The Consultant: Neighborhood Wives (Ch. 5)
Alli "talks" some sense into Jim
(Author's note: all characters in this story are pretty clearly over 18.)
One of the constants when working as an IT consultant is knowing that you're going to have to deal with dry spells where you can't find a gig. I'd been lucky so far and had always had my next assignment lined up well before the end of the current one, but now as this big project I'd been on for well over a year was winding down, I was worried as I didn't have anything in the queue.
The company I'd been working with the past eighteen months liked me and made it clear that I'd be their first choice for their next big migration project. But that was likely not going to be for another six or eight months as they let the current changes settle in.
I had managed to squirrel away some money but not enough to see me through a six-month dry spell, so I was getting nervous. A very lean summer was staring me in the face.
At the same time, I realized that I had become something of an emotional wreck since the end of my marriage. I hadn't really let myself think much about my divorce and then the time I'd spend with Joanie and Ramona, regardless of how temporary, had left me feeling lonely afterwards, and at a bit of a loss.
I was still walking with Joanie in the neighborhood most days but I really wasn't in any emotional shape to actually talk about how I felt. But it was good to at least have some face-to-face companionship.
Then Joanie dropped what felt like a bomb on me with about three weeks to go on the project - she was going in for knee replacement surgery and wouldn't be able to walk with me for a while. I made all the appropriate noises about how much better she would feel and how much I would miss seeing her every day (both true) but inside I was screaming at her for doing this to *me*, which was of course completely stupid and selfish.
I moped around the house all that weekend, the first one in June. It was unseasonably hot and I spent most of my time inside, going through all my contacts yet again looking for possible projects. I even broke down and started going through Linkedin and the Ladders and other job boards for jobs, although I was still skittish about making that move after having been laid off a few years previously.
Monday rolled around and the weather cooled off considerably. I was determined to go for my walk even without Joanie and I actually felt a little better as I sat on the front porch lacing up my shoes.
The azaleas were long gone but there was still some wisteria blooming at the edge of the town-owned patch of woods that I could see from my porch, as well as a few ragged dogwood petals that hadn't yet fallen. The grass and the leaves were as green as they could possibly be and I knew they'd stay that way until the heat of July baked them into submission.
I heard a shouted "hello" as I stood up and saw our neighbor Alli coming up the driveway. We'd spoken a few times when I went out for my walks with Joanie but I didn't know her well and had no idea why she'd be coming to see me.
She answered that question quickly. "Joanie sent me over to take you for a walk!" she said with a grin. "So, heel, boy! Walkies!" I couldn't help laughing at that so I fell in beside her and we started off around the neighborhood, at a somewhat faster pace than Joanie and I usually managed.
I didn't know much about Alli but I liked what I saw. She was tiny, about 5'2' and slender, with golden blonde hair that hung down past her shoulder blades, and a very sweet smile. She was cute rather than pretty and her round cheeks made her look much younger than I knew she had to be given that she had a daughter in high school.
We talked as we walked, or mostly Alli talked and I tried to listen while also trying to figure out what I was going to live on the next few months. I did pay enough attention to her to realize that she was telling me that she had grown up in town and was a nurse down at the university hospital.
"You don't look like a nurse," I blurted out. And it was true - all the nurses I knew were heavy, from bad eating habits and lack of exercise due to horribly unpredictable (and long) hours. Most of them had back and knee problems from trying to flip 300-pound patients and from wrestling equipment around patient floors. Nursing is crazy hard work and most nurses pay a heavy price. Somehow Alli had escaped that and looked about the same size as her teenage daughter.
I also realized that she might not have been as old as I had originally thought. Her parents were both professors at the local state university and she'd grown up with the arty crowd in the local high school. She had her sights set on a small liberal arts school like Oberlin but then she'd taken a gap year to go to Europe and had gotten herself a severe case of pregnant.
The boy was just a year older than her and was doing an internship in Florence where they met. Unlike most summertime flings, they had truly and deeply fallen in love and before the summer was over, he had applied to transfer from Brown to the local school and he and Alli got married before she took her first college course. So, she really was a little younger than I'd thought and was still married to the same guy.
I learned all of this from a fairly constant stream of chatter during our walk, which I actually welcomed as it kept me from having to focus on making conversation. I knew it was rude, but I was fine with half-listening to Alli while I thought (and worried) about my job situation - and while I snuck glances at her cute little rear end.
After a fairly brisk hour's walk, I waved goodbye as she turned up her driveway with a promise to go walking with me again the next day. I headed back home to run through the afternoon meetings and finalize the implementation plans for the last bit of infrastructure for the project.
*****
Tuesday was a little warmer and I was a little more down. As I saw the end of the current job coming nearer, my thoughts got darker. Maybe that was why Alli decided to test me to see if I was really listening to her as we walked.
"Aren't you at least a little bit shocked." she asked, turning to look at me with a sly little grin. I looked embarrassed and admitted that I hadn't been paying attention. "A hot blonde tells you that she's in an open marriage and you don't even bat an eye!"
I stopped, mouth open, staring ahead at Alli as she moved on a few steps before realizing that she was leaving me behind. She looked over her shoulder and grinned, then kept going. I jogged a few steps to catch back up with her. "Ok, you got me," I said. "I'm sorry - I let my mind wander. What were you really saying?"
