... and left at the Piggly Wiggly

​

     My wife, Allison, a bemused look on her face, sat alone at the dining room table. Her perfume, a delicate blend of jasmine and moonflowers (her favorite scent), bathed the room; its subtle, relaxing essence, unable to mask the tensions within. 

While I... I stood silently in front of her, my hands clasped behind my back as I shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. My face aglow, I wondered if she could feel the heat radiating from my cheeks. Suddenly, I was back in school, a naughty schoolboy nervously waiting for the proverbial hammer to fall.

     Allison wrinkled her nose, flaring her nostrils in concentration as an uneasy stillness fell over the room. She didn’t move, she didn’t speak, and I would later avow to seeing lightning flash wildly behind her piercing eyes.

     Perched atop the mantle in the living room, the antique carriage clock, a gift from a now-deceased aunt, seemed to awaken. Usually quiet and discreet, the clock, not the aunt, it chimed twice. Its rhythmic ticking relentlessly punctuated the awkward silence.

     The temperature outside was unseasonably warm for this time of year. October rarely reached into the 90s, and as a result, Allison was wearing one of her favorite tank tops. (Incidentally, it was one of my favorites, also.) Bright yellow, it was skin-tight in all the right places. 

     I can still recall the day we picked it up at one of those little beach-front shops in Montego Bay. Jesus, that seemed like a lifetime ago.

     And yet, while I fully understood the gravity of the current situation, my eyes broke rank. Going rogue, they fell upon her magnificent chest, watching as it rose and fell steadily with each breath. Damn yellow tank top!

     Curious and calculating, Alison’s eyes studied me, burning a hole right through me.

     “Oh my god, please, say something,” I begged.

     “Are you out of your friggin mind?” she screeched. “You want us to quit our jobs and do WHAT?” 

     Leaning forward, she snatched an envelope off the table. “And… how do you suggest we pay this?” she asked, waving the electric bill in my face before adding it to the stack neatly laid out on the dining room table. “Or these,” she tossed a handful of unopened mail (presumably more bills) onto the growing pile.

     The sudden disturbance and resulting gust caused by the falling envelopes woke Callie, our little Calico, who, until moments ago, was sound asleep on a pile of discarded junk mail. (Her preference was discarded grocery flyers, but she was very easygoing and willing to crash on just about anything.)

     Raising her head, the annoyed kitten glared at Allison through sleepy eyes, giving her a short, curt, “WHAT THE HELL IS ALL THAT RUCKUS ABOUT?” meow. Satisfied that Allison had been properly admonished, she stretched out across the tabletop as long as her petite frame would allow and, with feline indifference, yawned wide. Crossing her paws, she gently laid her head down and closed her eyes, intent on finishing the aforementioned rudely interrupted nap.

     Allison reached out and gently rubbed the sleeping kitten under the chin. Callie, who by now had given up any hope of finishing her nap, gently purred in response, even deigning to raise her chin, allowing Allison better access. She opened one eye and rolled over. In an overt display of feline approval, she curled her paws, extending and retracting her claws, lost in the sheer bliss of the unsolicited chin rub. Leaping into Allison’s lap, she returned the affection with an enthusiastic purr, rubbing her face hard into Allison’s outstretched hand a signal that all of Allison’s earlier transgressions with the nap had apparently been forgiven.

     I quietly observed their playful interaction, relieved to have the attention diverted away from me, if only for a short while. Smiling down at the tiny kitten nuzzling against her, my wife suddenly remembered the current bane of her existence and looked up.       

     “Did you forget that we have a kid in college, too?”

     “No, I didn’t forget,” I protested. Fumbling with one of the unopened bills, feigning an interest that I’m sure she saw right through, I smiled down at Allison. “But he does get out this year, doesn’t he?”

     “Yeah, well, we hope so,” she chuckled, giving Callie a parting scratch on the head. “Go on, baby,” she said, shooing the kitten off her lap, “mommy has to pay these nasty bills.” She picked at the white fur clinging to her top like tiny wisps of white cloud. “Daddy,” she added, snatching the unopened bill out of my hand, “seems to forget that they show up every month, whether we are working. Or not.”

     I ignored her, sneering at her pithy comment.

     She set her pen down and calmly closed the checkbook. Placing her hands upon the table, she clasped her fingers together and smiled sweetly. A little too sweet, in fact. It was kinda creepy and just a touch patronizing. 

     “OK, I’ll bite,” she said. “And what, pray tell, will we do after we just up and quit our jobs?”

     Tilting her head, she scrunched her eyes, closely scrutinizing me, waiting for my reply.

     It unnerved me.

     Taken aback by her sudden interest, I lost all train of thought. I stood rooted to the spot, desperately struggling for the right words to accurately describe my plan as my wife waited and watched. Fearing that I was losing the moment, I blurted out, “Write,” as if writing were a perfectly logical career choice for the pair of us. (The mere fact that neither one of us had ever written anything of consequence didn’t matter. Did it?)

     “Write,” she said, staring at me with a pained and somewhat confused look. She began to nod her head slowly, in stunned disbelief, repeating the word once again. Still staring, she picked up her pen and began to use it as a drumstick, rapidly tapping on the unpaid bills in an irritated fashion.

     “Write, Huh?”

     I could see that she was unconvinced, almost disappointed. And I could practically hear the tirade that I imagined she wanted to unleash.

The unspoken dialogue went something like this:

     WRITE? WRITE? YOU HAVE THE NERVE TO STAND THERE SPOUTING THIS BULL CRAP, BUGGING ME WHILE I AM TRYING TO BALANCE THE CHECKBOOK. WONDERING HOW THE HELL I AM GOING TO PAY ALL OF THESE BILLS WITH WHAT’S LEFT IN OUR PALTRY BANK ACCOUNT AND PRAYING FOR NEXT WEEK AND OUR NEXT PAYCHECK TO ARRIVE. BUT YOU DEEM IT OK, NAY APPROPRIATE (my words, Allison would not use such) TO STAND IN FRONT OF ME AND PROPOSE THAT WE JUST WALK AWAY, QUIT OUR JOBS…AND WRITE. JUST WHAT THE FUCK PLANET ARE YOU LIVING ON, BUDDY?

     Perhaps she was expecting more. Was I not clear? Was my opening argument that weak? I would have to step it up, jazz it a little if I were going to convince her that my idea had any kind of merit. 

     “Really,” she said. “That is your big plan. Write. Write about what, Ted?” “You have trouble writing an email, much less a book or anything else for public consumption.”

     “Food,” I said, “… and travel,” trying to make it sound exciting, at least as exciting as just saying the words food and travel can be. “It’ll be the ultimate road trip, a kind of foodie-travelogue, really,” I let the idea hang out there for a couple of seconds.

     We’ve always had a reasonably good marriage, and Allison usually “got” me. But as I stood there, having laid bare my soul, my wife of 26 years looked at me as if I had just skittered off the mothership with an eye in the middle of my forehead. Actually, smack dab in the middle of each of my three heads.