Icon #51
Roger logged off his terminal forty-five minutes early. He locked up the drawers of his desk, tucked his Christmas bonus check into the inside pocket of his jacket, and grinned. He was a man with a plan – a holiday plan. Just like every aspect of his life, it was timed to perfection. He ran on a strict timetable – an obsessive timetable, others told him. He rose at 5:30. He drank coffee and read the morning paper from 6:00 to 6:15. He drove to work and arrived between 7:15 and 7:30 every morning. He had more coffee and caught up on e-mail until 8:00, when he was officially on the clock and moving.
Finance was uncompromising. There was no room for sloppy work, and he’d found early in life that his routine was the best foundation for perfection. Never vary, never waver. Precision in all things.
Tonight, that was going to change. Tonight, he was going to ask Belle to marry him, and for once, he was going to do what he could to let spontaneity rule. Her one complaint over the years she’d stood by his side was that he was too mechanical. She knew he loved her, but he was so predictable, so damned precise about everything, that there was no mystery left. It was only 45 minutes, but it was his gift, and he knew she’d understand it.
Downstairs, a limousine waited. Inside would be thirteen roses. He always gave her twelve, but not tonight. There was also a box of white chocolate, not dark. They had reservations at an Italian restaurant across town where neither of them had ever been, and he had no idea what to expect. He worried that he’d been too exacting and precise in his efforts to be spontaneous, but there was only so much he could do.
He gave a last glance at his office, closed the door behind him, and headed into a new life.
The limo was ready when he exited the building, and they made good time at the interchange, even though he’d expected that his lack of knowledge of traffic at any time other than his usual would put a kink in things and steal back the time he’d planned so carefully to … well … not plan. It was fine. The limousine pulled up in front of her apartment building thirty minutes earlier than he’d arrived there at any point in their relationship. She didn’t expect him yet, and his heart beat faster. If felt good to be “on the edge,” even if he was only barely testing the waters.
The elevator rose slowly, but his smile never dipped. It was oddly exhilarating. He imagined her face when she opened the door and found him standing there. He imagined the smile that would follow when she realized he’d done it for her, that he’d broken his single, cardinal rule of life to prove that she was the most important thing of all to him.
He stepped off the elevator, turned toward her apartment, and stopped. Standing in her door way, disheveled and half-dressed, a man stood kissing Belle, who drew away laughing and pushed him. The man laughed, turned, saw Roger and grew very still. Belle, catching the change in demeanor, stepped into the hall. Her eyes grew very, very wide. She looked down at her watch – the movement almost comical. The man grabbed his pants about his waist and took off running in the opposite direction.
“I…I’m early,” Roger said.
Belle’s features shifted from pain to regret to anger in an instant. She took off her watch and threw it at him. She screamed, and he backed up a step.
“He was never coming back,” she said. “It was over. I had just enough time to get ready for you…and you choose TODAY to be early? I hope you’re HAPPY!”
Roger leaned on the wall, shook his head, and his mind slipped back into gear. The reservation was at 7:00. There was just enough time. He rose and walked into Belle’s apartment, heading for the kitchen. If she followed, as he knew she would, and if her knives had been left precisely where he remembered – and they always were – he could make dinner in time to start working on a very precise alibi.
Written by David Niall Wilson - Visit WebsiteFollow me on Twitter
