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I wondered if I had visibly flinched. I grumbled “No” and gave him a look that said he should drop the topic. I did not have the energy just now to ask about his wife and kids because you know how it is with people like that. He’s been married to the same woman since he was 21, still completely in love with her, got all these great kids who are in sports and speech competitions, piano recitals and all that stuff that nobody cares about. I find it touching in my most sentimental moments, but most of the time I just find it obnoxious.
“So, anyway, when were you here last Mark?”
“Umm . . . July I think.”
“Yeah, July eh? So you already know about Tom—won the lottery a while back. . . “
“I remember.” (He was going to tell me again anyway.)
“Yeah, he won the lottery, and he keeps on working here.
Imagine!”
We’d been over this before. I cleared my throat and tried to look dismayed but I knew it wouldn’t get me anywhere.
“Anyways, Lot’s happened since July.”
Lenny wasn’t the type to get right down to business. I’d always thought he would have made a great car salesman, always chatting people up, putting off the important matters like monthly payments and maintenance schedules as long as he could.
“Hey, so you remember Cheryl?”
I had no clue who she was, but I pretended to have a little recognition, nodded slightly and said “I’m not sure, maybe.”
“You know, pretty little blonde, used to work in the office, always wore them real short skirts and was always struttin’ around here.”
Oh yeah, I remembered her all right. Last time I’d been there she’d eyed me like a piece of meat all day long, and kept finding excuses to interrupt the meetings. “Yeah, I remember her now.”
“Well, get this, man. You recall that fellow she was dating?”
How in the hell would I know anything about the personal life of a person I’d met once and never actually talked to? My patience was lower than normal since the marriage question.
“No Lenny, how would I?”
He started for a minute, and then his face softened and he chuckled and wheezed a tiny bit. “Yeah, right. How would you know anything about that? Well, anyway, she was dating this real nice guy she’d known from high school. Off to college with some fancy degree and then he was studying to be a doctor or something like that. Real nice guy, kinda wondered what he was doing with her. You know, she didn’t have the best personality, kinda mean and stupid, but she looked great I’ll admit. But that stuff don’t last forever. She wasn’t nothin’ like my Penny, that’s for sure. Just some young, dumb blond.”
“Yeah, so what happened with her”?
“Oh yeah, well get this. She’s dating this real nice guy,
everybody’s pretty sure she’ll marry him and all that, do it right.
Well, one week she just didn’t show up to work for a couple of days.
Said she’d been sick, but I found out from Irma—the secretary out there, you know, that he left her for some well-educated chick with money. Turns out he’d been cheating on her. Well she was pretty torn up over it, and started gettin’ real flaky. She was late a few times, went out on a few dates with some of those weasels out in the shop. Well, she’s going around like a yo-yo for a few weeks, and then all of a sudden she takes a coupla days off and comes back married.”
He looked at me heavily, expecting a response. I raised my eyebrows slightly.
“Just like that?”
“Yeah, and it gets even better. Well, all the skirts in the office start tittering to her about who the fellow is and all that, and turns out he’s in prison! She took a long weekend and they were married in the county jail. Can you believe that?”
“Well I’ll be darned.” This was mildly interesting, I had to admit. If it wasn’t Lenny telling me I would think the story was made up.
“Well, she quit work here just about a month ago, went to work someplace closer to him. Guess he’ll be gettin’ out soon, but ain’t that the shits?”
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