Bad Games

7



Amy was still shaking when she pulled the Highlander into the cabin’s driveway. She switched off the ignition and leaned to her right, collecting both handles of the plastic grocery bags in one grip. With an angry tug that was more forceful than it needed to be, she jerked the groceries onto her lap and slid out of the car. The second her feet hit the driveway she heard the sounds of laughter echoing behind the cabin.

Amy recognized Lorraine Mitchell as soon as she turned the corner. Their neighbor’s short white hair and tall lean physique looked exactly as it did a year ago. Lorraine was standing with both hands on her hips, a smile bordering on laughter aimed towards the wooded area behind the cabin. In that wooded area, a very wet Patrick was attempting to wash the Border terrier in a large metal wash basin while Carrie and Caleb looked on with great amusement.

“Hi,” Amy said. Her voice was unsteady.

Lorraine turned to Amy, her previous smile bordering on laughter now changing over to one of joy. She walked forward with arms outstretched for the impending hug. “Hello, Amy!”

Amy set the groceries to the floor and hugged her neighbor with as much enthusiasm as her still-rattled mind would allow.

Patrick’s head snapped up the second he heard his wife’s name called. He raised two soapy hands in the air as though a gun had been pulled on him. “Hi, baby, let me explain.”

Amy pulled away from Lorraine. She spoke softly and motioned that Patrick should follow her into the cabin. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

Patrick wiped his hands on his jeans and nodded. “Sure. Lorraine, can you watch the kids for a minute?”

Lorraine nodded back but her smile had faded. She looked concerned as the couple entered the cabin.

The second they were inside, Patrick started rambling like a guilty man. “Baby, let me explain. Lorraine says the dog is very safe and very friendly, and I figured if we gave him a bath—”

Amy walked towards her husband and wrapped both arms around him in a tight embrace, silencing him. She started to cry.



* * *



“Motherf*cker,” Patrick hissed through clenched teeth. “You’re sure it wasn’t our friend Arty?”

Amy had stopped crying but her nose still ran. She sniffled and said, “No, his head was shaved.” She then held both hands out to the side as if measuring a pair of invisible shoulders. “And he was wider, broader.”

Patrick took a steady breath, but his right fist was clenched at his side. “And you’re sure he was the one who left the rice packets?”

“Well who else would it have been, Patrick?”

Her intolerance was justified, and he didn’t dare question her tone. He spoke his next query in an even manner. “Okay, okay…I’m just wondering how the hell he knew which car was yours.”

“I have absolutely no idea. My only guess is that he’d been watching me from the moment I entered the store. Maybe even followed me there, I don’t know.”

Patrick went rigid the second his wife voiced her speculation. “Followed you? From where? Here?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Do you remember anyone following you when you left the lake?”

Amy dropped her head and shook it. She didn’t remember anyone.

Patrick’s right fist clenched tighter, the knuckles glowing white. “Son of a bitch must have clocked you when you pulled into the supermarket then.”

“I want to leave,” she said, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “I think we should leave. First we get the weirdo with the gas and the doll, and now this? It’s like bad karma or something. I think we should just pack up and leave.”

Patrick shook his head emphatically. “No. We’ve been here less than three friggin’ hours. I’m not gonna let a couple of a*sholes ruin our trip.”

“Then what do we do, Patrick? Wait for something else to happen?”

“Nothing else will happen. I won’t let it.” He reached out for both of her hands. She took them, but did not go in for the hug.

“He was so creepy, Patrick. So…sure of himself. I mean, I’ve met some strange men before, but this guy…there was something different about him. Something…wrong.”

Patrick played his role, swallowing his own rage. “Baby, relax, you’re getting a little too worked up. I’m sure he was just an arrogant pervert, that’s all. The kind of guy who fancies himself a player—always on the lookout for the next notch on his bedpost. When you weren’t taking his bait it probably angered him, and that’s when he got crude. I wouldn’t read too much into it.”

“I’m not so sure. What kind of player states that he has a girlfriend before implementing a pick-up line?”

Patrick shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe it was to bring your guard down. Who knows how a guy like that operates?”

A solid minute of silence passed. Amy’s eyes were unblinking and staring off into nothing, reliving the experience and weighing her husband’s words simultaneously.

“You know what though, baby?” Patrick eventually said. “If you stop and think about it, much of this is your fault.”

Amy didn’t pull away. She didn’t yell. She didn’t even frown. She just stared at her husband, certain she had heard him wrong.

“What?” was all she finally said.

“Well just think about it for a second. If you weren’t such a stunningly, sexual succubus, none of this would have happened in the first place.” Patrick delivered one his trademark alliterations dripping with cheese and network-anchor eyebrows.

Amy was aware of what her husband was attempting to do, and she instantly began pulling her hands out of his grip. His attempt at levity felt too soon. She managed to pull one hand free but Patrick held on tight to the other.

Patrick continued. “I mean if you’re going to go to such a happening spot like the supermarket, you need to ugly yourself up a little bit…”

Amy tried to tug her remaining hand free, a smile was working its way to her face and she would not give him the satisfaction of seeing it.

“Maybe pad your butt and belly with big pillows, make ’em look huge…”

She tugged harder. He was grinning, her elusive smile now on the line and being reeled in.

“Forget to brush your teeth, let the stank-breath blow…”

She tried to pull free with both hands now, her head down, hiding the smile at all costs.

“Oh and forgetting to bathe for a few days might help as well.”

Amy stopped pulling and changed tactics; she used Patrick’s own leverage against him by going with his resistance and launching herself forward into his sternum, knocking him to the kitchen floor with her on top.

Patrick began laughing once his back hit the linoleum and Amy instantly straddled him, pretending to choke him with both hands. “You make me crazeeeeeeeeeeeey!” she yelled between fake throttles and psycho eyes.

Still laughing, Patrick reached around and pinched his wife’s butt. She squealed and bounced up, only to come crashing back down onto Patrick’s stomach, causing him to let out a definitive OOMPH!

“What? Are you saying I’m fat?”

Patrick’s mouth opened, searching for the answer that was never correct under any circumstances, but Amy had already taken the initiative to lean forward and sink her teeth into his ear.

“Ow! Ow! Ow! Okay, okay, you win! You win!”

Amy cinched herself further up onto her husband’s chest. “Damn right I do.” She then brushed the hair out of her face and let out a long sigh. “So you think I’m overreacting by wanting to leave?”

Patrick rubbed his recently chomped ear. “No, baby, I don’t. It was a freaky moment that spooked you, and your initial reaction was totally understandable and justified. The guy was a perverted a*shole, plain and simple. And like I told you before, I would never, ever let anything happen to you and the kids.” He kissed his first two fingers and reached up to touch them to his wife’s lips. “And from now on, I’ll be the one who does the food shopping.”

“Mmmmm…Spaghettios and cereal,” she said.

“And Pop-Tarts.”

Amy bent forward and kissed him, her hair falling forward around both their faces. “I love you, baby.”

“I love you too, honey,” he said. “Does this mean I’m forgiven about the dog?”