Chapter 7.
Washington D.C.
The next memorable skirmish in The Plan came three weeks after my accident.
My 'agents' inside CableNex had kept me up-to-date on Kathy's scheduled trip to the quarterly meeting of the CPHRE — Cable Provider Human Resources Executives — a professional organization to which Kathy belonged. I had already known the date, but they also provided me with her flight information, and hotel reservations. The group was meeting in Washington D.C., at one of the Capital Hill area hotels.
I'd had a long-standing promise to my boss that I would bring my counterpart in the D.C. office into compliance with some new Federal safety requirements, and that provided the logistics to support the next battle in my campaign to disrupt the Kathy/Karl affair. Funny, it turns out that our office was in the Capitol Hill area as well, and we had a corporate rate for the same hotel that CPHRE was using.
In preparation for my next move, I'd called Evelyn and asked her if I could stop by her house to set some plans for a weekend trip for both of our families, minus Kathy, whose 'Karl' time was scheduled for Friday after work, until Saturday until noon. She didn't have any problem with that, and I arrived at my in-laws place at about 11:45, during my lunch break.
They always tell you not to underestimate people, and in this case, I hadn't quite given Evelyn Hunter her due. It didn't stop The Plan, but it put a slight bump in the road, and added a few complications.
I first explained to Evelyn that both Kathy and I had to go out of town for a couple of days, she for some meeting, and I to update the HAZMAT procedures for one of Equity Corps offices. I asked if she could take care of Jason and Christi for a couple of days, which she told me would be no problem.
Then I suggested, that since the office was in Washington D.C., that if she and Todd could drive down to meet me with all of the kids — Allen, Alexis and Alyssa, in addition to Jason and Christi, then I would pay for all of us to stay and catch some of the sights of Washington on Friday afternoon and Saturday, and then stop by the Gettysburg Battlefield on our way back home on Sunday.
It was almost unfair to Evelyn that I put her into this position, because I knew that Todd was something of a Civil War buff, and had long wanted to show the battlefield to his kids. Both Allen and Jason were both going to study the Civil War this year in school, as well. A lot of temptation. Evelyn had almost no choice but to say, at least tentatively, yes.
When we had concluded our preliminary planning, I was about to leave, when Evelyn told me to sit my ass back down. I looked across the table and found her looking at me in a disturbingly analytic way.
"I don't know who you think you're fooling, Paul, but you're not fooling me." she flatly stated.
"What do you mean?" I answered, confused by the sudden turn of the conversation.
"This whole thing about you allowing Kathy to cuckold you with Karl, without your fighting back. I keep wondering when other shoe is going to drop. What have you got in mind? If you have some plan for breaking up Kathy and Karl, I'll help you any way that I can — at least if you're planning on keeping her. She really loves you, you know," she started to explain.
Evelyn was putting me on the spot. There was a quiet pause as we sat there looking at each other in silence. As I thought about it, I decided that Evelyn could be a useful ally, but I could only expose a small part of The Plan to her. She would be horrified if she knew everything that was coming down on the love birds.
The result was, I did lay out part of The Plan; specifically that I had gotten Kathy into marriage counseling, and that I had been trying to create situations that would disrupt Kathy's times to be with Karl. I explained how I'd convinced Kathy to create a schedule that gave us most of her time, hopefully causing a rift with lover boy, when he could only be with her at times when she and I had agreed. Then I explained my Washington strategy, which tickled her.
So that was how I came to be standing at the Washington WyndGate Hotel on a Wednesday evening with Tom Hodges, my opposite number at Equity's D.C. office. Tom had picked me up at National airport about an hour earlier, and driven me to the hotel. I was standing in line to check in, talking with Tom about our schedule for the morning, when I heard,
"Paul?" came the familiar voice
I turned and looked behind me.
"Kathy? What are you doing here?" I asked my obviously surprised wife.
"This is where my meeting is being held." she explained, "What are you doing here?"
I was doing my best to seem surprised and flustered as well. I moved out of the line to speak with Kathy.
"My boss sent me down at the last minute to help Tom here," I pulled Tom up next to me, "By the way, Kathy, this is Tom Hodges who is in the same position as I am, for the office here in D.C. Tom, this is my wife Kathy."
They shook hands.
"Anyway," I continued, "I'm here for a couple of days to help Tom set up our compliance program for the new Federal HAZMAT guidelines. What meeting are you here for," and whispering, letting Kathy read my lips, "or should I ask?"
Tom, with the grace of a family man himself, decided to excuse himself and leave Kathy and I to our own devices. We bid each other good night, and set 9:00 AM the next morning to meet in his office.
Kathy smiled, told Tom it was very nice to meet him, and he left. Then Kathy replied to my last question,
"I'm here for the CPHRE meeting. I attend one every quarter."
Answering my unstated subtext, she also added,
"This is not 'free' time for me. You don't think that I would lie to you and sneak out of town behind your back, do you?"
"Well... you've done it before." I chided her.
She blushed, but then I waved my hand and dismissed the whole thing.
"Let's not go there, its just a waste of time, and makes us both unhappy. I'm sorry I said that. I'll try not to sound so angry," I said to Kathy's great relief.
Kathy then, finally got the point to which I had manipulated her.
"We both have rooms here for the next two nights?" the obvious fact striking her at last.
"I guess. I actually have a small suite with a king-sized bed here on the corporate account." I bragged a little.