The Resident (part thirty-two)

Chapter Four

An Odd Man Out

(part thirty-two)

He knew Claudie wrote in her notebooks, in the pink gingham room, upstairs.

A sensible, a naturally-fitting person, married four years…

Would have asked his wife at some point, “Do you have a job?”

He was gone to his own job most days. Computers were surging; so much new work, by 1994, being created because of them.

John was enduring a hateful period of professional success.

Learning Experiences now wanted five six-hour weekdays from him, a convenient thirty hours. They wanted weekend travel. They wanted training sessions. Even Oathbreach had booked him to train their techs.

He had never felt worse. Aura, his vehicle to this special relationship, and Stacy, were now his students. One of his textbook authors was a Cooper, and he had managed to give Aura a meaning look and odd smile, while telling himself, she’s only a student. You don’t officially know her.

Meanwhile, Claudie’s garden grew, with her need to be outside, and he found her missing from the house when he got home. He pottered, poured his Diet Coke and bowl of Cheerios. He knew she was slicing sod, snipping weeds, or in the woods, digging roots. The woods were theirs…and where they weren’t, were Teconieshe’s, and so she could build her edge of phlox and wild geranium, pat ferns under the rhododendrons.

He had run through all the rooms, shouted out the back door…the first time.

“John, I want to be very honest.”

Claudie began with these words when she had a line to draw. He expected (still, and always) the line to be, “I can’t stay married to you.”

But: “That annoys me so much. I’m not sick in some way, I’m not a wandering moron. If I’m not in the kitchen when you come home, I’m fine. Please.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Oh! Well done! Thank you.” Tilt of the head. “Cross my heart, John. That’s exactly the phrase you want. You used to say the weirdest things when you were…not quite in the right.”

And she gave him a hug, and they fixed their frozen pizzas together, and he damped his transgressive panics ever after—

But.

The kitchen window’s light could be wonky; the laburnums were out there. Claudie wore a certain amount of cosmetics, and he knew the Venn diagram of Not in the Right had a very small overlap of You’re Allowed to Mention This.

“Is there a green powder?” he softly asked a counter girl. At Penney’s. He had learned this store; he did not want to learn another.

“Yes, there is. You use it to get rid of redness. I don’t think we sell that, though…you need more of a specialty place. Ummmmm…”

He hadn’t asked her to be so helpful, and was now hostage to this um.

“You know, I bet Shear Delight, they do makeup, they don’t just do hair. Or Shawn would know where to order.” Shear Delight, she told him again. Up that way.

He bought a curly-haired woman’s shampoo for Claudie. A random gift…because it was hard to get out of conversations…

And in fact, a sheer delight. “You’re so amazing, John! How would you even think of this?”

44

An Odd Man Out

The Resident (part one)

(2025, Stephanie Foster)