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Devil In The Waters, Book 3, Chapter 6a (partial)
🕑 Added 2020-02-25 01:00:02 +0000 UTCBy four o’clock, Josh had enlisted a troop of fun-seekers from Swanson—all with children—but now he wondered how it would look to Kimmy when she arrived. Was it too obvious?
Meyer and Sophie picked him up after work because Kimmy wouldn’t get delivery of her new car until Monday. But Josh invited Leah, Samara, and Gabrielle from work and one of Samara’s single mom friends tagged along, all of them bringing their young ones over to Pickering for dinner and fun at The Monkey House, an indoor trampoline amusement park. Sure, he was with his cousin and Sophie, but how out of place did he look, the one guy here who didn’t have a kid?—And he was the one who set the whole thing up . . . It was likely when Kimmy showed up she would see right through his charade. He could picture himself through her eyes, coming in, seeing him jumping on a trampoline and trying to shoot baskets with Soph, a grown man alone at what looked like a kid’s birthday party.
It occurred to him he could lie, say he just tagged along, but he’d been doing that a lot lately. Lying. Or at least leaving things untold. This was a rough time for them as a couple, and he wasn’t the only one who knew it. Kimmy was fully aware. Well, not fully aware. There were things he hadn’t told her.
One minute Kimmy was looking to get pregnant again, the next she’s back on the pill and into the workforce. Capricious, yes, but he got it. She got stuck doing those baskets because Kimmy couldn’t be idle, and she wanted out. Baskets wouldn’t be her thing. So her brain said: Let’s make a baby. It hurt that that wasn’t what she wanted either. It’s what he wanted. But they’d just gone through a failed pregnancy.
If Kimmy wanted to work, so be it. He’d stand behind her. But he had to find the nerve to be more truthful, and mind the manipulative tricks, juxtaposing his and Kimmy’s life with friends of theirs already with children. Kimmy was too smart to be manipulated.
“You tracking Kimmy again?”
Josh’s eyes darted up from his Find My Phone app, caught by Meyer looming over his shoulder, sucking iced tea through a paper straw.
“She’s almost here,” he said, tucking his phone away, feeling only marginally guilty this time in comparison to the other night. They were expecting Kimmy here at The Monkey House, and he was only checking to see how far away she was.
He sat at a heavy black picnic table—two of them pushed together for their party—in a narrow alley of tables that ran along the busy center floor space of the huge warehouse. He sat backwards, his back to the table dotted with baskets and paper plates spotted with French fry grease and smears of ketchup. Gabrielle was behind him on the other side, wiping her eight-year-old’s mouth with a napkin, ready to send him back out to one of the trampolines where he hopefully wouldn’t bounce himself into sending up his hot dog and fries all over the walls.
Meyer came around to sit beside him on the bench. He scooted over to make room. Meyer slurped iced tea from the extra-large wax paper cup. They watched some kids they didn’t know horsing around and giggling on a trampoline across from them. The place’s main floor was divided like a grid, square stalls with trampoline floors and low padded walls, everything black except for the neon trampoline surfaces and the padded columns running up to the high rafter ceiling.
Meyer set his cup down, said, “Please, don’t tell me you guys are having trouble.”
He turned to regard Meyer who kept his eyes across still. He said, “Me and Kimmy?”
Meyer turned, but didn’t look him in the eye. “You guys have always been, like, my idols. I wish I had it with Hyun like you and Kimmy do. I always admired you guys.”
“Why do you ask that?” It made him nervous to think there might be something Meyer could see that he couldn’t.
Meyer nodded his chin to Josh’s lap where he’d been holding his phone. “You checking up on her. All that stuff you said on the weekend. That guy—what’s his name, the one from high school, he’s Kimmy’s boss now . . . Devlin, Devlin Stone . . .”
“Does it sound bad to you?”
“A little, but . . .”
“But what?” he asked, needing to hear more.
Meyer said, “I wouldn’t have . . . It’s you, you know?”
“What do you mean?”
“I wouldn’t have thought anything bad about Kimmy before, her going to work for some guy, some good-looking guy—“
“How do you know what he looks like?”
Meyer shrugged, cocked his head, rolled his eyes up, embarrassed. “I looked the guy up.”
Josh laughed. “You did not.”
“I was thinking about you guys. I care about you two.”
“Thanks, man,” he said, touched, thumping a fist on his cousin’s thigh. “Okay, what were you saying?”
“I get it. Checking up on her, worrying . . . But Kimmy’s not like that. You know her better than I do, I know, but she’s . . . Kimmy.”
“So you say it’s me?”
“I said I get it. After you told me on the weekend, it got, like, my palms sweaty thinking how you must feel. Fuck, it was terrible with Hyun. God, what a time . . .” Meyer shook his head, face drawn, remembering. “But Kimmy isn’t Hyun.”
“Hyun didn’t fool around on you.”
Meyer shrugged. “Look, Kimmy’s got a good head on her shoulders. I don’t know anybody more in my life who’s got their shit together better. You know what I’m saying . . .”
“I do. I know.”
“Just don’t let bad thoughts get in your head, they can make you do crazy things.”
“You got crazy?”
“I got a little crazy,” Meyer chuckled, rolled his head around to look at Josh. His eyes drifted over Josh’s shoulder. He said quieter, “Hey, what do you think of Quinn?”
“Samara’s friend?” Josh turned to look behind. Quinn was on a trampoline with three kids, both her hands holding onto her son Harley’s. They bounced together. Quinn was a dirty blonde, a nurse, full-figured but petite with a cute face and a button nose. He said, “She’s really cute.”
“You think so?”
Josh turned back. “Careful, though. Named her kid Harley, her ex could be some big biker, out of the picture because he’s in prison.”
Meyer spied Quinn still, smiling, punching Josh’s shoulder saying, “Good old Cuz, always looking at the bright side.”
“It’s a gift,” Josh said, thinking then of his lucky cousin hooking up with Quinn, getting married, having two kids, maybe putting a third in Quinn’s belly by next winter.
A bony knee jabbed his thigh, little arms clambering around his neck, Sophie climbing on him. He laughed and braced her before she accidentally got him in the goods. Leah was there, returning from a jump chamber, face shiny with sweat, an entourage of six-to-ten-year-olds still amped and looking for fun. She jabbed a thumb over her shoulder, saying, “All right, you two, your turn . . .”
Comments
TF
Most of the books I’ve read in this genre don’t have kids and, in those that do, the kids are more or less window dressing. They give reading pleasure but usually little else that is memorable. In what I consider to be KT’s best long work (“Cherry Blossoms”) a kid is incorporated in a very real and significant way. This adds so much to the verisimilitude of the tale being spun…there is so much more than the explicit sex (panting dog emoji) that is usually front and center. And now we have Sophie and the rest of the kids making noise in the kids’ restaurant. For me this makes the book so much more realistic. A bit scary this as one gets emotionally involved as one does with the gritty novels of Elmore Leonard, Robert Parker and others.
DavidnDaria
Trampoline! LMAO!!! She's gonna need a shower, no?
Chinookfan72
for sure, and it should.. It reeks of passive aggressiveness, add in how awkward Josh and Kimmy’s relationship is, andI can’t see her warmly agreeing to this.
RCH
Yes, he is heading in the wrong direction here. Could he possibly make her want to runaway faster? She's wanting to play in the adult world she has shifted directions and is job focused. Motherhood is on hold this could just piss her off.
RCH
That was what I was saying above. If she happens to have her gym attire in the car. Then it's a easily a great excuse to change her cloths. If you think about it unless she had an extra pair of panties I believe that Devlin ripped one side when he pulled them off/down in the container. I think the description says that they were hang off one leg. If it is true then it would be exciting to see her jumping up and down on the trampoline!
Chinookfan72
Yeah that phone call or text string where Josh tells Kimmy what the plans are for the evening would be nice to know.. Personally, I hope Kimmy reacted the same way I would if I was in her shoes (not good). I’m confused as to why Josh didn’t plan something with just the two of them.. I suppose this could be part of the problem(their communication skills are garbage).
DavidnDaria
I just wonder if Kimmy makes a U-Turn and goes home to change clothes/clean up. It makes sense for her to continue the deception this way--she's meeting them somewhere where her business attire is not appropriate.
TF
Gotta be careful of whiplash reading these installments…from hot ‘messing around’ in a shipping container to a happy scene of domestic kiddy fun and games. And good old, “nice guy” Josh, always correctly second guessing himself…maybe he should try to think things through instead. On the other hand, maybe he’s playing it right, letting Kimmy know indirectly the pleasure he derives from family. Will Kimmy reflect on the contrast between her immediate past activities and the present or simply put on her ‘lawyer face’ and file it in the mental round file?
RCH
Well, I'm looking forward to seeing how Kimmy reacts to Josh idea of going out! I have no guess as to her reaction. Kimmy is in a kinda Jeckle and Hyde mode. Very unpredictable. Although it does give her an excuses to stop at the gym and a quick change to workout garb knowing she is going to kids play facility. Hum, KT evil genius? Go Meyer, full figure, blond, nurse(scrubs, squeaky white shoes) hope your into enemas! I know cliche of nurses. It is interesting how obsessed Josh is about women getting prego! Hum...
KT Morrison
Is it too obvious, ha ha?
JamesIsAsleep
I enjoy an author that knows that big things are happening in a story, but can still have the presence of mind to realize that other characters dont know everything. Here Meyer doesnt really know who Devlin is, hes just some guy Josh knows from high school. And come on, Kimmy would never cheat on you, duh Josh! Its subtle things like this that help with immersion into the story.
Glaucon
Harley Quinn? haha
