Uncoupled

By Don Schecter

The third book in the Complement of Lovers series, Uncoupled is the story of a man and woman forging new solutions to outdated norms. Now living in Europe, Rodney and Meg struggle to achieve balance in their married lives as everything seems to unravel. An NSA employee with secrets of his own, Rodney must learn to be all things: husband, father, boss, friend, even risk-taker. Despite their two small children, Meg aches for independence. Can a determined woman achieve her goals in the 70s without destroying her family? Can her marriage survive?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Don Schecter
• Release date: Aug 30, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311961068

Don Schecter

I had an exciting career in communications with the National Security Agency in Maryland. Retired in San Antonio TX, now I travel and write fiction. My work has appeared in magazines, an anthology, and on internet sites. I've written five volumes of short stories dealing with the gay experience. HEIGHTS OF PASSION (2009), OUT OF THE BOX (2010), DISCOVERY OF FIRE (2011), LOVE WANTED, WILL TRAVEL (2012) and STILL YOUNG (2018). These are realistic stories, not intended as erotic fiction but listed under that heading because of their honesty. Sex happens because it's part of the plot, just as sex drives our lives. In 2019, I collaborated with a longtime Dutch friend, Jaap Cové, to produce REMEMBERED PLACES (2020). We had traveled the world in our full lives and certain stories recall their foreign, or local, settings. The longest tale is the true story of the man who gave the gay world The Spartacus Guide and the tortuous path he took rising to success only to tumble ignominiously from the heights.I used my life experiences in a series of novels. A COMPLEMENT OF LOVERS, published in 2013, is a full-length novel that describes the romance of a young couple, Meg and Rodney, who try to make their own rules for living, but come into conflict with the conventional thinking of the 60s. THE ROAD TO FRANKFURT (2014) continues their struggle to adapt while maintaining their individuality. UNCOUPLED, the third novel in the series, was published by Smashwords in August 2015. It follows Meg and Rod through the mid-70s. The fourth in the series, NEVER PROMISE FOREVER was published in 2016. In CUSPS, volume 5 published 2018, Rodney accepts that he is gay, while his daughters are becoming young women, and the family must adjust to a new reality. I'm currently at work on the final volume in the series. Rod begins an open, live-in relationship, hoping that his daughters can adapt to two dads.I hold degrees from Columbia University in both Arts and Engineering, and an Arts degree from Loyola University.

Book preview

Part 1

1

Rodney Brody was running on adrenaline. When he laid eyes on his sponsors, waiting outside immigration at Rhein-Main airport in Frankfurt, he felt himself relax for the first time since he and his daughters left their mother at Dulles in Washington. Jake and Marie Camden were friendly, smiling faces.

The Brody children had proved themselves troopers, no two ways about it. Twelve hours on a plane hadn’t tired them or made them cranky. Of course, the seats were playpens for them and they slept whenever they liked. Not quite the same for their father, who spent his waking hours overthinking his marriage and what he might have done differently to prevent it from crashing and burning.

Like Rod, Jake sported sideburns to the bottom of his ears. Staid government employees of the National Security Agency, they had finally succumbed to the modified hippie style—although neither would have admitted to conforming. Marie wore a pantsuit, fast gaining favor with well-dressed career women in the 70s. Her handbag, like a small briefcase, hung from her shoulder so that both hands were free.

Liza, the four-year-old, hugged Marie as she greeted her, and Samantha, still reluctant to speak sentences at age two, giggled happily when Jake scooped her off the ground and sat her in the crook of his arm. Having had two nannies in their young lives made them very comfortable with meeting new people.

Introductions accomplished, Marie took the girls to the car while Rod and Jake piled baggage on a cart and followed. Jake had checked out a station wagon from the NSA Europe car pool to accommodate all the luggage a government family was allowed when flying to a permanent change of station.

Everything good, Rod? You look like you could use a shave.

Rod rubbed his stubble. I think it’s been twenty-four hours by now.

How’d the flight go?

As smoothly as it possibly could. Everyone is especially nice to a befuddled father traveling with two little girls. Liza engages anyone she sees in conversation, and all I have to do is keep peeling off copies of my orders.

While the men unloaded the car at the Camden’s apartment in the Platen housing area, Marie took a photo of the girls on the balcony. Liza hid her uncertainties behind an ear-to-ear grin, while Samantha looked somewhat vague and puzzled, unsure of the change in her surroundings.

Is this our new house, Daddy? Liza wanted to know.

No, sweetheart. We’re going to stay with Jake and Marie until I can find us our own apartment.

When will Mommy come to Frankfurt?

In about three months. She had to stay behind to finish school. Rod was purposely repeating this information loudly enough for Jake and Marie to hear so that everyone would have the same story.

Is Marie going to be our new nanny?

No, dear. As soon as I find us a place to live, my secretary’s daughter is coming to Germany to be your nanny until Mommy arrives.

Marie stooped down to Liza’s height. In the meantime, honey, I’ve lined up a swell neighbor who’s going to stay with you and Samantha while Jake and I and your daddy are at work. You’ll have so much fun.

Will she play games with us?

She sure will.

Then we’ll be fine. Liza assured Marie with the confidence of a precocious four-year-old.

Rod used the Camden’s phone to call Meg, who was rooming with two other students while she got an advanced degree in Fine Arts in Washington, D.C. Luckily, he found her in.

Jake, when you get your bill, let me know what I owe you for calls to the States.

He told Meg that the trip went well, gave her the Camden’s number for emergencies, and put Liza on the phone to say hello.

Hi, Mommy, we’re in Germany. When are you coming?

In September, darling. Mommy loves you. Tell Samantha I love her.

The rest of the day was go, go, go until the girls were fed, bathed and put to bed. At last, the adults could sit down and relax with a drink in hand. Marie put an LP on the turntable. A pleasant baritone voice filled the room.

I can’t believe Liza’s only four, Marie said. She carries on a conversation like an adult.

She sure does, Rod agreed. And she reads. It’s easy to keep her occupied. Just give her a new book."

How about Samantha? Lots of pointing and nodding but she hasn’t uttered a sound.

I don’t think she can find room to get a word in, Jake observed.

They have very different personalities. Liza is the cerebral one; she talks for the two of them and interprets for adults what Samantha wants. Samantha is more physical. She climbs onto things and loves to be picked up and held. She knows a lot of words, but we haven’t been able to get her to put a sentence together yet. It’s a little worrisome.

All in good time, said Marie.

Who’s singing? Rod asked. I don’t recognize the voice.

That’s Engelbert Humperdinck, Marie said. I can’t get enough of him.

"You’re kidding. That’s the same as the composer of the opera, Hansel and Gretel. Are you sure that’s his name?"

Marie handed Rod the album cover. Wonder how that happened, she said. It can’t be coincidence.

Jake proposed a plan. "Tomorrow, after a relaxed breakfast, we’ll go for a ride in the country. In Frankfurt, you have to make hay while the sun shines, which isn’t often. We know a nice place for lunch with a great view.

On Monday, we’ll go to work and introduce you to the chief, the rest of the staff, and our guys. Then you have to make an appointment with HICOG housing so you can start finding quarters—that’s a process. Then I’ll run you over to the Volvo dealer to pick out your new car. I’m anxious to see the new models. Mine is already four years old.

Can I meet the babysitter?

We’ll ask her to come by tomorrow evening, said Marie. Vivian’s a lovely girl, taking a summer break from college to visit her parents who are good friends of ours. We play social bridge with them every other week.

I’m really grateful to you for handling so many details for me.

Think nothing of it, Marie told him. Others did it for us; you’ll do it for the next family. We’re all one big happy—well, you can’t please everyone—family here.

That Engelbert has a great sound. I don’t usually like singers when I first hear them. Rod drained his glass. I hope you guys don’t mind if I conk out early. I’ve been up around the clock and I need to get out of these clothes.

Sure thing, Jake said. Another drink before you turn in?

At that instant, a tremendous thud sounded from the girls’ bedroom, followed by a shriek and then silence. The three adults rushed down the hall, threw open the door and flipped on the light. Liza was jumping up and down on her bed, nervously shifting from one foot to the other and prattling as fast as she could. Samantha, calmly detached from the ruckus, sat Buddha-style in the center of her bed, legs crossed beneath her,

Rod couldn’t extract meaning from what Liza was babbling. It consisted of rapid-fire I dids and she dids that added up to nothing comprehensible. He slowly gathered that Samantha had fallen out of bed and it wasn’t Liza’s fault.

While calming Liza down and reassuring her that she wasn’t in trouble, Rod tucked her in. Turning to Samantha, who had completely ignored Liza’s harangue, he asked, Are you all right, honey. Does anything hurt?

Deep in thought, Samantha quietly surveyed the three adults. Her blue eyes sparkled under long black lashes. Then she said in a firm voice, Liza lied. She said it with an emphasis that implied she had thought the matter through and decided it was time to break silence.

The effect on Marie, Jake, and Rod was a moment of delayed surprise followed by an outbreak of laughter. The three adults literally cracked up. They held their sides and bumped into each other as they struggled to control their hysterics.

Tears rolling down his cheeks, Rod sat on Samantha’s bed and hugged her to him. He was delighted that she had finally uttered her first sentence.

2

As arranged when she came over the previous night to meet Rod and the children, the sitter, Vivian, arrived at eight on Monday morning. She was a pleasant college student whom the girls accepted easily as a friend.

Jake drove the short distance from Platen housing to the Farben building and suggested they enter through the front entrance so that Rod could be suitably impressed by the grandeur of the place.

Rod said it wasn’t necessary because he had been to the Farben building a couple of times on temporary duty; nevertheless, he was impressed. After the dull, prefabricated look of NSA’s headquarters in Ft. Meade, the sheer height of the entrance hall with its two curved staircases to the mezzanine, all in elegant beige marble, took his breath away. At the same time, he had to beat back the knowledge that production of the pesticide used to exterminate six million Jews and others unacceptable to the Third Reich was managed within this building. Rod mentally pardoned the stone structure for the crimes committed by the humans that occupied it.

This would be his workplace for the next three years, the start of the dream he and Meg had formulated over five years ago. That she hadn’t accompanied him didn’t damp his thrill because he was convinced that when she arrived, harmony would be restored between them and life would pick up again as they had planned.

The I.G. Farben building was spared when the allies flattened Frankfurt in 1944 because Eisenhower wanted to use it for the Army HQ in Europe. It had been used for that purpose for the past twenty-five years. At seven stories, the structure had earned the appellation, I.G. Hochhaus, meaning high house, the tallest building around. The curving main hall connected six separate towers, each of which was accessed by four paternosters, lifts resembling a dumbwaiter scaled large enough to carry four people.

So you already know how the paternoster works? asked Jake.

Yeah. But it’s going to take a few trips for me to get used to it.

As he spoke, Marie stepped into a compartment and rose above floor level. Have a good day, guys. She waved. I work in Production on the second floor, Rod. He watched her feet disappear above his head.

Jake said, Have a good day, hon, nudged Rod’s back and moved the two of them forward into the next rising car. We get out at four, he told him.

There was no missing your exit because the painted number of the next floor traveled down before your eyes as the car passed by each concrete level. Here we go. Jake hustled Rodney out of the car. It’ll soon be second nature to you.

Rod wondered if that would ever be true.

A floor-to-ceiling cage of iron bars walled off a section of the fourth floor. Jake and Rod presented their green badges to an army Spec 3 at a desk, who phoned inside to get permission to admit the newcomer. He buzzed them in and Rod followed Jake down a hallway that opened into a brightly lit office with a large window. A slender woman in her fifties greeted them with a welcoming smile.

Rod, meet Rose. She’s the real brains around here. Whatever confuses you, and you need to know about, Rose is the go-to gal.

Rose stood to shake hands. Hi, Rod. We’ve been looking forward to your arrival. I’m Rose Wickham, Mr. Anderson’s secretary.

And, Jake added, the mother of the guy who’s going to sell you your Volvo.

Oh, how does that work?

Rose is PCS with her son as a dependent. He was a car salesman at home.

To clarify, Rose continued. "There’s just the two of us. Rafe lived with me in Maryland, and when I wanted to go overseas, he decided to accompany me. So he still lives with me.

Mr. Anderson’s free now if you want to meet him. Just go in. We can get to know each other later.

I’ll wait out here with Rose, Jake said. I have a theory that if you show yourself uninvited to your boss, you get tagged with more work. Just a theory, you understand.

The office was dark, blinds closed against the morning sun. It was very different from NSA offices at Fort Meade, which were perpetually bathed in the light of untold numbers of fluorescent watts shining from the ceilings.

The furniture was standard Government Issue for executives—wood desk, wood meeting table—but the office was impressive because the construction of the Farben Building was 1930s architecture, built like a fortress, with soundproofed masonry and decorative wood wainscoting and molding. By contrast, NSA offices were unadorned metal whose interior dividers were movable partitions.

Rodney’s new boss sat at the end of a narrow room, just long enough and wide enough to accommodate a table for twelve butted against his desk. An antique green-glass desk lamp glowed in the darkness—definitely not Government Issue. Bick Anderson, in shirtsleeves, his head lowered to a memorandum he was reading, exposed a thick headful of shiny black waves to his visitor.

Rod opened with, Excuse me, Mr. Anderson.

Anderson looked up, smiled broadly and, in a deep, raspy voice said, Brody, you made it. My God, am I ever glad to see you. He pushed himself from his desk chair and rolled to his feet with a hand extended in greeting. Call me Bick, please.

Jake had not warned Rodney about Bick Anderson’s girth. How could he have missed that? The man looked to be as wide as he was tall; at any rate, just shy of hitting both sides of a doorframe.

The name’s Rod, but Brody will do. He pumped Bick’s fleshy hand and, in those few crucial seconds, registered that he liked him. Not his appearance, which was way too roly-poly to be taken seriously, but his face—large, dark eyes and a warmth in his voice and smile that was irresistible. When he was younger, and presumably much thinner, he had been a handsome man, and probably a lady-killer.

They tell me you’re a capable guy; that was all I wanted to hear. Bick smiled as he talked and locked and unlocked his fingers to emphasize points. He had two rings on each hand. Rod recognized a high school garnet, a college signet, a decorative gold ring, and a wedding band. "Look, I wanna be honest. I come from the production side and I don’t know squat about comms and buildings and what your guys do. And I guess you don’t know the first thing about what we’re here for, so can we agree? You come to staff meetings on Wednesday mornings and listen to how we’re doing, keep your news brief—because you’re not talking to comms types—and we’ll stay out of each other’s hair.

Your predecessor, Kaswell—as a manager, that clown was a disaster. He couldn't manage a checkbook. Everything he did ended up in my lap. I had to hold hands all over Europe, apologizing and promising better cooperation and performance in the future. And I lacked the resources to fix what was wrong. They told me I wouldn’t have that problem with you, that you’d take care of everything. Are you my man? Are we square? Bick’s voice stopped on a plaintive high note.

After the shortest beat to adjust to the odd use of the word, Rod answered, Square. I’m your man. I’ve wanted this job for more than six years. I’m capable, experienced, and I have the full backing of Col. Howsman and Shook Winston at the group level, and my former office chief, Barney Knight. You won’t have a thing to worry about. You have my word.

God bless you, my boy. Bick took Rod’s hand in both of his and looked like he was going to kiss Rodney’s wedding ring. I’ve gotta run. There’s a meeting one floor down—some admiral. Emmet will show you around and introduce you to the guys. We’ll catch up over a beer real soon. They’re a great bunch, now that that asshole Kaswell is gone.

Bick tightened his tie without buttoning his collar and struggled into his jacket, needing a valet because he couldn’t easily reach behind himself. On his desk was a family photo of two boys between a much younger Bick and an attractive blond woman.

You have a beautiful family.

Yeah, the kids are grown, both Princeton, and Angie’s still a looker. Thanks. Catch you later. Amazingly light on his feet for his size, Bick flew out the door without hitting the jambs.

Jake was chatting with Rose as Rod left the office. Did that go well? he asked.

Yes, come here a second. Rod threw an arm around Jake’s shoulder and whispered, Why didn’t you warn me about Anderson’s weight? It took me by surprise.

I don’t think I pay too much attention to a man’s appearance. Bick’s a good guy; that’s all that counts. Let’s go meet your deputy.

At six-foot-one, Air Force Capt. Emmet Hatch was a man’s man: broad in the shoulder and narrow in the waist, the image of a slim-hipped Texan. Rod was duly impressed; the man even succeeded in making the flare of a military jacket look good. A rugged face, mellow voice, and firm handshake created an instant sense of security.

It’s good to meet you, sir, Hatch said. You surely are a sight for sore eyes."

After listening to his succinct opening remarks, Rodney concluded that his deputy