Masked Intentions

4

4

The next time Toby and I met at the hotel, the lounge was loaded with women. Toby explained that there was a convention going on. He didn’t remember what, but thought maybe it was Mary Kay because there was a lot of pink all around. The women were boisterous, making it hard to converse. We placed our drink order and moved to a table in a far corner. We eyed and were eyed by many as we carried our scotch and wove between the groups to our table.

“We might get lucky tonight,” Toby said, with a gleam in his eye. “Some of these women get wild when away from home.”

“One night stands are not my thing, but you go for it.” That wasn’t always the case. I had gone on womanizing benders after losing Kevin and Hanna. Those were not good days and I’m thankful they’re over, but I no longer beat myself up over my flawed behavior. That was then and this is now.

Toby slugged his drink. “Big talker, that’s me. I hate to think about being single again. This will be my second divorce if we can’t work it out. It was after my first when I got heavy with the booze.” He tapped me on the shoulder. “Don’t get me wrong. I like everything about drinking. I like bars, especially classy places like this. Everything is clean and shiny. I like looking at the bottles stacked behind the bar, particularly the colors, sizes, and shapes of the top shelf spirits. I like reading the labels, sampling the liquor. I consider myself a scotch expert. I can tell you by tasting the scotch which regions of Scotland they come from. I enjoy the complexity of the scotch on my tongue. I’d like to tour the country, explore the regions and their champion varieties. I like to pair the scotch with a good cigar. I like the burn in my stomach and how the alcohol elevates my mood.”

I smiled. I could relate to Toby on several levels. “Nothing wrong with drinking in moderation.”

“In moderation. Moderation. Isn’t that the key to everything? Moderation. You should talk to Jackie about moderation. The way she’s going she’ll be worn out at 50.”

His anger was emerging, facilitated by the alcohol. I suspected he had been drinking earlier. “Did you see Jackie?”

He seemed to catch the eye of a woman looking this way. He smiled, then dropped the smile as he turned to me. “I did. It didn’t do any good.”

“I’m listening.”

“I miss the soft life, the glitz and glamour. This was my big moment, the brass ring. I told her I could forgive her if she took me back.”

“You could put up with her philandering?”

“Yeah. I told her that.”

I tried to hide my surprise, keep my poker face. Toby was selling himself short. It would only be a matter of time before resentment set in.

“What did she say?”

“It doesn’t matter. She didn’t believe me.”

I didn’t believe him either.

I left a couple of hours later. Toby claimed he was heading up, but he was making eyes with a woman when I left so who knows.

The next day at work I had a gap in my schedule. Normally, I’d use the time to return phone calls, fill out reports, or research diagnostic symptoms and the like. Instead, I decided to research Jacqueline Summerfield. Knowing more about her would give me a greater perspective on Toby. Jackie Summerfield was the only child of an Eastern real estate magnate. Married five times, the first at age eighteen, apparently due to a pregnancy that delivered a stillborn, she never had children and retained her maiden name throughout her marriages. Except for her first marriage, all of her husbands were educated, had dashing good looks, and were considered commoners, far below her social status. That, coupled with her vaulting success, put her in a dominant, controlling position with her husbands. She called the shots. Her romance suspense novels were heavily laden with s****l innuendoes and put the relationship in peril one way or another. Missing Mistress, Diving In, and Naughty Girl were recent best-seller titles. Two of her books were made into movies.

She had a reputation as a ‘lady of the night’, sometimes referred to as a female Charlie Sheen and was frequently mentioned in the celebrity buzz. Her ravishing beauty added to her allure. Her latest books were edgier, more sexually blatant. The public believed she was writing about her own experiences.

What I found especially interesting was that none of her husbands, Toby included, seemed to gain any kind of notoriety, or celebrity status, by their association with her. Usually a star’s coattails raises the status of their associates. There had to be some situations, husband and wife things that placed the spouse in the public light. Toby talked about the good life, how people respected and looked up to him. Could that be all under the radar? Since I wasn’t a celebrity hound, I’d have to ask Bobby and Carrie what they remembered.

At the end of the day as we were locking up I asked Bobby how his car smelled.

He grimaced, flashed me a non-forgiving look. “I bought one of those odor-eaters you hang on your rear-view mirror from a car wash. Now I have a sweet sickening smell instead.”

“Ouch! I could have told you that. Some years ago a car wash place put one in mine. I never went back there.”

“You seeing Toby soon?’

“Tomorrow.”

“Ask him what he does?”

“Why would I ask him?”

“Duh! He sold Mercedes. He had to have run into stinking problems. What did they do?”

“How did you know he sold Mercedes?”

“He told me. He was almost an hour early for lunch the other day.”

I scanned my tomorrow appointments on Bobby’s desk calendar to note any possible changes. There were none. “What else did he tell you?”

“That his wife was f*****g around, but everybody knew that. It was all over the internet. I don’t blame him for walking out.”

Interesting. Toby needed to save face. He couldn’t say he was kicked out. “Did you like him?”

“Yeah. He’s fun to be with. Very personable. I’d buy a car from him.”

“He had nice things to say about you, too.”

Bobby glowed. “Like what?”

“That you were a damn good cook, bound to succeed as a chef, and that for a young guy you seemed to have your head about you.”

He nodded, still glowing.

“Here’s a couple of ideas for your car smell. Sprinkle baking soda on your carpeting. Rub it in, then vacuum up the excess in a day or so. I also leave the open box of baking soda in the car for a few days. I’ve heard that coffee grounds also work.”

We locked up, walked out together and got into our cars.

On my way home I thought it odd that I had researched Jackie’s background and knew nothing of Toby’s. I had found out about Toby’s job from Bobby.