Ch 109 Listen to me

“Wendy, listen to me. I screwed up big time.”

She sighed and held the phone away from her ear. Here we go again, Jeffery and his endless I’m sorry, take me back, never do such a fool thing again, forgive me crap. She leaned her head back on the cushion and let the warm water seep through her achy bones, only half listening. 

Who knew cooking could be such a physically exhausting activity? She had always been exhilarated by it when she cooked at home or for parties. She had even had a grand old time in the Picadillo’s kitchen. All the folks there were such fun to work with and so helpful and eager to please. Of course, that was once they realized Wendy was nothing whatsoever like Viktor the dragon.

Well, she supposed it was demanding and rather taxing when you’re in the big leagues and people expect so much from you. She still didn’t feel she was even on the middle school team in terms of cooking. She supposed that should worry her, but since Alec was thrilled with her enthusiasm and the fact that she charmed the most un-charmable chefs in existence… well, that was enough for him to declare this week an undeniable success.

However, thoughts of her grueling study/cooking sessions with New York’s finest cuisine masters fell away when she heard snips of Jeffery’s message.

“….I just exploded. Wendy, you would have handled it so much better than me. You would have known what to do. I don’t know how to deal with…”

“Oh, no! Janet’s gone off on him again,” Wendy whispered, making the bubbles scatter on the surface of the bath.

“Jasmine,” he said, sighing audibly. “You should have heard the nasty things she was saying… you know how snide she can get. You always know how to nip it in the bud before it gets too far, but I…I’m sorry, I just didn’t know how or when or anything and…I let it get too far and then Janet started crying and I lost it.”

Wendy gasped and nearly dropped the phone into the bath. “Jasmine made Janet cry?” she shrieked so that her words  echoed against the tiled bathroom walls.

“I threatened her with grounding for a month. I know! Way over the top. I’m such an idiot, but I was so angry. She just kept going and you know how she only gets nastier as she goes along. God only knows what she had been saying to Janet all week when I wasn’t around, like at school and…Janet never said a word about it. You know how she is. Jasmine must have seen Janet when she got home last night from her practice with Luke and couldn’t pass up the opportunity to bitch at her. Jasmine is so dang jealous about the singing thing. She must have said something to upset Janet. I was so stupid to think she’d stop on her own. Janet looked so tired this morning that we thought she might be sick."

 "We?" Wendy wondered.

 "Wes thought so, too. He’s a nice kid. I kinda like him, the way he’s so nice to Janet, you know?  But anyway, I think now Janet must have been crying all night, cuz she said she didn’t sleep well. Her eyes were red and a bit puffy. What can I do? Wendy, I don’t know how to fix this. I might have made things worse by yelling at Jasmine. Tell me what to do. I’m such an idiot! Um… sorry for this long message. I’m just freaking out a bit. I hope you’re okay. Good-bye, Wendy.”

Wendy giggled. “Oh, Jeffery, you funny, adorable …You are not an idiot. You’re just a dad who has no clue how to deal with a high strung teenage daughter and you were unlucky enough to have twins. No dad really knows how to handle it and some moms don’t either,” she mumbled to herself. She shook her head and laughed as she waited for him to pick up.

“Hello?” 

His drowsy voice made her feel guilty. She forgot how late it must be. She should hang up, but she kind of liked ending the night with Jeffery as the last voice she heard before sleeping…just like old times.

“Hello? Anyone there?” he said.

“I’m sorry I woke you, Jeffery,” she said.

“Wendy!” he gasped, sitting up, suddenly wide wake. “I wasn’t sleeping. I was watching the news and…”

“And you were snoring away as usual five minutes into it,” she finished for him with a laugh.

“Well, kinda,” he said sheepishly. “How are you?”

“Fine,” she replied. “Better than you maybe.”

“I’m okay. You sound tired. What time is it?”

“Um…I didn’t check. I could call you back tomorrow if…”

“No! I mean…it was nice hearing your voice last night…the last voice I heard before falling asleep. Almost like old times. It was real nice.”

Her heart skipped a beat. How did he do it? How did he know exactly what she was feeling? Or was it they just were that alike?

She brushed that aside without comment. “So, um…Jasmine’s giving you trouble? I never would have figured that. I thought for sure…”

“Janet? No, she and I are getting along so good, it’s almost scary. I keep expecting her to remember why she hated me,” he said, shaking his head in amazement. “But she’s convinced I didn’t do it and…”

“She never hated…what did you say?” she asked, sitting up so fast water splashed out of the tub and onto the tile floor. “Jeffery, did you tell her?”

“I…no, no, I didn’t. I swear it!”

“Then how did she find out?” Wendy said through clenched teeth. “I swear, Jeffery, if you…”

“I never would! You know that. I never wanted her to know. I almost crawled under a rock when she told me she knew,” Jeff  said, trying to ignore the bathwater he could clearly hear splashing and the erotic images it evoked.

“How did she find out then?” Wendy shrieked. 

“It was Dawn. She pestered Dawn until she…”

 “Told her everything? I can’t believe she would do that against my expressed wishes. I’m gonna kill her!”

“Wendy, no, don’t. It was a good thing that she did.”

“How can you say that?” Wendy said, even as she calmed down enough to think. “Is that why she forgave you?”

“No, she kinda…well, maybe. It was when she went to see Karen and…”

“Are you kidding me???” she shouted.

“Wendy, take it easy…damn it! I didn’t want to tell you like this. I didn’t want to do this over the phone.”

“How could you allow her to see…”

“Allow her? How could I stop her more like!”

“What the hell did that….that witch say to Janet?”

“I…I don’t really know, but whatever it was, it spurred Janet on to investigate.” 

“Investigate? What the heck?”

Jeff drew a deep breath. “Can we forget this for now and wait until you come home to…?” 

“Hell no! Damn you, Jeffery! I leave the kids for one week and you do this? You use Janet to get your way with me? How could you do it?”

Indignant anger coursed through Jeff. “If that’s what you think me capable of, of using my kids,” he said, his voice dangerously low. “then you’re right, we should divorce and be done with it!”

On the other end of the line he heard Wendy gasp and a ray of hope struck him with the force of a mack truck. “Now that I have your attention, are you willing to listen to me?”

There was silence for such a long time, he thought for sure she hung up on him. “Wendy?”

“Go on then,” she muttered.

Jeff found his mouth suddenly dry, but he swallowed and told her all Janet discovered and that which was confirmed by Karen herself.

“You went to see Karen again?” Wendy snarled.

“Again?” Jeff countered. “I never went to her in the first place. She found me at the bar and took me to her house. Last thing I remember is her telling me you’d come soon to get me  and take me home and stupid me I believed her, but I was drunk off my ass.”

“And whose fault is that?” Wendy snapped.

Jeff sighed wearily. “Let’s not start that again. My point is I called her and at first I thought she would completely ignore me and then she showed up at the shop and we talked…actually I yelled at her and she…you’ll never believe this. She gave me some cock-n-bull story about her being in love with me since we were kids and…”

“Jeffery, are you really this dense?” Wendy asked totally exasperated.

“I didn’t say I believed it!”

“Well, you should.”

“What?” he said, incredulous.

“That might be the first time she actually told the truth,” Wendy said. “I knew she was hot for you. How could you not know?”

Stunned silence followed this.

“Are you still there?” she said.

“Are you telling me…No way…you’re nuts!”

“Jeffery, just ask yourself, would she hate me so much if we hadn’t gotten together?”

“Uh…well, I just assumed she hated me, too, cuz I broke up with…her.”

“Hopeless, you are,” she mumbled. “She didn’t hate you, Jeffery. She hated that you were happy with me, that we were together. She wanted you, and yeah, she was probably in love with you…might still be.”

Another lengthy silence ensued. 

“Jeffery?”

“Yeah, I'm here,” he said. “I… this is hard to believe."

“She hated me because I stole you away from her.”

“Ridiculous! Even if I never met you, I still wouldn't have...”

“I know that and you know that....most of West Castillo might know it, too, but Karen refused to believe it.”

"That's totally crazy. If I loved someone I wouldn’t wish try to do everything to make them miserable.”

“Neither would I, but we’re not psychopaths like Karen,” Wendy said. “But that hardly matters. Why she did it was plain to see…to anyone with a brain, I mean. The fact remains you slept with her and that changes nothing.”

“But she admitted we never did!” he shouted.

“So you say,” Wendy said, with an exaggerated yawn. “It’s getting late, so…”

“Wendy, please,” Jeff said. “Listen to me.”

“I’ve been listening and I heard nothing new. I’ll be back in a few days. Try not to let the girls get into a cat fight, won’t you? Good night,” she said, clicking off before he could answer. She then dropped the phone and burst into tears.

She didn’t know what to believe.