His Tempting Widow

Chapter 1: The Last Call

“Hon, tell me if you want me to buy you and the kids something before I come home.” Wallace, a thirty-eight-year-old slim man with a skinhead, was animated while talking with his wife on the phone.

He was on his break as a typeset supervisor at a business processing outsourcing (BPO) publishing company, Global Printing Innovations. He had been in the organization for about eight years. It was his second job, since he thought it was better than working at a call center, which was more tiresome and stressful. At the time, he was assigned to outbound call accounts, and he hated it.

He did endure it for about a decade, as employment opportunities in a small city like Dumaguete were not a lot but a handful only. That was why when a new BPO company mass hired, he did not waste his time. He sent in his application right away and gambled by taking a few days of absences so that he could take a series of employment exams and a couple of interviews by supervisors and the HR. He was so happy to get hired, and he resigned immediately from his previous work.

Although his job at Global Printing Innovations was in shifting schedules, he thought it was better than to talk with clients, as he would just sit and do some journal layouts as a typesetter. At first, he thought it was difficult since the job description was too far from his HRM (Hotel and Restaurant Management) course. But just that, job opportunities were so low; thus, he was forced to apply for any available jobs in the city. Call centers were booming, so he became a slave to this system.

Anyway, four years passed by while working at the BPO publishing company, he was promoted to supervise a new project’s typesetting team. He was also tasked with training the new ones for a couple months, so he was truly busy. His compensation was reaping the overtime payments. It was hard because he had to work at least fourteen hours per day, six days a week, barely had time for his family. Nonetheless, his wife was supportive and understanding. She would always tell their kids that their father needed to work so that they would have food on their table, and he could buy them toys, shoes and clothes.

His salary was enough for their family of four, but he did want to earn more to save for his children’s education. His wife stayed home, doing cross stitch and selling the products. But it was not really great since there were not a lot of customers for this kind of job. She always told him that she would like to apply to some work, but he didn’t want to. He would rather have his wife stay home with their kids and take care of them. But the real reason? He didn’t want someone to snatch away his wife.

Shaina was a cute, pretty and petite woman with beautiful dimples that always made his heart flutter. They had been married for a decade, but he always got a smile on his face whenever he thought of her. He could still remember meeting her twelve years ago when she was just twenty. She worked as a saleslady at Barter Trade Center, a trade section in the city where RTWs, such as cheap dresses, shorts, pants, shoes, slippers and others, were sold. The stalls were majorly owned by Muslims—from Mindanao.

At the time, he was still working at the call center. His mother asked him to buy her a daster, so he went there since it was his payday. He deliberately approached the pretty saleslady then, asked some questions about stuff she was selling and asked for her opinion just to engage her and manipulated her attention, resulting to customers going to other stalls. In the end, he asked for her name and if he could get her number if she had a cell phone. Hesitant at first, she gave in as he would not stop sweet talking her.

On his 70cc motorcycle, he went home and delivered his mother’s daster, but he returned to the Barter Trade Center to wait for Shaina to get off work. She was timid, but was easy to talk to. He was able to persuade her readily and took her to a restaurant for dinner. She said it was her first time going there because she usually chose to go to eateries and to the boulevard to eat street food instead. It was cheaper there than eating in restaurants, which was true.

“You have to save money for us,” Shaina answered him on the phone, chortling softly.

“Ah, you’re the same as over ten years ago, hon. You told me the first time we went out that I should save money. But I had to do it. I had to impress you then.”

She giggled. “I know! And I was really flattered! No one had taken me to a restaurant before. Only you.”

“Well, that’s why you married me,” was his teasing retort.

“What? It wasn’t because of the restaurant that I married you! I married you because I love you, silly!”

“You were so easy and quick to persuade,” he added, laughing. He didn’t even mind his co-workers looking his way. He was seated on a bench at one side of the hallway. It was between the production area and the cafeteria. From where he was seated, he could see the pantry right away as its walls were made of glass. There were a lot of his colleagues eating there, laughing and drinking some cola. One beckoned him to go over to their table.

“Just have lunch now, hon. You know you only have a thirty-minute break. You just come home straight later. You don’t need to buy anything. We still have some groceries. The school supplies are enough, I think.”

“Okay. We’ll just buy more notebooks later if Spencer lacks some,” he agreed and referred to their firstborn, who was eight. “Doesn’t Sarina want a fairytale book? I might just buy her—” He referred to his four-year-old daughter when his wife cut him off.

“Hon, just come straight home, okay?”

“Alright, alright. I’ll go now. I love you and our kids, hon!” he told her with a huge grin on his face, imagining her pretty face close to his.

“I know! Just take care, hon!” she answered before he hung up.

He stood up and almost dashed to the cafeteria. He ordered his meal immediately and went over to his friends’ table.

“Hey, it’s Raffy’s birthday today,” one of his colleagues, Mark, informed them. He was chubby, about his age and wore round eyeglasses. He and the others at the table were all typesetters who had been working together for years.

“Oh! Is that why he’s not around? He filed a birthday leave then?” Wallace said.

“Yes, and he tells us to go to his house in Bacong, later, after our shift,” Mark informed them.

“I don’t think I can. I promised my wife I'd go straight home,” he declined, grinning and shaking his skinhead.

“What?” Luke, the second in their group of four, leered. “We’ll just stay there for a couple hours, eat and drink a bit. Then, you can go home before it gets dark. It’s too early to go straight home, man!”

Wallace continued to chew his food, thinking and nodding.

Okay, I’ll just tell Shaina later that I can’t come home early.