Truth or dare, p.5
Truth or Dare, page 5
“Well, you made this event a work of art, exquisite, and I’m indebted. I was doubting myself this morning, not too sure if this would all come together. But it fell into place. And, well, you really—not to be corny—topped the cake. Man, I was guilt-ridden just watching people bite in. It had to have taken hours—the details, the dots and bows, really impressive. Just so—you’re a class act. Do you know how many times,” continued her ramble, “I’ve tried to make a cake? Each was an epic fail, and I’m referring to boxed SuperMoist Betty Crocker.” She took a few steps closer. “Just add some water, oil, and eggs, they tell you. One, two, three. I followed every step, mixed that batter, popped it in, and down she sank. The sides are black, and the frosting melts because I have no patience whatsoever when it comes to waiting for something I want.” She lifted her eyes to me almost bashfully.
“Don’t knock yourself. It’s taken a lot of years and practice, believe me. I can create something in my mind and find a way to make that edible.” I caught myself talking with my hands. “Let it cool first.” My eyes dipped and lingered a little too long on her lips as she took slow steps closer.
“Yeah, that’s what I’m told.” She stopped advancing when she was close enough to kiss me, and it was as if I jumped on a roller coaster that never stopped dipping. “I can cook, you know,” she said, finally. “Pretty good actually. I just don’t bake.”
That’s, I think, when I saw that signature smirk for the first time along with that singular eyebrow raise, an expression I’ve grown all too familiar with. By that point, I could see dimples in her cheeks that I hadn’t noticed in the distance, and I was reminded again of her scent.
Then, taking her voice down another notch, “Thanks for everything tonight.”
I wanted to stand there with her under the lantern in that waterfront lot until the sun rose, even in its clumsiness and unease. But she was wrapping it up.
She kicked her toe gently into the pavement and thrust a rock into the grass. It tick-tick-ticked its way in the distance. Then I watched as she peered from under her eyelashes, seeming to hold something back. I mirrored her smile for the thousandth time until she looked away, shaking her head side to side. “Drive home safely,” she told me, handing me a sealed envelope with the check.
“You, too,” I said, brushing windblown hair off my face. Still, her body language didn’t tell me good-bye. She stood her ground, unyielding. Then came my obligatory sales pitch. “And if you know anyone planning an event,” I told her, “here’s a few of my business cards.” Okay, it was half sales pitch, half here’s my number.
She looked at my cards under the streetlamp, running her thumb over the embossed letters. “You bet I will.”
I didn’t open that envelope until the next day when I discovered, clipped to a check, a small slip of paper that read: I’d love to see you again. Call me? It had her number.
* * *
I crash down my last armful of logs, spattering wood chips and dirt on the floor beneath. Then I yank my boots off and set them on the rubber mat, hanging my coat on a wall hook. Around is the sound of absolute silence for a fleeting moment followed by, “Babe, are you going to come get these from me?”
“You’re home…thank God, I was getting worried about you out there.”
“It’s nasty. The roads are awful. Our street hasn’t been plowed at all, but the main routes are touch and go.” She stands on the rug next to two floppy fabric grocery bags. “Here, can you put these away for me,” she says, lifting and handing them to me. “I’ll go get the others from the car.”
“How much more did you get?”
“It’s snowpocalypse, babe. We need to be prepared.”
* * *
Sam
I’d like to tell her how much this weekend means to me. But I don’t. I just give her a cocked smile over this candle, twirl my fork, and take another coil of this amazing fettuccini because we don’t say those things. Not with words, anyway.
We used to tell each other lots of corny things, mushy things—most of which makes me wish she had dementia. Things that were highly embarrassing. Why do I know this? I held on to those emails, for whatever reason I don’t know. Maybe I wanted to reminisce one day when we were gray haired, but they just make me wish I hadn’t tried so hard. Once in a blue moon an email pops up in my search and I reread it and have to wonder. Things between us are so natural now in comparison.
Except compliments. Those aren’t at all natural. I thought that, when you married, the walls came down. It’s the opposite. A few weeks back, Ella was talking and I was listening and I interrupted and told her that I loved her lips because I always have but I’ve never actually told her so. How her bottom lip is so much fuller than her top. The way it tilts as if she’s always telling me whatever (even when she takes a bite of fettuccini like that). But she looked at me like I said something amusing or insincere and changed the subject. I know she appreciates it. But my compliments don’t hold weight anymore, not like they used to. Maybe I just suck at timing.
In our normal weekly routine, we don’t eat in the dining room like this. It’s too formal and constraining and uncomfortable. We don’t use these fabric napkins, either. We use brown recycled napkins that we toss away. We eat in front of the television watching David Muir. But we try to do this dining room thing on special occasions. Or, I should say, she tries.
She made dinner tonight. She unpacked the table runner and her inherited china, lit these (inappropriately) scented candles, used the pewter vase as a centerpiece. I just got the fire going.
She’s not talkative tonight. I’m used to her constant chatter about work. The only time she doesn’t talk my ear off is when she’s ready for bed or on that iPad or when we’re in the car and have her music up really loud. I should pop the champagne. That’ll get her talking.
That car outside has been spinning its wheels for a while now. Maybe I should go take a look. Which reminds me, I need to take our car in for an oil change next week. And, while I’m at it, they can check that noise it’s making. It’s probably just a belt, but it could be something really bad, and then what? It’s not like we can afford a major car repair right now.
“Where are you going?” she wants to know.
“What’s that noise?”
“It’s just a neighbor,” she tells me. “They’re probably stuck.”
“Obviously. Don’t you think we should help?”
“They’ll knock if they need help. The light’s on.”
I suppose she’s right.
“Pour me a glass?”
“That was my plan,” I say.
I use the same champagne flutes I bought for our engagement. Now they’re engraved with our wedding date. I set them on the counter.
The cork always startles me when it pops, even though I’m the one twisting. She’s taking another spin of pasta. I pour one, then the other. I put a glass in front of her. And that’s when the lights dim. They dim and brighten and dim again. We both look up, but they don’t come back on. I ask if she paid the electric bill this month, joking. Then I tell her, nonverbally, that it’s nothing. But her face is already drained. Without the lights, the woodstove casts a strange shadow-light on the table.
I take my seat again and put my napkin back on my lap. I take a piece of bread from the center of the table. When I look up again, I catch those eyelashes of hers over that pewter flute.
That’s when the lights come back on for good.
* * *
Ella
I wasn’t always like this, I swear. I remember when I could let anything roll off my back. A deadline from my boss late Friday afternoon. That zigzagging line out the post office. Even a snarky service rep.
Except when it came to my sister. She always knew how to push my buttons. Still does, which is why I haven’t spoken to her in a good year. I’m still waiting for her apology. That aside, I’ve never been panic-stricken in catastrophes like this. You should see me at work.
But at home, forget it.
I blame my better half for existing in a perpetual state of Zen. Someone needs to worry around here. So now the unexpected makes me ballistic. I go passive-aggressive, you know like those bickering couples who cloak jabs with a wink. Must you wear that? You didn’t really just do that? I’m like that now, blurting stuff out I instantly regret. One minor irritation easily morphs into rage in a matter of seconds, and we play out our Ricky and Lucy moments. Maybe this is menopause. She’s always the bigger one, and that only worsens matters.
Take this background music. She put it on. And it’s a great song, so I get on my groove. The champagne helps. Admittedly though, I’m the worst dancer even if I’m drunk (more so if I’m drunk, which I’m not at the moment) and when I attempt to tap my foot or swivel my hips, it looks about as natural as blown-up, lit-up plastic snowmen do in the middle of actual snow. And she makes me stiffer when she looks at me like that. It’s put me in a mood.
I’m relieved when she makes her way over to the window to look out instead of at me.
“It’s really coming down,” she says in a highly inappropriate tone that reeks of juvenile excitement. When I flip on the outside light, the flakes look more like winged bugs swarming.
“Lovely,” I say, half in wonder, half in dread. But the power could go out again at any minute. So I tip the last drop of champagne. It’s warmed me sufficiently. “Did we finish that entire bottle?”
“I think we did, babe.” When exactly did nine o’clock become our staying up late, our big deal? Then I hear, “I forgot to mention.” Her voice follows me into the kitchen to the dishwasher. “You’ll never guess who I ran into.” I raise a brow, never a fan of prolonged drama. Which is why she takes no time to tell me. “Alicia.”
I think I just felt my eyes roll.
Then she starts talking about trouble in paradise. And this news stirs up a mixed bag of emotions. I’m apprehensive. I’m satisfied. I’m elated. I’m intrigued. I’m bitter. I’m neutral. I’m ashamed. I’m thankful. I’m troubled. It’s not that I liked Alicia. But Jessie was actually giddy over someone.
As opposed to spilling too much of this response, which champagne tends to make me do, I resolve that there are some things best left unsaid if you expect to stay happily ever after for any length of time. So I tell her, simply, “I never liked her.”
“I know you didn’t.”
“But I thought she’d last longer. I really did.” Like maybe two months instead of two weeks. Why’d she even introduce us?
“Does anybody last with Jessie? Think about that for a moment.” She’s less than amused, offering me that I-wish-Jessie-didn’t-exist look.
I head back to the window, where the porch light’s still on. And that’s when things get quiet. Her: likely excited about roughing it tonight, snowmageddon style. Me: dreading tomorrow. The cold, the shoveling. It’s going to take up most of our day. So much for time off. That snowblower’s sounding mighty appealing about now, even if we’d need a home loan to buy it. Maybe I can palm shoveling off on her and do something useful inside—like nothing.
Eventually she gives me one of those shoulder nudges. “Suppose we should hit the hay. We’ll need sleep if we’re shoveling out tomorrow. I’ll go get the dishes and add a few logs. Go take your face off.”
But she’s still mad at work on those dishes when I wrap and tuck my towel into my chest. I brush my teeth. I floss. I comb my hair. I skip the moisturizer. And when I open the door, it’s not the most pleasant temp on the other side and I’m chilled in places I didn’t even know existed. But I reach into the dresser, finding a little bit of nothing. Slip it up my hips and across my torso.
And that’s going just fine when I hear, “Let me help you with that, babe.”
“It’s freezing,” I tell her rather matter-of-factly.
“And you’re still damp.”
“Slightly.”
“Don’t walk around with your hair wet like that.”
But it’s not my hair that’s an issue; it’s my clothing—or lack thereof. I don’t know what I was thinking wearing next to nothing so I could seduce my wife tonight. Flannel would be more appropriate and just as effective. So I reach for my robe.
“You don’t honestly think I’ll let you cover up.” She wraps my towel behind her neck and flings my robe to the floor before I can tuck in. The folds of her shirt and the thickness of her jeans rub against me. I can’t really form a proper response.
“Stay damp,” she tells me. And I feel a tickle up my sides. “Just…like…this.”
Chapter Three: Brie and Ryan
Brie
Crap. Did I seriously just spill coffee down the front of me? Why do they always fill these cups so full? Even when you ask for half an inch on top, they never leave room for cream. The barista, though, what she lacks in latte-making skill she more than makes up for in personality. She’s a doll, which is why I never mention it.
Besides, I usually see her at the table flipping textbooks. She reminds me a bit of myself not that long ago, and I’m always cognizant to leave a good tip in the jar just because. If anything, I know what that’s like.
I press the lid hard, slip on a cardboard sleeve, and grab a handful of napkins to clean up. At least it landed on my thigh, and this dark denim will camouflage. Stains only make jeans better. At least that’s my philosophy. I’m just grateful it didn’t hit this expensive shirt, which would’ve been destroyed. Maybe it’s a sign that I’ve had enough. Caffeine, that is. After all, I’m starting to feel jittery from the pots of Sumatra I’ve consumed. Okay, slight exaggeration. But my stomach doesn’t feel so hot. Besides, it’s nearly dinnertime. At this rate, I’ll be up all night. Oy.
Ryan thinks I drink too much of it. “So what,” I tell her. It’s my vice. We all have one. Food, alcohol, exercise. Or for her, sex. At least mine happens to make me highly productive. Hers, on the other hand, obliterates all productivity. She’ll keep you up all night, and that is not the slightest exaggeration.
She says, “It’s an Italian thing.” Maybe so, but you can get too much of any good thing, doll. I don’t know how she functions without a wink of rest. I can’t stay awake until three a.m. five nights a week and still perform on any job.
Instead of barking at me over coffee, she should be grateful I get as much done during the day as I do. Before I joined the ranks of the unemployed, I would’ve given anything to come home after a crazy-long day to a clean house and hot supper. And that she will tonight. I spent a good four hours today just cleaning her house spotless before heading downtown to this home-away-from-home caffeine sanctuary to search jobs, send résumés, and clear my own head.
It’s not even the drinks that I come here for. It’s the slice of privacy. I can tie my hair back, plug my laptop in, reflect on life, and escape Ryan’s confining walls. It makes me feel like a reasonably industrious citizen again. With an emphasis on reasonably. I’m still unemployed.
I’m lucky, too, that this window seat is nearly always open. It has the best view of downtown. From my vantage point, I can see everything that happens out there. And while I can’t easily see the café door, I sure can’t miss that cowbell just above or the boots pounding on the mat as people dislodge all those salt rocks.
Last summer, just outside, they lined the walk with two-seater tables shaded with seaside umbrellas. Still, I prefer working behind the cloak of windowpane. Less sun. Fewer bugs. Air-conditioning.
I click on a potential job opportunity, though well below me, for a paralegal (that’s how desperate I am right now) when an email alert glides across from my Notification Center: While your background and experience are noteworthy, at this time, we are pursuing other candidates who more closely match our needs for this position.
What a great way to end my day. My week. Ugh. I’m turned down—even before an interview—for a legal secretary post. So much for that little Esq. tacked at the end of my name. Just this past week, I widened my search radius far beyond a realistic commute. I applied for smaller firms and one solo practice with not one iota of upward mobility. I’ve delved so far below my credentials that my pride may never recover. But, alas, I do have that tiny weekly unemployment check to get me by, right?
Let’s just file this rejection letter and call it a week. An unproductive week, at that, with only three not-so-perfectly matched résumé en route. En route, that is, to law firms in Maine up by Mom and Dad. Not here. Maybe moving down here for a chance of a lifetime job in a gay mecca wasn’t such a great idea after all. Maybe I wasn’t meant to move on. Maybe I’m meant to stay a Portland girl forever.
As soon as my finger brushes the power button, one more notice settles on my screen. A state of emergency has been declared. Shelter in place. Yes, it’s definitely time to head home. Pronto.
On the drive home, I try to get a handle on it all. Try is the key word here, because I feel like an absolute failure.
I pass the sign that reads Bridges Freeze Before Road.
Just past, at the end of this winding road, is that dagger-pointed intersection. My wipers struggle to lift their weight, and I can hear their motor over my music.
Speed Limit 30, another sign warns just before I reach the building. Snow’s building up on wooden shutters and window boxes that are impeccably decorated along the first, second, and third floors. Evergreen. Red berries.
There’s no oncoming traffic. There’s no traffic at all. It’s desolate.
I turn into the parking lot, shut off my engine, and open my compact—bringing it to steering-wheel height. I sponge powdered foundation across my forehead and then coconut lip balm. Clouds are making it murky and difficult to see. It’s getting so dark. I think I look all right even with brown coffee stains down the front of my jeans.
A deep inhale. An even longer exhale. I need a job, I think, as my truck beeps and the door locks. When I step inside, it’s another season altogether. It’s stuffy. Condensation drips down their windows. Good music plays overhead but not obnoxiously.
