I notice the salad before I see Alan. A tumble of baby greens, the drizzle of vinaigrette glistens like dew drops on grass. One of those small salads that barely feeds a child much less a man. His face looks leaner now, a wolf's not a bear's. He looks hungry.
I pull out my compact — lips on, makeup not melted, no raccoon circles under my eyes. No lunch leftovers hanging from my teeth. I click the mirror shut with satisfaction. Thank goddess he can't see me, the column wrapped in plastic ivy blocks his view but not mine. He tucks in close to the table, his stomach not drooping between his thighs, his chest no longer sagging over his plate. A cold sweat breaks out between my breasts.
The waiter deposits another basket of warm rolls, the little balls of butter in the white dish melting. I tear apart a roll and steam rises, the dough soft and yeasty in my mouth. Carrie is late, but when she struts through the restaurant, bright as a peacock, my ex will follow her to me. He never liked her, thought her a hussy, though he couldn't keep his eyes off of her at our last tree trimming party.
Beyond a few necessary email exchanges — who gets the Dodge, the silver, the cat - Alan and I haven't spoken since last April, not since we passed papers. I had stared at his girth, the damp stain spreading under his armpits. Even across the table, he smelled sour, fetid, like cabbage rotting. Our marriage decomposing. Then, he had only lost 30 pounds, the gastric bypass slow to take. Twenty-six years, he said, his eyes puppy-dog sad. How can you throw that away? The children? The house? Our marriage?
Marriage? The children grown and moved away, the house a dust-filled monstrosity, a weekly roll with me on top, always on top, so he would not crush me. For twenty five of those years I had counted until our youngest finished college. The day after she graduated I handed him my intent to divorce.
After the lawyers shook hands, I bolted to Julian's, Carrie already tipsy on two-buck highballs and the Led Zeppelin streaming through the speakers. My partner in crime had prowled the singles scene for over a year, ever since she left Dan. Julian's was our watering hole of choice, cheap drinks, music we can sing to, a plentiful stable of men. We stumbled off our stools and played billiards with a group of IBMers passing through town. They slung back microbrews while we drank sloe gin fizzes so sweet they made my teeth ache. We slow danced in the hazy smoke, kissed pressed against the pool table.
Later, the slow undressing in my new apartment. Carrie demonstrated her pole dance classes on her pick-up. I lap-danced mine on the single chair, a Lazy-boy recliner from Salvation Army. My first legal, non-adulterous fuck. How freeing to writhe under someone with more muscles than fat, who could keep it up longer than minute, who afterwards stroked my hair and if he noticed the fine silver strands by my ears didn't mention them. I forget his name, only remember he was a good Jewish boy and how we talked how difficult it was to maintain faith in a secular world. He caressed the silver chalice hanging below my neck and then he did me again, his mouth burrowed in my breasts, murmuring what sounded like mama-mama-mama as he went limp in me.
I lean over the table for a better view. Alan picks at a radish. There is no bread basket at his table. No wine. He sips from a glass, a lemon round floating atop a raft of ice cubes. He shifts in his seat and I marvel at newly-defined deltoids. A small ache slides under my breast bone. Someone told me, maybe Carrie, that she'd seen him at Gold's lifting weights. Wrong! I'd said. You are so wrong! He never lifted a can of peas much less broke a sweat over a biceps curl. Her lips arranged into that all-knowing Mona Lisa smile of hers, but I knew she was mistaken.
I tease apart another roll. Liberatore's is dangerous for South Beachers. This used to be our restaurant, our Friday night date. The music's too loud now and, other than the bread basket, the portions skimpier. Alan raises a baby green to his mouth. He chews and chews, forever it seems. His hair shines, longer down the neck, the ears, the grey gone. A small hand with nails the color of my lipstick reaches across the linen table and pats his forearm. He lowers his fork beside the salad and the pink moons disappear in his massive hand.
Jealousy slithers through me. I crane my neck to see who is attached to the end of those long fine fingers but a stupid waiter in his stupid black jacket stands between us, unloading plates of pasta. The hand withdraws. The roll drops from my fingers and bounces off my lap and onto the floor.
“Girlfriend!”
Carrie looks down at me, lips glossy, blond hair pulled off her high forehead. Turquoise silk wafts over her boobs, slides over her hips. She pulls me into her hug, a haze of Tabu, her pink, pink nails splaying around my shoulder.
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i like this very much, the 7th par. especially and because micros are my weakness, I keep reading it over and over as a micro - though the whole story, is terrific.
Linda, I agree with Meg, there is something about that 7th paragraph that sticks with me. Although, I do think the whole thing is a great mini-treatise on the newly and even not so newly divorced. fave - Mar
Oooh, love this!! Go Linda! I wanted to see "the other woman" too, but that damned waiter...
Wonderful descriptions of their relationship in that loooooong dead marriage, his body, her body, this is yummy!
*
"Girlfriend!" Yikes! Just a flat out wonderful story. *
Good writing, Linda. Great sense of character. Enjoyed this piece.
The narrator sets herself up for a fall, but when it comes, it comes at a price: the demi-vindication of Alan. At the end, i'm left doubting the descriptions of Alan. If he really were so disgusting as all that, why is she feeling jealousy & spying on him. I was a bit creeped out by the mama mama bit from the kid lover. So exquisitely repulsive that one cannot avert one's eyes.
I'm seeing pink nails, too.
It's complicated, love is.
Good writing, really slices the concept with so little resistance, it feels like you wrote this with a razor. There will be blood.
Well done!
I was drawn in from the first line and held captive so much so I was sorry when it ended, but not disappointed! Great piece, Linda. Agree totally with James.
Def *
And all of that was to say "great job!"
Thanks all for your kind words and faves! I did not know the term 'cougar' until recently, so exploring the 'freedoms' experiecned by a middle-aged woman which comes after a divorce tantalizes.
And gastric bypass results can be stunning. So much of our lusts derive from the physical. Wrong or right, or just hard-wiring? For better or worse I say. Peace...
This feels different than anything I have read of yours...still with your signature stunning prose. You can cut the tension in this with the finest knife. Fave.
Wonderful detail here. Vivid baby greens and all.
Really enjoyed this!
Linda,
So much to love here!!! "Carrie demonstrated her pole dance classes on her pick-up. I lap-danced mine on the single chair, a Lazy-boy recliner from Salvation Army. My first legal, non-adulterous fuck." I love the interplay in time and relationships!! Can't wait to read more!!! Outstanding!!! *****
This was delicious. Fave.
Great story! So bold and true. And the writing is sharp and surprising. Loved "always on top, so he would not crush me" and "a lemon round floating atop a raft of ice cubes." All of it! *
What a novel this will be! All the characters live on the page and well beyond. Bravo!
i love the piece & i'm also intrigued by your process, which is just like mine—many of my current sketches appear in the <a href="http://100daysandnights.tumblr.com">100 days project</a>. though as meg pointed out, you can take this in any direction you like, even as a standalone piece. it's very rich and every time i dip into it, i come up with some other surprise between my teeth.