Always in Albuquerque Read online

  “Do you get sore after the hikes?”

  “I did in the beginning. Now I’m just tired when I’m done. Walking for that long, climbing half the way, is exhausting.” He glanced at her. “What about you? Do you get sore?”

  “Not really, but I do hike as much as I can. During the winter months, I tend to do a treadmill with a steep incline. I hate it, but my friend Joanna is a personal trainer, and she told me that was the way to keep from getting super sore when I can start hiking again.”

  “What gym do you belong to?”

  She named her gym and he nodded. “I’ve heard of it. I should go with you. Or I could always just put in a home gym in one of the spare rooms.”

  “Would you do that?”

  He nodded. “Two treadmills would be great. We could walk side by side.”

  She smiled. “I’d like that.” She wasn’t sure why he was humoring her that way when he didn’t think they belonged together, but she’d take it. The more time they spent together, the better the chance he would eventually love her as she loved him. She just wished it would happen soon. It felt very strange to be in a marriage with love only on one side.

  They went out for Mexican food that evening, and they both ordered fajitas. She ordered hers with no veggies while he ordered his with no meat. “Can I get guacamole in place of my meat?” he asked.

  The waitress nodded. “Sure. Vegetarian?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “I’ll make sure you get no meat then.”

  “I’m a carnivore. No veggies for me please.” Alexis had been made to feel ashamed for her salad-shunning ways, but she didn’t care. She had the right to make decisions for her own body. She was allergic to both bell peppers and tomatoes. People found it hard to believe anyone could get sick from those things, but she did. And many other vegetables. Why should she suffer for the way people thought she should eat?

  It was like how Dirk felt about his reputation. He truly believed that everything he said and did was being watched by others, and she just didn’t care. What difference did it make what others thought of her? Kale made her sick. Spinach made her sick. She wasn’t going to fight her own nature for the way other people thought of her.

  When they finally got home that evening, she jumped in the shower. She would have preferred a bath, but she was too tired. She would shower and climb into bed. Maybe her sweet man would climb in with her.

  Most of the day Sunday was spent on their puzzle. Alexis and Dirk were both tired from their day of hiking, and a quiet day at home was just what they needed. It was just past lunchtime when a knock came at the door.

  Dirk went to the door and invited the person inside. “How can I help you today, Dr. Kippa?”

  “I was driving past your house, and I realized that I hadn’t heard back from you about the dinner party I’m throwing Friday night.”

  “Dinner party?” Dirk asked. He’d received no invitation.

  “Yes, it’s for the marketing professors.”

  Dirk immediately knew he needed to go. Schmoozing was something he hated with a passion, but it was part of the path to tenure. “Yes, of course, I’ll be there.” By the marketing professors, he knew that Dr. Kippa meant the men. For some reason, the female professors weren’t invited to most of the dinner parties.

  “Feel free to bring a date if you’d like.”

  Dirk tried to think about what it would be like to have Alexis with him at a dinner party full of stuffed shirts—people like him. Would she know better than to talk about their bedroom activities? He certainly hoped so. “I got married a few weeks ago. I’d love to bring my wife, if that’s really okay.” He knew he might be making the biggest mistake of his career, but he was married to one of the most beautiful women he’d ever met. Surely, she needed to be shown off a little.

  “That’s fine.” Dr. Kippa looked around. He’d been to Dirk’s home multiple times, but Dirk had never been one to throw big dinner parties like Dr. Kippa. “Is she here? I’d love to meet her.”

  Alexis looked down at the shorts and T-shirt she was wearing. It was perfect attire for spending the day at home doing a puzzle with her new husband, but it wasn’t great for meeting one of his colleagues. There was no time to change though, so she stepped into the living room. “Hello. I’m Alexis, Dirk’s wife.”

  Dr. Kippa looked at Dirk. “Why didn’t you tell anyone you’d married such a beautiful woman?” He shook his head. “I don’t think anyone even knew he’d married. Or that you were seeing anyone.”

  “We’ve only been married for three weeks. We aren’t quite ready to share each other with the world yet,” Alexis said with a smile.

  “Well, it was nice meeting you, Mrs. Blanton. The party is at seven on Friday night. I look forward to seeing you both then.”

  After he was gone, Alexis turned to Dirk, waiting for him to tell her she shouldn’t have let his associate see her the way she was dressed.

  Instead, Dirk pulled her into his arms, and rested his cheek atop her head. “I do have the most beautiful wife in all of Albuquerque. It’ll be fun to show you off at the party.”

  “Show me off?”

  He shrugged. “I’m just saying that you’re beautiful, and I think it’ll be nice for others to see me as someone who can be married to a pretty woman.”

  She shook her head. “Sometimes you infuriate me.”

  “You always infuriate me.”

  She grinned, wrapping her arms around his neck. “Maybe we should work off some of our aggression.”

  Dirk grinned. “I do like the way you think, Mrs. Blanton.”

  Later, while Dirk napped, Alexis lay in bed wondering. Would they always only be able to communicate when they were in bed together? Would Dirk ever see her as anything but a pretty girl on his arm?

  She knew she didn’t give him enough credit, but he could have told the other man that she was a life coach. That she had a master’s degree in psychology. No, she was going to the party as Dirk’s pretty wife, not as an educated professional woman in her own right.

  She didn’t know if I was a good idea to confront him about it or not. She wanted him to see her as a professional, educated woman, but she wasn’t sure that was possible. Was he like Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory, thinking that anyone who didn’t have a PhD like he did wasn’t truly educated?

  She sighed, having no answers. Soon, though, they were going to have to have it out. She was going to have to make him see her for who she was, a strong and confident woman. Her looks had nothing to do with that. In fact, she’d always felt that they held her back. No one expected someone who was pretty to be smart as well. She wished people could see her insides and not just her outsides. Maybe someday, the world would be a better place, and she wouldn’t lose IQ points simply because she was pretty and had good boobs. She hoped so anyway.

  When Alexis got home from work on Monday evening, Dirk smiled. “Do you want to go shopping tonight? We could find you something nice to wear for Friday night.”

  Alexis frowned. “I have plenty of clothes to wear. Don’t worry about that.”

  “Show me what you’re going to wear then.”

  “Why? I haven’t picked anything out yet. I’m more of a ‘figure out what to wear just before time to go’ kind of girl.”

  “Let’s go look through your closet and see if there’s something that would be good.” Dirk could only think about her subduing her looks a little for his colleagues. He didn’t want any of them lusting after his wife. She was his, and that was all there was to it.

  “Do you really think I’m going to embarrass you with what I wear?”

  “Embarrass me? Why would you think that?” he asked, surprised. “That’s not what I’m worried about at all.”

  “Then what are you worried about?”

  He shrugged. “I just want to help you feel like you fit in. You’ve never been to one of these boring academic dinner parties. I thought you’d be happier if you felt like you were dressed appropriately.”


  “I don’t plan on dressing inappropriately.”

  “How do you know what’s appropriate and what’s not? You’ve never done one of these things, have you?”

  She sighed. “Are you really that worried about it?”

  “I wouldn’t say I’m worried…”

  “Fine. Let’s go shopping. You can dress me up however you want. I’ll be your Barbie doll.” She was annoyed with him. More than she could really say. She wanted him to be proud of her for who she was, and here he was, insisting that he dress her.

  “I thought the mall would be the best place to start.” He obviously missed the sarcasm in her voice.

  Alexis followed him out to the car, determined to not be offended by all this. He was trying to help her fit in. That wasn’t a bad thing, was it?

  He took her to a department store and starting flipping through the racks. He picked up a dress three sizes too big and handed it to her. “Try this on.”

  She went to the rack he’d gotten the dress from and chose her size. “I’ll be right back.”

  “I’ll choose a couple of more things for you to try, just in case that doesn’t look right.”

  Alexis told herself over and over that he was just worried about his image, but that was still insulting. Why did he think she didn’t know how to dress herself?

  She stepped out wearing the dress. It was a silky thing that clung to her breasts and showed off her hips. She liked how it looked, but she didn’t know what look he was going for.

  He looked her up and down. “You should certainly get that, but not for what we’re doing. You can wear that for me at home.” He handed her two more outfits, and she headed back into the dressing room.

  “It’s going to be a long night,” she mumbled to herself as she stripped and put on the next dress.

  Finally, after two hours of going in and out of dressing rooms, she tried on something that met with his approval. “That’s perfect for the image we want to project.”

  “What if the image I want to project is different than the image you want me to project?” she asked.

  He frowned at her. “I don’t know why it would be.”

  “I don’t either.” He was obviously so uptight about this, he was incapable of bending. Fine. She would let him do whatever he wanted.

  When they got home, she realized he’d purchased a great deal more than she’d thought. Almost everything she’d tried on had come home with them. “I don’t need all this,” she said softly.

  “No, you probably don’t. But I liked how you looked in all of it, so you got it.”

  She shrugged. What woman in her right mind didn’t let her man spend money on clothes for her? She hung it all up in her closet and shut the closet door. The outfit he wanted her to wear Friday night seemed like something your average college professor would wear. She had no doubt he wanted her to wear it to fit in better. She detested the clothes and would wear them once and only once.

  Soon, they were going to have to talk about his ideas about her and the way she dressed. And so many other things. She couldn’t keep going on as things were, but she’d wait until his party to talk to him. Otherwise, she would start crying, and she knew he wouldn’t like that. He wasn’t the kind of man who would know what to do when a woman cried.

  They had a late dinner and got ready for bed. Alexis felt as if her entire spirit had been crushed. He was grooming her now. Would he insist she wore her hair in a bun so no one could see that either? Maybe he would want her to wear a burqa. She wouldn’t, but he could want it all day.

  When he reached for her, she pulled away from him, not wanting to be touched by a man who didn’t respect her for herself. She wasn’t a Barbie doll, no matter whether he wanted her to be or not. She was a grown woman who had been dressing herself with modesty for a whole lot of years. If he couldn’t respect her for that, she didn’t know why she was even with him.

  Dirk was surprised when she pulled away. He’d bought her a ton of new clothes that evening, including two new pairs of shoes. Why wouldn’t she want to make love? It made no sense that she was upset, so he assumed she was tired.

  As he closed his eyes and fell asleep, he thought about how perfect she would look on Friday night. The party was going to be a success. He just knew it.

  Nine

  Alexis simply went through the motions of life that week. She was dreading the party on Friday night, not because she didn’t think she’d enjoy it, but because Dirk was making it into such a big deal in his mind. He needed her to look perfect, and he needed to “show her off” as the perfect wife and partner.

  Alexis well knew that she was anything but perfect in anything. Why anyone would want her to be, she didn’t know. When she’d worked with children, she often had them color as part of the therapy, and she was fond of telling them that “perfect is boring.”

  And now she was married to a man who expected perfection not only from himself, but from her as well. It made life hard.

  When Friday afternoon rolled around, she wanted to find some excuse—any excuse—not to go to the party. When she got home, Dirk had already laid her clothes out onto the bed. “I cut the tags off for you.”

  She nodded, quickly changing into the formless, ugly clothes he’d chosen. Then he talked to her about how to do her makeup. And her hair. She did everything as he wanted, because this was his party. If it had been anything else in the world, she’d have told the man to get bent.

  When he’d deemed her ready to go, he got ready himself while she went to the kitchen for a snack. Anything. She wasn’t certain she was going to be allowed to eat at the dinner party, so she wanted her stomach to be partially full when she got there. If she went nuts with the hangries, no one would be pleased with her.

  She had just finished a huge container of yogurt when he joined her in the kitchen. “Why are you eating? They’ll have food at the party?”

  She shrugged. “I’m not sure if they’ll have anything I can eat.” She didn’t add that she wasn’t sure he’d let her eat, because that would have come across rudely, and she was doing everything in her power not to be rude with him. Even if she wanted to stab him with his own pen.

  He frowned. “There’s usually a good selection.” Walking to her, he wrapped his arms around her. “I’m excited for you to meet my colleagues.”

  She looked up at him, trying to determine if he was telling the truth. “I promise to be on my best behavior.”

  He frowned. “I know you will. Let’s just make sure we don’t talk about our sex lives all the time.”

  “Afraid your friends will envy you?” she asked, feeling a little better about the whole situation.

  “Very much so,” he said with a grin.

  When they arrived at the party, Alexis stayed as close to his side as she could. Dr. Kippa was standing with his wife at the door. Alexis looked at the other woman’s clothes, and she realized they were wearing the exact same thing in different colors. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Kippa.”

  “Oh, please, call me Janice. Mrs. Kippa sounds so formal, and I’m sure we’re going to be the best of friends.”

  Alexis smiled. “Janice, then.”

  “No one even knew that Dr. Blanton was seeing anyone. The news of his marriage comes as a shock to all of us.” Janice shook her head. “How long have the two of you known one another?”

  “Not long. Our romance was a whirlwind. We’ve only been married about three weeks.”

  “Well we’re happy he’s found love. For a while it seemed like he never would. He’s always been so dedicated to his research that we worried he would never have time to find someone.”

  “We’re both avid hikers,” Alexis said, letting the other woman draw whatever conclusions she would from that. “It’s so nice to find a man who shares the same interests.”

  “I see. That makes sense. I think I’d heard it mentioned he’s a hiker.” Janice led her away from the men, and Alexis glanced over her shoulder at Dirk, knowing h
e wouldn’t be pleased if he couldn’t hear every word she said. “I wish we’d at least had a chance to throw you a bridal shower.”

  Alexis thought about the “shower” her friends had given her. It had really been a night out with lots of laughter. His friends would never have been able to match it. “I’m sure you’ll have a chance when we start having children,” Alexis said with a smile.

  “Oh, that’s true. You’re not…”

  Alexis laughed softly. “Not that I know of. We’ve only been married a short while, though. I’m sure it will happen.”

  “The wives of the marketing professors often have long lunches together during the week. We’re having one Wednesday if you’d like to join us.”

  It was at that moment that Alexis realized she’d rather gouge her own eye out with a rusty spoon. “I work during the week. I’d be happy to otherwise.” White lies didn’t count as real lies, did they? Either way, Alexis couldn’t care. She would die of boredom trying to have a meal with the woman.

  “Oh? What do you do?”

  “I’m a life coach.”

  “Oh! That’s like being a counselor but helping people differently? I think?”

  Alexis smiled. “I try to guide people through the intricacies of life.”

  “How interesting. You’ll have to tell me if someone I know is one of your patients.”

  “We call them clients, and I couldn’t break confidentiality in that way.” Alexis said a silent prayer that Dirk would come over and rescue her.

  Mrs. Kippa sighed. “I guess I like confidentiality in a friend, but not if they are keeping things from me!”

  “I have to respect my work and my clients.”

  “Well, you won’t be doing that much longer anyway. Not after the children start coming, of course.”

  “I plan to continue working. I didn’t get six years of higher education so I could spend my life staying home with children. We’re talking about renovating my office so that a nanny could be right there with me. Then I could still nurse the baby and be a bigger part of his or her life.”