“Glad you approve,” I say. “Well, look at the time. We should get going.” I smile at Mia and fight the urge to yank her up from the couch by the arm. I’m also resisting the urge to kick Buck out of my house. Best thing for me to do is to stand. So I do.
“Since you were running late, I moved the reservation back a half hour,” Mia says. “So sit down, relax. We have time to finish our drinks.”
Well played,Mia, I think. My mind is busy tonight, as I mentioned, and it flashes to another time, another home, another happy hour, this one in Nashville, Tennessee, with a different blonde woman. She was a Mia knockoff, really. Her name was Lois and she was captivating. She said those exact words to me:sit down, relax, we have time to finish our drinks. No doubt you realize by now I don’t like being told what to do. I didn’t back then either.
I was young. I couldn’t control my fire. I didn’t know that I could just stand up, for example, and walk into the kitchen pretending to be in search of ice and a snack. Lois had opened the door in her bathrobe, not even close to being ready. She told me to sit down and wait, like a dog. I stepped inside the door, pulling it shut behind me. Back then, my temper would explode immediately: a fistful of rage to a beautiful face, for example. We’d been together, Lois and I, for more than a year by then. She had no way of seeing this coming, as up until then our relationship had been all fun and great sex. But on that fateful night, we were to attend a cocktail party held in my honor by the professor I’d been working with. It was a very important event, a thank-you and a congratulations, an introduction to society so to speak. Lois wasn’t ready when she said she would be. She completely disrespected me, and the importance of the night. It wasn’t my fault, not really.
Blood was flowing from her nose as she looked at me in shock, the front of her bathrobe turning reddish brown, her bright blue eyes shiny with fear and tears. I looked down at my fist, rubbed my knuckles where her flesh had stung, and shook my head.
“Lois, please, never tell me what to do,” I said. We were in her tiny apartment, now ours, a place I knew intimately since we’d made love on just about every counter and piece of furniture. I walked quickly to the kitchen, turning on the faucet and soaking a dish towel before wrapping it around several cubes of ice. I pulled the paper towel roll from the holder and presented everything to her. I shook my head in disgust. Now we wouldn’t make the reception. She’d ruined everything.
“You need to put ice on your face. Lie back and the bleeding will stop,” I said. I wasn’t at all sure this was the case, of course. The few times I’d been in fights before with boys my own age, neither had sustained serious injuries. My father always was careful his blows fell in places easily disguised by clothing. Unfortunately, Lois’s injury seemed serious and quite visible.
“Leave,” she whispered. She refused to take the ice or the paper towels so I dropped them onto the couch next to her. She was shaking, violently, and I wondered if I should hold her, squeeze her tight. I was afraid, somehow, that maybe I would hurt her more. Could hurt her more. I stood there, immobilized, my feet weighed down by cement. The times I’d seen my father strike my mother flashed through my mind. Her screams, his empty promises. These memories were loud, thudding through my brain.
But between Lois and me, at that moment, there was only silence. I remembered checking my watch. There was blood decorating its face.
We’d met in Greek Mythology class my senior year in college, when I was goofing off during the last semester of my undergraduate career, and she was a young, adorable freshman. She called me Zeus when we were in bed, when I’d make her orgasm like no one had before. She was a studious sophomore now, and I was doing consumer research for the professor, the one whose invite-only party we were going to miss that night, while I interviewed for jobs at advertising agencies in town. I’d finally accepted an account executive position at a prestigious local firm. This cocktail reception was my goodbye party, and my introduction to important people in Nashville. This night was to be my launch into the ad agency world. Why didn’t she understand how important it was?
“Lois, no one can know about what happened here, do you understand? I’m starting my job tomorrow,” I said. My voice was calm. Fatherly. It was logical that she would want my new career to start out well, unimpeded by innuendo and the like.
Her trembling was becoming more violent, but her eyes were focused on me intently, as if seeing inside me to my organs, my small beating heart. The blood flow from her nose had slowed, but her robe was now covered. Blood splattered in her lap, in the white cotton folds.
“If you leave and never call me again, no one will know. If I see you, or hear from you, I will press charges,” she said. Her voice was quivering with fear.
Press charges, why don’t you?I wanted to say. I would explain that she was delusional, that she fell into the kitchen counter but wanted to blame me. Sure, I could get out of any charges as quickly as she could press them. My father, I learned all the tricks from him. But I didn’t really need her anymore. It was time to move on, establish my career. I didn’t need this college baggage situation any longer.
“As you wish,” I said, bowing at the waist before leaving. It was a reference to her favorite movie,The Princess Bride, and her reaction wasn’t her typical reply. As I opened the door and stepped into the humid Nashville night, her scream followed me out. But I know there was still love for me in her heart. I’m unforgettable. Oh, and the cocktail reception was fabulous. Poor Lois sent her regards as she was under the weather.
Now, standing in the kitchen, I hear my wife laughing in the living room. Unwittingly, she is stoking the fire with her words, her actions and her joy. But it is fine. I’ve learned to control myself since that night in Nashville. I’m telling myself to relax:Mia doesn’t mean to upset you tonight. I know she doesn’t. We’ve been together a long time, we’ve worked out the relationship just fine. She’s simply entertaining our unnecessary guest, our lonely loser of a neighbor. But soon we’ll be on our way to dinner and everything will be back in control. We need to discuss the job, Buck, the credit card situation tonight during the meal. It might be uncomfortable, but once she understands my priorities, we will have the best night ever. It’s certainly salvageable. And just like that, I have calmed myself down.
I wipe my sweaty palms on my pants legs before I walk back into the family room, carrying the bag of cashews I’d picked up at the grocery store.
“Nuts, anyone?” I ask. Both Mia and Buck shake their heads. I shrug and carry the bag over to the couch and take my seat next to my wife. “So, Buck, did you really spend the winter up here? Is it true you really live here full-time, year-round?”
“I did and I do. For now. It’s a great place to find peace and think. It works for me,” he says. His dimple appears as he smiles at us, the happy couple on the couch. He must be so jealous. He’s so alone.
“And is it true your wife died?” I say. I mean, we’ve never discussed his lack of a spouse, man-to-man. At least I hadn’t discussed it with him. Who knows what Mia knows. All I’ve heard through the grapevine was that his wife was dead. I thought it best to seem interested in our guest.
“Paul. Really?” Mia says. I note her cheeks are flushed and she shakes her head back and forth. Embarrassed, that’s the emotion. Too bad, Mia.
“Yes. It’s true. Stage four lung cancer, inoperable. She was a nonsmoker. Woke up in the middle of the night, short of breath. Five months later, I buried her.” Buck says these things without emotion. The way I might say them if I hadn’t practiced emotional responses. It makes me wonder about Buck. He adds, “It was the hardest five months of my life.”
“Worse for her,” I say. From the looks of it, my joke was not well received by my wife or our guest.
“Buck, I’m sorry,” Mia says. “Paul’s emotional intelligence is a bit lacking, I’ve come to realize. He tries but, well, Paul, you understand that was insensitive, right?”
I’ve slipped the matches that were left on the counter when they unloaded the grocery bags into my pocket. Right now I imagine pulling them out, lighting them all and throwing them at my wife. The fire. My left hand slides into my front pocket, but I can’t reach the matches while seated. I take a deep breath and flash a smile at my wife. She’s so cute.
I turn my attention back to the interloper. “I’m sorry for your loss, Buck. Is that why you quit your job and moved here, the middle of nowhere?” I ask. The neighborhood snoop’s job may be in jeopardy, I tell myself. I know I can run circles around her anyway, if I liked gossip that is. Which I don’t.
“Yes. I sold everything we’d built together. Our house, our apartment in the city, our cars except one. I sold my business and just started driving. Somehow, I took the right exit from the highway and found myself here,” he says. He wipes his palms on his pants as if signaling that is the end of his explanation.
I turn to look at my wife. She is beaming, her face covered with a smile so big and so fake it must hurt her cheeks. Or maybe it’s a genuine smile. One I never see. One that is reserved for Buck, the garden gnome.
“This is a perfect place to heal,” Mia says.
Whatever.My mind flashes back to Lois. I did see her again, of course, on campus, but she didn’t see me. I knew her class schedule, and I also needed to be sure she wouldn’t ruin anything for me and my new job at the hippest advertising agency in Nashville. So I kept tabs on her. I’m a good follower, like I noted. She healed well. I heard through the grapevine that she told her friends she blacked out and fell. Had low blood sugar or something?
