Gladys, taking inventory of her personal life, goes back to her husband, if only for the challenge.

In the march, slowly, like a well-kept caterpillar, it came. The feeling that he'd been waiting for, right on cue.

they'd spent the better half of an evening going back and forth in there. His stand on a recent decision made that hadn't taken him into consideration lasted its intended forty-five minutes. And stalled by a last minute conversion tactic from Bob that had Gladys on the ropes, they had made the decision to give it another chance.

Bob and Gladys had been married for thirty five years in a marriage of what one could call convenience. Bob took his afternoons and evenings in front of the television set, in between naps and occasional banter between the ever-present Golf game and his own righteous set definition of a "handicap".

In this Gladys, now forced to do something, anything than watch her husband grow older and for her own physiological needs felt the leftover energy that comes from the half-energy that shed receive for closing another sale at work. Donn's Chevrolet, out there on Route 131, salesperson of the month for the past seven and a half months.

Gladys found in Selling the challenge she used to face from Bob, who had now taken permanent residence in front of this leather recliner. "59 and dead already." Gladys had commented frequently

Gladys made the sudden decision, after splitting up-- (they still called it a "separation" even though for Gladys it was more of "a hit or miss kind of a thing."
--twice, to give the man another chance, if not given another chance, wouldn't Bob respond well to the new acupuncture treatment? She'd talk to herself in the kitchen on those evenings, yapping at her reflection in the toaster oven.

"Your a good Midwestern woman, Gladys, and I want you to stay that way."

Her boss that said that the day before, and she knew all too well how her recent "forays" into modern medicine was not appreciated in the upper-middle-class section of Indianapolis.

Even still, she managed to con her way out of most evenings spent with Bob, and was now dating a local writer, 32 years old.

Now Gladys knew what she was doing. She might let you think otherwise, with her upbringing, faith and the homemade waffles on Sunday that brought with it the fortitude and the back-breaking regimen of Protestant Work Ethic, but inside fired the stirring soul of someone who for two years was a hippy in college, before she found the lord again.

So seeing Tim in the evenings, they'd read to each other. From Gladys's side of the table came the latest in Shiatzu, Massage, Acupunture, or herbal medicinals that she recently starting selling on the internet, secretly pocketing a small fortune in small currencies no one would ever see. Tim read excerpts from his upcoming novel (An obvious allusion to the proclivities in his own recent life, and he upped the amount of words that were older than he was. It was a good fit, and he even knew about Bob, and the increasing amount of hunting shows he would watch, vexed by Glady's all to late returns as of late.

Bob had taken to spending the night in the kitchen recently, setting his briefcase from his job as an insurance adjuster down on the kitchen table, reading the note from Gladys, in her sweet, caring penmanship. He thought she was at a new writers workshop, seeing the flyers in her purse one night, he read the guest list and decided to pay the book group an unexpected visit.