Tina Kennard-Carter trudged the final few feet to the door of her and
Brian’s Manhattan penthouse apartment. She twisted the *****. It was
locked.


“Huh.”

It was a rare occasion when Brian wasn’t home before her. Grumbling,
she fished around in her handbag for her seldom-used key. She opened
the door, walked in, dumped her handbag and work satchel on the ground,
kicked the door shut, wandered into the living room, and half-collapsed
on to the couch.

It had been a long day.

Ever since she moved to New York and gotten married to Brian seven
years ago, she had been working in a PR firm. Close to the top of the
food chain, Brian had seen to that. Brian was a top defence lawyer, and
had apparently gotten the head honcho out of a sticky situation, so
therefore was owed a favour. The job was relatively easy, but the days
were long, and her boss was an *****.

Brian was a sweetie though. He always managed to be home before her and
have food on the table. They would talk about their respective days,
major things coming up, stuff to do on the weekend. Life seemed to be
going well…

And yet… something didn’t feel right.

Tina thought about it for a while, and it dawned on her: there was no
real love in their relationship. No warm hugs, no gentle kisses, no
conversations that were made entirely through their eyes, nothing like
that. In fact, their whole marriage could be likened to a business
partnership. Tina chuckled to herself. That was probably what it was.
She was only another success on Brian’s long list of accomplishments.

She got up, opened a bottle of wine, grabbed a glass, went back to the
lounge, and sat down. She left the glass on the table and took a long
swig out of the wine bottle.

Tina sighed. Who was she kidding. She was miserable.

She glanced around at her surroundings. Opulent, modern, yet cold and
unfeeling. Nothing at all like the home that she once shared with….
her.

No, Tina thought. I’m not going back. No matter how screwed up my life is. I can’t dredge up the past.  It hurts too much.

A single tear ran down her cheek.

“It’s not like they care about me anymore anyway,”
she said to no one in particular. Moving to New York was like moving to
a different planet. She hadn’t heard a peep from anyone in her old
life. The only thing she knew about anyone from back in Los Angeles was
that Dana was doing really well in the tennis pro circuit, and that was
only because she watched the 10 o’clock news.

She closed her eyes, took another gulp from the wine bottle, then
opened her eyes again. She noticed a small red light off to her left.
The answering machine. She walked over to it and hit the play button.

“You – have – two – new – messages. First – new – message.”

*BEEP*

“Hey Brian, it’s Kendra. I was
wondering if we could, you know, pick up where we left off after your
wife almost walked in on us in your office? Hehehe. I can’t believe
that she’s still completely clueless. Oh, you just walked into the
building. Catch you soon. Bye! *mwah*”

Tina felt the rage building inside of her as she listened to the
message. Kendra was Brian’s secretary, and a ***** one too. Tina had
always been suspicious of foul play between them, but Brian had always
reassured her that there was nothing going on. It was now plainly
obvious that Brian was ***** his secretary.

Tina laughed bitterly. How cliche, she thought.

She hit the play button on the machine again, and her jaw almost hit the floor as the message began to play.

“Tina, it’s Bette Porter…”