She was a young girl with a dour face and oddly expressive eyes. Long before her affair with the married salesman, Miriam was a red-haired virgin who floated around Richland believing in fairy tales for a living, and cleaning other people’s houses. (Later, after she met the salesman she would always look at him- she searched him for something of Fritz).
He was short and he had bad eyesight, the reporter, and he had a way of wandering through town- lost in thought- oblivious to passerby until they were almost all the way by, almost out of earshot. Then, only then, he hollered out an excitable “Hello!” This Fritz, he had dark hair that sulked across his forehead at inopportune times, something like an obstinate child who just refuses to behave. He struck many townspeople as aloof. All in all, everyone in Richland whispered about the two, they got on so quick and so well.
Whenever the young girl saw him, her blank face lit like kindling. Dour expression, and an empty sort of canvas, she was instantly set free as her air mixed with his- their lives too enmeshed now for discernment. In the days after Fritz’s death, Miriam would sit all day in one of the apartments she was hired to clean. She stared out the filmy windows and remembered, her body growing warm, how his hands once thirsted for her- thrust deep inside of her as though his yearning could not be consoled until their bodies breathed as one.
Afterward, Richland forgot about Miriam until the married salesman chased down her dog in the park. In Miriam herself, though, there was a hint of the spectacular. Alone in her dull apartment, she worked ceaselessly- constantly remembering- trying to rebuild what a drunk driver took a split second to destroy.
A tall woman who wore the same black and white tank top for years- it was her work uniform- and as she did little else, it was her most comfortable piece of clothing. When she cleaned people’s houses, Miriam always thought of Fritz. She carried with her a notebook- the kind styled for journalists that he used to stuff in his back jeans pocket. Endlessly, relentlessly, she poured over their time together and at the precise moment of a recollection, she jotted down those words of his. Whatever they were, whenever they came upon her.
“I love you,” once… “We should go to the islands someday,” another time… “What were your parents like?”… “Why is the apartment of a housemaid so cluttered?”
She filled page after page- notebook after notebook- with her re-creations of him, and very quickly they became too heavy to carry.
The five-and-dime is closing... What was it Fritz had said about the owner’s gambling habit? The church is adding a new wing... He thought far too many people place their faith in buildings and in abstract concepts.
All in all, the story of Miriam and the reporter equals the sum of one odd tale. The girl awoke when she was in his company and he in hers. All of the town watched as sunrises came and went bleeding across the sky with frighteningly fast intensity- the difference in the days before Miriam and Fritz in Richland was equated by many to the difference on the countenances of each when they held the other. Quite possibly, the old town fell in love alongside them.
Miriam and the reporter had their exact beginnings on a fall afternoon. Fritz smirked the first time he saw her- what he called later “a smile gone wrong”- and he walked all the way to the end of the street before he found the courage to turn back around. She was beneath the awning on the stoop of the little clothing store, eating her lunch of apples and granola. When he came back, he stood in front of her and shaded his eyes. He tilted his body so he was level with her. “Best restaurant in town?” he asked.
“Their tailoring is to die for.” She locked gazes with him, she blushed.
Once, her family had been among the richest of all the legendary names in New England. That was before the stock market crash that ruined her parents’ computer business. Long after, long since the family parted ways- her parents headed to some retirement community in the South- Miriam suffered through the most horrific dreams. When she slept, her mind wound together visions of silicon transistor chips that mercilessly smothered her father.
Fritz listened to her tell this dream story more than once. “You felt like he became a machine.”
“I wouldn’t say that, no. Binary code at least gave a man like him some context. My grandmother said once ‘there was no knowing him until he learned to work a motherboard.’”
After Fritz and Miriam got together, they were rarely apart. They passed many an evening just talking in his apartment or driving his little black car through the country that surrounded Richland. She adored such things as hand holding and star gazing- he began to appreciate them as well.
“One day, I’ll finish my book,” Fritz said suddenly. Both had just finished gasping at the presence of a shooting star.
Later, after Fritz's funeral, after the arrest and trial of the drunk driver-an over-privileged teen with a closet full of fake ids- Miriam finally cleared her head enough to sort through the stacks of notebooks she’d filled with his words. If, more than anything, he wanted his story- then she would find it, here. And she would be the one to write it for him.
Friday, November 4, 2005
Monday, August 22, 2005
Goddess
In the darkness he waits for her. The cool night air is punctured by passing headlights- an intermittent pulse of life. It’s a deserted place, a country road. A packing plant gone unused these several months since operations moved to Mexico. Down the road, as he observed coming in tonight, a housing development is in the works. He rolls his eyes, imagining the traffic here in a few years’ time.
For most of today, his nerves have played at him—more, it’s a sense of unease he can’t explain. They’ve been seeing each other forever, at least it seems that way. She’s younger than he is. There are times he thinks she’s had no one else. In the past, there were even moments when he’d found her inexperience charming. Now, however, he’s fairly certain that she sees other men. It doesn’t upset him like it once might have, though he worries about her judgment sometimes. He has no desire to discuss such things with her for fear it will lead to further “talks”—the very animal he dreads. Every so often, just to comfort her, on saying goodnight he adds, “Be mine.” It suffices, he thinks, to keep them on track in her eyes.
As for anticipating the woman he’s now waiting for—that stopped, as such, long ago. She’s cute enough. Heavier than he likes. And he’s never been much for blonds, oddly. But whenever he calls, she comes. And she does whatever he asks. No… it isn’t nerves. He’s unsettled, he decides, swallowing to rid the sharp taste in his mouth.
On the periphery a car slows. His body tenses as he watches for a turn signal. Nothing. He relaxes. The refrain of an old Bruce Springsteen song suddenly rattles the darkness. Cell phone display reads “Pamela,” and he takes a breath. She is the receptionist in his office. A gorgeous brunette, she’s starred in his fantasies many a night. For now, he mutes the ringer and continues his vigil. His mind drifts helplessly to the enigma of Pam’s husband. The women in his office spend their coffee breaks day after day giggling, referring to their men as louts. Not she. Pam stands out among the bulging soccer-mom nags and complainers. He wonders what she thinks of him.
Glancing to the dash, he rolls up his windows and turns the ignition off. The air is sucked out of the car and silence fills his ears. “Money is money,” he says. His watch reads 7:49. He mutters a profanity. She’s late, and when she arrives she’ll inevitably want to talk about some damn thing before they can be quiet and be together. He will tell her that he loves her, as he has grown accustomed to doing, because it gets her focused and in the mood. But he does love the perfume she wears—some nights he’d lost himself in that scent, in her eager arms, her soft hair, her warm inside. He closes his eyes and massages his shaft, daydreaming of a woman—an amalgam of she, Pamela, and of his wife (before).
A few seconds pass. A sedan with a raucous engine makes a right turn. Passing beneath a row of yellow lights bordering the far end of the lot, the car’s driver extinguishes the high beams. Making a giant loop, the car parks beside him. A woman gets out. She fidgets with her hair in the creeping moonlight. They gaze intently at one another. Then she smiles broadly and runs to his passenger door. Pulling it open, she leaps in excitedly, flooding the interior with light. “You started without me,” she says, laughing. “You couldn’t wait?” Leaning in, she pulls his hand back and places hers upon him.
For some reason she starts talking about the first time they met—then she corrects herself. “It wasn’t when we met. Weeks later, you really noticed me. Talked to me. Remember? You gave me a ride home after that Christmas party. I was tired, probably a little drunk, and I slept some of the way. But there, next to me, I could sense you wanting me. That blue jacket of yours with the plaid hood, it’s ingrained in my memory from that night. I will never ever forget it, or your annoying penchant for sports, exercise. Everything so foreign to me.” She laughed. “You’re a part of me in a way I can’t explain. (You make me feel so high and so low at the same time.)”
She says she missed him today. Longed for him in every way imaginable. She is nervous about his newly quieted expression. Begins sputtering promises of her fidelity to him—there has never been another, there will never be... She interweaves these declarations with praise for him, for his commitment to his wife. In truth, she hates his wife and chooses suddenly to say this, to scream it, but she backtracks immediately because he loved this woman once—still, she knows.
One day we’ll really be together, she whispers. Is it a question? She takes his hands and wraps them around her. She pulls him toward her and forgets all else.
These are things she feels. This is what she would’ve said when he asked “how are you?” if he had asked—if she thought, even for a minute, that he gave a damn.
That man, the man she made love to most every night, was all in her mind.
For most of today, his nerves have played at him—more, it’s a sense of unease he can’t explain. They’ve been seeing each other forever, at least it seems that way. She’s younger than he is. There are times he thinks she’s had no one else. In the past, there were even moments when he’d found her inexperience charming. Now, however, he’s fairly certain that she sees other men. It doesn’t upset him like it once might have, though he worries about her judgment sometimes. He has no desire to discuss such things with her for fear it will lead to further “talks”—the very animal he dreads. Every so often, just to comfort her, on saying goodnight he adds, “Be mine.” It suffices, he thinks, to keep them on track in her eyes.
As for anticipating the woman he’s now waiting for—that stopped, as such, long ago. She’s cute enough. Heavier than he likes. And he’s never been much for blonds, oddly. But whenever he calls, she comes. And she does whatever he asks. No… it isn’t nerves. He’s unsettled, he decides, swallowing to rid the sharp taste in his mouth.
On the periphery a car slows. His body tenses as he watches for a turn signal. Nothing. He relaxes. The refrain of an old Bruce Springsteen song suddenly rattles the darkness. Cell phone display reads “Pamela,” and he takes a breath. She is the receptionist in his office. A gorgeous brunette, she’s starred in his fantasies many a night. For now, he mutes the ringer and continues his vigil. His mind drifts helplessly to the enigma of Pam’s husband. The women in his office spend their coffee breaks day after day giggling, referring to their men as louts. Not she. Pam stands out among the bulging soccer-mom nags and complainers. He wonders what she thinks of him.
Glancing to the dash, he rolls up his windows and turns the ignition off. The air is sucked out of the car and silence fills his ears. “Money is money,” he says. His watch reads 7:49. He mutters a profanity. She’s late, and when she arrives she’ll inevitably want to talk about some damn thing before they can be quiet and be together. He will tell her that he loves her, as he has grown accustomed to doing, because it gets her focused and in the mood. But he does love the perfume she wears—some nights he’d lost himself in that scent, in her eager arms, her soft hair, her warm inside. He closes his eyes and massages his shaft, daydreaming of a woman—an amalgam of she, Pamela, and of his wife (before).
A few seconds pass. A sedan with a raucous engine makes a right turn. Passing beneath a row of yellow lights bordering the far end of the lot, the car’s driver extinguishes the high beams. Making a giant loop, the car parks beside him. A woman gets out. She fidgets with her hair in the creeping moonlight. They gaze intently at one another. Then she smiles broadly and runs to his passenger door. Pulling it open, she leaps in excitedly, flooding the interior with light. “You started without me,” she says, laughing. “You couldn’t wait?” Leaning in, she pulls his hand back and places hers upon him.
For some reason she starts talking about the first time they met—then she corrects herself. “It wasn’t when we met. Weeks later, you really noticed me. Talked to me. Remember? You gave me a ride home after that Christmas party. I was tired, probably a little drunk, and I slept some of the way. But there, next to me, I could sense you wanting me. That blue jacket of yours with the plaid hood, it’s ingrained in my memory from that night. I will never ever forget it, or your annoying penchant for sports, exercise. Everything so foreign to me.” She laughed. “You’re a part of me in a way I can’t explain. (You make me feel so high and so low at the same time.)”
She says she missed him today. Longed for him in every way imaginable. She is nervous about his newly quieted expression. Begins sputtering promises of her fidelity to him—there has never been another, there will never be... She interweaves these declarations with praise for him, for his commitment to his wife. In truth, she hates his wife and chooses suddenly to say this, to scream it, but she backtracks immediately because he loved this woman once—still, she knows.
One day we’ll really be together, she whispers. Is it a question? She takes his hands and wraps them around her. She pulls him toward her and forgets all else.
These are things she feels. This is what she would’ve said when he asked “how are you?” if he had asked—if she thought, even for a minute, that he gave a damn.
That man, the man she made love to most every night, was all in her mind.
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