“You did what?” Jen asked him.
“I threw water on him. And some ice cubes,” Mahoney said.
“That was mature.”
“He’s a jerk, Jen. And sometimes jerks get wet.”
Mahoney watched his wife get up from the edge of the bed and walked across the master bedroom. She looked like she was on her way out of the room; then she stopped. Her shoulders heaved and she turned around, shaking her head as she spoke.
“What the hell were you thinking, Phil?”
“I’m tired of being humiliated, okay? That idiot Marty calls Hartman and says I need help. Then Hartman offers me a job as a bartender.”
“You said he offered to give you, hand you, a business,” Jen said. “Someone offers you a business opportunity, and this is how you act?”
“There’s only so much a guy can take.”
“Well, you better get used to taking a lot more, Phil. You know why? Because the bills, they don’t go away. Your career might go away, your paycheck might, but not the bills. They’re like cockroaches. You can’t kill them, and they multiply fast,” she said.
“Look, I don’t feel great about this water incident.”
She looked at him, then turned and left the room muttering. Mahoney sat there in the quiet of the house. It was just after nine and the kids were down for the night. He had an overwhelming urge to lay back on the bed and go to sleep, not really caring when, or if, he woke up.
He heard Jen come back in and he pulled himself up and sat on the edge of the bed. She came over and sat down next to him, then punched him in the ribs.
“Owwww,” he said.
“Please,” she said. “I want to hurt you, I’ll hurt you.”
“You better now?” he asked.
“No.”
“I thought you might take the car and leave.”
“It’s out of gas, and I don’t have any money,” she said.
He looked at his wife and saw the stress and fatigue that had crept into her soft features, deepening the lines around her eyes.
“You got to understand,” he said. “Mills called me a hack, over and over. Just insulting me.”
“And the normal reaction is to throw a glass of water on the man.”
“What can I say?”
“It’s a good thing the kids have me as an example of grace and patience, Phil.”
“What the hell was Reuben thinking, trying to get us to go into business together?”
“Probably thinking you’re desperate enough to at least be open to new ideas,” she said. “And you might have to. I’m a teacher, I don’t make a lot of money, Phil. We’re certainly not going to be able to afford to live in this house, in this town, and pay these taxes with just my modest little salary if you don’t find something soon.”
“Yeah, well there’s no way I can run a bar. I have trouble balancing a checkbook, forget trying to run a business.”
“Don’t just dismiss it, Phil,” she said. “Give it more than your customary ten seconds of consideration.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That means don’t blow it off until you know more about it. You can be quick to judge,” she said.
“No I’m not.”
“Remember soccer? Austin asked you to coach, and you said you didn’t know a thing about the game except that it was played in Europe,” she said.
“It is played in Europe.”
“You know what I mean,” she said. “You took the time to learn.”
“A bit different than owning a bar.”
She turned and looked at him. “You’re one stubborn son of a–”
“Hey, come on.”
“No,” she said. “Seriously, you got a reason why everything won’t work.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes, it is. You don’t want to even give this a try. You hate Jerry Mills, and at the same time you’re too stubborn to realize your newspaper days are over. Either way, it’s all pride.”
“So, you’re a shrink now?”
He stood up and walked to the window to get some space. “What do you want me to do?” he said turning back to her, “take one of these crappy, content editor jobs people interview me for so I can make half of my salary?”
“I don’t know, but you need to do something,” she said.
“I been talking to that guy at the News who–”
“Isn’t going to hire you. The Herald bought you out months ago, Phil. He’s had plenty of time to hire you. If he hasn’t done it by now, he’s not going to.”
Mahoney wondered where the hell this was coming from. Jen had been behind him, or at least he thought. Yes, the bills were piling up, and his checks were about to stop coming in, but they had been cutting back as a family, trimming costs, and getting ready for the inevitable. They would have less money as his severance pay dried up.
“What’s going on, Jen?” he asked. “Something happen?”
She sighed and said, “I walked into school this morning, and the first thing I hear about is how the district is considering layoffs.”
“School districts always threaten that to get what they want in the budget,” he said. “You know how it works, say we’re going to cut teachers and no one will be around to teach little Johnny.”
“So, you want to wait around to find out if they mean it?”
He got a chill thinking about Jen’s salary disappearing. He went and sat down next to her and said, “I know I have to make a move, but a bar? I mean, what about the hours? I’ll never see the kids.”
“Stop looking for ways for it not to work out,” she said.
He leaned forward, put his head in his hands and tried to rub the tired out of his eyes. “Why do I feel like I don’t have a choice?”
“Because you don’t. We’ve already cashed in one of the college funds just to pay the bills.”
“But Mills? Why the hell did Reuben invite him into this thing?”
“There must be some reason, but you were too immature to find out,” she said.
“Well, it’s not like he’s going to talk to me now.”
“You don’t know that,” she said.