(In Progress) A Taste of Vowels

This is it, she must have thought as she’d thought on many other occasions. Always focusing on the is and never the isn’t. “You have to jump before you think too much about it and lose your nerve,” she would have said in any other circumstance.

I slid my hand back out of her reach. “Are you sure?” I mumbled in a tone she probably pegged as self-conscious.

“He asked. I said yes. What’s done is done.”

Now I could get all nostalgic and talk about how when I met her she was a different person, and about how she changed and now this person, sitting across from me in this coffee shop I’d never be caught dead in under normal circumstances, was not that new person but the one I’d first met, but I won’t. It’s not that I didn’t have the right. I had every right to call her out. Of all people. But she was expecting me to. To catch her in mid fall. Ha, not now, sweetie, not this time. That rock on your finger would drag us both down.

“Well, congratulations or best wishes or whatever people in this situation are supposed to say.”

“You should know,” she said daring me to jump in after her. “He picked it out himself. Can you believe that?”

“I can actually.”

“It amazes me,” she said, “that everything that’s happened in my life has led me here.” She looked at the ring.

I looked at her face. I couldn’t tell how happy she was. She was purposely concealing it from me. She was making that much obvious, she wanted me to ask.

“You’ll do good with whatever you try. You always have,” I said.

“That’s not true.” Another trap.

“I have to go. I’m supposed to meet Jane for dinner.”

Of course, you know it, I know it, I didn’t have to go right then. But the feeling overcame me. And maybe it was obvious. To her.

I did meet Jane for dinner. When she asked what I’d done that day I told her every detail from morning masturbation to cleaning behind my ears. And, “Oh, yeah. Ann’s getting married.” The last thing I needed was another interrogation.

“I bet that’s a relief?” she said.

“Huh?”

“You won’t have to worry about her pestering you anymore.”

“Yeah.” I have to admit I was surprised Jane wasn’t all over me with her psych degree. “I’m totally fine with it,” I said.

“I know,” Jane said.

And then the nostalgia crept back in and I thought about how everything in my life had lead to this.

“She seems happy,” I said.

Jane was engrossed in the menu. “What are you having?”

I looked over the menu I’d seen so many times before. I almost knew it by heart. “I don’t know. You?”

“The Greek chicken.”

“Of course.”

“Hey, I know what’s good.”

I don’t have to spell it out. She always ordered the Greek chicken, no olives. And me, I’d tried I few different items.

When the waitress came, I order a cup of coffee.

“Didn’t you just have coffee?”

Then I explained how one could never have too much coffee and that she should know that about me by now and that not everything was up for shrinking. “Sometimes a man just wants a cup of coffee.”

“Alright, alright. I’m not trying to start an argument,” she said.

“All right.”

I was on my third cup and Jane had a pile of Kalamata olives sitting on the side of her plate. I popped one into my mouth. Studied the smooth texture, the meaty flesh, the abundance of vowels. The salt. “They’re actually really good. Have you even ever tried one?”

“I tried one once. I didn’t like it,” she said, a child’s response.

“You have to taste it like you have no idea what it should taste like.”

“I know what it tastes like, and I don’t like it.”

She continued to dig at the hummus with a slice of pita and with the tip of her finger she dabbed tabouli on top. She took a drink of water on top of it all. A drop dripped down her chin.

“I didn’t even know you were going to see her,” she said without breaking concentration on her plate.

“She called me this morning while I was at work. She told me she had something important to tell me.”

“Another one of her ‘stories’ eh?” Jane laughed.

“I guess.”

Ann did that. She’d call or text and only say one thing, “I have stories!” At first her stories were all about me in disguise. She’d tell me about how she met a boy and he instantly fell in love with her, after sleeping with her of course. And I knew she meant that I should have. Through these stories I saw her change. They stopped being allegories for my benefit and started being about her. Advice she needed. And I dispensed it willingly and honestly.

“Did it end with, ‘and they lived happily ever after,’ this time?” Jane asked.

“I guess we’ll see.”

“I doubt it,” she said.

“Why do you say that?”

“Marriage. It takes up all your time. You should know.”

For the second time that day, I’d had my nose rubbed in the fact that I, me of all people, had been married.

“I’m glad it’s not for us,” she said.

Not for us, but for them. Ann and Joseph. Not for me and Jane. We have better things to do with our time than marriage. Who wants to waste their time in that?

“You don’t think about it sometimes?” I said.

“What? Marriage?”

“Sure.”

“Sure. Sometimes. I know you though,” Jane said.

So it was not not for us. It was not for me. Singular.

“Check please.”

What Girls Do

It’s the oldest cliche in the book, but they’re animals. Clawing, fighting for their pray. They dance after the music stops. And I realize that everything I’ve never wanted to be in a relationship, I’m not. I’ve never just gone along. I’ve always spoke my mind.

Tonight’s an experiment. I answer every question with, “Sure.” I don’t say no. Especially to the questions that have two options. I say, “Sure,” and he takes what he wants. I smile. I think it looks fake but he doesn’t. Or else he’s too drunk to tell. When he asks how I am, I say, “Fine.” he asks me if I’m telling the truth and I don’t respond. But its taken him so long to ask it that he’s forgotten the question. My unanswer is answer enough. I know I should feel something about this but I don’t.

We’re going to Courtney’s house. A girl he used to fuck. I’ve been there before. He always takes the long way. I think it’s because he savors taking me there, but secretly know it’s because he hasn’t considered the easy way. I once pointed this out to him, but now, in his drunkenness, he’s forgotten. Like an over excited child. And though I’m writing this now, in his car, on my phone, in 256 characters, he’s too afraid to ask me what I’m really doing. He thinks I’m texting an ex. I tell him I’m not.

He says he feels like he’s dragging me somewhere I don’t want to go, but he doesn’t turn around. He calls her and she says, “Who’s this?” He says, “Mike.” I know him as Michael. I don’t know this Mike.

The truth is I’m doing this because I didn’t eat today. Or I’m bored. Or I really just want to fight because at least in a fight you know what side you’re on. In this relationship, I have no clue. Am I for it or against it? And you’ll hold me in contempt and tell me I’m the same kind of cunt. But that just makes you the same kind of dick. Mike or whoever. Someone I know too well.

I know what to expect from. And this is it. This is what I expect. Why would I expect anything else? I guess I hope that it’d be different. That I’d taught him better. Yes, I’m that kind of cunt, too. Fuck me I don’t deserve to live. Not this life with these dancers. If I was lucky, I might get cast as an extra, a bar tender. But even that would feel forced--at this point.

For some reason I can’t imagine. He wants to be part of this group. I imagine them referring to themselves as a tribe. Like there was something vested other than alcohol and--well I’m sure they could come up with more than one commonality. He says he’s a watcher, but now that I’ve told him what I’m doing here on my phone, he doesn’t understand the exaggeration or the nuance.

I’ve read him this while we’re parked, waiting for Courtney to get home from the bar. He doesn’t know what to think. “Are you sure you want to be here?”

“Sure,” I say.

He doesn’t want to leave while she’s just pulling in. He thinks it’d be rude. Or that it’d hurt her feelings. My feeling are sacrificed, culled for the greater good--the tribe I’m not a part of. Better me who he has to explain himself to later.

We go in and she stands while we sit. She talks with her hands with a lot of pointing and looking off to the distance. She knows that we share a very close history although we hardly know each other. I try to feel bad for her like she lost some game. I only feel bad for myself. I act normal if not a little less talkative than I’d normally be. I’m still playing this game of sure and fine. And now Michael knows it.

At 4am I start nudging him to leave. At 4:30am, we leave. There’s little speaking on the way home and I’m no longer writing this, having lost the edge of my buzz.

We get back to my house and he now wants to know why. “What’s wrong.”

“Nothing,” I say and smile. He says he knows something’s wrong because I’ve told him in what I’ve written. I’m playing a game. He thinks two games. Not only the game of sure and fine, but also the game of telling him he’s an asshole through writing. I tell him I’m not that type of girl. That I say what I mean. He agrees but says, “That’s what girls do.” I remind him that I didn’t want to go out in the first place. I didn’t want to go to the bar. I remind him that I said it was a compromise on my part to see him. He remembers but stays silent. I tell him compromise is the name of the sure and fine game.

Stuck Between Stations (final)

“Hey, Doll,” Mark yelled over the heated roar of the pizza ovens. “Be out in a sec. My keys are on the hook under my jacket.”

Dolly grabbed Mark’s oversized jacket and keys. Although she’d only walked half a mile from his apartment, she’d been the victim of a scattered shower. She unlocked the passenger door and threw the jacket on before settling into the seat. The arms of the jacket were too long, and she reached out her arm to pull back a sleeve. Her other hand emerged, outstretched, gasping for air.

It was her and Mark’s three month anniversary. He’d told her, “Tonight, we’re doing it up right.”

She waited for him in the car with her feet on the dash, texting her best friend, Amanda. Amanda didn’t like Mark and had advised Dolly if he didn't show her the time of her life for their anniversary that she should dump him. Dolly had just received a text that said, “He’s making you wait?!?” when Mark emerged from the employee door.

“Hey, Babe. It’s going to be a little longer. Want a pie?” Mark asked from the passenger window.

Dolly giggled, “Sure,” and Mark disappeared back into the building.

“He’s going to get me pie to make up for it,” Dolly texted back to Amanda. She turned on the radio and tapped her toes on the dash.

Mark’s new job had afforded him the luxury of a 1991 Honda CR-X. Dolly loved cruising around in his new car with the windows down and the wind blowing through her long hair. Although she didn’t have her license, once he’d let her drive down an old, dirt road during a cruise. The windows were hard to roll up and down, the child-lock was stuck on the passenger door, and the rearview mirror was collecting dust under the passenger seat, but the radio was brand new. Mark had installed it himself along with an auxiliary switch to power it when the keys weren’t in the ignition. Dolly would frequently get off the bus and walk up to Mark’s apartment only to find him and some buddies hanging out in the parking lot and listening to the radio.

Dolly was singing along to a Death Cab for Cutie song when Mark yelled from the employee door, “Hey, did you take my jacket?”

“Yeah, I got it for you.”

By the time Mark was at the passenger door, Dolly had set his jacket on the driver’s seat. Mark opened the door and a gust of cool air rushed over Dolly. “Here,” he said and set a warm, vinyl bag down on her lap, damp with drizzle. She wiped off the bottom and quickly put her hands underneath the bag to keep them warm.

Mark got in the driver’s seat and hit the preset button on the radio to his favorite heavy metal station. “Yours is on top.”

“Huh?”

“In the bag,” Mark rolled his eyes back as he reversed.

Inside the bag were two pizza boxes. Dolly threw her head back and stamped her feet, laughing.

“Damn,” Mark said craning his neck to the side, and looking at her out of the corner of his eye.

Her laughter subsided.

“You’re such a kid. What’s so funny?”

“You said pie,” Dolly snickered, “I thought you meant pie not pizza. Who calls pizza pie?”

“Lots of people. Everyone I work with for one.” Mark pulled onto the highway and headed south.

“I thought, he sure must love me to feed me a whole pie.”

“Baby, I’ll love you even if you get too fat for anyone else to.”

After some fumbling with the boxes, Dolly bit into a piece of pizza and grease ran down her chin. That’s what Mama meant, she thought. Her mother had once told her a real man is one who, “Loves you in spite of it all.” Mark definitely loved Dolly in spite of it all.

“You’re lucky, you know,” Mark would often say, “I love you because your right tit is bigger than the left,” or, “because of that huge scar under your eye. Your imperfections don’t matter to me, not at all.”

Some particularly loud song came on the radio and Dolly jokingly banged her head back and forth to the high tempo crunch of the guitar. “How far away’s this place anyway?” she asked.

“ ‘bout an hour there.”

“Why we going so far? Why don’t we just get some from Reuben?”

“Reuben ain’t got the good stuff. The stuff we’re going to get makes Reuben’s shit look like your mom’s oregano.”

“Well, I guess we got some time to talk then,” Dolly said. “What’s good with you?”

“Your mom’s pussy.” Mark laughed and turned up the radio, “This is a great song.”

Dolly sat back in her seat and sent a text to Amanda telling her what they were doing. “He’s taking you on a drug run?!?” Dolly had recently gotten used to Amanda only communicating in questions. She was a year younger than Dolly. There was a lot about relationships that Amanda didn’t yet understand.

“God, it’s just weed,” Dolly replied. She tapped her long paint-chipped nails on the arm rest. When Amanda didn’t reply, she added, “Anyways the sex will be worth it.” The next song came on, one with a melody, one that Dolly had heard before. She started to bob her head again.

“Ok, little girl,” Mark said turning down the radio, “Let’s talk. What’s your plan after graduation?”

“Um.” Dolly had thought it through many times. When she graduated in a month, she’d move in with Mark and promise to take care of the dishes and wash his clothes if he’d pay the rent and only ask her to pay half of the bills. He was already paying it on his own. She thought she’d be a lot of help to have around. And she could get a part-time job. “Mama says the Starbucks’s opening soon, and I’ve made coffee for Mama every morning since I was a little girl. I bet they’d take someone like me. I’m a quick learner.”

“Pressing ‘on’ ain’t the same.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” Dolly paused as if waiting for an answer. “I’m not stupid. I’m just saying, I like to serve people.”

“Yeah, sure, then some businessman’s going to come in there and sweep you off your little feet, not knowing how obnoxious they can be, and you’ll run off and serve him and leave me.”

“No, I won’t.”

“You don’t know, but I know you never seen money like his.”

“Yeah, but does he have your nose that I love or your hands that I love? Will he kiss me with his eyes open like you do?” Dolly asked.

“No, he won’t. He’ll always close his eyes to kiss you so he don’t see your scar, but you won’t care that he thinks it’s ugly ‘cause he’ll of bought you not to.”

Her hand grazed the scar under her eye. Dolly could tell Mark was upset. She hated to see him that way. Her hand flew to his shoulder, “Mark, I ain’t got the job yet. Can’t we talk about something else? Besides, the walk from Mama’s house would be too far. I’d have to live somewhere near you for it to work.”

“You couldn’t handle a nine to five anyway,” Mark said and the conversation ended.

They turned off the highway onto County Road 405. About a mile out, there were no more streetlights and rarely any headlights. It had started to drizzle again. Dolly listened to the rhythmic squeak of rotten rubber against the semi-dry windshield. She thought it fit well with the song that was playing. The dim headlights barely illuminated twenty feet in front of them. Mark cracked his window, unplugged the Domino’s roof sign from the outlet and pushed in the cigarette lighter. The rush of wind chilled Dolly’s damp hair. She pulled her knees up to her chest, balancing the pizza bag between her knees and the dash.

Dolly gazed out the window wondering what kind of people actually lived out there. Sure we live in a small town, she thought, but at least we got something. Out here, there’s nothing. They passed a yellow warning sign with a deer leaping through a constellation of bullet holes. Mark lit his cigarette and plugged the roof sign back in.

“Why you still got that thing on the roof?” Dolly asked. “I thought you’re supposed to leave it at work.”

“I don’t know this guy. I figured I show up with a pie, my Domino’s jacket, and roof topper and it’d be like I was just making a delivery.”

Dolly giggled at pie again. “Ok, Baby, when I’m working at Starbucks and talking about expresso and cupochino, you don’t get to make fun. Deal?”

“I don’t think anything will happen, but better safe. You know? Grab those directions, they’re in the glove box.”

Dolly set the pizzas in the backseat.

“Careful,” Mark cautioned.

She riffled through the glove box, through a lot of crumpled papers that were eager to escape out the open window. “Could you turn on the light for a sec?” She pinned down the disorderly stack of papers in her lap, looking for one with Mark’s familiar scratchy writing. “Why d’you think it’s called a glovebox? There’s nothing to keep my fingers warm in here.” She found the directions and neatly put the rest of the papers back in the glovebox.

“Here,” Mark said and grabbed the page from her hand.

Before he’d taken it, Dolly saw “Dick’s house” written at the top. She quickly pulled out her phone to text Amanda, “The guy’s name is Dick. Hehe.” When she hit send, a warning message came up, “Out of Network Area.”

Mark was busy trying to decipher the directions, so Dolly rolled the seat halfway back and fantasized about what they’d do when they got back to his apartment. Because it was their anniversary, she’d tell him to sit back while she picked the seeds out of the pot, he always said she was good at it. She’d load a bowl for him, and while he was partaking, she’d sneak down and unzip his pants, like she had once before. She’d go down on him while he was getting high, and he’d occasionally pull her up to kiss her and blow smoke into her mouth, then push her back down. But this time will be different, she thought, I won’t do it as good and he won’t be so much in ecstasy. Before when she’d gone down on him while he was smoking, he’d passed out from the sheer pleasure of it. “You just made me so relaxed.” She was the best he’d ever had, he said, and she liked knowing she had that power over him.

The car pulled to a stop in the entrance to an empty field littered with beer cans. Dolly came out of her trance and looked around for the house. There was more nothing, only an open field on one side of the road and dense trees on the other.

“We passed the house about a quarter mile back while you were sleeping,” Mark said.

“I wasn’t sleeping.”

“Yeah,” Mark laughed. “Well, I don’t want you getting mixed up in any trouble, so stay here. I’ll be in and out in a few minutes.”

“Why are we parked so far away?”

“I don’t want you getting mixed up in any trouble, and I don’t want anyone seeing my car parked outside this guy’s house. Could be trouble for the both of us.”

“What about the roof thing?”

“I told you. I don’t want you getting in trouble,” Mark said exasperated.

“Okay,” Dolly said.

“Listen to the radio or something.” Mark opened the door stealing the fading warmth of the pizza bag and trading Dolly cold, musty air.

“I love you,” Dolly said.

“Be back shortly.”

“And then what?” She asked too late. Mark’s key clicked in the lock and he walked off.

Dolly turned the radio back to her favorite station, but it was barely audible. She pressed the scan button, searching for another. When she hit a classical station, she stopped. I bet this is what plays all day at Starbucks, she thought. She wondered about the businessman that Mark had talked about. Would he only listen to classical or would he be cool and listen to good music? She came to the conclusion that, in his BMW, he’d probably have satellite radio and whenever she was with him, he’d let her listen to whatever her little heart desired. Then she laughed at herself. She loved Mark too much to leave him for any man, no matter how much money he had or how nice he was.

Her scar ran from under her right eye, behind her ear, and into her hairline. It was from a childhood accident Dolly didn’t quite remember. She remembered being in the hospital and remembered her parents constantly fighting behind the curtain that separated the beds.

“We had a beautiful, healthy child,” Dolly remembered her father saying. “I didn’t sign up for this.”

“You’re her father. How can you say that?” her mother had said.

“Nothing will be the same.”

“And I thought you were a real man.”

Dolly’s father had left shortly after. To her, that was more worth remembering.

Dolly continued to search through the stations, there were few that came in clearly. She found one that was just coming out of a commercial break. An old man’s voice cracked, “Up next is Johnny Cash’s ‘Give My Love To Rose’.” Dolly recognized the lyric from a song her father used to sing and play for her on guitar before he’d left. She’d laugh and laugh at the chorus when he father would bob his head and tap his toe. She listened intently to the song trying to remember her father. It was somewhat different than she remembered, sadder. When the chorus came, she didn’t laugh.

Rose is a pretty name though, she thought. Maybe her and Mark would have a girl they could name Rose. She thought her daddy would like that. He’d come back just to see the little girl, Rose, with the glowing cheeks and her mommy’s eyes and daddy’s nose.

Just then, she heard a sound outside the car, not like the slow saunter of Mark, but something quick. She looked up through the rain studded window just in time to make out a deer running across the road and into the trees. Dolly exhaled and put her hand up to her heart. It was racing. She hadn’t realized until then that the moon and a couple stars provided the only light. She looked at the time on the radio and felt her cheeks fill with blood. Mark had been gone for a little over twenty minutes. In and out, she thought. She calmed down, reminding herself that Mark could be slow and sometimes lose track of time. He’ll be back any minute, she thought.

She turned on the dome light and grabbed a slice of cold pizza from the back. When she looked out the windows, she realized she couldn’t see very far with the light on, so she turned it off. There wasn’t much to look at in front of her, just the open field. She turned around to look back at the woods, but felt uneasy not having her back up against something. Before she knew it, she’d eaten the entire pizza. The pie, she thought, but didn’t laugh.

The announcer came back on the radio and gave a little background about the next song. His voice was sinuous and low, it seemed to come from every direction around her. Dolly turned it off, and sat there in silence. She rolled the seat all the way back and started to count, a trick she’d learned to not fall asleep. Not once, but twice she sat up to check that the doors were locked, and after making it past a thousand, she fell asleep.

A heavy knock on the window jarred her awake. Her eyes were immediately abraded by the bright light of the morning sun. In terror, she lifted her head to look out the window.

“Ma’am,” the man said.

She recoiled into the seat, still not able to see clearly.

“Ma’am, I’m Officer Parker.”

Dolly rolled the seat back upright and reached for the window handle.

“What’s your name, Ma’am? Are you alright?”

She rolled down the window and gasped from the morning cold. The man held out his badge. In the blaring sun, Dolly thought it could have been fake, maybe even plastic. He was dressed in a a brown sport coat and blue jeans. Dolly looked back at his car, a beat-up, old diesel BMW.

“You okay? Don’t be afraid, you’re not in trouble. I was on my way to work and saw your car sitting out here. Did it die? Need a ride out of here?”

Dolly looked back in the direction Mark had disappeared into last night and began to touch her scar, but stopped. Her eyes had finally adjusted, “Yes, a ride’d be nice.” She reached her hand out the window for the latch to open the door.

Still shaken, she got into the passenger’s seat of the officer’s car. Without asking, the officer handed her an old sweatshirt from the backseat. The sweatshirt fit Dolly well. She looked down and saw, “Rice University,” written across the chest.

“It’s my daughter’s,” the officer said. “She worked hard and got out.”

“Got out?”

“Out of this town, away from these people.”

“Ah,” Dolly said seeming not to be paying any attention.

“You never answered me before. What’s your name?”

“Dolly.”

“You doing okay, Dolly?”

As they turned back onto County Road 405, Dolly could see the highway in the distance. The morning traffic was all heading out.

“I’m doing good.”