Tracy walks over to the kitchen table and pours out a plastic bag full of size AA batteries. Derek looks at the batteries, puzzled, then follows her into the living room.
“I had an interesting chat with your friend Shayla today.”
“What about?”
“About you and me!” he says, his voice rising.
“Derek, what are you so upset about?”
“I don’t like the idea of you telling other people about our personal business. If there’s a problem, then you need to talk to me about it!”
Tracy raises the level of her voice to match his. “Well, maybe if you were taking care of your personal business, I wouldn’t have to talk to someone else about it!”
Derek suddenly gets defensive. “What do you mean by that?”
Tracy explains that she resents the fact that he pays more attention to his schoolbooks than to her, and that she would even be happy if once in a while, he told her to have a nice day at work.
Tracy bolts into the bedroom and slams the door behind her. Seconds later, she comes out of the bedroom, marches defiantly into the kitchen, grabs a pack of batteries off the table, and marches back into the bedroom, slamming the door again. Derek responds by heading out the front door and slamming it behind him.
• • •
Later that same evening, Derek goes to visit his best friend, Kevin. He and Derek are in the basement, drinking at his custom-made bar set. Derek is sitting somberly at a barstool and drinks down the last of his second beer. Kevin watches him patiently from behind the bar.
“You want another one?”
Derek nods and Kevin retrieves a bottle of beer from a nearby fridge, opens it, and hands it to his friend.
“I hope before you finish this one, you get around to telling me what you’re so upset about.”
Derek sighs.
“Tracy and I had a fight.”
“Yeah, I figured that much. What was the fight about?”
Derek takes a drink from the bottle, then explains that he has not been intimate with his wife for several months.
“Why not?” Derek gives Kevin an awkward glance. “Oh, that. Look, it’s nothing to be ashamed of; it happens, and I think I know why.”
“I’m listening.”
“A little something called male ego.”
Derek looks puzzled. “What do you mean?”
Derek listens carefully as Kevin explains to him that he most likely feels inadequate due to the fact that his wife is supporting the two of them while he goes to school.
“You really think that’s it?”
“Sure. Once you graduate and start working, you’ll be good as new.”
“I’ve got a few years to go before I graduate. What do I do in the meantime?”
Shayla’s high-pitched voice echoes from upstairs. “Kevin, are you two going to be down there all night?”
“We’ll be up in a minute, sweetheart!”
Derek shakes his head. “I have to ask, man, doesn’t her voice get on your nerves?”