above his right eye. “Okay,” he said, drawing the syllables out.
    She sat down on the extreme outer edge of the banquette. The seat was still warm. “Well, what did you want me to do?”
    “I thought we weren’t going to pay Discover this month.”
    “I didn’t pay Discover,” Rachel said hotly. “The windows guy had to have half in cash.”
    “Wasn’t that June?”
    “Well, the bill just came for the rest. That’s four hundred right there, then the mortgage—I’m assuming you paid the mortgage this month.” Rachel made no attempt to strip the sarcasm from her voice.
    “You should have told me.”
    “Told you about what? That Waugatuck is due at the beginning of the month? Or what Lila’s diving costs in the summer, with the pool fee and the coach fee and the travel fee? Christ, you’re the one wearing the damn hat.”
    “I mean, we need to talk about this stuff.” Bob’s voice rose a degree, and Rachel didn’t need to see the back of his neck to know how that rope of scar tissue would be standing out white in relief to his reddening skin. “Half the time I have no idea what you’ve paid, from which account.”
    This was usually Rachel’s claim, and hearing Bob put it forth so reasonably, as if it was a piece of self-evident wisdom, enraged her.
    “Oh, what would it matter? We’d just be having this conversation again and again. Better to be in the dark.”
    “This isn’t a conversation.”
    The roar of the coffee grinder interrupted them. When it stopped, Bob said, “Could be worse. Could have been the cable bill.”
    “Are you kidding? I’d a million times rather bounce a check to some faceless corporate—”
    “Joke. Joke! Come on, Rachel, don’t make this bigger than it needs to be. I mean, being short on one’s