Charlie Opera Read Free Page B

terrible,” she said. “I can’t believe I hit him like that. I threw something else at him earlier. I can’t do this anymore. I just can’t.”
    “It will be all right. Just stay calm.”
    “I wish you were here.”
    “Me, too.”
    Lisa felt herself tearing. “I better hang up. He should be back any minute.”
    “Okay. I’ll talk to you later.”
    Lisa kissed Denton through the telephone. “Good night,” she said. “I love you.”
    “I love you, too,” he said.
    When she hung up, Lisa took several deep breaths. It was a method of controlling her emotions she had learned the year before in therapy. She tried to focus on what she needed to do as she controlled her breathing.
    Her nerves had been on edge all day. She was anxious to end her marriage. She needed to confess the extramarital relationship she was having with the same man for the second time in two years.
    As her breathing finally returned to normal, Lisa reached for a tissue. The door opened as she held the tissue up to her nose. When she looked up, Charlie was standing at the foot of the bed with a stuffed animal. It was a white tiger. Lisa burst out crying.
    “The last time you told me,” Charlie said. “That was fair. I think you should tell me now if there is something going on.”
    They were sitting alongside each other in the sports book area. Betting at the sports book had already ended for the day a few hours earlier. Charlie had refused to talk in their room. He had told his wife that he felt caged in upstairs. He looked around the expanse of the betting parlor as he waited for her response.
    “There’s nothing going on,” Lisa lied. “There’s nothing to tell.”
    Charlie sipped at his third gin and tonic. They had been sitting there for half an hour. Lisa had started with white wine. Now she was drinking Diet Coke.
    “Well, then, what is it?” he asked. “Do you just hate me? Do you want to kill me?”
    “Don’t be ridiculous.”
    “Well?”
    “Well what?”
    “What gives with the brush this afternoon? You damn near took my head off, Lisa.”
    “I apologized for that.”
    “Jeez, well then, I guess I’m sorry for bringing it up.”
    “You know what I mean. I was wrong. I’m sorry. There, I said it again.”
    “What the hell brought it on? And what about the dam bursting when I walked in the room? I bought you a present, for Christ sakes.”
    Lisa turned away from him. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve been edgy. I think we have problems we can’t solve right now.” She looked around herself. “Not here, anyway. Not in Las Vegas.”
    “Oh, well, what the hell, then. Next time use a tire iron. We’ll solve our problems in an emergency room.”
    “I’m through saying I’m sorry, Charlie.”
    “Right. Of course you are.”
    He was frustrated. It was obvious Lisa was holding something back. He knew he was drunk, but he wanted her to tell him the truth. He finished his third gin and tonic. He set the glass on a ledge alongside his chair and craned his neck to look for a waitress.
    “I thought Las Vegas would be good for us,” he said.
    “So you could walk,” Lisa said, with a touch of sarcasm in her voice.
    Charlie ignored her.
    “Well?” she said.
    “I thought we’d have things to occupy us,” he said. “I like to walk. You used to like to walk. Now you like to shop. There’s plenty of both to go around. I thought we wouldn’t be on top of each other here. I made a mistake.”
    Lisa huffed.
    He thought about the affair she had been involved in two years earlier. She had met another lawyer on the West Coast during a corporate case they were involved in together. They met secretly for more than three months before she finally confessed to Charlie.
    “Have you talked to John lately?” he asked.
    “Let’s not go there, okay?”
    He downed his drink. “I guess that’s an answer.”
    “You’re drunk,” Lisa said. “I won’t talk to you while you’re drinking.”
    “Then I’ll make it