Photo by Pixzolo Photography on Unsplash
Sunday morning Mary whips the rented Tesla past the Open House sign and lurches to a stop at the apex of the circular drive. She hurries to help Ken unload suitcases and a box stuffed with family pix, signed football, Yellowstone shot-glasses, and the other crap from the props department. (No ceramic chickens or Aunt Jemimas this time, Mary had insisted.) Up on the wraparound porch pink and purple fuchsia spill from hanging baskets. Mary pinches one of the petals. Real. She rubs it between her fingers, trying to remember who had once said “Forgiveness is the scent of a crushed flower.” She holds her fingertips beneath her nose, but there is no aroma.
Ken pries a key from the lockbox and opens the door. Mary punches the bell for grins and Big-Ben chimes ring hollow throughout a chasmic interior. They lug their bags over walnut-stained floors and up a marble and wrought-iron stair into a luminous atrium, then past a multitude of bedrooms to the master suite.
“I’d certainly live here,” Ken says, then heads down to the kitchen to start stinking things up. Mary unpacks, hanging Ken’s suits next to the Tommy Bahama shirts, beige chinos, and so forth that Sandra’s provided, then positions their wedding picture and the photo of the four of them on the bedside table. The kids in the shot could have been theirs—the boy with Ken’s square jaw and obstinate expression; the girl, younger and pale, with Mary’s thin eyes and dolorous complexion. Sandra thinks of everything. Mary flops down onto the bed, feels the imprint of the chenille on her cheek, and inhales the mentholated outgassing of Berber carpet, new furniture, pressed plywood, and fresh paint. It smells like home.
At one-thirty Sandra glides through the front door like an aging Lady of the Lake: loose gray tresses, paisley dress, arms up, fingers playing an invisible piano. It would have been Mozart. Mary sets up the vacuum and tries to ignore Sandra, who’s adjusting pictures, moving a vase, meddling with what Mary already thinks of as her own house. “My goodness, you can smell that all the way from the curb,” Sandra says, does a little samba move toward the kitchen, where Ken’s been simmering a potpourri of garlic and onions. Mary nudges the vase back.
“Clients in ten,” Sandra chirps, and Mary joins Ken in front of the Viking stove, where he’s buttoning his suit jacket. They slip on their wedding rings and stand for inspection.
No eye contact. No speaking. Mary doesn’t understand why they can’t engage with the clients, under the strictest guidelines of course. Ken leaves, she ties on an apron and sets the table for lunch. Ken’s outside somewhere, but not for long, because already there’s the sound of a car. She hears Sandra greeting her first visitors, then Ken strides into the kitchen in a pin-striped banker’s suit, carrying a worn leather valise. He smiles at Mary, pecks her on the cheek, sniffs at the vase of flowers she’s arranging, then sits at the kitchen table and thumbs his phone. He knows how much that annoys her, she thinks, but nonetheless switches on her own smile as she slides two grilled cheese sandwiches onto plates and positions the pickles. She’s setting one in front of Ken when she hears footsteps and Sandra’s voice . . . Viking stove . . . tumbled Bottocino marble . . . sunny breakfast banquette . . . and it takes all of Mary’s willpower to not turn her eyes toward the soft-spoken couple, wondering about their Asian accents, wishing them away.
“Sometimes I think it would be more convincing if you looked at me instead of that stupid phone,” she whispers to Ken, as the clients move down the hall.
“My dear wifey, it’s not like we’re supposed to be newlyweds,” he says.
“But don’t you think we’re getting into a rut?”
“Well, it’s certainly more cheerful than ‘Criers for Hire’.” He’s right, she doesn’t miss the fusty unpleasantness of a perfect stranger’s funeral.
“No, I mean you and me. Us. You spend so long at the bank,” she says, and Ken regards her strangely. She knows he’s not a real banker, of course, but still. Here he is, coming in and expecting lunch, like he has an important purpose waiting somewhere whereas she’s cooking grilled cheese sandwiches.
“I think they’re coming back,” he says.
“It doesn’t have to be pretend, you know.”
“Honey, we can talk about this later,” Ken says in a stagey voice now, tilting his head toward Sandra, who’s reappeared with the young couple, the three of them staring.
“I want to talk about it now, honey,” Mary says. “You think I don’t know where you go on your so-called bowling nights?”
“Baby, this isn’t the time.”
“It’s never the time.” Mary chucks the plate with Ken’s half-eaten sandwich into the sink, where it doesn’t break, but could have. She’s had it. With the lies. The deception.
Ken goes to her, puts one arm around her and whispers, “What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m doing what I should have done a long time ago,” she says out loud, wiggling away. “I’m leaving you.” She generates a flow of tears and as she turns from the room, she sees the blur of Sandra’s and her clients’ astonished faces. She flings herself down the hall and into the laundry room, followed closely by Ken. She closes and locks the door, turns off the light and her arms twine their way around Ken’s waist, then she leans up and kisses him deeply, feels his body respond, pulls at his belt buckle, giggling. “This feels real,” she says, affirming it with one hand. Ken starts to say something but she puts her free hand over his mouth. He shrugs it away then reaches around to unhook her bra, and just before he pulls her tee-shirt over her head she sees foot-like shadows at the bottom of the door.
A quarter of an hour later Mary and Ken have reassembled themselves; Mary peers out of the laundry room, listens, hears nothing. They pad quietly back to the kitchen, surprised to see Sandra sitting at the table munching thoughtfully on Mary’s grilled cheese. Sandra looks up at them, chews, looks, chews, and Mary thinks, Okay, here it comes.
“You seem to have a knack,” Sandra says to Mary.
“Well, it’s only grilled cheese,” Mary says.
A long pause from Sandra. “You’re adorable, you know that?” Then, maybe sensing Mary’s confusion, “They made a handsome offer. Cash. But I think we can do better.” Outside a car door slams and Sandra claps her hands. “All right, back to one.” Ken shrugs and heads out the kitchen door to his hiding place. Mary reties her apron, stacks slices of white bread and American cheese on the skillet, then waits by the stove for her husband to come home from work.
Rick Krizman writes music, stories, and poems and holds an MFA in Writing from Pacific University. His fiction has appeared in The Wising Up Press, Sediment, Flash Fiction Magazine, Star 82 Review, Medusa’s Laugh Press, Driftwood, Switchback, and elsewhere, and he occasionally contributes political satire to The Big Smoke America. Rick is the father of two grown daughters and lives with his wife and other animals in Santa Monica, CA.