Photo by Luismi Sánchez on Unsplash
Kathy walked in to find Dave painting the inside of the closet, the radio blaring a metal band she didn’t recognize, all scream-singing and shreddy guitar. She began fishing for headphones in her laptop backpack as she greeted her husband.
“Don’t forget we have dinner with Annette and Joe tonight at the Cantina.” He leaned towards her and kissed the air near her head, then backed away, gesturing exaggeratedly at the wet paint brush in his other hand. “I’m going to the gym once I clean up. Meet me at the restaurant.” She nodded.
He left, taking the noise with him. Silence washed over her, rinsed her clean of the grit of irritation. She opened the laptop, sat in front of it, blank. Silent. Then she closed it.
Kathy showered, dressed – her good jeans, the ones she thought were flattering. They clung to her thighs but gapped at her belly, even with a belt. She could swing her hips in those jeans, defiant and loose-limbed. Pink t shirt with a padded bra underneath, cotton cardigan to complement. She bought the bra because it advertised “no headlights.” God forbid visible nipples. Boots with heels. All straight out of the playbook for what attractive, married women her age wore when meeting up with another couple for dinner. Her hair -- Precision Cuts was the name of the place in the mall where she got it cut all through her twenties – was now long enough to be tamed in a knot at her nape. She applied make up – mascara and lipstick. Enhance, don’t announce, her mother used to say. She assessed herself in the mirror before leaving. Credible.
She was the last to arrive. She spread her hands wide in apology. “Nowhere to park.” The restaurant was noisy; Dave, Joey and Annette were noisy. Kathy ordered a glass of pinot grigio and drank it like water.
Their appetizers came. Kathy ate too many chips with salsa. “Don’t get chip-faced,” Dave teased her, making sure Joey and Netty heard him and laughed. She laughed as well, cooperative. A good sport.
Netty placed a hand on her arm and lowered her voice to be heard under the din. “You look fantastic. Did you lose weight?”
Their entrees came. Dave switched from beer to red wine and ordered a pinot noir. The waitress only heard the pinot and brought him the wrong wine. He made a big show of correcting her, loudly and generously, explaining how the mistake must have happened. She went to take the offending wine away when Kathy touched her arm and made eye contact. “I’ll drink it,” she murmured.
Joey and Dave traded stories. Town cop versus handyman-contractor. Kathy listened, and watched Netty listen. Had she also heard all these stories before? The sunbathing woman. The dog that ate the stash. The hoarders. The baby in the barn. The high-speed car chase and the boy who fell into the ditch.
Over dessert, Joey played his trump card: “I saw something pretty wild when I was patrolling downtown last week.”
Everyone sat up in their chairs a bit. Last week.
“I was cruising through the parking garage at the mall – we got a report that a couple of cars had been broken into, you know the usual smash and grab shit – so I was making my presence known. Slow rolling through the lot in the cruiser: ‘hello assholes, I’m here.’”
Everyone was watching him.
“I saw a car with steamed up windows, a Honda or a Subaru or something. So I slowed down to take a look. An old couple was in there, going to town on each other. Well, old couple, I don’t know. I couldn’t see her. But I got a good look at him, all white hair and a giant bald spot – you know, they say baldness is connected to testosterone, right? Well, this guy had no hair on top, but plenty of stamina. Holy shit. I couldn’t believe it. Weird pervy old guy.”
The jabs and jeers about the weird pervy old guy rained down. Pervy. Kathy hadn’t heard anyone use that word since middle school.
“Hooker?” Dave wanted to know. “Was she a hooker, you think?”
“At the mall parking lot?” Netty giggled. “Not fucking likely.” The three of them had all had enough to drink to find that hilarious.
Kathy excused herself to the ladies room, face composed, walk effortfully steady. The stall door secured behind her, she pulled out her phone. Her face felt hot, her throat swollen. “We were seen,” she typed.
Heather Rolland is an emerging writer and psychotherapist based in upstate New York. Her short story Fresh Oil Loose Stone was published in Agnes and True; several additional pieces have recently been accepted for publication. She writes fiction and non fiction, hikes every day with her dogs, and is an amateur wildlife photographer.