It’s early, before eight. On a Saturday. I got nothin’ planned at all. Not a thing, which is a major, major mistake. Having too much time on my hands with nothing to fill it is about as stupid as it gets, but I wasn’t thinkin’ about it while I was sick. Now I don’t feel sick, I just feel wobbly. And hungry. There’s leftover pizza in the fridge. Not exactly one of Shi’s breakfasts, but the thought of cold pizza makes my mouth water.
I am not alone.
Shi is sittin’ at the kitchen table reading a newspaper, havin’ a smoke, and drinkin’ a cup of coffee. She doesn’t hear me right away, somethin’ in the paper must be interesting, and her eyes don’t look up. So I have a nice, long look of her. She’s in white today. Real bright white with a green scarf thing tied around her head to keep her hair back. Her hair is loose. She doesn’t wear it like that much. Usually it’s held back with a rubber band or some clips or somethin’. Today it’s all down her back and it looks lovely.
“Hi,” I say.
“Hi.” She turns to me with a smile that turns into a laugh. “What happened to you?” she asks.
“Fell asleep on the couch.”
“What? After wrestling it to the ground?”
“Very funny,” I say, but I’m smiling, too, ‘cause it is sorta funny.
“How do you feel today?” she asks.
“Better. Fine.” I pour myself a cup of coffee before Shi can leap up and pour it for me. I sit down wind of Shi, too, so she doesn’t get a whiff of me.
“Good. Do you have any plans for today?”
“No.”
“Feel up to a little shopping?”
“Sure.” Yes. Completely. Anything. Anywhere. Anytime. I’m up, I’m way, way up for a little shopping. If there had been any plans, they would be broken right now. I’m turning cartwheels on the inside, while lighting a cigarette and tryin’ to be way, way cool.
“Nothing overwhelming.”
“Whatever.”
“I saw a few things last week and I want to see if they’re still there, and if they are, I’d like you to have a look at them, too.” She flips a page over, scans it, and then looks up at me. “I thought that I would work on the dining room and the game room.”
“Game room?”
“Where the pool table is.”
“Oh, cool.”
“Breakfast?”
“Pizza.”
“Ah, breakfast of champion’s,” she says with a tiny smirk.
“It’s quick, you don’t have to cook anything, and it’s here,” I tell her, ticking the points off with my fingers.
“Oh, I wasn’t offering to cook it,” she says with another funny little smile. “I was offering to buy it. It’s beautiful out. I was thinking eggs by the ocean. Go take a shower and let’s get out of here,” she says.
I can shower very quickly.
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Alex can move when motivated. I only have time to straighten up the den and head up to his bedroom before he’s out of the shower and dripping on the carpet. I know that he’s dripping because I see the wet footprints walking from the bath to the closet. I came up to make the bed, but I can see that it hasn’t been slept in, just his clothes, which are scattered on the wet tiles. It’s easy enough to scoop them up and shove them down the shoot. They stink, a combination smell of body odor and medication that’s reminiscent of skunk. It’s a sharp, acrid smell that speaks of sickness to me.
Well, the clothes will get washed. The bed is fresh. The bathroom takes a quick wiping down, and my companion for the day is impatiently tapping his foot in the doorway.
Alex insists on driving, which I have no problem with; I spend a better part of my day driving and this is a treat. So is going out for breakfast. Oh, if he had made a case for it I would have cooked. It’s my job, and he has Saturday morning privileges if he wants to enact them. So far everything has either been by mutual consent or by my choice: I’ve cooked on the weekends if I’ve wanted to, and passed if I wanted to. Today is no exception.
I don’t know where we’re going, but it’s not far. Nothing is too, too far around here. I’m surprised, though, when Alex turns the car into the parking lot of a rather pretty Inn. He tosses the keys to a valet and we’re escorted through the lobby into a dining area that’s almost empty. It faces the beach, what doesn’t here, I wonder, and we’re seated and looking at menus before I can ask ‘where are we?’.
“Where are we?” I finally manage.
“The Hideaway Café. Nice, hunh?”
Nice, hunh. It’s very nice. Open and airy. The menu is simple; the usual eggs and such. Nothing here that I can’t make, only, I’m not the one making it. I decide on poached eggs on toast, say ‘thank you’ to the person who pours me a cup of coffee, and settle in to look at the beach.
This was a good idea. I admit it, I felt guilty about last night. I felt guilty accepting the invitation to go out with David, I felt guilty leaving Alex on his own. Even if it all worked out in the long run and Alex was able to amuse himself for the evening, I still felt that the entire evening unfolded under less than ideal circumstances. I would have liked to have a little less edge to it all; to have been able to leave Alex behind and known that he was perfectly fine. Because, and maybe this is just me, but he seems a little more needy these past few weeks. I don’t know what’s going on with him any more than I usually do, but there’s been an atmosphere surrounding him. Him being sick only made that neediness more pronounced, because at that point he was definitely, without question, in need of a lot of care. So when I woke up this morning, the night long over with, I thought that if Alex was feeling fine we should go out and spend some time together today making decisions about the house, despite my feelings last night.
For one, it would settle some questions in my head about what he wants. I know he tells me to do as I like, but I never take that too seriously. I DO ‘do as I like’, but with him in mind at all times. If we can pin down a few purchases today, I can spend the next month or so putting it all together in the house, and when he returns from his travels, it should be on the verge of being a completed project.
Secondly, I wanted to get Alex out of the house. As long as he was physically able, I thought it would be good for him to be out. He’s been in too much. I know that even thinking that is overstepping the boundaries, but I don’t really care. Part of the ‘new me’ syndrome I’m going through. It’s not as if I’ve let on to Alex that I think this, or that I’m acting on the thought. Hardly. But I’m getting my way in a nice way and for a reason. And he seems perfectly pleased to be out. He’s smiling. I would consider that an indication of, if not happiness, at least contentedness.
“What are you laughin’ at?” he asks me.
“Oh, nothing. I was just thinking how nice it is to be out today.” I look back out at the view. “It was too nice a day to be inside, don’t you think?”
“Yup.”
“Of course, that’s most days around here,” I say, and I laugh again, only this time I know that I’m doing it.
“It’s pretty nice around here,” he agrees. A waiter comes to take orders and put a basket of warm, baked items on the table. I put in for the poached eggs, and quickly change to Eggs Benedict. The only real difference is the sauce, but I want the sauce. Alex orders waffles. I’ve never made him waffles, he has no waffle iron. I make a mental note. It’s not all that different from making a pancake, you just need the equipment.
I help myself to a roll.
“You got a wrinkle in your forehead. Is everything okay?” he asks me.
“I was thinking about waffles.” This causes him to chuckle. A deep, low, laugh that comes from his belly.
“And waffles are that serious?” he finally manages to ask.
“Okay, waffle irons. I was thinking about making waffles and that you don’t have a waffle iron.”
“Well, then we’ll get one,” he says. Case closed. No having to think about it, no having to budget for it. No having to price comparison shop for it, I would suspect. “What?” he asks me.
“Excuse me?”
“You’ve got a weird look on your face, like, like....”
“Like I’m having a hard time with what you’re saying,” I tell him.
“Yeah, like that.” He takes a sip of juice and leans forward. “Like you’re stressin’ over a waffle iron.”
“Sometimes I have a hard time comprehending that a person can just get anything they want, at any time.”
“Hunh?”
“You just buy what you like. I’ve never been able to do that. I find it close to amazing that it’s even possible, but it’s all around me,” I say, gesturing to the room. “Financial freedom. The concept is just about alien to me.”
It’s Alex’s turn to look quizzical. He’s mulling that over; it’s plain on his face. It’s his turn to get wrinkles on his forehead. I stop paying attention, reach with my knife for a dab of butter from the crock they’ve brought to the table, and before I can do that, Alex takes my hand in his, knife and all.
“Do you need more money?” He’s dead serious.
“No, I...”
“Tell me the truth.”
“I don’t need....”
“A raise?”
“Alex, NO, I was...”
“I can pay you more. Is there a problem with camp for Tish? Is it about that car, do you want your own car, ‘cause you can have the Jeep, I told you that was cool, I...”
“Slow down. It’s none of the above. I was just making an observation.” His fingers are tight on my hand, so tight I have to let the knife go, and it clatters on the butter dish. Now he brings both of his hands into play, holding mine with the one, patting this same hand with the other as if he’s trying to soothe me. I find the gesture old fashioned, endearing. It is soothing, and that’s a surprise. First, I didn’t know I needed soothing, and second, Alex is not someone I would have categorized as being a comfort. To anyone.
“If you need something, you gotta tell me,” Alex presses. “We’ll work it out.”
His eyes, which have been boring into mine, slip away from my gaze for a moment, a second, a fraction of a second, before coming back to stare once more.
“You can’t quit,” he says. And his hands hold onto mine, hard, as if they’re never letting go.
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© 2003 Chandrah, Inc.
© 2003 (*> Baby Bird Productions, Inc.
