Filling Time

His head came around the open door frame in an effort at coquettishness he should have abandoned twenty years, and forty pounds ago.

Reluctantly, Cameron dragged her eyes away from the monitor between them and forced a look of questioning welcome onto her face.

“Hi!” The word came out clipped, despite her efforts.

“Hi.” His body shifted as he spoke, bringing the rest of him into view.

“Busy?” Their single syllable conversation continued.

Her eyes strayed back to the screen in silent answer. She had just been poked.

“Uh….” She drew this syllable out, allowing her time to think.

“No!” She reached out and closed the notebook with a thud, opening the air between them. As she rose, her outstretched hand pulled her lips into a smile. Her other hand gestured, Vanna-like, at the only other chair in the room, before she returned to hers.

“What’s up, Jerry?” She leaned back casually and glanced at the clock on her desk. In just a little over an hour, she and thousands of others, would begin their trek across the city towards home. She made a mental note to stop at the grocery store.

The chair gave in with a “Whoosh” as he settled into it. One hand immediately found the buttons on his jacket, loosening it to make room for last night’s supper, and the burritos he’d eaten in a fast food parking lot two hours ago.

“Hey! I know its Christmas. Everybody’s busy.” As he paused, his eyes found the tiny, gold, bell-strewn tree she’d placed on a corner table. He shifted, uncomfortably inside the chair, before leaning forward.

“I’ve been working on something.”

Cameron uncrossed her legs and looked pointedly at the clock.

“I was really just winding down here…”

“Yeah…” He shifted again, shooting a glance at the computer on her desk. “Facebook, huh?”

She blushed, silently.

“Hey! I should “friend” you!”

She made an attempt at an appreciative laugh and straightened her skirt without commenting on his suggestion.

“I thought maybe we could stop in at “Dailey’s” for a pre-Christmas drink.” His face was prepared for her refusal. “And, I could tell you about my project!” The words were infused with a false enthusiasm.

Cameron glanced, again at the clock, and then her calendar, which was open.

Reaching behind her, she drug her jacket off the back of her chair.

“Sure! Why not, Jerry? Let me grab a few things…”

Her words catapulted him off the chair and he used both hands to re-button.

“Great!” Despite his efforts, he voiced his surprise.

A smoky haze wafted just under the bare-bulbed ceiling lights, lending carelessly strewn, multi-colored twinkle lights the appearance of being under water. Blues-infused Christmas carols played softly to a tiny pre-happy hour audience.

Cameron chose a table in the center of the room, and, measuring the distance to the door, decided to leave her jacket on.

“Here you go!” Jerry’s voice had found a comfort it had been missing earlier.

She thanked him and took a sip before placing her drink on a napkin and leaning forward with her arms crossed.

“Tell me.” She could feel her eyes dance.

Jerry smiled, as she knew he would, appreciative of her interest. His hands caressed the brown bottle in front of him, clearing the frost from its sides as he talked. He leaned towards the table as she had, closing the space between them.

Cameron smiled, asked appropriate questions, and watched, as he grew. An hour passed, and in that time, the rumpled, overweight man she had come in with, had transformed into a smiling, energetic, somewhat sweaty man with a boyish grin.

She wondered if his wife would notice the change, sure in the knowledge that she hadn’t really seen him in years.

His pitch complete, he withdrew a dog-eared, leather wallet filled with pictures of small people who saw the world through eyes that looked just like his. He had a story to tell about each one of them. She listened, making only appropriate listening sounds until she’d seen them all.

“I’ll bet you’re a great Dad, Jerry.”

Jerry blushed, slightly, as he pocketed his wallet. Cameron looked at her watch as she sat back in her chair.

“I’ve gotta run….” She reached for the purse strap on the back of the chair.

“Sure! Ok, sure!” Jerry stood quickly, lithely.

“Thanks for the drink. Give those kids a hug for me, ok? And, let me know how your project turns out.”

Cameron stood and pushed her chair closer to the table.

“I’ll do that. Thanks…” He tossed money onto the tabletop, averting his eyes.

As she walked the block to her car, she appreciated the sound of her heels striking concrete. She’d loved it since she was a girl when the heels were on her mother’s feet.

She pulled her unbuttoned coat more closely around her and smiled at the thought of Jerry climbing a tree to pull his daughter’s favorite doll to safety. The project he had shared with her had nothing to do with her department. He must have known that before coming into her office. But she’d given him what he’d been looking for.

He wanted to share. He wanted to talk to someone who would turn in her chair, and look him in the eyes, when he told a story. So he spent an hour in a bar with “another” woman before going home to a wife who wouldn’t know he was there until the trash bin needed emptying.

Cameron turned the key and joined the commute.

Kindred Spirits

Kim looked at him in the ambient lighting, over the rim of her wineglass. Sam’s lips parted, slightly, as he arched his neck to emit a sound the others would recognize as laughter. But then, they had probably never actually heard him laugh. How were they to know that the sound they heard was nothing more than a calculated response, meant to endear, to draw close, to inspire comfort; a social necessity practiced by a man dependent on their goodwill for his livelihood, and, thus, his sense of self?
She turned away, noticing the pained expression on a waiter’s face as a demanding diner thrust a wineglass in his direction; soiling white linen before dripping, sanguinely, on the young man’s carefully polished shoes.
He used to laugh. They used to laugh. They used to laugh all the time. She remembered the rumble of his Firebird as he pulled up outside her dorm room, and the way it reverberated in her chest before her heart jumped. She ran for the window, parting the blinds with one hand, while placing the other over her chest to still it. Minutes felt like hours, as she waited for him to emerge. She had memorized each movement he would make, and never tired of watching, as he slung first one, and then the other denim- covered leg behind the yawning car door. As he stood, he turned, taking a quick survey of the parking lot. She used to wonder what he was looking for. Apparently satisfied with his surroundings, he ran one hand through his stylishly shaggy, brown hair as he shoved the door shut with the other. His keys were tossed, just once, into the air in front of him, before he pocketed them, taking the curb with a slight jump, before falling into his usual long strides on the way to her door.

He had convinced her, once again, to skip class for a day at the lake. And, as he neared the door, she left the window and hurriedly gathered her carefully packed bag and a sweater she would need after the sun had fallen. She wouldn’t be back until long after sunset.
She felt Carmen’s fingers on her elbow, breaking her reverie.
“Tell me!”, was all she said.
Kim looked down at the manicure on her arm before looking up at her friend, in question.
“What?”
“You should see the look on your face!” Carmen whispered behind a carefully painted smirk. “Who is he?”
Several conflicting thoughts bounced around inside Kim’s head as she struggled to form an acceptable answer. It wasn’t lost on her that Carmen assumed her preoccupation was with a man other than her husband. She realized, too, that her friend’s attitude was one of acceptance, even delight.
“No…”, she managed as she wondered if her friend was hoping for an opportunity to share her own indiscretions. “I mean…” She stopped, as a linen-swaddled wine bottle split the two women, and raised a grateful smile to the pouring waiter.
Hoping to avoid further conversation with Carmen, she looked across the table at Sam, wishing as she did, that he would feel her gaze, and something more. She studied his face as he inclined his head slightly in the direction of the man sitting beside him. A frown crossed his features as his unseeing eyes studied a spot in the center of the china-strewn table. She willed him to look at her; to see her, to remember the times before she was a necessary business accessory, an ornament. His mouth formed slow, thoughtful words that distance prevented her from hearing, and she turned her gaze to the other man. His eyes, over the slight curve of a knowing smile, bore into hers before moving lower. She instinctively brought one perfectly manicured hand to her neckline, grazing, with one fingernail, the diamond pendant Sam had presented her on their tenth anniversary, and scanned the group, wondering which of the impeccably accessorized women was his wife; her kindred spirit.

Seven Day Mental Diet: Day Seven-Revisions

Day seven of the Seven Day Mental Diet, and, I’ve learned some things:

I’ve learned that being, and remaining, in a positive frame of mind requires work and attention.

Accordingly, I’ve learned that the course, when darkened, can be corrected with relative ease, when aware of your thoughts.

I’ve remembered that, with effort, there is almost always something positive to be found in any situation, and that there is merit in the search, as there are benefits to everyone involved.

I am reminded of the freedom inherent in experiencing real feelings, and in welcoming the journey, and the lesson.

Over the course of the last week, I have cried a little more often, and I have whistled, gaily. I have looked for opportunities to praise and felt appreciation from those who must have wondered if I would ever notice…

I have remembered not to worry, in a time when there is much to worry about.

And, just as the author promised, on day seven, a positive outlook comes much more naturally to me than before this experiment.

The door opens on a blast of cold air,

and you.

A relative peace, tended by careful attention, endures.

You speak, I listen, as you share your appreciation of the warmth with which I surround myself.

And, this is how it is…today.

Seven Day Mental Diet: Day Four-Surrender

As challenges go, today rates right up there…
Beth Hart wailed me to a good start, and as I exited my car in a driving downpour in order to pump gas, I anticipated the opportunity to “fluff” the raindrops into my hair, accentuating the “bed-head” look I had embraced on hearing the weather forecast.
Rhonda Byrne purred in my ear, between guitar riffs, and time stood still, once again.
The morning went swimmingly. As a controlled chaos persisted in my periphery, I was neither needed, nor involved, and managed to complete a trying Sudoku while ferrying telephone calls.
Curry, for lunch, was the perfect antidote to the dreary landscape outside the office windows. I finished, with fifteen minutes of my self-imposed time limit to spare, and used the time to check in on friends.
And then it began…

As my chair rolled to a stop in front of the telephone, it began to ring, and the noise didn’t let up for the next three hours. As soon as I disconnected my head-set with a promise to fax requested information, the ringing began, again. A yellow legal pad/desk blotter/armrest filled quickly, with the names and demographic information of prospective clients, and, as I struggled to keep all their balls in the air, the “right” side of my brain appreciated the interest, while the “wrong” side wondered when I would have time to satisfy all their demands.
One particularly eager client called five times in less than an hour. I memorized his telephone number, without effort, as it repeatedly paraded across my Caller ID, and, on seeing it, yet again, I squelched the desire to tell him he had absolutely no chance of qualifying; choosing, instead, to press “hold” as I collected my positive wits about me.
As the “big” hand on the clock over my desk creeped towards freedom, I turned my thoughts to the evening, and my son’s basketball game.
“Got a game tonight!”, I called through a co-worker’s open office door. “I’m hoping for another double-digit game!”
“Cool!”, he answered without raising his head. “Good luck!”
Pewter colored clouds, floating overhead, promised more precipitation, as I rolled to a stop, in rush-hour traffic. I remembered the forecast, and hoped the dark clouds would hang around long enough for the temperature to drop, while making a mental note to warn my northernmost friends of the darkness blowing their way. And later, while riding the passenger seat, on the way to the gym, I clutched my jacket about me, while thrilling at the obviously plummeting temperature, and the continuing chance of snow.
Sharing a spot along the gym wall with friends I hadn’t seen since football season ended, I readied my camera. As I positioned it, in anticipation of a “moment”, my friend leaned in to point out how short our players were in comparison to the other team. I smiled, benignly, while setting up the shot.

Play ensued, and our sons’ challenges became quickly apparent. Unfortunately, they had nothing to do with height. The score became lopsided, long before the halftime break, and I cringed at the expression on my son’s sweaty face, while determining to remind him of the importance of positive leadership after the game was over.
As we exited the gym, I drew my jacket closer, and lowered my head against what I hoped were snow-bearing winds. My son and I danced anxiously, outside the SUV, while his father/coach gave a trite-ridden, post-game speech to a supportive mother.
Three car doors slammed with emphasis, obscuring the first few words of my son’s post-game diatribe. A team-mate, touting an as yet unproven pedigree, had loudly announced his intention to quit the team. I listened as the two of them shared their experiences and opinions on the night’s activity.
A jar of peanut butter sat beside a sheaf of buttery crackers on the holiday-themed placemat in front of him. My son’s hand disappeared inside the peanut butter jar as I took a seat at the table beside him, while his father retraced his steps, in search of his jacket. Their conversation continued, as though uninterrupted, as I waited for a pause.

“Found it!” Roger’s call came from an adjacent room.
“You need a defense.”, I ventured.
Shane chewed as his father re-entered the room with purposeful, rubber-soled strides.
“Do you run plays?”, I asked. “I didn’t see plays. Do you have any?”
Roger’s head dropped to one hand as he slid onto a padded wooden chair.
“They won’t do it.”, he answered. “I tried. They won’t do it. Did you hear me calling “three”? That’s a play.”
“It’s a “pick-and-roll”, right?” Shane’s voice begged for confirmation.
“What about half-time?”, I asked, while re-running visions of seven aimless eleven year-olds, heaving the ball at the goal, in a game of “Me, first”.
“You can’t introduce plays at half-time!” The face Roger lifted from his hand was florid. “There’s not enough time! You don’t do that!” He paused to reposition his head inside his hand, while moving, from frustration, to defeat. “I tried.”
“Ok, so it’s only the second game of the season, and you’ve given up trying to teach plays?”, I asked.
“Mom!” This time, Shane spoke through a mouthful of butter-coated crackers. “He stopped after the second practice!”
“They don’t get it.”, Roger finished.
“I’ve seen it done.” My voice was resolute; full of experience, positive, and sure.
“When?” Roger rose up, placing his hands upon the table.
“Mandledove.”, I answered, simply, sedately; invoking the name of a former coach.
Rising to his full-while-seated height, color filled his face, and his voice, and frustration, flowed from his mouth.
“I’m sick of hearing about Mandledove! So, I suck!” He sucked a breath. “I suck at coaching.”

Numbers floated across the surface of my mind as I struggled to decide, at which point in puberty, his maturation had stunted.
“You’re a good coach, Dad.” Shane’s voice, free of buttery debris, remained weak, and indecisively supportive.
And, I watched, as a fifty-year-old man gave up, while an eleven-year-old boy struggled to determine the difference between what was real and what was important; and, I learned.
I learned that a positive outlook must be desired before it can be obtained.
And, with that, I raised my hand, in the universal sign of surrender, before training my eyes upon my son.
“Two minutes until shower time.”

Absence of Light

The house is dark.

It’s just we two.

The tone of your voice and the way you stress the syllable tell me where to find you.

In the absence of any other light, the glow of the monitor in front of you tints your five-o’clock shadow blue.

You wear your usual squint above your customary scowl.

Bending over your shoulder, I anticipate the struggle inherent in overcoming your dilemma.

And the screen goes dark.

I twist the knob on a lamp that answers with an empty click.

I flip an impotent switch on a darkened wall, and, as I move into the next room, I feel you behind me.

The weight of your need bears down upon me as I struggle to find another source of light.

A third switch fails to respond.

Your hands, bearing down upon my shoulders, and your hot breath, coming quickly against my neck, threaten to overwhelm me.

My pace slows, as I wonder how you expect to be protected and supported by one who can not find her way,

in the absence of light.

Knowledge

Judging by the color of them, the ceiling tiles must have been recently replaced. The walls, unevenly covered by some kind of plaster and patched in several places, unsuccessfully blocked noises from surrounding exam rooms. There was a screw missing on a panel near the ceiling that might once have featured a clock. The glass covering an innocuous aluminum-framed print needed washing.

I began to feel the chill of institutionally gray tiles through my thin cotton tee shirt, and realized the danger must have passed. To my right, viewed between assorted steel railings supporting the bed between us, the P.A.’s navy-pinstriped legs moved slightly with her efforts. Her shoes were expensively sensible. I admired her slacks; the hang of them, the color, the fine weave of the fabric from which they’d been fashioned. I wanted to ask where she’d found them, but worried I might not be heard from my vantage point on the floor beside the bed.

I considered getting up, as the floor seemed to grow colder every minute I lay there. I eyed my jacket, draped across the back of the ridiculously uncomfortable chair I’d ridden for the better part of three hours.

“You ok down there?” Her Midwestern accented voice carried no judgment.

“Yeah, I’m good.” I answered, making the decision to stay put for the time being.

The sight of his sweat-pant covered legs, dangling as they did, from a gaping hole in the ceiling, alarmed me. All sorts of maternal recriminations sprouted inside my head, and I kept them there, knowing he would consider me unnecessarily concerned, and motherly. I approached with pursed lips in anticipation of cradling the box of ornaments he would hand down, and was met, instead, with a rain of limbs. He recalls his foot slipping from the ladder he meant to jump upon. I remember a slow-motion, herky-jerky, free-fall during which my mind immediately began to catalogue possible injuries.

As my brain continued its seamless shift into “medical-mode”, I watched the way his feet met the floor and felt sure he’d done no lasting damage. He plopped to a half-sitting/half-crouching position against the wall. Raising up as I bent towards him, he held one arm with the other hand, and below that was something I’d seen only in well-worn textbooks. I immediately bent his arm at the elbow, in an effort to close the gash.

Surreally, images of pioneer women rending their skirts flashed across my brain, before training took over again, and I envisioned the gridwork of veins and arteries snaking through that part of the human arm. I had no skirt to rend. The size of the dressing seemed most important to me as I envisioned wrapping towels of every size around his arm. Discarding each of them as too bulky, I raced through the house in the direction of the rag bag. Grabbing the telephone on my way back, I dropped it twice, before successfully dialing 911.

I raced back and forth around him following, implicitly, the instructions given by the emergency operator.

“Do I have to sit here?”, he asked from his puddle of blood.

“Well…” I hesitated, conjuring something akin to a “scene of the crime” kind of vibe.

He drew his legs up to rise.

“No! Wait!” Seeing he was determined, I helped him up, observing, as taught, for any changes in his gait.

I planted him on a chair in the kitchen.

“Hey? Can you get my cigarettes and coffee?”

Complying, I placed them before him as diffused strobe lights began to play in the next room, and removed them as quickly as I’d lain them down.

“It’s not cool to meet paramedics with your cigarettes and coffee between you.”

After opening the door, I left them to their ministrations, tempered with cheerful holiday banter. They were good at what they did.

The house was quiet again. The lights continued to play while they settled him inside the rig. I took the puppy out to feed him.

An insistent rapping against glass caught my attention and I fixed my expression on my way to meet the curious neighbors I’d been expecting. Robert lives next door.

“Yeah…” The word was jovial, coming from my smile.

“Uh, look, he wants to ask you something.” This was not what I had expected. “You know, I was just coming to make sure you were alright, and he stopped me. He wants some things from the bedside table, and he wants to ask you something.”

“Ok…thanks.”

“Let me know if you need anything…”

They had him strapped onto the gurney under very bright lights. He wore the grin that always means “I need you but you’re not going to like it.”

“Did you know that if I don’t ride, there’s no charge?”

I looked at the paramedic manning the door.

“Really?”

He inclined his head.

“Yep. Joe here’s not even gonna ride in back with him. He’s only a 3 out of 3. I mean if he’d been a 10 out of 10…but he’s only a 3 out of 3.” There was a hint of apology in his voice.

I marveled, silently, at the notion that the fuel required to drive a person to the hospital had more value than medical services rendered on site, before looking again into the jarringly bright light.

The grin had widened.

“Well, sure. I can drive you….sure. Let me get some things…We’ll take your car, you’re not comfortable in mine.” Most of this was thrown over my shoulder as I hurried back inside.

“God! You just seem miserable! You’re making me miserable! Just go home!” As he said it, from his perch on a bed in the middle of a room that, at least gave the look of being sterile, he turned his head away slightly.

“You know? Here’s the thing. It’s a problem of too much knowledge. It’s knowing that while we’re in here for hour upon hour, they are out there talking about what they served for Thanksgiving and flirting with the maintenance man they called to fix a drawer that won’t open, and they don’t care. It’s just a job, you know? I mean, they don’t mean to be disrespectful, but it’s just like you in your office. You visit right? You walk down the hall and talk to Chris or Steve, right? And you think nothing of it. It doesn’t matter that you’ve got reports on your desk that need editing. You’re bored. You walk down the hall. It’s the same here. And most people don’t know it, but I do, and I just want to go out there and say “Hey! I had plans here! My son is away for four days and I had plans tonight! This was supposed to be my night! Can we hurry things up here? Can you flirt with the guy from maintenance tomorrow maybe?”” Spent, I stopped.

Save for the sounds of a lift being pushed on a bed next door, and the beeps from a portable x-ray unit, and the sound of high heels on tile, and a rough-hewn voice that sounded like a maintenance man’s calling playfully, “Hey, come here!”, it was silent inside the room until the P.A. stepped inside.

After introducing herself she set about gathering supplies and began her work; the picture of kind efficiency. Holding a vial containing clear colored liquid over her head, she inserted a needle of some proportion, explaining that the lidocaine would “deaden the area”. I saw his sharp intake of breath as the needle disappeared behind his body and felt expected to do something. Averting my eyes as I approached the bed, I took his other hand.

“Here, squeeze this.”

I stood, and he squeezed for several minutes, before the back of my knees began to tingle. I bent them slightly as taught in chorus so many years ago and focused on an array of buttons set in the opposite wall. The buttons, and even the wall, itself, became cloudy and I attempted to will it away by blinking. When I realized I could no longer hear the cheerfully kind banter of the P.A., I patted his hand, explaining I should sit down. As I struggled with consciousness, I remembered the coolness of a tile floor, and I climbed off my chair, hoping no one would notice.

Rain sheared across the windshield as I struggled to make out faded lines in the road.

“What was that about?” His speech still carried Dilaudid. “You were a nurse!”

“Now, you know.”

“What? What do I know?”

“You know the real reason I didn’t want to come.”

“But you were a nurse! You saw things like that all the time! How did you do it?”

“It’s different…when the outcome affects the picture you carry in your head, of your life.”

We rode in silence for several minutes before he spoke again.

“Did I imagine it, or did you tie a dust-rag around my arm?”

Taxi!

She pushed away from the table.

Half-eaten, she left it on the plate,

and, reaching the sidewalk, she threw up her hand.

He Said, She Said

He doesn’t so much sit as drape a chair; filling it with athletic grace. His head lies cradled in the receiver as he drags one sturdy hand through a day’s growth. His eyes squint, unseeing, as his own mortality supersedes the flashing image on the other side of the room.

“Have you thought about marriage?”

I push my hair behind my ear as I cross, hurriedly, into the next room. A familiar irony fills me.

My hand holds the same telephone, in the same room, in the same chair. My daughter’s voice comes through the receiver, and, as my hand parts my hair, I ask my question.

“Is this what you really want?”

Cold

The door opens on a blast of cold air,

and you.

A relative peace, bought and paid for, by hours of contained pleasantries, shatters.

You speak, I listen, neither understands.

And this is how it is.

Diamond Cutter

Wedging herself onto the end of a thickly shellacked wooden bench, she sat amongst a group of waiters. Music pumped from strategically placed speakers over her head, as she placed her feet out of range of the oblivious, polo-shirted man standing with his back to her. He laughed, gesturing with his drink, to the delight of his date.

She leaned forward slightly, at the approach of a car, straining to take measure of its occupant. An older man, and the woman riding the passenger seat, meant nothing to her.

Oppressive July heat fell in droplets around her, pasting her carefully chosen cotton tee-shirt to her body. She stretched it towards the laughing man in hopes of a stray, drying breeze.

A garbled voice, calling names, replaced the music. An elderly couple beside her took their cue, barely escaping the flying elbow of the ebullient man. His date’s face quickly flashed from flirtatious delight to horror. Harnessing his elbows, she pulled him forward.

And the music ensued. A family of five occupied the opposite bench. Mother, her face colored by a mixture of fatigue and gratitude, jostled her youngest to distraction, while Father palmed a beer, protectively.

Several sets of legs to her left, parted, revealing him.

She hadn’t seen as much as a picture, but she knew.

His face split, revealing a set of uneven, but well-cared for teeth. The collar of his pastel- hued shirt parted graciously, admitting jet black curls. There was a shine to his hair.

He squeezed his generous frame into the space beside her, leaning against the wall before expelling the air he’d been holding.

“Hey…” The word came on the breath of his sigh, and around a grin that would remain, throughout the evening.

The speakers crackled, again, as his name was called and he took her hand. The niceties had finished.

Months of practice fueled their conversation. She studied the way his generous hand wrapped around a steak knife, and, as he chewed with upturned lips, she marveled at his pleasure.

He paid with plastic as she considered her options.

The interior of his truck spoke to her. She flashed on that first drive with her father. She felt the plastic knob of a gear shift in her hand as she maneuvered the weather-beaten Ford F-150 out of the parking lot, and onto the roadway; setting it up on two wheels. And, her father; his white-knuckled hands gripping cracked vinyl, as he screamed…

“You made me pee my pants!”

Their first uncomfortable silence came as he settled himself against the nylon-covered bench seat. Questions, she was hesitant to answer, hung in the air, buoyed by vibrations emitted from a factory-installed radio. Windows were lowered, and she re-adjusted her shirt.

She felt him before she saw him. He face hovered above hers, eager to deliver what would be the first of many sloppy, wet kisses which would improve with translation, over time. The cadence of his garlic-tinged breath filled the air around them, and, her decision was made, as his hands grasped the hem of her shirt, pulling it over her head before the slammming of a nearby car door reminded her they were still in the parking lot.

Time and circumstance placed them together, allowing them every other weekend. For two years, at no small expense, he rented the same set of rooms in a local concrete-encased block of suites. Lamp-light reflected off chrome appliances in the tiny kitchenette; spawning in her, domestic fantasies.

Sated fatigue colored his voice as he drew up the sheet, turning his back.

“There’s something in your drawer…”

Delight propelled her from the bed. A curled hand carried the sheet with her.

He hadn’t bothered to wrap it, and it didn’t matter. Two pewter-toned Tahitian pearls sat, ensconced in tiny diamonds, at either end of a platinum ring which slid easily about her wrist. She raised her arm; twisting the facets in admiration.

And, he began to jump. Both hands clutched the polyester-infiltrated fabric surrounding her, as 200+ pounds pummeled a well-used mattress. She watched, integrating the juvenile glee on his Sicilian-hued face with the incongruously violent swing of his penis. Nothing in her experience could make this right.

Roses arrived. Mounds of them, in varying colors, filled vases on tables throughout her home, only to be replaced by fresh bouquets the next day.

And jewelry; rubies protected by diamonds, and a pendant supporting a single, large, perfect stone.

They talked, hesitant to disturb the stillness of a southern spring night, while she fingered his gift. And, as he lifted her hair to cinch the clasp, he assured her…”No strings…”

He hadn’t tried to hide. As they approached her driveway, his Toyota sat, valiantly, next to her Ford. She whispered her “Goodnight”, before stumbling into the darkened living room.

Straining, she recognized his form, filling the center of her second-hand sofa. Neither spoke. She straddled him, and weeks later, he would invoke the scent of the other man. But, for now…tonight, it didn’t matter.

“I could’ve bought a bedroom suite for my daughter with that money!”

Rubies, and diamonds, and dreams, crunched against concrete under her running shoes before she turned, and mounting the steps, jogged to the door; closing it behind her.