HER

Chapter 11

Kaylie worked out the layout of the app she was creating for Ground Up in the empty board room in the IT department. She stared at the flip chart board in front of her twiddling the marker between her fingers, she sighed.

Her phone pinged dragging her from her thoughts, she reached for it on the table and frowned at the strange number.

"Kaylie Patterson." She answered.

"Kaylie?" Kaylie gasped.

"How...did you get my number?"

"The front desk."

"They don't give out employee details just like that."

"Yea well, she knew who I was and I told her I had business related matters to talk to you about and she was happy to oblige."

"Hmm-mm." She knew Cassie wouldn't give out numbers like that even if it was the president. Ok, maybe only then.

"Ok, I might have told her you gave me your number and I sort of lost it." He confessed and she laughed.

"Wow Mr. Guzman, I wouldn't have known you had it in you."

"To get what I need?" He asked "I do everything I can."

"How's Sarah?"

"She's great and she's actually the reason I called."

"She is?"

"Her birthday party is tomorrow."

"Oh."

"You didn't think you were off the hook, now did you?"

"I didn't think you actually wanted me to attend."

"I do, trust me."

Kaylie closed her eyes and sighed.
Married, he's married.
"I'm busy tomorrow."

"It's a Saturday Kaylie."

"Exactly, it's one of the two days I get to be away from work and actually focus on creating your app."

"Let Mr. Young know you'll need the day to yourself."

She frowned.
"Why would I need to inform him that?"

"So, he can take care of things without you."

He didn't know.
"I'll take it Mr. Reed hasn't told you."

"Told me what?"

"Mr. Young and I are in a sort of inter-department competition. We're creating separate apps."

"Oh."

"Yea."

"Well in that case it makes it easier for you to take a few hours off in the afternoon and stop by."

She was silent for a moment.

"Don't think too much about it, Kaylie." He said like he could see the wheels in her head spinning "You're going to have to eat. Why not stop by, have lunch with us instead of eating all by yourself. Home cooked meal and lots of snacks."

She smiled.
"I haven't had a home cooked meal in forever."

"Great, so I'll see you tomorrow then."

She sighed.
"Sure thing Mr. Guzman."

"I'll text you the address."

"Ok."

"And Kaylie?"

"Yea?"

"It's Alex."

She opened her mouth to say something but he had hung up already. She frowned and was about to place her phone on the table when a message came in from the same number; the address.

She placed her phone on the table and got back to the app.

Dana hadn't been able to talk to Kevin after they got back from the art show the evening before and she knew she wasn't going to get to talk to him if she waited at home for him to get back. There would always be something preventing him from having a conversation with her; it was either work or a social event and she was tired of the excuses she was getting from him. Which is why she was in his office making her way to his office.

"Hello Mrs. Young." His assistant greeted.

"Is he seeing anyone right now?"

"No, go right in." She smiled at her.

She nodded and walked inside his office. Kevin looked up from his desk at her and frowned.

"Dana, what are you doing here?"

"I'm here to talk." She made her way to one of the chairs in front of his desks and sat.

"We can do that at home."

"If I keep waiting for a chance to talk to you when you get back from work, it'll never happen."

Kevin sighed and relaxed back into his seat.

"I've been meaning to talk about starting something for myself."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I'm bored of sitting in an empty house waiting for something to happen and not go after what I want for myself. I'm tired of doing nothing."

"You're doing enough and the house isn't always empty, Olga is there to help with the cleaning."

"And I love her company when she's around but the parties and the social events is not all I'm capable of doing. I can do more and I want to do more."

"More?" He asked "You mean you want to leave me and travel around like you don't have responsibilities?"

"Leave you?" She asked "You're barely at home and when you are, you're never actually present."

Kevin looked away and sighed.

"Can you actually do what I do?" She asked. "Stay at home for a day without receiving any calls or replying to any texts and tell me how you feel."

"You don't actually think I'd do that." He said "I have a company that depends on me. I don't have time to experiment."

"You can't even think about it, much less do it. This is not a life I wanted, it's not even a life. I want to have something of my own out there waiting for me to get back to. I'm tired of sitting still and looking pretty, I'm tired of attending all these social gatherings that don't mean anything to me."

"This isn't the right place to talk about this." He scolded her.

"Well, you don't want to talk when you're at the house. I had to do something."

"Well it was a terrible idea." He said "I have important things to attend to."

"More important than what you wife needs?"

Kevin's jaw clenched.
"You want to talk? Well you've said what you came here to say now listen to me." He rose from his seat and stared her down. "You don't need to do anything; I'm taking good care of you and you have everything a lot of people don't have. So, stop being so greedy and be happy with what you have. You want to shop, max out your damn credit cards but you wouldn't go out there and start something that's likely to fail. Imagine what people would think of me as your husband. I have enough ion my plate and I don't need a bored wife to paint a bad picture of me to the public."

Dana stared at him, shocked. For as long as she's been married to Kevin, he hadn't once talk to her this long or this way before. He was embarrassed of her of what she would do.

"Look Dana, you're just bored. Take my credit card and go shopping it'll help." He slid his card on the table towards her.

Dana got up staring at the card.
"I'm fine."

"You sure?" He asked "Because I have no problem with that."

Buying things she didn't need and remaining the perfect wife for him only problem with that is she wasn't perfect and she didn't want to be.

She smiled at him.
"Yea, it's ok." She draped her bag on her shoulder.

He smiled at her.
"Good, I'll see you at home." He said in a dismissive tone.

She made her way to the door and turned back to see he'd already gone back to work.

This was her life.