Chapter 7

Monday morning rolled in with an overcast sky in Charlie’s neighborhood. It was going to be a warm, stifling day. One where the heat is trapped inside the clouds, and no wind or sun would erupt into the sky. Charlie was sleeping in his library every night since Sheila’s departure. She had moved into an apartment Chad helped secure for her. No doubt she was already setting up her little nest, Charlie thought. Meanwhile, he was living in the disarray of the house. It seemed cavernous without her large presence in it. Their six bedrooms, five bathrooms, the library, her office, the two kitchens – it all seemed highly disproportionate for one man. He avoided setting foot into the extra bedrooms, only appearing for a moment or two in their master bedroom. He would come in and grab whatever clothing he needed, deposit his dirty clothes on the floor, and use the guest shower and bath to clean up.

It was an awkward affair, trying to get clean with a cast and a bum shoulder. He tried to use a garbage bag on his leg cast, tucking the bag into the opening at the top of the cast near his knee. He then wrapped the opening with surgical tape. This made it somewhat sealed off from the water, but standing in a shower with a slippery foot wrapped in plastic is a death wish. He grabbed one of the bar stools from the kitchen and shoved it into the shower stall. The spectacle was hilarious some days, abysmal on others. This was an abysmal day, and Charlie just sat naked with his plastic-wrapped leg in the shower, letting the water hit his thighs and run to his feet for about twenty minutes. He thought about what the old blind man had told him at the hospital, that a broken hip won’t kill you –the opportunistic infections like pneumonia and blood clots finish the job. He finally mustered up the energy to swivel around and get his shaved head wet, and soap up the rest of his body. When he was rinsed off, he stepped out of the shower and toweled himself dry. He couldn’t help but think that if Sheila was there, this entire ordeal would be done so much more quickly. An extra pair of able hands was infinitely more useful than one able hand and one arm that was bent at 90 degrees.

Getting dressed was simple, as long as he was alone. He would slowly work his jockey shorts on, shimmying them up one side, then another, with his one hand. The he would slip on a button-up shirt and decide whether or not he should actually button it up. And that was it. If he got a chill, the robe would be the outer-garment of choice.

However, today would call for more clothing than the norm, since his therapist was due to arrive at 11am for his first session in his home gym.

He found an old pair of sweat pants in his dresser, and laid them out on the bed. He sat at the foot of the bed and got his busted leg in first, then was able to maneuver his good leg into the other side of the pants. He didn’t think it would be appropriate to wear a button-up shirt to physical therapy, so he found a t-shirt that was large enough for him to stretch and pull the collar over his head after he’d gotten his wounded arm and shoulder in the sleeve first. Socks and shoes were an impossibility at this point, so he stayed with his leather and lambs wool slippers.

At five minutes to 11, the doorbell rang. He was sitting near the door, awaiting the arrival of the physical therapist, and was able to rise from his seat at the nearby dining room table and open the door in about 45 seconds. When he opened the door he was surprised to see a young woman, wearing track pants and a tight-fitting t-shirt standing at the doorstep. “Oh, hello,” she said. “I’m Jean Marie, your physical therapist.”

“Yes,” he replied, trying to stop looking so obviously surprised at her appearance. “Sorry, I guess I was expecting a man. I never did learn your name before, Jean Marie. Right?”

“Yes, that right. And you’re Charles?”

“Call me Charlie, please. No one calls me Charles,” he said, “anymore.”

“Well, Charlie, we should get started then.” She looked inside the doorway, indicating her interest in entering the house.

“Terrific,” he said, and he pushed the door open and tried to step out of the entry way.

“I heard that you had some equipment brought in for your recovery? Can you show me where it is?” she asked.

“Certainly,” he paused for a second. “Well, I think I know where it is – I only just got home a few days ago, so I haven’t seen the room myself.” They started to make their way to the back of the house. “I believe it is in the pool house, out back.”

“Wow, what a place you have here,” she commented as they walked through the dining room, the kitchen, the living room and into what appeared to be a room devoted to a large television set. “I bet you get crowds over here to watch this tv!” She exclaimed.

“Well, nothing recently,” he said, and realizing that he sounded like an old codger, quickly added, “but I suppose if you’d like to, you could switch it on any time you’d like.” He nearly chocked with embarrassment, hoping she wouldn’t catch the double-entendre he had unconsciously made. If she did notice it, she was too polite to say so.

“That’s very nice of you to offer,” she replied. “Is that the pool house?” she said, as she pointed to a building with two stories, the size of a two-car garage. It was painted the same color at the exterior of the main house, a butter yellow with white trim. The doors were sliding glass, French doors, coated with a tint to make it reflect the pool waters outside.

“Yes, that’s where Sheila set up my equipment, I was told.”

They walked into the pool house’s first floor, with Charlie opening up the sliding door all the way to let the light from outside pour in. Jean Marie quickly walked around the room to take inventory of the equipment.

“Well, I see you have a universal gym, and some free weights,” she examined everything with the eye of a professional. “Ah, that’s what I wanted to see,” she said as she pointed to the arm-cranking machine Charlie had used at the hospital.

“Yeah, what do you call that thing?”

“It’s an upper-body cycle.”

“Well, that’s logical,” he replied, wondering why he didn’t think to call it that in the first place. “I’ve been calling it an arm-cranking machine.”

“That sounds medieval!” She laughed. “Some people call them arm-bikes. They’re really good for getting your shoulder strength up, and allows you to put your arm through a whole range of motion,” she could see his puzzlement and stopped, “but we’ll get to that later.”

She walked back to where he was standing, in the doorway, and said “Why don’t we see what we’re up against, ok? Why don’t you tell me what happened.”

“Do you have a glass of wine, or perhaps a bottle of whiskey on you?”

“No,” it was her turn to look confused.

“Well then, let’s head back to the house so you can get the whole enchilada. Do you like a martini or a margarita before lunch?”

“Uh, neither?” she shrugged her shoulders.

“Very well, virgin bloody Mary’s it is!” and he made his way back to the house, while Jean Marie followed him like a bewildered child, confused and curious all at once to find out who this man was.

After he made their drinks, they went back out to the pool area and sat at the glass patio table. He told her about blacking out after the bus hit him, how the doctors had him working his other arm out to keep it in shape while he was laid up in bed at the hospital, and then decided to delve into the latest news.

“And then my wife decided that I would somehow heal better without her being physically present.” He finished his drink with one last healthy gulp, and looked up at Jean Marie to gauge her reaction. She was holding on to her glass, which was still full of the drink, and looking at him in a pitiful way.

“Don’t feel sorry for me, young lady,” he said. “I’ve handled it quite well I think. I’m still brushing my teeth, that’s a good sign, right?”

“First off, you’re probably not more than ten years older than me, so you don’t have to call me a young lady,” she answered him, sounding annoyed with his patronizing tone. “Secondly, Charlie, I don’t feel sorry for you. I am just wondering how a guy like you, living in a house like this, can have such a crappy week.”

“Well, sorry for taking the wrong impression,” Charlie said, and tried to eek out another sip from his empty glass.

“No apologies necessary. Look, Charlie, you’re going to be cursing a storm up with me as we go through the next weeks together, believe me. I’m going to put you through more pain as I try to get your strength back to normal, or perhaps even better than normal, so let’s be honest here.”

He nodded his head as she spoke, used to taking the authority of women in stride.

“You’re my employer, and I’m here to help you. You tell me what you want, and I’m going to give it to you.”

“I certainly wasn’t expecting to hear you say that!”

“What were you expecting me to say, then?”

“Probably something along the lines of, ‘You’re going to do XYZ and you’re going to like it or else,’ I think.”

“Do you want me to say that?” she asked him.

“No, I don’t think so,” he said, sounding strangely confident.

“Well good, because I’m here to make you feel better, get some of your strength back, and make sure that we have a good time doing it.” She continued, “But it is still going to hurt like hell, sometimes.”

“Well, for starters then we should have a drink to toast the beginning of this new chapter in my life,” he said, watching for her response.

“I think we already toasted, Charlie.”

“Correction – I’m already toasted.” She wasn’t laughing. “Are you always this prickly?”

“No, but I am beginning to see that you are pretty frisky.”

“Well, Jean Marie, I have felt a little cooped up lately,” he said, feeling awkward by her assessment of him. “I think that’s why I’m looking to get you buzzed, for entertainment’s sake.”

“Sorry, Charlie,” she said with a laugh. “I bet you’ve heard that one before. I don’t get buzzed on the job.”

“Ok, Officer Marie.”

“It’s Walker – Jean Marie Walker,” she corrected him.

“Ok, then – Officer Walker. You know, with a last name like that, I would thin you were a WHISKEY drinker. You know – Johnny Walker?”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Oh, you’ve heard that one before then, too?” He grinned at her.

“Here’s the deal,” she said, sitting up straight in the patio chair. “I’ll be here
at least three times a week, and we’ll start out with stretches, then get you to do some strength training. We can do cardio if you’d like.”

“Yeah, sure – whatever you recommend,” Charlie was responding to the authoritative tone in her stance and voice.

“Great! Then, I’ll be heading out of here now,” she stood up from her chair, and Charlie rose after her. “You know, that pool can come in handy too, for our workouts, when you feel up to it.”

“Sounds like a plan to me.”

He walked her back to the door, they shook hands, and he watched her get into her silver four-door sedan and drive off the property.

Jean Marie started coming every other day, each week. Charlie allowed her
to enter the house with her own key, so that he would have less of a need to get up from his station in front of the television. He was less depressed from the separation than he thought he would be, and contributed it to the company of Jean Marie. She was similar to Sheila, in as much as she controlled most of his actions during their visits, and wanted him to maintain a stronger attitude towards things in general, sometimes more so than he cared to.

Jean Marie would often come to the house, let herself in, and call out for Charlie. "Charlie, where are you? Are you in the gym again, working out on your own?" She would stumble upon him on the couch, and clap her hands to grab his attention. It was already grabbed, though, by her cute figure and brownish red mane of hair. Her energy seemed to seep through her skin and into an aura around her, and Charlie liked to give her a hard time so that her spirit would permeate to him more strongly. She would grab his good arm and help to hoist his body weight from the leather cushions. When he was upright, she would pat him on the shoulders, walking behind him to the pool house gym.
The standard work out consisted of him being herded among the various pieces of equipment by Jean Marie. She would stand beside him and count out the repetitions that he was completing, if they weren't discussing other matters.

Charlie could go on for several hours, telling her all about the various mischief he'd been involved in through the past decades. Stories about raucous trips to bars after sets, to see other bands they knew playing, heckling them and baiting them while they played. This would dissolve into a bar fight and the cops would be called, and the groups would offer to pay for damages or bribes or whatever it took to avoid getting booked and sent to the drunk tank overnight. On rarer occasions, the heckling would turn into challenges among the musicians.

"We were watching Sam Knox play this long solo on this stupid white and red guitar he loved. So Twig shouts out, "Hey Sam, you're supposed to toss out your girl's tampons, not play 'em!" and Sam stops, literally, in the middle of a note, and everyone in the bar turns to look at Twig. I mean, I'm looking at him, the bartender is looking at him, he could have been a ghost the way everyone was staring at him. But Sam, he didn't even look at him, he just said "Folks, I believe Twig from Accelerator is in the audience. And he's just offered to play my guitar tonight." And Twig, he looks up at Sam and his mouth has dropped to the floor."

"Who - Twig?" Jean Marie asked.

"Yeah. So he looks at me and Terry and we just throw our hands in the air. Aaron says,

"You get your ass up there before you get a bottle thrown in your face!" Twig stands up, and the audience is playing along, clapping their hands, and murmuring to themselves, "Who the hell is Twig?" He steps up on stage, grabs the tampon, and starts playing this horrible screeching crap. It's reverberating through the whole place, people are plugging their ears, it's terrible! Finally Sam steps in and takes the guitar back and says to the crowd - "And that's why drummers don't get at the front of the stage, folks." He hugs Twig, Twig buys a round for Sam and the band, and we skirted out of there feeling a little more sober than when we arrived."

"Crazy men," she said. "Liquor, music, and egos - dangerous combinations, right?"

"Well, it's all in the combination, darling."

"Okay, darling, let's see you do some free weights now." She led him over to a pyramid of weights and handed him the 5lb dumbbell. "Give me ten on the RIGHT, and as many as you can on the LEFT."

As he would complete a repetition, she would offer encouraging words. They did little to keep Charlie motivated. He wanted her to share up some of her stories.

"So, tell me what a gal like you does in this town when she isn't rehabilitating convalescents?"

"Oh, you know, just making sure I have enough food in the fridge."

"For what, your brood of eight illegitimate children?"

"Good, that's ten. Now the other side," she helped him switch hands with the dumbbell.

"No, not for my non-existent children. And they wouldn't be illegitimate, anyways."

"Oh, you have a husband?"

"No - not that you need to know of! Just kidding... hey, breath out when you lift, remember? Husband, boyfriend - none of that for me now."

"So then what's the point of the cute little workout clothes and nice
hairdos?"

Jean Marie was quiet. Finally, she looked at him and said, "Well, maybe they're a motivational tool I use in my business..."

Charlie picked up on her discomfort at his suggestion that she dressed provocatively, and realized after the fact that he made it sound like he thought she was flirting with him.

"I - I didn't mean to suggest anything, Jean Marie. Just putting my foot in my mouth again!" He flashed a grin to hopefully get her to play along.

"I know, Charlie. It's just," she took a deep breath. "Well, maybe I shouldn't be saying this."

Charlie was worried that he'd stumbled on some emotional hot button. Perhaps her last client had told her to show more skin for his workouts, and she felt terribly self-conscious about it? Or maybe she was formerly the fat girl in high school, and now that she was a hot physical therapist/personal trainer, she wanted to flaunt it?

"What is it?" he asked, cautiously.

"Ok, Charlie, that's enough." Charlie stared at her with bugged eyes, thinking he was in for a tongue lashing. "No! The weights, you can stop now!" She laughed at him, and took the dumbbell away and placed it on top of the pyramid.

"We should go have a drink. Of water, Charlie."

"For a second there I thought I was about to get placed in the iron maiden!"

"Well, if you had one in your gym like I have in mine, then maybe you would have been. Kidding, again," she said.

They walked back out to the pool patio table, and she continued inside to the kitchen.

She returned with two glasses filled with water and ice.

"Yummy," Charlie said, sarcastically, but then took his glass and gulped away half of it.

"So, Mr. Clark, how is the body feeling now after two months of this
work?"

"I would say probably better than before I even got hurt, to tell the truth." He set down his glass and looked out at the pool. It was a bright afternoon, and some leaves from the nearby birch trees had drifted onto the water. "I am thinking I am probably ready for the pool exercises we talked about a while ago. You know, I'm a Speedo guy, don't you?"

"Figures as much! It fits in with your rock star persona. Well, we could do that on my next visit, I'll bring a suit and some water weights for you, and maybe some trunks for you to wear over the Speedo!" They shared a laugh, knowing that they were both prolonging an inevitable awkward conversation. Charlie cracked first.

"Well, I'm sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable before, my wise crack about your clothes." He looked at her and winced, indicating his fear of her response.

"Oh, don't worry about it. I'm comfortable with what I wear, but if it makes you feel uncomfortable, I could change it up, you know?"

"No, no! That's not what I meant for you to think," he said. "Well, I don't know what it was I meant for you to think, actually. I guess I was just trying to... I don't know, be funny."

"Were you flirting with me?" she asked. Now she was wincing at him.

"Oh! That'd be pathetic, Jean Marie, don't you think? A man my age, flirting with someone like you?"

She was unmoved by his protestations, and continued to look him square in the face.

"Don't you think that would be ridiculous?" He asked her again.

"Not necessarily," she looked down at her hands, resting on her lap.

"Oh," he replied. He was taken by surprise at her candidness. During their visits, not once had she indicated that she was attracted to him, nor more interested in him than to get him to do this or that exercise. This was changing things a bit, and Charlie wasn’t so sure he liked where it was going.

“Well, Jean Marie, I don’t know what to tell you. Do you want me to flirt with you?”

“Oh, come on! That’d be pretty desperate of me, to want someone to flirt with me!” She was half smiling, but inside her heart was feeling very fragile. He had started to crack her professional demeanor, with each visit to his home. He would share his stories to her, and it made her believe that he wanted her to know about his life – more about it – than the normal clients would want her know. She continued, “It’s just that I think we have a really good chemistry going here, and I think it would be a good idea to know if one of us is feeling like this is leading to something other than just getting you back on your feet.”

“Well, then, I would say that I agree,” he replied, but paused. “You know, I think I could use something a little extra in this water. Do you want something from the bar?” He had asked her so many times before after their sessions if she wanted a drink, and been met with a polite “No thank you,” that he started to walk away from her without waiting for her response. He was a little stunned when she said, “I think I could take a Bloody Mary, now. Thanks.”

He stopped in his gait, and said, “Ok.” At the bar, he pulled out two glasses, poured in the vodka and tomato juice, found some celery sticks in the bar’s mini-fridge to place in the glass, and made his way back to her. “Hope you like a little more vodka than tomato juice in your Mary, Marie.”

“That’s fine, thanks,” she said, extending her hand to take both glasses from him, and then setting them down on the glass table.

“What were we talking about?” he asked, as he plopped into his chair. “Oh, yes – the chemistry.” He took a long sip from his glass, and she stirred hers with the celery stick.

“Ok, let’s cut the shit,” she said. Charlie’s eyes bugged out at the profanity. “I had to say something because I get the feeling that you like me, you know?”

“Yeah?” was all he could say back to her.

“Well, you tell me your stories and talk to me like I’m more than just, you know, you’re therapist. Am I right?”

“Do you want to be more than that to me? I mean, I don’t see you as hired help, if that’s what you’re saying. But I certainly am not trying to get you into bed, as well!”

She took a sip from her glass, and set it down. “No, I wouldn’t expect you to be trying to bed me, or anything like that. I just wanted to know if you, well…”

“Go on,” he was staring at her face with extreme concentration, wondering what her next words would be.

“Well shit, ok – I wanted to know if you wanted to try to make this something more than just therapist-client.”

"Wow,” he replied. “I wasn’t expecting you to say that, Jean Marie.”

“I did, so there,” she took another sip, polishing off her drink. “It’s been said. Now I feel like a total ass in front of you.”

“That’s a first, I’m sure!” He said. “I’m usually the one making myself feel like an ass in front of women!” He was genuinely surprised by her admission.

“Oh please, Charlie – the stories you tell me? I hardly believe that.”

“Oh, you can’t believe everything I say in there. I get my blood pumping and I start to grow a bigger head than normal.”

“I know what your reputation was like before the accident,” she looked at him with a measure of skepticism. “I have heard about the groupies, and the women before Sheila. I’m not totally naïve.”

“Oh, well, you heard about all that, huh? Been doing you homework?”

“You could say that. I didn’t want to come into this job unprepared.”

“I don’t blame you,” he took a bite of his celery stick. “But, I just don’t think you’re reading me straight. I’m not trying to pick up on you in there, I’m just shooting off my mouth, getting excited about old victories, you know?”

“Listen Charlie,” she leaned over the table. “All I know is what I feel in there. I’m not trying to pressure you into anything because I genuinely like you for you.”

“Ok,” he said, staring at her lips as they moved. He was feeling the vodka, the effects of the weight lifting, and her chemistry all acting on him at once. Maybe he did want to try to start something with her. He was Charlie Clark, after all. He could have any woman he wanted, with his fame and money. And here was this woman, a good ten years younger than himself, practically asking him to take her.
She continued to explain her thoughts, “And because I like you, I just wanted us to be honest with each other.”

“Listen, Jean Marie,” he leaned closer to her, “If you want to be totally honest, then I have to tell you, you are really attractive, and I must say that you can really make me feel good.”

“You mean with the workouts?”

“No, I mean good in all kinds of different ways.” He leaned right into her face and kissed her lips.

“I do?” She liked the kissing, and wanted him to keep talking sweet to her.

“You do,” he kissed her for several seconds longer. “And I hope I make you feel good, in different ways, too.”

She kissed him back, and nibbled his earlobes, and he started pulling her top off of her. She unbuttoned his shirt, and stroked the hair on his chest. She reached her hand down, past the waistband on his pants.

They had sex on the floor of the gym, and Jean Marie felt satisfied that this was as it was meant to be. In her work the client was supposed to feel more secure and positive about their body, and it was her job to make them feel that way. She had given Charlie a gift - the gift of confidence and satisfaction - in the most supreme was she could. She had never slept with a client before – for some reason he was different than the rest. Perhaps it was his charm, the stories he told, the way he tried to get her drunk after her visits.

Charlie felt that he was giving her what she needed, too; she wanted him to be attracted to her, and he was. He let her tell him that she wanted to make love to him, and it was a good pay off for both of them. Sheila hadn’t been around for weeks now, and he felt the need for this release for a while. The workouts with Jean Marie let him focus that energy into his therapy for a while, but being given the go-ahead from her allowed him to satisfy the primal desires he felt. But before their conversation on the patio that day, he hadn’t even considered the possibility of making love to Jean Marie. Now, however, he was seeing her in a new light. This made him wonder if things were forever changed between them.

“So, does this mean I’m done with the therapy?” he asked her.

“Well, I don’t think it does, unless you want it to be over?”

“I could still use your help,” he reached over to give his shirt to her. “But, if you think things are going to be weird now…”

“Things will still be the same, if you want,” she slipped the shirt on, but left it unbuttoned. “But we can have this, too.”

“That’s a bonus,” he said, grinning slightly to himself. “But, you know, Sheila and I – we’re still married. We’re separated, but married still.”

“I’m not trying to get in the way of you two, Charlie. This was something I thought you wanted, something I wanted too. You know?”

“I know,” he answered.

“It doesn’t mean we’re boyfriend-girlfriend, but it at least got the tension out of the air.” She got up and walked back to the patio to find her clothes.

Charlie stood up and put his shorts back on. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirrored wall of the gym, and noticed the muscles in his back and arms. His calves looked better than he had ever seen them before. He felt fresh, young, and powerful. He watched her, as she proudly took of his shirt and stood naked in his backyard. She pulled her pants on, and he admired the curve of her hips and how strong her arms looked when she flexed them. He was happy that he had just made love to this powerful woman, and was also happy that he didn’t have to shower her with praise or submit to her will to get her acceptance. She put her top back on, and sat down to put on her shoes.

“Well, then I guess I’ll see you in a day from now,” she called out to him.

“Yeah, but,” he walked out to her seat at the table, “if you wouldn’t mind, maybe we could go have a drink someplace other than the Clark Patio Bar tomorrow?”

“Sure, what time? Where do you want to go?”

They set up their first date, and she left the house. After she left, he went back into the bedroom for the first time since Sheila left, and slept like a baby.