Spinning

Toni backed her car out onto the road and blindly set off. She didn’t know where she was going. Richie believed the worst of her and what did she have in her defense, nothing but her denials so why bother. What her father said was true she wasn’t entirely clean. So what, she hadn’t been to bed with Travis but she would have the night of the BBQ if he hadn’t sent her home. Maybe that counted, maybe phone calls counted, maybe contrived pictures counted, evidently it did with Richie.

Her father said she should go to her mother, she wasn’t sure that’s what she wanted to do; she would have to explain everything and then probably be condemned on the spot. She slowed down when she went by Millies Boarding house, she couldn’t go there, Richie’s office was right next door. Oh what the hell she’d go back to Coffs and stay with her father.

Once again she had that surreal feeling when she parked her car in Coffs and pulled her bag from the trunk. This couldn’t be her doing this, leaving her home, her husband, she leaned against the car a moment and then realized she had no key to get in the apartment and her father hadn’t come home yet. She wondered briefly if he was still talking to Richie and then put her bag back in the trunk and set off down the street, she’d go get a coffee and wait for her Dad to get home.

She went into Starbucks and got in line, some of the people in front of her had turned around pointing toward the glass fronted shop, Toni turned and a photographer was shooting through the window. She panicked and ran into the bathroom and locked the door. She was trapped and stood against the wall taking deep breaths. She splashed cold water on her face and then pulled out Travis’s phone and called him.

“Travis, Travis I can’t…I’m trapped.”

“Toni where are you what’s wrong?”

“I’m in the restroom at Starbucks, everything has gone to hell today, there’s a photographer taking my picture through the window here at Starbucks…Travis I don’t know what to do.”

“I’m going to send Kyle to get you, stay put as long as you can. I’d come but it would just add to the shit that’s already out there. Hold on a minute okay?” Travis went down the hall calling Kyle and told him what was going on with Toni.

“You want me to bring her here?”

“I don’t know yet, I’ll know by the time you get there just call me okay?”

Kyle picked up the keys to the SUV and left.

“Toni, are you still there?”

“Yeah,” she swallowed, “I’m here.”

“Kyle just left should be there in twenty minutes or so, hang tight honey. Where’s your Dad?”

“He may still be at my house, I don’t know. He went with me to talk to Richie.”

“So you went home?”

“Yes I did, I told him about yesterday and showed him the pictures, and he’s pissed. He said one of us had to leave, my Dad talked to him but I heard it all, he doesn’t believe anything I say. He thinks we’re…having an affair.”

“Fuck him, where are you staying?”

”I was going to stay at Dad’s but he’s not home yet I can’t get into the apartment, that‘s why I came down to Starbucks to wait.”

“Toni, let Kyle bring you out here, you don’t have to stay here if you don’t want to but at least until you can get in the unit. Will you do that?”

“I don’t know Travis; I should call my Dad and find out where he is.”

“Give me his number, I’ll call him and you come on back with Kyle.”

Toni gave him her Dad’s number, “This is crazy, I can’t believe all this is happening to me.”

Travis was punching in Michael’s number on a separate phone, “I’m calling your Dad now, hang on a bit okay?”

Hang on, hang on to what? Toni wondered.

Michael was just leaving Toni and Richie’s house, he started his car and pulled out of the driveway and his phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Michael, this is Travis I’ve got Toni on another phone here, she’s trapped in a restroom in Coffs, paps are taking pictures of her, I’ve sent Kyle to get her and bring her here. I thought if you wanted to come out here and get her or talk to her?”

“Bollocks, Travis. I’ve just left her house. I’ll be out at yours as soon as I can get there.”

“I’ll watch the gate, thanks Michael.”

“Toni, your Dad is coming here to wait for you.”

“Okay, I’ll wait for Kyle…thanks Travis.”

Things were spinning…spinning too fast for Toni to keep up with it was all spinning out of control.