Eavesdropping

Part 2 -- The Confrontation

"Hello? Susan? Did you hear what I asked you?" Liz laughed as she walked towards the mirror, arms up in the air, running her hand through her bangs and staring at herself in the mirror.

Susan pulled herself up to standing, put on a smile, and headed into the tiny bathroom. "Yeah, I heard you. No, I mean. What was it you wanted?"

"Did you pick out that shirt Jim is wearing tonight? It's hilarious."

"How is a green button down shirt hilarious? His sister gave it to him for his birthday, but I suggested it. Why's it funny?"

"It's just, come on, is it satin? That's so 1995. All he needs is a braided leather belt."

Susan used the toilet and came back out. The phone was no longer on the counter. Susan looked in the mirror, and she could see Liz watching her face quizzically. Susan smiled at her with a knowing look, and shrugged her shoulders. "Not everyone's married to a European man. Give me a break."

They made their way back to the table and sat down. Susan looked across at her husband of ten years, a. and two months. Jim. Good old Jim. The father of her children. Fan of big boobs. Lover of success and money. Happy go lucky dude except when he got stressed. What was going on with them? She studied his face as he laughed at something Liz was saying. He looked down at his shirt and caressed the fabric, looking back up at Liz with a grin. She wondered when they had last actually had a conversation about something other than the dinner menu or which child was due for a bath. Jim turned his gaze from Liz and looked over at Susan, cocked his head and mouthed, "You okay?"

Susan didn't know if she was okay. She didn't know what to say or ask or if she was imagining that she had just seen that text or that it had actually been from her Jim. Maybe it was a different Jim. Maybe she was making this all up. But facts were facts—the phone was Liz's phone. There was nobody else at their table named Jim. It was a text from a Jim to a Liz. Two people at the same table, one missing the other. And one of those people was Liz, and the other was...

"Jim?" Susan asked.

"She was like, 'Don't go to the rodeo without me, you fool!'" Liz and Jim burst into laughter. "And so I did what any man had to do in my situation," Ruben looked at each of them, leaning forward over the table, head bent and looking at them from the tops of his eyes, hands raised, fingers out-stretched, ready to deliver the punchline.

"Jim!" Susan interrupted again. Ruben sat up straight, and all three of them turned towards her.

Jim frowned. "Come on, babe. Seriously, Ruben's in the middle of a story. Do we need more bread or something?" He pulled the basket towards him and opened it to reveal a full loaf inside. He tilted it towards her. "Can't be that, huh?" He winked. It was an old joke between them. On their first date, Jim made fun of Susan for "filling up on bread" and "ruining her appetite" before their dinner steaks came, hers well-done, and his medium rare, of course. He even argued that she was ruining her tastes buds. Her parents had taught her to take advantage of the free bread so that she would not have to order as much expensive food. It wasn't uncommon for her mom to even wrap the bread up and take it home with them, something which appalled Jim to no end. To him, it was even worse than her parents' poor tipping.

"Stop being a jerk. I haven't even had a single piece of bread yet," said Susan. "And it looks like good bread." It was dark brown and nutty. She vaguely remembered something about the restaurant having a bakery or being connected to a bakery? She couldn't remember, and she needed to focus on the present moment.

Ruben shook his head. "Come on, Susan." He made a face at her and shrugged his shoulders, shaking his head back and forth, feigning dramatic confusion. "Why is it so hard for you to relax sometimes? Take a chill pill, okay? You don't need to call your husband a jerk. Have fun for once in your life, okay?"