Madeira Beach, Florida
July 2003, Later that Evening
Pass the salt.”
I do so, slower than expected. Karen leans forward and takes the shaker like a sacramental. It levitates in her hand, rising miraculously several inches above her palm, hovering there for a moment before gently floating back down.
She over-seasons her soup.
I study her carefully, watching each line in her face. Through a veil of sadness her beauty is still flawless, overwhelming. A silent storm passes between us, over the bare wooden table, the tarnished silver and cracked china, flea-market mugs and screw-top wine.
“You’ve put too much on,” I tell her.
She seems not to notice and tentatively sips her cold soup, head down, eyes staring straight into her meal through untamed bangs. Bare feet scratch away paint chips from her chair. They flake to the floor and are quickly lost.
She looks up just long enough to say, “I like my soup salty. Don’t you remember?”
I don’t. “Of course I do. Pass the pepper.”
She does so.
I wave the shaker vigorously over my soup. The spice leaks out like sputtering incense, cascading in waves behind a loosened shaker top. A tiny insect crawls to the surface and scampers down the slope of spice. Karen stares at the escaping bug but continues sipping silently, scratching the paint from her chair and the polish from her toenails.
“I’ll get the meat.”
She does so, a red crock of tepid stew. Looking past me, she spoons some into my plate and serves herself a smaller portion. She manages a few brave forkfuls, but no more.
“Thanks for calling, Karen. It’s been a long time.”
She nods without looking up and mumbles something into her dinner that sounds like, “glad you could make it.”
“Kind of ironic you should call when I’m at the Vinoy.”
Karen tilts her head with a little half-smile, as if she has no idea what I’m talking about. From the vague expression I’m guessing she doesn’t remember that we made love there once, on a huge king-sized bed in a room overlooking Tampa Bay. One of us kicked over half a bottle of warming Chardonnay; it remained undiscovered until late the next morning. She won’t remember that either.
“Anyway, thanks for the dinner. I’m glad you’re doing okay and I love your place. A little cozy, but hell, waterfront property on Madeira Beach? You done good.”
A hint of a smile flashes across Karen’s face. She studies her plate, stirring the food with her fork, making little eddies and currents in the thin gravy. I watch her scratch out the last two years of our lives in tiny sculptures of potatoes and carrots. She doesn’t seem to notice the animated diorama on her plate—there I am, cheating on her for the sheer drama of it, pleased with myself after sending her things back, desperate after she started seeing someone else. That wasn’t supposed to happen.
“Yeah, I done good,” she repeats. “We’re going to Daytona next weekend.”
The idea that there is a “we” still slices through me like a thousand paper cuts. She is about to say more I think, but the trace of romance on her lips vanishes along with half-full plates. She piles dishes in heaps in the sink and explains that the dishwasher has been on the fritz for weeks.
Standing by the sliding glass door off the kitchen, Karen pulls back the curtain. She studies the full moon and misty evening air.
I stand a respectful distance next to her. “Maybe we could meet for lunch sometime? Tomorrow, or next time I’m in town.”
“Next time?”
“Sure. You know Karen, I got to admit I was surprised to get your message.”
“Surprised?”
“Yeah, and pleased. I’d like to meet your new guy,” I say in a big brother voice. Of course, there is no new guy, just the same old one.
“Ron works nights.”
“Well maybe next time.”
“Not a problem,” she says in a whisper. “Sorry about the meal.”
I move closer and place my hands on her shoulders. She remains still as death. Outside, Madeira Beach glows in the distance under a rising moon. I hear anxious voices rise over the sound of Karen’s labored breathing. “Limbo lower now,” they chant to the sound of steel drums. I can imagine shadows struggling under a taught rope stretched inches above the sand.
“Where’s the party?” I wonder.
Karen sighs, vacant, quiet. “What party is that?”
She closes the gray curtains slowly, taking care to tuck the frayed ends together, shutting out the light and noise of the beach.
“Would you like another drink?” she asks.
I nod, walk across the room to the fridge, and survey the contents for anything remotely drinkable. Under the flickering light, a can of light beer remains. Hidden in the back behind the beer and a half-full jar of dill pickles, is a single cupcake, a mound of creamy chocolate frosting wrinkled and stiff. A lone candle, one of those novelty candles the kind you can’t blow out, is planted in the center, and I remember that Karen’s birthday is this week. I push the beer aside, take out the cupcake, and after finding some kitchen matches next to a pack of Marlboros, light the candle. It sputters in the heavy air. I pull the string overhead killing the light, plunging the room into a cloying darkness. I hear Karen’s quiet breathing across the room; the feeble candle light casts a shadow of the bare bulb overhead, swinging like a gallows against naked walls.
“Happy birthday, Karen!” I present the cupcake as if it were a priceless gift.
For a brief moment, her face glows in the light; the candle flares suddenly, sending tiny roman candles cascading against the walls of the small room. She takes the cake like a sacramental and it levitates in her hands. As it slowly rises, her hands begin to tremble. The cupcake wobbles in mid-air like a crippled flying saucer; beads of sweat, sanguine in the dim light, break out over her forehead as she struggles to control the shaking in her hands.
“I’m so afraid,” she says, her voice barely a whisper.
“Afraid of what, Karen?”
The cupcake tips over; it falls to the floor frosting-side down, extinguishing the flame. Karen buries her face in her hands and says, “Where this is going. Where I’m going.”
She wipes away the sweat trickling down her face and kneels down to pick up the mess. A thin wisp of smoke still rises from beneath a mound of frosting; she pulls out the trick candle, still glowing and stares into it, as if studying her fate in the dying trails of smoke. The wick sparks as it tries to re-light, and it does for one brief instant before sputtering and finally going out.
“I wanted the fairy tale,” she says staring down at the floor.
I kneel next her; together we push scattered pieces of cake into a sad little pile. I try think of something profound to say, but the best I can come up with is, “I still love you.”
She looks at me with an expression I find impossible to read. “I know you do,” she says. Then like an idiot I lean forward to kiss her.
Heavy footsteps clamor up the stairs. With a sharp look of panic on her face, she switches the light back on and tosses the remains of the cupcake into the sink.
“I should go now,” I tell her.
“It’s okay. Really.”
Even if it is okay, I don’t want to see him.
One last look into her eyes before I open the sliding glass door onto the narrow patio, swing my legs over a rusted railing and drop down into the sand below. Looking back, I see two shadows in the window above come slowly together; moments later the light goes out.
Copyright © 2010 Donald W. Bacon
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