Mary was out on parole and not everyone in her new neighborhood felt about her the way her old neighborhood did. Her old neighborhood understood why she murdered her husband, especially the other wives. They applauded her bravery and were envious of her success. They wished they could murder their husbands too, and practically get away with it.
The new neighborhood ignored Mary. They read the headlines, following her case from beginning to end, and most of them didn’t find her very brave or successful. They just didn’t think that killing your husband because he ruined your career a very legitimate excuse to break the law.
But John was always messing things up in Mary’s life. It was as if he didn’t want Mary to have her own life at all, like she was supposed to just be his wife and mother to his three sons. Mary dealt with it for as long as she could until John’s sons were in high school and wanted nothing to do with her anymore. She didn’t even have to shuffle them around to football or baseball practices, they would bum a ride from older teammates. This left Mary with plenty of time on her hands and she wanted something to do with it.
She took up baking.
Actually, Mary worked at a bakery since she was sixteen years old. She only left after John convinced her Matthew, Marc, and Luke needed a mother to be there when they opened their eyes in the morning and closed their eyes at night. She was hesitant at first but when all three boys caught the flu and Mary took a week off to tend to them, she felt good nursing them back to health. The macaroni necklace and bracelet set they made her to say ‘thank you’ made her feel even better. From there on in she was a stay at home step-mom.
She baked at home too. Every dinner was followed up with one of her masterpieces: crème brulee, cherries jubilee, chocolate soufflé, baklava, and anything that could be made was, instead of purchased at the grocery store. John went to work with still-warm morning glory muffins, turkey clubs on soft sourdough bread, and fresh chocolate chip cookies. The boys loved coming home to sweet smells wafting from the kitchen and filling the whole house. They loved that Mary always smelled like cakes and cookies even after a hot shower. That was before John forced her to stop baking.
It was right after the boys annual Christmas Baking Extravaganza. Every year Mrs. Sims won the $500 cash prize with her creative bar cookies and frankly, the other moms were annoyed with Mrs. Sims’ gloating. They all tasted Mary’s sweets from the numerous times they visited. In fact, they were quite comfortable with asking her to bake for their parties or get-togethers. Mary baked something for every Sunday church service or fundraiser, the boys’ team parties, and she even baked a cake for Alyssa’s backyard wedding. Everyone was wowed by the five tier, white and lavender fondant cake. It took three groomsmen to carefully place it on the folding table without harming it. So, the other moms were confident that this year Mary’s sweets would take the cake.
But Mary was forbidden to enter.
Earlier that day John was sitting at the dining room table, glasses sliding down his nose, studying the finances. Something didn’t seem right.
“Mary,” he called over his shoulder.
Mary stepped through the arched portal, apron wrapped tightly around her slender waste, cake flour spotted on her tan arms and face. She knew right of way what this was all about. She twisted the thick gold wedding band on her finger, fearing what John’s reaction would be to their bank statements.
“Just how much baking have you been doing,” John asked trying to remain calm, but the vein throbbing in his neck was a dead giveaway that he was furious.
Mary’s dark eyes hovered over the floor and she answered in a soft voice, “Well, last week the Thomas’s requested a three tier birthday cake for Sadie’s first birthday, but the Jefferson’s needed a quick Thanksgiving dessert so I made them two pumpkin pies, and the Wolfstein’s had a bat mitzvah…”
John waved his hands frantically to stop Mary’s never-ending parade of desserts. “Did you accept money from these people?” His hands were on his broad hips. A few years of eating Mary’s wonderful treats helped him (and the whole neighborhood) pack on a few pounds.
Mary hesitated. She didn’t want John to overreact like he had when she bought a brand new, stainless steel oven without consulting him first. She shifted her weight back and fourth, trying to determine the best way to break the news to him.
“Well,” he asked, impatiently.
“Yes,” she almost whispered.
“Yes? Yes! You took money from people I have to see everyday for your stupid cakes?” John’s face turned scarlet.
“My cakes are not stupid,” Mary said, lifting her eyes from the floor. “My cakes have made us $7,000 in the last two months.”
“$7,000 from people who wanted favors. If they wanted to pay a pastry chef they would have went to the bakery!” John shouted and Mary flinched. She didn’t want the boys to hear another one of John’s tirades.
“No, they wanted to come to me and it was them who wanted to pay me. I tried to refuse but they would put money on the counter and rush out the door before I could give it back to them. What’s wrong with me having a career?” Mary’s heart was pounding, that was the most she spoke to John about baking, ever.
“This,” John said, waving his hand up and down at Mary’s appearance. “This is not a career. Being a mother is a career, being a secretary is a career, baking is a hobby! And, I will not have some of the senior partners in my firm paying you for a batch of brownies.”
Mary was angry. Never once had she sought payment from any of her customers. Everyone always came to her; everyone always forced her into taking the money. Honestly, they needed the money. The boys’ extracurricular activities cost a fortune, not to mention the fact that they were all driving their own cars now too. She couldn’t understand why John was being so difficult.
John sighed. “Just stop taking payments Mary,” he said as he sat back in his chair and resumed looking over the bills.
“Fine, I will tell everyone that’s what I do, I do favors. But I’m still entering the school contest.” Mary’s dark eyes narrowed at John, as if daring him to object. She put so much love into her baking, almost as much love as she put into Matthew, Marc, and Luke. She refused to let him take this away from her again.
“No your not.” He said it as if the matter was already settled.
“Yes, I am.” Mary felt ridiculous arguing with her husband like they were in kindergarten but she wanted to stick to her guns this time.
John rose back out of his seat and faced her. “No you’re not. I’m calling Mrs. Walters tomorrow, she owes me a favor, and I’ll ask her to disqualify anything you submit.”
“Why are you so threatened by my baking?”
“You know Mary, most wives don’t even have time to make toast, that’s how busy they are. And, that’s how busy you should be. From now on, there will be no more baking in this house unless it’s some sort of holiday. Do I make myself clear?”
“No John, you’re not clear. I have nothing else. The boys are all grown up now, they don’t need me anymore. So why can’t I have a career? If you don’t want me baking here, for our friends, then I’ll go back to Sweet Something’s.”
John sighed and rubbed his temples. It’s like talking to a child, he thought. “You’re not going back to Sweet Something’s either. Just get a new hobby, that’s all I ask. Go to lunch dates with some of the other available mothers, join the gym, go to the spa, anything!”
Mary threw her hands in the air, the very same Italian gesture her mother made when arguing with her father. Except, John wasn’t Italian, he was of English descent. “I give up with you, John. I’m not going to stop baking but I am going to stop talking to you about it.” She walked through the archway and back into the kitchen.
She pulled Rice Krispie treats from the refrigerator and prepared to dip them in melted dark chocolate. As she worked silently she heard John huffing and puffing and squirming in his chair. She knew what just happened was brewing in his mind. She hoped that outcome would be in her favor.
Later that night, at dinner, John didn’t mention anything about baking and he didn’t explode over the Rice Krispie treats for dessert. The boys did, it was one of their favorites. John just watched as they scoffed down the marshmallow rice cakes, leaving only two behind. Mary nibbled on one and John stared at the other.
After the boys cleared the table and went to their rooms John laughed and laughed and laughed. Mary had never seen him react like this before. She watched him wide-eyed and nervous until the fit passed and John was dabbing at teary eyes with his napkin. He snatched the treat off the plate and looked it over slowly. Mary thought John had seen the errors of his ways and she attempted to get up from the table to clean. But John grabbed her wrist so tight her fingers locked in place.
“Sit,” he said as he pulled her back into her chair and let her go. Mary rubbed her wrist, it felt raw and bruised. “This is the biggest slap in the face you have ever given me and you have given me plenty of those in this marriage.”
Mary was confused. What slaps in the face? She always made sure everything was as John asked; she hardly ever went back on his requests or punishments. Except for that one time with the stove.
“You Italians don’t understand a goddamned thing. When we say ‘stop’ you hear ‘stop as you wish’ and when we say ‘go’ you hear ‘go whenever you want’. That’s not how things work, especially in a marriage! I have a reputation to uphold, I don’t need my wife running around like some servant baking for the whole fucking town!”
“So that’s what this is all about, your reputation. Oh, cazzo la vostra reputazione, ciò non significa merda!”
“That’s another slap in the face to this family! Speak English, we’re in America, no one knows what the hell you’re saying.”
“Good, I don’t want them to know what I’m saying because half of the time I’m calling them imbecilli. These mothers aren’t busy; they’re good at pretending to be busy to avoid conversations like this! You men think that our jobs are menial and worthless because the house always looks the same and smells the same when you come home. But it didn’t look or smell that way before you left!” Mary slammed her hand on the table, sending shooting pains up to her elbow.
“Oh and what I do doesn’t mean shit then, right? I bust my ass ten hours a day to bring home enough money to keep this family going while you sit here baking your little brownies and cookies, talking on the phone, going to parties.”
Mary couldn’t take it anymore, John was irrational! Her heart was racing and blood was rushing away from her brain, filling her face. She felt dizzy and sick. How could she ever make John understand her love for baking and seeing the happiness her baking brought to others? She couldn’t, he would never listen. Her head got lighter and she became madder.
How could he be so stubborn and cruel? How could he just sit there with that stupid look on his ruddy face, like she was some kind of alien! His flat lips were contorted into a wicked smile. He already thinks he’s won the fight, he always wins the fights! But not this time!
Mary stormed out of the room and returned with her rolling pin. One word more and she’d hit him. All he had to do was…
“Mary, what the hell are you doing with that thing?”
CRACK!
Mary’s arms were strong; she could wield her rolling pin for hours without stopping for a single break. Now, John would know the strength baking had given her all of her life, physical and mental.
John fell to the floor and his once rigid, tense body slackened. His eyes began to gloss over. Mary stood over him, not sure if he was going to make it or not, and said a quick “Our Mother” for him. When she finished crossing herself and kissing her hand, she returned to the kitchen to wash her rolling pin.
Luke was dribbling his basketball down the hallway when he heard the loud blow. He peeked around the corner and saw Mary praying, holding onto the flimsy gold cross she had always worn since he met her. His father was sprawled on the floor, blood oozing from his head. He ran to the living room and dialed 9-1-1.
“Madison 9-1-1, how can I help you?”
Luke hugged the phone close to his face, scared Mary would hear him above the running faucet. He whispered, “Yes, my step-mother just hit my dad. I think she used something, the sound was really loud, and he’s bleeding and everything. He won’t get up from the floor.”
“OK sir, I’m sending the police to your house right of way. Is there any way you can check on your father to see if he’s still breathing?”
“Let me see.” Luke placed the phone on the glass side table and crept up the hall. Mary was still in the kitchen, he could hear pots and pans and things banging around. He slid across the floor on his socks and knelt next to his father. He placed an ear to John’s chest but he couldn’t tell if his heart was beating or if his chest was rising or falling. Mary dropped a metal spoon and Luke jumped up, running back to phone.
“Hello? I can’t tell if he’s breathing or not, I’ve never did this before.”
“It’s OK son, just hang in there, the police are almost there. How much blood is on the floor?”
“A lot, a puddle.”
“OK, can you find something to staunch the blood?”
“No, my stepmom is in the other room.”
“What is she doing?”
Luke strained to hear over his racing heart. Mary was no longer making anymore noise. He dropped the phone and tiptoed over to the kitchen entrance from the living room. He peered around the corner, Mary was watching the oven, it was set at 350 for 20 minutes. Luke could smell macadamia nuts and blueberries, Mary was baking muffins. He gulped and tiptoed back to the phone.
“She’s baking.”
The 9-1-1 dispatcher was taken back. “She’s what?”
“Baking, ma’am.”
“Can she see your father from where she is?”
“Yes.”
“Can she…”
Mary grabbed the phone from Luke and dropped it back onto the base, ending the call. Luke’s eyes widened in fear, he knew he could overpower Mary except she had her rolling pin dangling at her side. He swallowed hard and scrambled to his feet.
“You called the police?” Mary’s face was calm and beautiful.
“What did you do to my dad?”
“I asked if you called the police.”
“Yeah I called the police. Is dad alright? Is he alive even?” Luke wiped his tears on the back of his sleeve.
There was a knock on the door. Mary and Luke both turned to face it but neither of them moved to answer it. The knock came again. Luke looked at Mary from the corner of his eye and she looked at John’s body from the corner of hers. Then, in a single moment Mary ran towards John’s body and Luke lunged for the door.
Two uniformed police officers rushed in, pushing past Luke and heading for Mary, who had John by his feet, and was trying to drag him away. They grabbed her by the arms and wrestled her to the ground. Her dark brown hair came loose from its clasp, sending black spirals all around her. Luke was trying to wake his father, spilling tears all over John’s bloated face.
Mary’s hands were cuffed behind her back and one of the officers walked Mary out of the house. The other picked Luke up from the floor and walked him into the living room. Soon a coroner arrived and covered John’s body with a sheet.
Mary was convicted of involuntary manslaughter after retelling the story of that night from her point of view. She told them about John’s strict rules and fits of rage when things weren’t as he asked. She cried into her lawyer’s white scarf as she recounted why she left Sweet Something’s to become a stay at home stepmom. Her delicate hands waved in explanation as she told the jury how she never meant to kill John, she just meant to stop him from coming at her. The icing on the cake came when, under her lawyer’s advice, Mary distorted John’s strong grip on her wrist.
“He grabbed it so tight that it sprained. Then he pulled me back into my seat with such force that I fell off the chair, which only made him angrier.” Mary looked down into her lap, counting twenty of the little red flowers on her dress before looking back up at the sympathetic jury.
Luke wouldn’t testify. No matter how much the prosecutor pushed him, he would not even return a phone call. The prosecutor urged the judge to subpoena him, but the judge thought he went through enough already. Besides, Luke didn’t see what happened, he only saw ex post facto.
Mary was sentenced to two years in prison. But she was paroled for good behavior after only 14 months of her sentence. She volunteered in the prison kitchen, whipping up her favorite treats for the other inmates. When word got around about her mastery, even the guards got on line in the mess hall. Mary saw how the guards marveled at her handmade chocolate frosted donuts and took extra care to make them just right. By the end of her stay the parole board and warden knew who she was by name. The warden even invited her to private lunches, so long as she brought something sweet with her.
Mary was released on November 15 and moved into Glenview Terrace with the help of the warden. He sought a residence for Mary, one where she would have enough room to bake and enough money to afford. But the neighborhood was different than her old one. In Madison everyone loved Mary and they were amazed by her fluency in Italian. But in Glenview Terrace no one smiled or laughed at her awkward American phrases. No one asked where she was originally from or asked her to say certain words in Italian. No one knew she baked, no one cared.
The men and women of Glenview awoke each morning at 5:00 a.m. and shuffled off to work, sipping coffees out of plastic cups and unwrapping breakfast from the convenience store. They didn’t hop on trains and head into the city for white collar jobs; they put on muddy work boots and were hauled away on construction trucks. The women donned handkerchiefs over their braided hair and went to work cleaning other people’s homes while their children took public transportation to public schools.
Mary was miserable. Who was she to bake for now? She walked around town until her heels were raw, looking for a bakery to work for. But there wasn’t one in town. A young Spanish woman in rubber clogs and a bleach-stained oxford told her the closest bakery was three towns over and that everyone just bought baked goods from the grocery store.
“Es mas barato,” she said. “It’s cheaper.”
Mary trudged all the way back home and collapsed in her secondhand, flannel recliner. She didn’t even have enough energy to make herself dinner, or dessert. She closed her eyes and fell asleep.
The next morning Mary paced the kitchen, her slippers scuffing the yellow linoleum tiles. Four bills came in the mail that morning and Mary didn’t even have enough in her bank to cover one of them. At home she would have already made triple the amount of her bills in two weeks. Now, she was running out of options.
She decided to walk the neighborhood and introduce herself. Tell everyone about her baking business and pick up a few clients. She knew the holidays were around the corner and now that she didn’t have the boys she could bake all day. She tied her moth-eaten pea coat around her waist and headed out into the cold wind.
Hardly anyone answered their doors. There weren’t many stay at home moms and those that were looked too young to even have children in the first place. Most didn’t speak English and none spoke Italian. Mary kept trying though, frantically. Someone would need her, somewhere!
By the end of her trip Mary had only one promising client. Mrs. Daschle on Bloomfield needed a cat-shaped cake for Misty’s third birthday. She wanted it to look just like Misty and she wanted the layers to be separated by tuna fish salad. Mary scrunched up her nose at the idea. Mrs. Daschle was only willing to pay $10.00. She couldn’t even pay a quarter of her cable with that.
Mary took a deep breath and decided that she would have to get a job, like the rest of the women in the neighborhood and so, she applied for the Merry Maids cleaning service. The cleaning service required her to work ten hours a day with only one half hour lunch break.
By the time Mary got home she was exhausted and often fell asleep on the recliner with a warm cup of tea incurved in her hands. And, when the weekends came around she was too sore to bake. She couldn’t use her rolling pin long enough to properly lengthen the dough for the right amount of scones. Her soufflés kept sinking and all of her double fudge brownies tasted like singular fudge brownies.
Finally, the holidays arrived and Mary was extremely busy. Everyone needed their house thoroughly cleaned before relatives arrived and impressions had to be made. One client even gave her the white glove test. (That same client also dropped a $50 bill into her hand for passing the test.) This left Mary with no time to bake at all. She had just enough time to shower, scrub the bleach from her tender, blistered hands, and crash on her blowup mattress for five hours of sleep before she had to do it all over again.
Within a few more weeks Mary wasn’t even thinking about baking anymore. The days were flying by in a Clorox blur and the nights were heavy with Irish Spring scented sheets, which reminded her of John. Sometimes when she rolled over she could feel the weight of his sleeping body next to her. Sometimes she could hear the boys down the hall in the media room, laughing at whatever was on MTV. During these sometimes, she couldn’t sleep.
Instead she sat up with a cup of tea and in her mind she retraced every step she ever took in her old house. Where they had a media room, she had an extra bedroom where she kept any cleaning supplies she was allowed to take home. Where they had a second full bathroom, she had a linen closet where she kept a small amount of towels and plenty of handkerchiefs to tie over her braided hair before work. Where they had granite counter tops, a six burner, stainless steel oven in the island, and slate floors in the kitchen, she had beige Formica counter tops, an old, white four burner stove splattered with grease against the wall, and a yellow tiled floor stained with years grime. Where they had a witty Italian pastry chef stepmom, she had a worn out, bleached out maid.
When the holidays Mary stayed with her cleaning job as no clients arose with baking needs. At every job she left a small card she made at home with her name, phone number, and brief description of her capabilities. But she never received a single call. After two years of trying, Mary simply gave up.
She moved up in her job at Merry Maids and managed their team of cleaners, earning her a spot in the office. The neighbors forgave her eccentric behavior and she became close friends with Paulette, the young Spanish girl that first told her about the bakery three towns over. They got together on the weekends and watched movies or swapped stories about where they were originally from. Mary told Paulette about serving time in prison for killing her husband and Paulette told Mary about evading border patrol with two pounds of cocaine in her backpack, so that she could start a new life for her and her brother in America. They laughed at this. Life in America wasn’t as great as everyone thought it to be.
This made Mary cry because for the longest time she no longer considered herself an immigrant and she thought no one else did either. But Paulette helped her realize that the people in her old neighborhood did. When John said they wanted favors he didn’t mean as friends, he meant as superiors. They were asking the immigrant wife in the neighborhood to do their bidding. They paid her high wages so it wouldn’t look obvious to John or the other husbands. And, the other husbands laughed at Mary’s awkward American phrases and marveled at how she spoke Italian not because it was cute or sophisticated but because it was barbaric and foreign.
Paulette hugged Mary close and told her it was OK. She was where she belonged now, with people that would accept her for who she is and that being a maid wasn’t failure or embarrassing.
Mary cried even harder. She wasn’t a widow, she was married to John and she certainly wasn’t a maid, she was a pastry chef!
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Friday, January 15, 2010
Sometimes I feel...
It’s Friday afternoon and my phone is buzzing
from friends with plans for weekend fun
of movies and dinners and laughter.
But I am not into it.
I have become somewhat of a recluse
clinging to my black leather couch
and refusing to get up.
I cross my pencil-stick legs Indian style,
cover up in my red throw, open a book,
and hide from the world.
It’s too bright out there—
my blue eyes can’t stand up to the sun,
my pallid skin hates the cold,
and I’m angered by this oxymoronic winter.
Shouldn’t it be dark when it’s this cold?
(We should be hibernating when it’s this cold!)
But instead we venture out
to packed restaurants and movie theaters
squeezing in next to each other,
body heat and grid lock traffic,
both of which make me anxious and annoyed.
That is why I took up smoking again,
too crowded places that people voluntarily visit
and then fuss that it’s too packed
it’s enough to make my head explode.
Staying home in front of the TV is safer,
no matter how boring that makes me.
Some would call me grumpy and jaded—
I prefer disenchanted.
from friends with plans for weekend fun
of movies and dinners and laughter.
But I am not into it.
I have become somewhat of a recluse
clinging to my black leather couch
and refusing to get up.
I cross my pencil-stick legs Indian style,
cover up in my red throw, open a book,
and hide from the world.
It’s too bright out there—
my blue eyes can’t stand up to the sun,
my pallid skin hates the cold,
and I’m angered by this oxymoronic winter.
Shouldn’t it be dark when it’s this cold?
(We should be hibernating when it’s this cold!)
But instead we venture out
to packed restaurants and movie theaters
squeezing in next to each other,
body heat and grid lock traffic,
both of which make me anxious and annoyed.
That is why I took up smoking again,
too crowded places that people voluntarily visit
and then fuss that it’s too packed
it’s enough to make my head explode.
Staying home in front of the TV is safer,
no matter how boring that makes me.
Some would call me grumpy and jaded—
I prefer disenchanted.
Job hunting
Finding a job proves to be a harrowing task,
Especially for an almost-college grad
With minor hands-on experience
And major expectations.
I don’t want to work for a large company
That takes advantage of or exploits
Employees, citizens, animals,
And mostly, me.
I want to work for a company that I hope exists,
One that is fairly profitable yet thoughtful of
Employees, citizens, environments,
And mostly, me.
Where am I to find such an ideal employer like this?
Colleges tells students to work for them but,
Colleges don’t tell you who they are,
Or where they are.
Because they’re the hardest companies to work for.
They’re big names and non-profits with power,
They want experience and little salaries
And, none are in New Jersey.
None of these companies want a bleeding heart poet
With simple notions of what is right and wrong
To push them center of left, center of right,
And consider everyone else first.
Especially for an almost-college grad
With minor hands-on experience
And major expectations.
I don’t want to work for a large company
That takes advantage of or exploits
Employees, citizens, animals,
And mostly, me.
I want to work for a company that I hope exists,
One that is fairly profitable yet thoughtful of
Employees, citizens, environments,
And mostly, me.
Where am I to find such an ideal employer like this?
Colleges tells students to work for them but,
Colleges don’t tell you who they are,
Or where they are.
Because they’re the hardest companies to work for.
They’re big names and non-profits with power,
They want experience and little salaries
And, none are in New Jersey.
None of these companies want a bleeding heart poet
With simple notions of what is right and wrong
To push them center of left, center of right,
And consider everyone else first.
Friday, January 8, 2010
An assortment of short poems
I haven't been feeling too well lately. My nose is stuffed and my head weighs a thousand pounds. But I will not give up on writing as much as I can each week. So, today, upon reading Spike Milligan poems, I decided to write some short poems myself using rhyme schemes similar to his. And, although I feel disgusting here they are:
Diggy
I have a little Pit Bull, who is a dirty gray,
And when he should be sleeping, he’s ready to play.
He runs around and destroys the place,
Then charges right for my face.
But no matter how bad he is, in my heart he’ll stay.
Lazy
There’s nothing like a lazy afternoon,
There will never be a moment more opportune,
To do nothing with your life,
To hideaway from strife,
And sit in the tub until your skin starts to prune.
The sun
The heat on my skin feels divine,
The uneven color it will refine,
From pale to golden,
From outside to within,
Bringing fourth such a subtle shine.
Early autumn
In the early autumn leaves are still green,
Flowers are still colorful, pretty, and serene.
We will use daisy bouquets,
For today, our special day,
When my king finally receives his queen.
Empty office
Everyone is out today, there’s just me,
Sitting at the computer, typing absentmindedly.
Whenever I come in for a full day,
Everyone else goes out to play.
Leaving me in full control until I plead insanity.
I need more sleep
At night I toss and turn without warrant,
And pray for sleep to come in a violent torrent.
But he never does, an aloof lover,
With mystical secrets I cannot discover.
Why, O, why does he find me so abhorrent?
*I hope they weren't as bad as I feel!*
Diggy
I have a little Pit Bull, who is a dirty gray,
And when he should be sleeping, he’s ready to play.
He runs around and destroys the place,
Then charges right for my face.
But no matter how bad he is, in my heart he’ll stay.
Lazy
There’s nothing like a lazy afternoon,
There will never be a moment more opportune,
To do nothing with your life,
To hideaway from strife,
And sit in the tub until your skin starts to prune.
The sun
The heat on my skin feels divine,
The uneven color it will refine,
From pale to golden,
From outside to within,
Bringing fourth such a subtle shine.
Early autumn
In the early autumn leaves are still green,
Flowers are still colorful, pretty, and serene.
We will use daisy bouquets,
For today, our special day,
When my king finally receives his queen.
Empty office
Everyone is out today, there’s just me,
Sitting at the computer, typing absentmindedly.
Whenever I come in for a full day,
Everyone else goes out to play.
Leaving me in full control until I plead insanity.
I need more sleep
At night I toss and turn without warrant,
And pray for sleep to come in a violent torrent.
But he never does, an aloof lover,
With mystical secrets I cannot discover.
Why, O, why does he find me so abhorrent?
*I hope they weren't as bad as I feel!*
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Linda
I.
The first time Linda noticed she had lost her mind was when she walked into Target, pushing a bright red cart, headed into the beauty aisle, and totally forgot why she was there. Not in the beauty aisle, but in Target.
She wracked her brain for a good five minutes before angrily huffing and puffing back to her car without making a purchase. On the way home, idling at a red light, Linda remembered why she went to Target in the first place. Soap, the store had a sale on soap and she was clean out of it at home. She made the next U-Turn and headed back to Target.
When she got home and put the soap away, she went into the living room to find someone to talk to about what had happened to her. Her daughter Merilee was lounging on the couch with a bowl of buttery popcorn, flipping through the channels.
“Merilee, I have to tell you what happened to me at Target,” she said, taking the remote and shutting of the TV.
“What are you doing?! I was watching that,” Merilee’s green eyes flashed with infantile anger.
“Oh please, you weren’t watching anything important, like the news.” Linda loved her daughter’s sweet childishness but sometimes she wanted Merilee to act like the sixteen year old she was. “I wanted to tell you what happened to me at Target.”
Merilee put on her detached stare and stiff set lips, preparing for an epic story about a clothing sale. It usually ended with Linda exhibiting matching tops for her and Merilee to wear out somewhere; which wouldn’t have been so bad if Linda’s style wasn’t so conservative.
“I drove all the way to Target and then completely forgot why I was there,” Linda said, as if revealing some profound secret.
“So? I do stuff like that all the time, it doesn’t mean anything,” Merilee grumbled.
“Yes it does. It means I’m getting old!” Tears formed in Linda’s eyes. She didn’t want to get old! She wanted to travel with her family, take up tennis, learn to drive a boat, not sit on the recliner all day watching talk shows.
Merilee rolled her eyes. “I have the youngest mom out of all my friends. You’re just so busy with stuff it must have slipped your mind, that’s all.”
Linda shook her head but she wasn’t entirely listening. “Yesterday I set the stove on pre-heat for no reason,” she said, mostly to herself. “And then I rewashed a clean load of laundry in the laundry room.” Her eyes glazed over and she became silent in thought.
“Hello? Hello!” Merilee grabbed Linda’s shoulders and shook her. “Are you ok? Maybe you should lie down and watch TV, Maury’s on.”
Linda’s eyes widened in fear, “Maury? No, no, I can’t watch that.” She stood up and slowly backed out of the room. “I’ll just go lie in bed.”
“Ok,” Merilee said, arching her eyebrows.
Linda backed into the hallway and then took off for the attic. She pried the stairs down from the string swinging freely at the end of the hallway. She was careful not to let the stairs hit the hardwoods in case Merilee would come investigating. The wooden stairs slid down at her like a ladder and she silently climbed to the top, using her arms to pull herself into the room.
Linda looked around. The attic was so plain and drafty without a floor, just wooden planks separated an inch apart, and the insulation exposed high above her head. But, it was tall enough to stand in so it was good enough to act as her escape nook.
She walked over to the rusted, gold-painted dressing table across the room and looked at herself in the spotted mirror. Her strawberry blonde hair hung in her face. It was straight and thin just like Merilee’s but Linda didn’t have Merilee’s captivating green eyes, hers were blue. And not a very powerful blue at that. The color appeared washed out, as if they were once a fierce navy but have been fading over time to match the whites of her eyes. Her ex-husband thought her eyes were exotic, until Alexia came along. Alexia was the most exotic woman Linda had ever seen. She was a Brazilian beauty with tan skin and thick thighs without an ounce of wrinkles or cellulite. No wonder he had run away with her, Linda would have to, if she went that way.
She sighed and sat back in the racer-back chair, staring up at the insulation and going over all of the mistakes she’d been making lately. What was happening to her mind? Was it dwindling out like her blue eyes? The deterioration was happening so quickly, what would she be left with by the end of next week?
Dementia ran in her family, her mother was only seventy and she was already lost to the disease. She had to be put into a home under surveillance. Otherwise she would wind up behind the wheel of a car on the freeway heading in no particular direction for any particular reason. Then Linda would get a call from a police station in some obscure town requesting she come pick up her mother, who had crashed into a store front and couldn’t recall a single detail about herself except that her single daughter lived in Matawan with her pretty but immature granddaughter.
Linda stood from the chair and paced the room for several minutes until she got tired of thinking of these things and laid on the spare bed in the corner and fell asleep.
II.
Linda awoke to a light shining in her eyes. “Mom, are you awake?” She thought she heard Merilee ask, and then an unfamiliar voice added, “Can you sit up?” Maybe it was her ex-husband’s weekend with Merilee and they came to say goodbye.
She squinted and pulled herself into an upright position. Her body felt like lead, which made her wonder how long she had been asleep for. When her eyes were fully adjusted she could see Merilee and a police officer with a flashlight standing before her. “Can I help you officer,” she asked.
“Ma’am, I got a call from this frightened young woman, she wanted to know what you’re doing up here.” The officer looked concerned, but not violent or angry.
“I must have just dozed off. Really, I’m ok Merilee you didn’t have to call the cops.”
“Please stop calling me Merilee, ok?” Merilee’s eyes flashed back and fourth between Linda and the cop.
“What do you mean stop calling you Merilee? Why would I do that?” Linda was a little confused, but Merilee always played these games with her, changing her name, her hair color, her taste in clothes.
“Ok,” the officer interrupted. “Ma’am do you have any sort of identification on you, so I can find out where you live.”
Linda grew even more confused. “This is where I live,” she demanded. “And stop calling me ma’am, my name is Linda.”
Merilee looked worried. She handed the police officer a wallet she picked up off of the dressing table. The police officer looked down at the driver’s license in the wallet. “Actually, your name is Rose,” the police officer said.
Linda’s eyes widened. “What are you talking about? What kind of joke is this Merilee?”
Merilee’s face contorted into annoyance, Linda thought another childish temper-tantrum was about to explode, but instead Merilee remained calm, she looked sad even. “Miss, my name is not Merilee its Erin and you’re in my attic.”
“You see…Rose, I got a call from Erin here and she told me you came into her home through the kitchen door and walked into the living room where she was watching TV. You started talking about Target and an oven…” The officer trailed off like he expected something to dawn on Linda. For her to confess something. But she just sat there looking incredulously at Erin and the cop.
“This is a terrible joke to play on me after the day I’ve had!” Linda shouted and stood up. Erin cautiously backed away and the officer took Linda by the shoulders, she shook him off. “I’m not some old woman. Don’t hold onto me like that. I don’t know what’s going on here but I will be calling city hall tomorrow to report you for barging in on me when I was napping because my daughter made a prank call!”
Linda snatched the wallet out of the officer’s hands and approached the dressing table to place it back in her purse. She caught a glimpse of her reflection and gasped. The officer and Erin, who had been standing a little away talking, turned to look at her.
Linda sat with her nose to the mirror, running her chapped, wrinkled hands over her face. “What happened to my face,” she repeated over and over again until hot tears ran down her cheeks. “I’m so old.”
Erin came to her and placed a youthful, warm hand on her shoulder. “Rose, I know you’re scared and upset but you have to tell me who I can call to help you. Do you have family in the area?”
She thought a moment and then it hit her, finally a true moment of clarity revealed itself to her admist all the scattered memories and logic. She looked up at Erin’s glorious, emerald eyes. “Yes, there is family in the area! I have a single daughter that lives in Matawan with my pretty but immature granddaughter,” she said.
The first time Linda noticed she had lost her mind was when she walked into Target, pushing a bright red cart, headed into the beauty aisle, and totally forgot why she was there. Not in the beauty aisle, but in Target.
She wracked her brain for a good five minutes before angrily huffing and puffing back to her car without making a purchase. On the way home, idling at a red light, Linda remembered why she went to Target in the first place. Soap, the store had a sale on soap and she was clean out of it at home. She made the next U-Turn and headed back to Target.
When she got home and put the soap away, she went into the living room to find someone to talk to about what had happened to her. Her daughter Merilee was lounging on the couch with a bowl of buttery popcorn, flipping through the channels.
“Merilee, I have to tell you what happened to me at Target,” she said, taking the remote and shutting of the TV.
“What are you doing?! I was watching that,” Merilee’s green eyes flashed with infantile anger.
“Oh please, you weren’t watching anything important, like the news.” Linda loved her daughter’s sweet childishness but sometimes she wanted Merilee to act like the sixteen year old she was. “I wanted to tell you what happened to me at Target.”
Merilee put on her detached stare and stiff set lips, preparing for an epic story about a clothing sale. It usually ended with Linda exhibiting matching tops for her and Merilee to wear out somewhere; which wouldn’t have been so bad if Linda’s style wasn’t so conservative.
“I drove all the way to Target and then completely forgot why I was there,” Linda said, as if revealing some profound secret.
“So? I do stuff like that all the time, it doesn’t mean anything,” Merilee grumbled.
“Yes it does. It means I’m getting old!” Tears formed in Linda’s eyes. She didn’t want to get old! She wanted to travel with her family, take up tennis, learn to drive a boat, not sit on the recliner all day watching talk shows.
Merilee rolled her eyes. “I have the youngest mom out of all my friends. You’re just so busy with stuff it must have slipped your mind, that’s all.”
Linda shook her head but she wasn’t entirely listening. “Yesterday I set the stove on pre-heat for no reason,” she said, mostly to herself. “And then I rewashed a clean load of laundry in the laundry room.” Her eyes glazed over and she became silent in thought.
“Hello? Hello!” Merilee grabbed Linda’s shoulders and shook her. “Are you ok? Maybe you should lie down and watch TV, Maury’s on.”
Linda’s eyes widened in fear, “Maury? No, no, I can’t watch that.” She stood up and slowly backed out of the room. “I’ll just go lie in bed.”
“Ok,” Merilee said, arching her eyebrows.
Linda backed into the hallway and then took off for the attic. She pried the stairs down from the string swinging freely at the end of the hallway. She was careful not to let the stairs hit the hardwoods in case Merilee would come investigating. The wooden stairs slid down at her like a ladder and she silently climbed to the top, using her arms to pull herself into the room.
Linda looked around. The attic was so plain and drafty without a floor, just wooden planks separated an inch apart, and the insulation exposed high above her head. But, it was tall enough to stand in so it was good enough to act as her escape nook.
She walked over to the rusted, gold-painted dressing table across the room and looked at herself in the spotted mirror. Her strawberry blonde hair hung in her face. It was straight and thin just like Merilee’s but Linda didn’t have Merilee’s captivating green eyes, hers were blue. And not a very powerful blue at that. The color appeared washed out, as if they were once a fierce navy but have been fading over time to match the whites of her eyes. Her ex-husband thought her eyes were exotic, until Alexia came along. Alexia was the most exotic woman Linda had ever seen. She was a Brazilian beauty with tan skin and thick thighs without an ounce of wrinkles or cellulite. No wonder he had run away with her, Linda would have to, if she went that way.
She sighed and sat back in the racer-back chair, staring up at the insulation and going over all of the mistakes she’d been making lately. What was happening to her mind? Was it dwindling out like her blue eyes? The deterioration was happening so quickly, what would she be left with by the end of next week?
Dementia ran in her family, her mother was only seventy and she was already lost to the disease. She had to be put into a home under surveillance. Otherwise she would wind up behind the wheel of a car on the freeway heading in no particular direction for any particular reason. Then Linda would get a call from a police station in some obscure town requesting she come pick up her mother, who had crashed into a store front and couldn’t recall a single detail about herself except that her single daughter lived in Matawan with her pretty but immature granddaughter.
Linda stood from the chair and paced the room for several minutes until she got tired of thinking of these things and laid on the spare bed in the corner and fell asleep.
II.
Linda awoke to a light shining in her eyes. “Mom, are you awake?” She thought she heard Merilee ask, and then an unfamiliar voice added, “Can you sit up?” Maybe it was her ex-husband’s weekend with Merilee and they came to say goodbye.
She squinted and pulled herself into an upright position. Her body felt like lead, which made her wonder how long she had been asleep for. When her eyes were fully adjusted she could see Merilee and a police officer with a flashlight standing before her. “Can I help you officer,” she asked.
“Ma’am, I got a call from this frightened young woman, she wanted to know what you’re doing up here.” The officer looked concerned, but not violent or angry.
“I must have just dozed off. Really, I’m ok Merilee you didn’t have to call the cops.”
“Please stop calling me Merilee, ok?” Merilee’s eyes flashed back and fourth between Linda and the cop.
“What do you mean stop calling you Merilee? Why would I do that?” Linda was a little confused, but Merilee always played these games with her, changing her name, her hair color, her taste in clothes.
“Ok,” the officer interrupted. “Ma’am do you have any sort of identification on you, so I can find out where you live.”
Linda grew even more confused. “This is where I live,” she demanded. “And stop calling me ma’am, my name is Linda.”
Merilee looked worried. She handed the police officer a wallet she picked up off of the dressing table. The police officer looked down at the driver’s license in the wallet. “Actually, your name is Rose,” the police officer said.
Linda’s eyes widened. “What are you talking about? What kind of joke is this Merilee?”
Merilee’s face contorted into annoyance, Linda thought another childish temper-tantrum was about to explode, but instead Merilee remained calm, she looked sad even. “Miss, my name is not Merilee its Erin and you’re in my attic.”
“You see…Rose, I got a call from Erin here and she told me you came into her home through the kitchen door and walked into the living room where she was watching TV. You started talking about Target and an oven…” The officer trailed off like he expected something to dawn on Linda. For her to confess something. But she just sat there looking incredulously at Erin and the cop.
“This is a terrible joke to play on me after the day I’ve had!” Linda shouted and stood up. Erin cautiously backed away and the officer took Linda by the shoulders, she shook him off. “I’m not some old woman. Don’t hold onto me like that. I don’t know what’s going on here but I will be calling city hall tomorrow to report you for barging in on me when I was napping because my daughter made a prank call!”
Linda snatched the wallet out of the officer’s hands and approached the dressing table to place it back in her purse. She caught a glimpse of her reflection and gasped. The officer and Erin, who had been standing a little away talking, turned to look at her.
Linda sat with her nose to the mirror, running her chapped, wrinkled hands over her face. “What happened to my face,” she repeated over and over again until hot tears ran down her cheeks. “I’m so old.”
Erin came to her and placed a youthful, warm hand on her shoulder. “Rose, I know you’re scared and upset but you have to tell me who I can call to help you. Do you have family in the area?”
She thought a moment and then it hit her, finally a true moment of clarity revealed itself to her admist all the scattered memories and logic. She looked up at Erin’s glorious, emerald eyes. “Yes, there is family in the area! I have a single daughter that lives in Matawan with my pretty but immature granddaughter,” she said.
Monday, January 4, 2010
The ring
Poetry wasn't always my forte. When I was younger, I really wanted to write novels or short fiction. After spending so much time trying to piece stories together and rereading the mumbo-jumbo that I was creating, I gave up and moved onto poetry. However, I recently began to read short stories again and was inspired to write my own. So here it is:
I.
Matthew secretly envied Brandon. He had everything Matthew wanted: a grande cape-cod on a quite street located in the heart of town with a large backyard and deck donning a hot tub. The very same hot tub Ava, Brandon’s slender, blonde wife used after every spinning session in their spare-room turned home-gym. Ava was everything Matthew was looking for in a woman but still couldn’t find. She loved to cook, and was good at it too. She made everything from scratch due to a severe health-consciousness that kept her and Brandon trim and fit, no matter how much Brandon drank. She loved animals, especially dogs and she even let her two pit-bulls lounge on the couches and sleep in her bed.
Matthew tried to find a woman like Ava, but no one he dated would cook for his friends on guy’s night or play poker on poker night; and, if they did win a few hands of poker, they never knew what hand they had and why it beat everyone else’s. Ava even made raking leaves look sexy, with her long legs in dark washed skinny jeans. Matthew didn’t think Brandon deserved Ava.
Brandon often ignored all of the trouble Ava went through to make things so easy for him. But Matthew complimented everything Ava did when he visited. Every time she presented a dish he made it a point to comment on it. If it was just a simple platter, he would compliment on the placement, noting her eye for colors and shapes. Things like this made it hard for Ava not to compliment Matthew in return. And this is how their relationship escalated from Brandon’s wife and friend of Brandon’s to Brandon’s wife and Brandon’s competition. Or, Matthew would have been competition for Brandon, if Brandon had noticed.
But typical of Brandon, he didn’t notice much outside of his own beliefs and preoccupations, like the TV and showing Ava off. In fact, that was the only time he noticed Ava, when he wanted his friends to know how good it was to be him. And, sadly, she would go along with it and do all of the “cool” things that would impress his friends, like ignoring an overturned, broken glass when Brandon would bump the table after hopping to his feet to cheer for his favorite team. Ava would swoop in, sweep up the glass, and just as quickly return with a new drink for her hubby. Brandon’s friends would slap him on the back; tell him how lucky he was he escaped a brawl with the wife. Brandon would laugh it off and say something like, “I already told you, she’s not like that. She doesn’t care about the same stuff your wives care about.”
But Matthew knew better. He would wait a couple of minutes for the guys to get absorbed into the game again and then he would head for the kitchen, Ava’s favorite location, so he could chat her up. He would talk about her dogs, cooking, mountain biking, the latest books, the oldest book, and men. He would speak at length about the habits of men, almost always using Brandon as his example. This turned their flirting up a dial and increased the sexual tension between them.
“You always know how to cheer me up,” Ava would say as she embraced him, making sure to press herself against him just enough to feel the warmth of his body.
Matthew would tingle all over and stumble over his words, “Anytime, you know I’m always here for you.”
But one time, Ava was different, more aggressive. Matthew came into the kitchen for his normal routine but Ava wasn’t having it. As soon as he stepped through the swinging doors her eyes filled with something Matthew didn’t recognize: hunger. He tried to chat her up on the normal topics.
“Are you OK? That’s the second time today that Brandon knocked something over. He’s getting worse and worse every time I'm here.”
At first, Ava’s hunger was minimal and she smiled slightly, “Yeah, it seems that way. I don’t know how much longer I can take it.”
“I don’t blame you. It’s sad when guys start caring too much about having their friends over and impressing them, like they have to compensate for something. Like Brandon, he has to show you off in order to show his friends how good he has it, when really he’s just turning into a drunk. I’m sorry to have to say that but it’s true.” Matthew waited for the tear-rimmed eyes to find his, to feel the arousal Ava’s vulnerability brought out in him. But it wasn’t there.
Instead, fierce blue eyes met his, eyes that wanted something new. He tried to keep the rouse going. “Anyway, I just wanted to make sure you were OK. I hate it when he treats you that way, you don’t deserve it.” She was still watching him, like a lynx, waiting to run in for the kill. “You two are so different; I mean you’ve read The Anthology of American Poetry twice! And what has he read, besides the police beats in the paper?” It wasn’t working.
Ava approached him, her eyes slowly running over him. His heart raced and his mouth ran dry, he licked his lips for moisture and tugged at his shirt collar. Ava was face-to-face with him, nose-to-nose with him, lips-to-lips with him. She slipped her tongue into his mouth and a flame of passion fueled between them, right there in her kitchen with Brandon in the other room, screaming at the TV.
The kiss was long and hot. Ava rubbed her body against Matthew’s and he rubbed his back. He slipped his hand up her shirt and sucked her neck. She was breathing heavy in his ear. This is what he was waiting for, all of his plans were finally paying off! He ran his hand up her smooth, tight thighs, a cycler’s thighs; each muscle accentuated and hard. She moaned, only loud enough for him to hear.
There were footsteps in the hall, they pulled away from each other and Ava briskly made her way over to the stove and turned on the kettle. Matthew sat at the kitchen table and adjusted himself, averting his erection downward. Ava adjusted herself as well, pulling her panties and bra back into place. Brandon stumbled through the swinging doors.
“What the hell are you doing in here,” Brandon slurred, eyeing the tea kettle. “Having tea? HA! You faggot, having tea with Ava. Where’s your beer?” He slapped Matthew on the shoulder.
“I have to drive man, I have to sober up a little,” he winked at Ava. Matthew hardly ever drank at Brandon’s house. He wanted to show Ava how a real man should act, how a real man should be able to control himself.
“Oh, whatever, you’re such a pussy.” Brandon laughed at himself before he shouted, “Hey guys, this pussy is drinking tea! HA!" Then he fell back out of the kitchen and into the living room.
As soon as he was gone, Ava was right back to pulling Matthew close to her. “Wait, wait, wait,” Matthew said holding up his arms to stop her. “What are we doing? What is this, between us?”
Ava considered it for a moment. “It’s me cheating on my husband.” The way she said it so plainly aroused Matthew again, as if she considered cheating for some time now. As if, there was no love left in her heart for Brandon and she was ready for someone knew. Matthew thought, that’s how good my skills are, I made Ava realize that she has to cheat on her husband, she has to leave him, and be with me.
He smiled down at her. “Not here,” he said. “At my place. Come to dinner at my place tomorrow night.”
Ava nodded and turned back to the stove, taking the screaming kettle off of the flame. As her back was turned, Matthew snuck out of the kitchen, happy to have caged the bird that evaded his grasp for three years.
II.
The following day Matthew was tense. He couldn’t focus on his work and Brandon noticed it. He called Matthew into his office to remind him that, although they were best friends, he couldn’t cover for Matthew as his boss, it would look like favoritism. Matthew stared absent-mindedly at Brandon until his lecture was over and then shuffled back to his desk, still unable to concentrate.
At lunch time his cell phone vibrated in a circle on his desk. He looked at the screen, he had a text message. He opened the text message but didn’t recognize the number.
“Let’s meet,” it read.
“Who is this?” He replied.
“Who do you think it is?”
Matthew began to sweat. Was it Ava? Or Samantha? Or Liz? It could be any one of the women he was with in the past week. He had to think of something smooth to get him out of a losing guessing game. He sent back: “Mom?”
A few moments passed before the next message came. Matthew’s hands began to sweat as he hit the OK button to read the message. “No silly, it’s Ava. I got your number from Brandon’s phone.”
Matthew breathed a sigh of relief, and happiness. The woman of his dreams was after him! He didn’t have to waste his time with all of those other women anymore. “I’m so happy to hear from you. Are we still on for tonight?”
“I’m not so sure about tonight…”
Matthew’s heart skipped a beat. “What do you mean ‘not so sure’?”
“I can’t wait. Let’s meet for lunch.”
A goofy smile spread across Matthew’s face and he looked up quickly to make sure no one in the office noticed. “My place,” he said.
“Be there at 1.”
Matthew’s heart was beating fast and he had dry mouth again. Ava made him feel like he was high, like he popped two of the best ecstasy pills in New York. He cleaned up his desk, keeping his eye on the bottom right corner of his computer, watching the minutes pass by. By 12:50 p.m. he was shoving his thick, muscular arms into his suit jacket like a clumsy high school kid on a first date.
He flew to his apartment and found Ava standing at his door in such a sheer, white dress, he could just make out the thong she wore beneath it. Her hair looked radiant, shiny gold flowing down her back. He couldn’t wait. They kissed, repeating the incident in her kitchen but this time against his apartment door. Before he knew it, they were making love right there, not caring who might come into the hallway.
Ava was an amazing lover. She wrapped one leg around Matthew’s waist and didn’t let go the entire time. She didn’t cramp, she didn’t try to make Matthew hold her weight. Nor did she close her eyes. She kissed him fully and ran her hands through his hair, down his back. Matthew couldn’t help but think that this is how it was going to be from here on in. Ava would make love to him like this every night and he would pay attention to her every need, the doting husband that a doting wife deserved.
When they were finished Matthew opened the door and let Ava inside. She teetered over to the couch, drunk from sex. She gracefully placed herself on the couch and tried to gather her thoughts. Matthew grabbed two water bottles from the kitchen and handed her one. She drank quietly, never taking her eyes off of him. Matthew was unnerved by this new habit.
“You stare at me so much lately,” he said, kind of awkwardly.
Her lips curled into a thin smile and her cheeks flushed pink. “I can’t help it.”
Matthew was silent a moment, his heart melting at her innocent demeanor. And then he sighed, and sat on the arm of the couch next to her. He took her hand, kissed it, and then placed it in his lap. “We have to talk about this,” he said.
Ava nodded and finally pulled her eyes away from him, and into her own lap. “I don’t know what to say…” she tried to start.
“You don’t have to say anything,” Matthew interjected, becoming animated. “I already know, and I love you too. You can leave Brandon, it won’t be as hard as it is for some wives because of the way he treats you. You can move in here, with me, and I’ll take a job at a different ad firm. Procter & Gamble offered me a great job last month;. Maybe I can go there…”
Ava’s eyes grew bigger and bigger as Matthew continued on in minute detail of how they would spend their lives together. Finally, she held up her thin, pale hand, showing Matthew her huge diamond wedding band setting. Matthew’s mouth closed instantly.
“Matthew, do you see this ring? I can never take off this ring…”
He jumped in again. “Yes you can! I know it will be hard at first but…”
“No, you don’t understand. I can never take off this ring, if I do, I’ll die.”
Matthew wasn’t understanding, he kept talking about hearts healing over time and buying a new ring for her in the future. Ava kept shaking her head, not to say no, but to show that she felt pity for him. Matthew ran out of breath from all of the pleading. His chest heaved and his dark eyes were watery.
“I cannot take off this ring because it’s a poison ring,” Ava tried to explain. “Brandon gave it to me on our wedding night so I would never leave him. I didn’t know it was a poison ring until I got sick on our honeymoon. I knew I couldn’t have gotten pregnant that fast so I went to a doctor. He didn’t know what was wrong with me, and neither did the other twelve doctors I saw once we got home. I was so fed up I researched my symptoms online and found a website about ancient rings. I thought it was baloney until I confronted Brandon.”
Sobriety hit Matthew, hard. His heart was racing and his mouth was dry, not in anticipation or passion any longer, but in anger. His eyes flashed and he clenched his fist. “What did he say about it?”
“He told me like it was so simple,” tears swam into Ava’s eyes. “He said, ‘If you ever take that ring off, you’ll die. And, if you ever leave me, you’ll die.’ I’m so scared to find out what that last part meant, Matthew. I can’t leave him.”
Matthew clenched his first tighter, he also clenched his jaw. “He’s lying. You can leave him. The ring won’t know who you’re with if you run away. We can run away.”
Ava shook her head and tears fell onto her dress. “I can’t do it. I have to go.” She stood up quickly and made her way to the door.
Matthew gently grabbed her arm, her instability scared him. “You don’t have to go back to him, we can leave. We can leave right now.” He looked into her eyes, trying to draw her back to reality. He didn’t believe in a poison ring, he believed Brandon was just as amazing at hoaxes as he was in college. But this time he concocted something sinister to scare his poor, mistreated wife into staying with him when he knew it was over between them.
But Ava wouldn’t hear any of it. She forced her way through the door and down the stairs of his building, disappearing from his sight. Matthew’s heart heaved as he fell against his door, pissed at Brandon and sad for Ava.
Matthew made it back to work just in time for Brandon to call him back in for another lecture.
“What’s up with you today, man?” Brandon spoke lowly. “I’ve been covering your ass all day and then you come back late from lunch? How am I supposed to explain that now?”
Matthew glowered at him and said, “I went to lunch with Ava.” There, he said it, he tried to push it deep down inside of him but Brandon’s hoity-toity attitude pushed him over the edge. “You think you’re such a hot shot, but Ava doesn’t.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean? You think I don’t notice how you drool all over my wife? You follow her around like her stupid dogs, with those sad puppy eyes and pathetic attempts to make her notice you. Like you really drink tea? Who'd you think you were kidding?”
Matthew tried to breath deeply, to keep from erupting and exploding the ugly truth all over Brandon’s pretty corner office with the skyline view. But he couldn’t. “I fucked your wife in the hallway of my apartment,” he said with such cold bluntness, trying to injure his friend.
Brandon slammed his fist on his desk, shaking everything on it, and knocking his name plate to the carpet. Everyone in the office stopped to look at them, probably wondering why these two best friends and great ad partners were having a row. Brandon looked out at them all and immediately gained his composure. He sat down and leaned back in his black, leather chair eyeing Matthew up.
“Why did you do it,” Brandon asked calmly.
“I love her,” Matthew said, catching Brandon off guard.
But again, he regained his composure. “No you don’t. You love me. You love me so much you want to be me and that includes having my job, my house, and my wife.”
“She’s not your wife anymore.”
“She will always be my wife.”
“You’ll try to stay with her, even when she sneaks around to be with me?”
“Yes.”
“You won’t divorce her, even if we run away together?”
Brandon let out a guttural, almost deranged laugh. “Run away? You think you two are going to run away?” He slapped his desk and his face turned red. “That’s the funniest fucking thing I’ve heard all week.”
Matthew wiggled in his chair. This is not the response he was expecting. He was expecting to shatter Brandon’s world and to walk out the victor, now he wasn’t so sure.
Brandon’s face contorted into anger as simultaneously as it twisted into an evil smile. “You and Ava are not running away and, if you get anywhere near her, I’ll kill her.”
Matthew needed to gain the upper hand. He had to take control of the situation. But what could he say? Brandon was acting like a lunatic! He swallowed, again his throat was dry. From what now, he wondered. Fear, panic? “Don’t…don’t exaggerate the situation,” was all he could spit out and Brandon laughed again.
A few more moments of Brandon’s laughing and face-reddening allowed Matthew to think of a way to gain control. “You would never kill her. You need her to feel good about yourself. Fucking pathetic. You can’t even be a real man and treat her the way she deserves. That’s why she loves me. I’m the real man she should have married years ago. You’re just pissed off that she finds you so repulsive you had to fill her head with all of these bullshit threats to stay with you. And now, you’re trying to scare me too. Well, it’s not going to work. I’m taking Ava away from you and there’s not a fucking thing you can do to stop me.” Matthew stormed out of the office, slamming Brandon’s full glass door behind him. Again, all eyes rested on Brandon, and his red face.
III.
Brandon drove like a madman trying to get home to Ava. He was fuming from having to make up some excuse for his and Matthew’s fight. He assured everyone he wasn’t bringing his home life into work and that the fight was over an ad account and that Matthew would not be returning to Schuster & Morgan any time soon. Then he had to sit patiently while his boss chewed his ear off about hiring a college buddy to handle precious accounts. By the time he got to his car, he was good and ready to pry that ring off Ava’s delicate ring finger.
He sped home and flew into the driveway, bumping Ava’s Subaru. He jumped out of the car and flew into the house full of rage. But the house was quiet. The mocha and latte colored living room looked exactly as it did the night before, two empty beer bottles and an ashtray full of cigarettes on the table. Ava hadn’t cleaned a damned thing. This pissed Brandon off even more, he allowed Ava to stay home, to be a housewife as along as she kept things in order! He punched opened the swinging doors and stomped into the kitchen. But that too looked exactly as it did the night before, spotless and scentless. Ava hadn’t made anything for dinner. Brandon growled as he went back into the hallway.
“Ava!” He yelled over and over again, his voice echoing in the vaulted rooms. There was no answer, there was no Ava.
Brandon ran up the stairs to their bedroom. If she ran away with Matthew she would have taken all of her clothes, he thought. Ava left everything behind. Brandon was baffled. Ava loved her fifty pairs of shoes and walk-in closet full of clothes from dozens of different designers that he bought her after every time he acted like a jerk. She never would have left them behind, he was sure of it!
Brandon skipped several stairs as he made his way back out to his car. He slammed his Mercedes into reverse, made his way out of the semicircular driveway, punched his car into drive, and sped toward the highway.
IV.
Ava’s head was nestled into Matthew’s shoulder. They had been driving for thirty hours straight. Matthew’s head felt heavy with sleep but after running into Brandon, who was passing around flyers with Ava’s picture at a gas station, Matthew decided they couldn’t stop for at least another twenty miles. (Thank God he drove a Chevy Volt!)
They had pulled over for a quick bite to eat and bathroom break. Matthew headed for the bathrooms while Ava perused the shelves for something remotely healthy. Brandon entered with poster in hand and asked the store clerk if he had seen this missing woman. The clerk smirked and pointed to Ava in a yellow sundress, bent over the bags of trail mix and granola bars, trying to decide what to buy. Brandon winked at the man and quietly made his way toward her from behind. But before he could reach her, Matthew yelled for her to run and they both bolted toward the door. They were almost at the car when Brandon grabbed Ava’s hand, but Matthew pulled it away as gently as he could and they safely escaped the gas station.
In the silence of Ava’s peaceful sleep and tuned off radio, Matthew wondered why, if Ava was wearing a poisonous ring that would kill her upon leaving, Brandon would hunt for her. Maybe he was scared that once they settled, Matthew would take her to the police, the hospital, or some sort of ancient specialist to remove the ring? These thoughts flew around his mind like moths around a light bulb, bouncing numbly into each other.
His cell phone vibrated in the center console. He picked it up and strained his eyes to read the screen in the dark. It was a text message, from Brandon.
The gray pixels squeezed together to form the message: “She’s dead.”
Matthew frowned at the message and thought that was a rather weak threat by the man who almost had Ava in his claws thirty hours ago. He must be wearing down.
Matthew shook Ava so that she could laugh at the message with him. They had eluded the tyrant, defeated Goliath. They were the victors. But Ava’s body shook loosely and her eyes did not open. Matthew thought how tired she must be, fleeing her husband then almost getting caught in a violent struggle. He reached for her rosy, blushing cheek. He touched her face and recoiled from the frost. He tried to look down at her but couldn’t take his eyes off the road. He pulled his car into the shoulder and skidded to a stop.
He lifted Ava’s face, her eyes were still shut, her lips pulled tight. He shook her limp body. But there was no response. Tears sprung from his eyes and he shook her again, harder this time. Still no response. He screamed as he lugged her out of the front seat and placed her flat on the asphalt. He tried to wipe away the salty tears and snot running from his face long enough to try CPR. But it didn't work.
Matthew pulled at his hair, punched his own face and head, screamed, cried, and repeatedly kicked his car before falling to his knees in anguish. He lay on the ground next to Ava, sobbing until he was dehydrated and no more tears would form. Then he lay in silence, listening, hoping breath would return to her. He sat up and took her beautiful hand in hers and kissed it as he always did. What was it? What did he miss? He looked at her hand. The ring! The ring was missing!
Matthew dropped Ava’s hand and scoured his car and the ground for the large diamond solitaire placed in an even bigger diamond setting. But it was nowhere, not on the floor nor tucked into the seats. He sat against the car door and closed his eyes to retrace their steps. Where could she have lost…?
At the gas station.
At the gas station where they ran into Brandon. He wasn’t trying to claw her to bring her home. He was clawing her to take back the ring. And he succeeded. The text message was right.
She’s dead.
The Ring
I.
Matthew secretly envied Brandon. He had everything Matthew wanted: a grande cape-cod on a quite street located in the heart of town with a large backyard and deck donning a hot tub. The very same hot tub Ava, Brandon’s slender, blonde wife used after every spinning session in their spare-room turned home-gym. Ava was everything Matthew was looking for in a woman but still couldn’t find. She loved to cook, and was good at it too. She made everything from scratch due to a severe health-consciousness that kept her and Brandon trim and fit, no matter how much Brandon drank. She loved animals, especially dogs and she even let her two pit-bulls lounge on the couches and sleep in her bed.
Matthew tried to find a woman like Ava, but no one he dated would cook for his friends on guy’s night or play poker on poker night; and, if they did win a few hands of poker, they never knew what hand they had and why it beat everyone else’s. Ava even made raking leaves look sexy, with her long legs in dark washed skinny jeans. Matthew didn’t think Brandon deserved Ava.
Brandon often ignored all of the trouble Ava went through to make things so easy for him. But Matthew complimented everything Ava did when he visited. Every time she presented a dish he made it a point to comment on it. If it was just a simple platter, he would compliment on the placement, noting her eye for colors and shapes. Things like this made it hard for Ava not to compliment Matthew in return. And this is how their relationship escalated from Brandon’s wife and friend of Brandon’s to Brandon’s wife and Brandon’s competition. Or, Matthew would have been competition for Brandon, if Brandon had noticed.
But typical of Brandon, he didn’t notice much outside of his own beliefs and preoccupations, like the TV and showing Ava off. In fact, that was the only time he noticed Ava, when he wanted his friends to know how good it was to be him. And, sadly, she would go along with it and do all of the “cool” things that would impress his friends, like ignoring an overturned, broken glass when Brandon would bump the table after hopping to his feet to cheer for his favorite team. Ava would swoop in, sweep up the glass, and just as quickly return with a new drink for her hubby. Brandon’s friends would slap him on the back; tell him how lucky he was he escaped a brawl with the wife. Brandon would laugh it off and say something like, “I already told you, she’s not like that. She doesn’t care about the same stuff your wives care about.”
But Matthew knew better. He would wait a couple of minutes for the guys to get absorbed into the game again and then he would head for the kitchen, Ava’s favorite location, so he could chat her up. He would talk about her dogs, cooking, mountain biking, the latest books, the oldest book, and men. He would speak at length about the habits of men, almost always using Brandon as his example. This turned their flirting up a dial and increased the sexual tension between them.
“You always know how to cheer me up,” Ava would say as she embraced him, making sure to press herself against him just enough to feel the warmth of his body.
Matthew would tingle all over and stumble over his words, “Anytime, you know I’m always here for you.”
But one time, Ava was different, more aggressive. Matthew came into the kitchen for his normal routine but Ava wasn’t having it. As soon as he stepped through the swinging doors her eyes filled with something Matthew didn’t recognize: hunger. He tried to chat her up on the normal topics.
“Are you OK? That’s the second time today that Brandon knocked something over. He’s getting worse and worse every time I'm here.”
At first, Ava’s hunger was minimal and she smiled slightly, “Yeah, it seems that way. I don’t know how much longer I can take it.”
“I don’t blame you. It’s sad when guys start caring too much about having their friends over and impressing them, like they have to compensate for something. Like Brandon, he has to show you off in order to show his friends how good he has it, when really he’s just turning into a drunk. I’m sorry to have to say that but it’s true.” Matthew waited for the tear-rimmed eyes to find his, to feel the arousal Ava’s vulnerability brought out in him. But it wasn’t there.
Instead, fierce blue eyes met his, eyes that wanted something new. He tried to keep the rouse going. “Anyway, I just wanted to make sure you were OK. I hate it when he treats you that way, you don’t deserve it.” She was still watching him, like a lynx, waiting to run in for the kill. “You two are so different; I mean you’ve read The Anthology of American Poetry twice! And what has he read, besides the police beats in the paper?” It wasn’t working.
Ava approached him, her eyes slowly running over him. His heart raced and his mouth ran dry, he licked his lips for moisture and tugged at his shirt collar. Ava was face-to-face with him, nose-to-nose with him, lips-to-lips with him. She slipped her tongue into his mouth and a flame of passion fueled between them, right there in her kitchen with Brandon in the other room, screaming at the TV.
The kiss was long and hot. Ava rubbed her body against Matthew’s and he rubbed his back. He slipped his hand up her shirt and sucked her neck. She was breathing heavy in his ear. This is what he was waiting for, all of his plans were finally paying off! He ran his hand up her smooth, tight thighs, a cycler’s thighs; each muscle accentuated and hard. She moaned, only loud enough for him to hear.
There were footsteps in the hall, they pulled away from each other and Ava briskly made her way over to the stove and turned on the kettle. Matthew sat at the kitchen table and adjusted himself, averting his erection downward. Ava adjusted herself as well, pulling her panties and bra back into place. Brandon stumbled through the swinging doors.
“What the hell are you doing in here,” Brandon slurred, eyeing the tea kettle. “Having tea? HA! You faggot, having tea with Ava. Where’s your beer?” He slapped Matthew on the shoulder.
“I have to drive man, I have to sober up a little,” he winked at Ava. Matthew hardly ever drank at Brandon’s house. He wanted to show Ava how a real man should act, how a real man should be able to control himself.
“Oh, whatever, you’re such a pussy.” Brandon laughed at himself before he shouted, “Hey guys, this pussy is drinking tea! HA!" Then he fell back out of the kitchen and into the living room.
As soon as he was gone, Ava was right back to pulling Matthew close to her. “Wait, wait, wait,” Matthew said holding up his arms to stop her. “What are we doing? What is this, between us?”
Ava considered it for a moment. “It’s me cheating on my husband.” The way she said it so plainly aroused Matthew again, as if she considered cheating for some time now. As if, there was no love left in her heart for Brandon and she was ready for someone knew. Matthew thought, that’s how good my skills are, I made Ava realize that she has to cheat on her husband, she has to leave him, and be with me.
He smiled down at her. “Not here,” he said. “At my place. Come to dinner at my place tomorrow night.”
Ava nodded and turned back to the stove, taking the screaming kettle off of the flame. As her back was turned, Matthew snuck out of the kitchen, happy to have caged the bird that evaded his grasp for three years.
II.
The following day Matthew was tense. He couldn’t focus on his work and Brandon noticed it. He called Matthew into his office to remind him that, although they were best friends, he couldn’t cover for Matthew as his boss, it would look like favoritism. Matthew stared absent-mindedly at Brandon until his lecture was over and then shuffled back to his desk, still unable to concentrate.
At lunch time his cell phone vibrated in a circle on his desk. He looked at the screen, he had a text message. He opened the text message but didn’t recognize the number.
“Let’s meet,” it read.
“Who is this?” He replied.
“Who do you think it is?”
Matthew began to sweat. Was it Ava? Or Samantha? Or Liz? It could be any one of the women he was with in the past week. He had to think of something smooth to get him out of a losing guessing game. He sent back: “Mom?”
A few moments passed before the next message came. Matthew’s hands began to sweat as he hit the OK button to read the message. “No silly, it’s Ava. I got your number from Brandon’s phone.”
Matthew breathed a sigh of relief, and happiness. The woman of his dreams was after him! He didn’t have to waste his time with all of those other women anymore. “I’m so happy to hear from you. Are we still on for tonight?”
“I’m not so sure about tonight…”
Matthew’s heart skipped a beat. “What do you mean ‘not so sure’?”
“I can’t wait. Let’s meet for lunch.”
A goofy smile spread across Matthew’s face and he looked up quickly to make sure no one in the office noticed. “My place,” he said.
“Be there at 1.”
Matthew’s heart was beating fast and he had dry mouth again. Ava made him feel like he was high, like he popped two of the best ecstasy pills in New York. He cleaned up his desk, keeping his eye on the bottom right corner of his computer, watching the minutes pass by. By 12:50 p.m. he was shoving his thick, muscular arms into his suit jacket like a clumsy high school kid on a first date.
He flew to his apartment and found Ava standing at his door in such a sheer, white dress, he could just make out the thong she wore beneath it. Her hair looked radiant, shiny gold flowing down her back. He couldn’t wait. They kissed, repeating the incident in her kitchen but this time against his apartment door. Before he knew it, they were making love right there, not caring who might come into the hallway.
Ava was an amazing lover. She wrapped one leg around Matthew’s waist and didn’t let go the entire time. She didn’t cramp, she didn’t try to make Matthew hold her weight. Nor did she close her eyes. She kissed him fully and ran her hands through his hair, down his back. Matthew couldn’t help but think that this is how it was going to be from here on in. Ava would make love to him like this every night and he would pay attention to her every need, the doting husband that a doting wife deserved.
When they were finished Matthew opened the door and let Ava inside. She teetered over to the couch, drunk from sex. She gracefully placed herself on the couch and tried to gather her thoughts. Matthew grabbed two water bottles from the kitchen and handed her one. She drank quietly, never taking her eyes off of him. Matthew was unnerved by this new habit.
“You stare at me so much lately,” he said, kind of awkwardly.
Her lips curled into a thin smile and her cheeks flushed pink. “I can’t help it.”
Matthew was silent a moment, his heart melting at her innocent demeanor. And then he sighed, and sat on the arm of the couch next to her. He took her hand, kissed it, and then placed it in his lap. “We have to talk about this,” he said.
Ava nodded and finally pulled her eyes away from him, and into her own lap. “I don’t know what to say…” she tried to start.
“You don’t have to say anything,” Matthew interjected, becoming animated. “I already know, and I love you too. You can leave Brandon, it won’t be as hard as it is for some wives because of the way he treats you. You can move in here, with me, and I’ll take a job at a different ad firm. Procter & Gamble offered me a great job last month;. Maybe I can go there…”
Ava’s eyes grew bigger and bigger as Matthew continued on in minute detail of how they would spend their lives together. Finally, she held up her thin, pale hand, showing Matthew her huge diamond wedding band setting. Matthew’s mouth closed instantly.
“Matthew, do you see this ring? I can never take off this ring…”
He jumped in again. “Yes you can! I know it will be hard at first but…”
“No, you don’t understand. I can never take off this ring, if I do, I’ll die.”
Matthew wasn’t understanding, he kept talking about hearts healing over time and buying a new ring for her in the future. Ava kept shaking her head, not to say no, but to show that she felt pity for him. Matthew ran out of breath from all of the pleading. His chest heaved and his dark eyes were watery.
“I cannot take off this ring because it’s a poison ring,” Ava tried to explain. “Brandon gave it to me on our wedding night so I would never leave him. I didn’t know it was a poison ring until I got sick on our honeymoon. I knew I couldn’t have gotten pregnant that fast so I went to a doctor. He didn’t know what was wrong with me, and neither did the other twelve doctors I saw once we got home. I was so fed up I researched my symptoms online and found a website about ancient rings. I thought it was baloney until I confronted Brandon.”
Sobriety hit Matthew, hard. His heart was racing and his mouth was dry, not in anticipation or passion any longer, but in anger. His eyes flashed and he clenched his fist. “What did he say about it?”
“He told me like it was so simple,” tears swam into Ava’s eyes. “He said, ‘If you ever take that ring off, you’ll die. And, if you ever leave me, you’ll die.’ I’m so scared to find out what that last part meant, Matthew. I can’t leave him.”
Matthew clenched his first tighter, he also clenched his jaw. “He’s lying. You can leave him. The ring won’t know who you’re with if you run away. We can run away.”
Ava shook her head and tears fell onto her dress. “I can’t do it. I have to go.” She stood up quickly and made her way to the door.
Matthew gently grabbed her arm, her instability scared him. “You don’t have to go back to him, we can leave. We can leave right now.” He looked into her eyes, trying to draw her back to reality. He didn’t believe in a poison ring, he believed Brandon was just as amazing at hoaxes as he was in college. But this time he concocted something sinister to scare his poor, mistreated wife into staying with him when he knew it was over between them.
But Ava wouldn’t hear any of it. She forced her way through the door and down the stairs of his building, disappearing from his sight. Matthew’s heart heaved as he fell against his door, pissed at Brandon and sad for Ava.
Matthew made it back to work just in time for Brandon to call him back in for another lecture.
“What’s up with you today, man?” Brandon spoke lowly. “I’ve been covering your ass all day and then you come back late from lunch? How am I supposed to explain that now?”
Matthew glowered at him and said, “I went to lunch with Ava.” There, he said it, he tried to push it deep down inside of him but Brandon’s hoity-toity attitude pushed him over the edge. “You think you’re such a hot shot, but Ava doesn’t.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean? You think I don’t notice how you drool all over my wife? You follow her around like her stupid dogs, with those sad puppy eyes and pathetic attempts to make her notice you. Like you really drink tea? Who'd you think you were kidding?”
Matthew tried to breath deeply, to keep from erupting and exploding the ugly truth all over Brandon’s pretty corner office with the skyline view. But he couldn’t. “I fucked your wife in the hallway of my apartment,” he said with such cold bluntness, trying to injure his friend.
Brandon slammed his fist on his desk, shaking everything on it, and knocking his name plate to the carpet. Everyone in the office stopped to look at them, probably wondering why these two best friends and great ad partners were having a row. Brandon looked out at them all and immediately gained his composure. He sat down and leaned back in his black, leather chair eyeing Matthew up.
“Why did you do it,” Brandon asked calmly.
“I love her,” Matthew said, catching Brandon off guard.
But again, he regained his composure. “No you don’t. You love me. You love me so much you want to be me and that includes having my job, my house, and my wife.”
“She’s not your wife anymore.”
“She will always be my wife.”
“You’ll try to stay with her, even when she sneaks around to be with me?”
“Yes.”
“You won’t divorce her, even if we run away together?”
Brandon let out a guttural, almost deranged laugh. “Run away? You think you two are going to run away?” He slapped his desk and his face turned red. “That’s the funniest fucking thing I’ve heard all week.”
Matthew wiggled in his chair. This is not the response he was expecting. He was expecting to shatter Brandon’s world and to walk out the victor, now he wasn’t so sure.
Brandon’s face contorted into anger as simultaneously as it twisted into an evil smile. “You and Ava are not running away and, if you get anywhere near her, I’ll kill her.”
Matthew needed to gain the upper hand. He had to take control of the situation. But what could he say? Brandon was acting like a lunatic! He swallowed, again his throat was dry. From what now, he wondered. Fear, panic? “Don’t…don’t exaggerate the situation,” was all he could spit out and Brandon laughed again.
A few more moments of Brandon’s laughing and face-reddening allowed Matthew to think of a way to gain control. “You would never kill her. You need her to feel good about yourself. Fucking pathetic. You can’t even be a real man and treat her the way she deserves. That’s why she loves me. I’m the real man she should have married years ago. You’re just pissed off that she finds you so repulsive you had to fill her head with all of these bullshit threats to stay with you. And now, you’re trying to scare me too. Well, it’s not going to work. I’m taking Ava away from you and there’s not a fucking thing you can do to stop me.” Matthew stormed out of the office, slamming Brandon’s full glass door behind him. Again, all eyes rested on Brandon, and his red face.
III.
Brandon drove like a madman trying to get home to Ava. He was fuming from having to make up some excuse for his and Matthew’s fight. He assured everyone he wasn’t bringing his home life into work and that the fight was over an ad account and that Matthew would not be returning to Schuster & Morgan any time soon. Then he had to sit patiently while his boss chewed his ear off about hiring a college buddy to handle precious accounts. By the time he got to his car, he was good and ready to pry that ring off Ava’s delicate ring finger.
He sped home and flew into the driveway, bumping Ava’s Subaru. He jumped out of the car and flew into the house full of rage. But the house was quiet. The mocha and latte colored living room looked exactly as it did the night before, two empty beer bottles and an ashtray full of cigarettes on the table. Ava hadn’t cleaned a damned thing. This pissed Brandon off even more, he allowed Ava to stay home, to be a housewife as along as she kept things in order! He punched opened the swinging doors and stomped into the kitchen. But that too looked exactly as it did the night before, spotless and scentless. Ava hadn’t made anything for dinner. Brandon growled as he went back into the hallway.
“Ava!” He yelled over and over again, his voice echoing in the vaulted rooms. There was no answer, there was no Ava.
Brandon ran up the stairs to their bedroom. If she ran away with Matthew she would have taken all of her clothes, he thought. Ava left everything behind. Brandon was baffled. Ava loved her fifty pairs of shoes and walk-in closet full of clothes from dozens of different designers that he bought her after every time he acted like a jerk. She never would have left them behind, he was sure of it!
Brandon skipped several stairs as he made his way back out to his car. He slammed his Mercedes into reverse, made his way out of the semicircular driveway, punched his car into drive, and sped toward the highway.
IV.
Ava’s head was nestled into Matthew’s shoulder. They had been driving for thirty hours straight. Matthew’s head felt heavy with sleep but after running into Brandon, who was passing around flyers with Ava’s picture at a gas station, Matthew decided they couldn’t stop for at least another twenty miles. (Thank God he drove a Chevy Volt!)
They had pulled over for a quick bite to eat and bathroom break. Matthew headed for the bathrooms while Ava perused the shelves for something remotely healthy. Brandon entered with poster in hand and asked the store clerk if he had seen this missing woman. The clerk smirked and pointed to Ava in a yellow sundress, bent over the bags of trail mix and granola bars, trying to decide what to buy. Brandon winked at the man and quietly made his way toward her from behind. But before he could reach her, Matthew yelled for her to run and they both bolted toward the door. They were almost at the car when Brandon grabbed Ava’s hand, but Matthew pulled it away as gently as he could and they safely escaped the gas station.
In the silence of Ava’s peaceful sleep and tuned off radio, Matthew wondered why, if Ava was wearing a poisonous ring that would kill her upon leaving, Brandon would hunt for her. Maybe he was scared that once they settled, Matthew would take her to the police, the hospital, or some sort of ancient specialist to remove the ring? These thoughts flew around his mind like moths around a light bulb, bouncing numbly into each other.
His cell phone vibrated in the center console. He picked it up and strained his eyes to read the screen in the dark. It was a text message, from Brandon.
The gray pixels squeezed together to form the message: “She’s dead.”
Matthew frowned at the message and thought that was a rather weak threat by the man who almost had Ava in his claws thirty hours ago. He must be wearing down.
Matthew shook Ava so that she could laugh at the message with him. They had eluded the tyrant, defeated Goliath. They were the victors. But Ava’s body shook loosely and her eyes did not open. Matthew thought how tired she must be, fleeing her husband then almost getting caught in a violent struggle. He reached for her rosy, blushing cheek. He touched her face and recoiled from the frost. He tried to look down at her but couldn’t take his eyes off the road. He pulled his car into the shoulder and skidded to a stop.
He lifted Ava’s face, her eyes were still shut, her lips pulled tight. He shook her limp body. But there was no response. Tears sprung from his eyes and he shook her again, harder this time. Still no response. He screamed as he lugged her out of the front seat and placed her flat on the asphalt. He tried to wipe away the salty tears and snot running from his face long enough to try CPR. But it didn't work.
Matthew pulled at his hair, punched his own face and head, screamed, cried, and repeatedly kicked his car before falling to his knees in anguish. He lay on the ground next to Ava, sobbing until he was dehydrated and no more tears would form. Then he lay in silence, listening, hoping breath would return to her. He sat up and took her beautiful hand in hers and kissed it as he always did. What was it? What did he miss? He looked at her hand. The ring! The ring was missing!
Matthew dropped Ava’s hand and scoured his car and the ground for the large diamond solitaire placed in an even bigger diamond setting. But it was nowhere, not on the floor nor tucked into the seats. He sat against the car door and closed his eyes to retrace their steps. Where could she have lost…?
At the gas station.
At the gas station where they ran into Brandon. He wasn’t trying to claw her to bring her home. He was clawing her to take back the ring. And he succeeded. The text message was right.
She’s dead.
Lush landscape of life
An up and down, continuous flow,
Mountains and valleys of life.
And, though you'll always hit more valleys,
The mountains remain monsterous.
With hues of colors to accent their peaks,
They stand for the happiest of times.
And when love bursts through the atomosphere,
New beaus only see the dark blue sky of power.
The amorous embraces and kisses,
Color the mountain with yellow and pink roses.
It is when lovers face distance and isolation,
That they start to tumble down toward the valley.
Agony colors the valley red, blood-red,
Like a wolf snared by a bear trap.
Broken hearts and tears darken the sky,
Hiding the blazing sun of life,
Bringing fourth down-pours of rain and lightening,
Churning the rich, black soil into a glue,
That causes the courters to get stuck in a rut,
But momentarily.
For when the season changes to winter,
And pure, white snow fills the valley,
Covers the mountains,
The lovers have a clean slate to begin anew.
The mountains smile down upon them,
Because they know,
That although life has more depressions,
It is their beautiful ascents,
That leave the most important, lasting impression,
And truly define life.
Mountains and valleys of life.
And, though you'll always hit more valleys,
The mountains remain monsterous.
With hues of colors to accent their peaks,
They stand for the happiest of times.
And when love bursts through the atomosphere,
New beaus only see the dark blue sky of power.
The amorous embraces and kisses,
Color the mountain with yellow and pink roses.
It is when lovers face distance and isolation,
That they start to tumble down toward the valley.
Agony colors the valley red, blood-red,
Like a wolf snared by a bear trap.
Broken hearts and tears darken the sky,
Hiding the blazing sun of life,
Bringing fourth down-pours of rain and lightening,
Churning the rich, black soil into a glue,
That causes the courters to get stuck in a rut,
But momentarily.
For when the season changes to winter,
And pure, white snow fills the valley,
Covers the mountains,
The lovers have a clean slate to begin anew.
The mountains smile down upon them,
Because they know,
That although life has more depressions,
It is their beautiful ascents,
That leave the most important, lasting impression,
And truly define life.
Behind human anatomy
The whitest light blinds me,
Envelopes me,
It tickles my skin,
Irritates my temples,
My mind.
But to show my true being,
I must suffer,
Until the white light,
Makes me blind.
What, O, Lord,
Art I made of,
Created?
The secret tugs at my core,
My soul, and heart.
Speak to me,
O, please,
Inspire me,
Like great works of art.
I need to know the secret,
Deep and obscure.
To see the hard-worked labor,
By decent hand.
Since I have gained,
All other knowledge,
This is the last of my trial,
My final demand.
How could it be,
A brain so fuctional and quick?
A beating heart,
Full of blood and rogue passion?
And something else more beautiful,
Full of wonder,
A soul, a colored aura,
A casting.
O, what is it to be,
Such a thing,
Invisible, mysterious,
Merely a ghost,
That fills my pale skin?
Such a rare glowing orb,
For such a dull,
Ordinary host?
O, Lord,
Your ponderous, intelligent ways
Twists and forms,
And toys with my being,
Of blood, bones,
Flesh, hair, and water.
Water? Water!
That's nothing worth seeing!
But amazing when,
Praying and kneeing.
Envelopes me,
It tickles my skin,
Irritates my temples,
My mind.
But to show my true being,
I must suffer,
Until the white light,
Makes me blind.
What, O, Lord,
Art I made of,
Created?
The secret tugs at my core,
My soul, and heart.
Speak to me,
O, please,
Inspire me,
Like great works of art.
I need to know the secret,
Deep and obscure.
To see the hard-worked labor,
By decent hand.
Since I have gained,
All other knowledge,
This is the last of my trial,
My final demand.
How could it be,
A brain so fuctional and quick?
A beating heart,
Full of blood and rogue passion?
And something else more beautiful,
Full of wonder,
A soul, a colored aura,
A casting.
O, what is it to be,
Such a thing,
Invisible, mysterious,
Merely a ghost,
That fills my pale skin?
Such a rare glowing orb,
For such a dull,
Ordinary host?
O, Lord,
Your ponderous, intelligent ways
Twists and forms,
And toys with my being,
Of blood, bones,
Flesh, hair, and water.
Water? Water!
That's nothing worth seeing!
But amazing when,
Praying and kneeing.
Old/New Poetry
Last night my fiance Brian and I invited some family and friends over for dinner and to watch Sunday night football. My mom showed up with one last box of my belongings, officially vacating my presence from her home. The box she brought was only supposed to contain some kitchen items she was handing down to me and some collectables of mine (Marilyn Monroe books, mostly) but tucked inside were also some old poems I wrote in high school. Some of them were extremely terrible (in my opinion) but two in particular grabbed my attention. They need some doctoring so today's posts will be these two poems (old to me, new to the blog) edited. They'll be posted soon, so stay tuned.
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