The Life and Times of the Thayers: 3.5
The Life & Times of the Thayers is a joint production by:
Amy (shoefleesims and her sister Jess (wiggly_toes).
[46 PICTURES, SWEARING, ADULT SITUATIONS]
Previously on the Life and Times of the Thayers: Dusk was on a mission following Ivan, a known assassin for Mikhail Petrov, and actually witnessed him assassinate someone. Later, though he should have been spending time with his family and Dawn, who had come home with her new baby, he instead was called out by the SCIA to investigate Mikhail some more. He spent the night at a club, flirting with one of Mikhail's woman and posing as a British gun dealer to get into Mikhail's inner circle. When he finally came home for the night, Lucy smelled perfume on him and was suspicious.
My name is Lucy Thayer, and I think my husband is cheating on me.
At first, I thought he was just busy at work. But then he started coming home later and later, and almost always missed dinner. Still, I thought a busy schedule could be the cause, until... until the night he came home smelling like perfume and making excuses. It's been the same ever since that night; him staying out until late hours of the night and coming home smelling like perfume and cigarettes and alcohol. He makes all sorts of excuses about his job, but I'm just not sure if I believe him anymore. And why should I?
In the mornings, he's always too tired from staying out late to help me with the kids. Every morning they wake up screaming for attention, and I only have so many hands! I can't care for both of them by myself.
I'm so grateful for Meadow, who is always around to help me out. She's a great Grandmother, and our children adore her. She spends more time with them than their own father does, after all, he's never home.
He missed my attempts at teaching Becca to walk.
At first she just kept falling on her butt and crawling towards me. But I kept at it, encouraging her, and complimenting every try she made.
Until finally she took her first steps towards me across the living room floor, six steps without a single fall on her padded butt.
I was so happy, so proud of our little girl. If only her father had been there to see it...
Likewise, he wasn't around when I began teaching Aidan to talk.
And what an adventure that was, with my stubborn little man refusing to even try at first.
But we kept practicing and trying, and eventually he said his first word. "Teddy!"
I was overjoyed. But not as overjoyed as I would have been if Dusk had been there with me.
But one of the worst things, both in my eyes and that of his parents, was when he missed his daughter's birthday. I'd reminded him every night that week, telling him that Becca was turning 4 and that he should be there for her.
But he never showed. Still, we put on happy faces for our little girl, blowing horns and cheering her on as she blew out the candles on the cake Meadow had baked.
Our little girl had become a child, and my husband hadn't barely been around to watch as she grew up.
Sure, when he came home four hours later, he went straight to her new room to apologize.
Becca forgave him, of course. How could a girl not forgive her father? But I didn't know if I could ever forgive. Certainly, I would never forget. The night my husband missed his daughter's very important birthday. And for what? Work, he said. But I feared it might be something else.
If I'd thought things might get better after that night, my illusions were shattered just a week later. Becca boarded the bus for the first time, on her way to her first day of school. And Dusk, so exhausted from "working late" the night before, was passed out in bed and missed everything.
I didn't know how much more I could take. I was so close to my breaking point, even Mom and Dad and Dawn had noticed.
The thing that finally pushed me over the edge came a few days later when the phone rang late in the afternoon. Dusk was upstairs, probably getting ready for "work", so I hurried to answer the phone. "Thayer Residence, this is Lucy!"
The voice on the other end of the line was a woman who said quietly, "Yeah, is this Wok Kitchen? I'd like to place an order for General Tso's chicken!"
"I'm sorry, but as I've said hundreds of times before, this isn't Wok Kitchen!" There was a click at the other end of the line as the woman hung up. As I slowly lowered the phone into the receiver, something niggled at the back of my mind. But before I could focus on it enough to make it click, I heard the sounds of Dusk coming down the stairs.
"Hey Honey?" He called down the stairs, "Who was on the phone?"
As he reached the bottom of the stairs, I gave an exasperated sigh and replied, "Someone for Wok Kitchen again. This time, it was a woman who wanted General Tso's chicken!"
Dusk, dressed for work in his usual black suit, seemed not at all surprised about the call. But immediately after I relayed what the woman had said, his eyes seemed to shift somehow, and he quickly said, "Oh really, huh? Weird. Listen, uh, I think I'm going to run out and, um, take a walk! Yeah, I could use the exercise. I'll see you later!"
As he turned towards the door I called out, "Wait, you're going to take a walk in your suit?"
But the door was already closing behind him. And then, finally, it clicked in my mind.
A woman called for Wok Kitchen, and suddenly Dusk makes his excuses and goes hurrying out? And now that I thought about it, it seemed like every time someone called for Wok Kitchen, Dusk would immediately make a break for it. Why hadn't I seen it before? Perhaps... I just didn't want to.
But now that I had finally seen it, I was determined to figure out just what the hell was going on with my husband. This was the man who had missed his daughter's first steps and his son's first words. This was the man who had been absent for his daughter's birthday, and her first day of school. This was the man who hadn't even noticed when I started styling my hair differently. And I needed to find out why. I had to know the truth.
I moved to the window and watched as Dusk climbed into his car.
By the time he'd begun to pull out of the driveway, I knew what I had to do. I was going to follow him.
As soon as his car started up the street, I grabbed my keys and hurried out to my van. On the way I passed Meadow, who was meditating on the porch, and called out to her, "I'm going to run out to do some errands, Mom, will you keep an eye on the kids?"
By the time she replied with a, "Sure, hon!" I was already climbing into the car.
Was I really going to do this? I paused for only a moment at the wheel. Yes, I was. I needed to know the truth, no matter what.
I caught up with Dusk a little ways down the street, and stayed a safe distance away as I followed his car. He ended up just a few streets over from the house, at a tiny cafe I'd never even been to. I watched from across the street as he went inside, alone. Or so I thought.
Once he was inside, I made my way carefully up to a nearby window and peeked inside. There he was, sitting at a table in the back corner with some woman I'd never seen before. Black hair, high heels, slutty clothes... who was this tramp with my husband?!?
The window was cracked open just enough that I could hear a word or two of their conversation.
"Tonight.... you..... intro..... in?" Whatever my husband was talking about, I had no idea.
The trampy woman replied in a voice that I could barely here, "Sure... club... Ivan... flirt... good?"
"Yeah.... now.... get changed." As Dusk finished, he stood up, pushed back his chair, and headed into the bathroom with a bag I hadn't seen before.
Out of the few words I'd managed to hear, all I'd gotten out of the conversation was something about a Club, and flirting. Well, with the way that tramp looked, I wasn't surprised.
A few minutes later, Dusk came out of the bathroom and the pair exited the store together. He was wearing an outfit I'd never seen before, which I guess explained both the bag and his last words, 'get changed'."
I watched from behind the building as they climbed into Dusk's car and pulled out into the street. Was I right? Was Dusk cheating on me with this woman? And what were they doing? I couldn't stop now, I had to know.
The moment they were out of sight, I hurried into my van and took off after them. The path they took through the streets twisted and turned almost as if they were trying to shake off anyone who might be following them. But I managed to hang on, and finally as night fell, they stopped and parked by a building I'd never seen before.
It was a club, that much I got. Not a complete surprise given what I'd heard of the conversation earlier.
Ignoring the front door (after all, there was no way I could get in without them spotting me), I hurried to a nearby window and peered inside. There was Dusk AND the tramp, sitting at a couch with two other woman, both of whom looked even more like tramps than Dusk's date, if that was possible. What the hell was going on here?
Through the loud blaring of the club's music, I couldn't here a word of the conversation. But it looked to me like Dusk was introducing the tramp to the other two girls. And who were they? More girlfriends of his?
After a very short while, Dusk and all the woman on the couch stood up at once and began making their way across the dance floor.
I turned to follow their progress as they headed towards a door set in the far wall which appeared to be guarded by two strong and very similar looking men. Why were they all going in there? Was it some sort of back area of the club, where people could go to... fool around? But Dusk would never-"
The last tramp shot a wink at one of the guards right before slipping into the room behind the others, and I felt my stomach clench with fury. What the hell was my husband doing going into some back room with those three scantily-dressed sluts?
I had to find out.
The moment the door closed behind them, I made my way inside the club. Slipping past the dancers (if you could call them that, most of them seemed to be falling on the floor quite a bit), I headed straight for the guarded door. Maybe if I acted like I belonged, they'd let me through?
No such luck. I guess that would have been too easy. One of the rather Gorilla-like guards stepped forward and stated in a heavy Russim accent, "No enter."
I pressed my hands to my hips and tried my best to look determined, which to be honest I really was. "But I need to get in there."
"No!" The guard shot back at me. "No permission, no enter!"
That was it. "Look buddy, I don't know who the hell you think you are. But my husband, Dusk Thayer, just went in there, and as his wife I demand that you let me inside!"
Suddenly, the guard looked a lot less angry and a lot more interested at what I'd just say. "Your husband... Dusk Thayer?"
"Yes, you idiot!" Alright, so perhaps that wasn't the best way to say that, but I was sick of all this! "My husband, Dusk Thayer, just walked in there with those three tramps, and I demand that you let me in there to talk to him! NOW!"
Before I knew what the hell was happening, the big goon pulled out a gun, jammed it against my stomach and said softly, "Miss Thayer. I think you is coming with me, now, da?" He spun me around, shoved the gun in my back, and pushed me towards the other end of the club.
Shit. This couldn't be good.
----------PRODUCTION NOTES-----------
- Don't you just love a good cliff hanger? Muahahaha.
- By the way, its really hard to get good shots in a "club" when your cast keeps stopping to snicker at the dancers or be grossed out by the two guards. Seriously!
- Oh and yeah, Meadow and Alon to a lot of meditating. Heh.