Category: Fiction

Small Cuts (9) James

~ Meg ~ 22 Comments

To find links to all parts of the story, please visit the Small Cuts page. Here is James again:

I hated these golf outings. Not that I hated golf —I actually thought it was kind of Zen to follow the ball over the terrain of the course— but I hated having to make small talk and show the appropriate balance of humble gratitude and ambitious hunger to the partners who sponsored the excursion. I had asked Elaine to join me. All the spouses were invited. She had declined and I didn’t press her. I couldn’t blame her for not wanting to waste 5 hours of her day listening to the false bonhomie of young lawyers eager to impress their bosses. I couldn’t remember the last time Elaine and I had golfed together. Had it been two years, maybe three? Was this one more thing she had gone along with just to please me when our relationship was new?

Sleep eluded me. I listened to the sounds of Elaine not being able to sleep either. She tossed and turned, sighed heavily, rearranged her pillow, got up for water and then a second time for the bathroom. At some point, I must have drifted off because a rumble of thunder startled me awake. I’d been dreaming, but the vision dissipated immediately when I opened my eyes. Nevertheless, it left me with an overwhelming sense of dread. When the storm abated, dark finally gave way to grey scale, and I abandoned further hope of slumber and threw off the covers. After a shower and shave, I quietly relocated to the kitchen for coffee. Elaine never stirred.

After three strong cups of coffee for fortification, I loaded my clubs into the car and went back upstairs to let her know I was leaving. I touched her bare shoulder and she opened an eye.

“Hey. What are you up to today?” I asked her.

She rubbed her eyes, looking as tired and drawn as I felt. “I don’t know. Get in a workout, maybe. I feel fat after that dinner last night.”

“Yeah. Let’s keep it light tonight. Salads or something,” I replied.

She murmured something under her breath and burrowed under the covers again. I asked, “You want me to pick something up on the way home?”

“Sure, whatever.”

“Ok. I…” I paused. “I’ll see you tonight.” I kissed her cheek and backed out of the room.

I didn’t know how to fix this. I didn’t know what ‘this’ was exactly. I never took Oliver’s flirting with Elaine seriously until recently. Until I saw how she had begun to bask in his attention. Maybe that was my fault. If Elaine wasn’t getting what she needed from me, she would look for it elsewhere. The trouble was, I wasn’t getting what I needed either, but I didn’t know how to tell her that without sounding like I was casting the blame. I didn’t want to lose Elaine. I wanted the Elaine I had married, though. The woman who shared all my interests had been replaced by a woman I barely knew.

As I backed out of the garage, I caught a glimpse of myself in the rearview mirror. Had I misled Elaine? Had she married a different man from the one who stared back at me now? Or had she known and hoped somehow that I would change? That was surely a recipe for disaster. I paused at the end of the driveway to let a car pass and wondered if there was any way for Elaine to be happy with me. The road ahead was neither smooth nor straight.

Illustration my own.

Small Cuts (6) Elaine continues… #fiction

~ Meg ~ 22 Comments

Read the opening thoughts of each of them: James, Elaine, Oliver and Genevieve. Then James again…

And Elaine continues:

Though the dark interior of the car provided cover, I concentrated on my phone to keep my hands from shaking. James was asking me if I’d enjoyed the trendy restaurant —it was the first time we’d been there— but it felt like the opening line of an interrogation. Maybe I was being paranoid and he hadn’t overheard my conversation with Oliver. I gave him a noncommittal answer and hoped that would be the end of it. Ollie had never been so reckless as he was tonight. And it was my fault. I had led him on, flirted shamelessly even though I hadn’t any intention of following through. I loved my husband. He’d just grown so distant lately… and now tonight seeing him talking with Genevieve, I wondered if I had pushed him even further away.

If I was to be honest with myself, I knew that James and Gen had way more in common than he and I did. Gen was all smart and well read like James was. She had some fancy PR job with a non-profit organization. One of those ‘end world hunger’ outfits or something like that. When we first met, I’d tried talking to her about it but I felt my eyes crossing every time she’d go off on one of her rants about the state of world affairs. There’s only so much doom and gloom I can stand over the course of the evening. And since she never really asked me about my work —rude, if you want to know what I think— I figured we just weren’t meant to be friends.

Anyway, whenever the four of us were together, I often felt like I needed to sneak off and Google the stuff the others were talking about. I could almost feel the disdain Genevieve had for me when I would try to join in the conversation. Inevitably, Oliver would notice and take pity on me. At least that’s what I thought it was. Him feeling sorry for me. But then he started arranging things so that we could talk just the two of us. I admit it, I enjoyed the attention and I was grateful to not have to talk about the plight of the world’s refugees over drinks and dinner.

I never imagined things would go this far.

Oliver had always been playful, never serious. But tonight as I stared at him across the table, I saw in his eyes the very depth of emotion I’d been hoping to provoke in my husband. Desire, longing, love… My heart raced and though I knew I should, I couldn’t look away.

“Lainey,” he said quietly. “We should talk. Soon. Tomorrow. Can you get away?”

Tomorrow was Sunday. James was golfing with some of the other lawyers from his firm. I had the entire afternoon free. It wouldn’t be the first time Oliver and I had done something on our own. I nodded. “What did you have in mind?”

With a sideways glance at Genevieve, he said, “The Park Hotel?” And as I felt the blood drain from my face, he quickly added, “For brunch? And then we can walk around town for a bit, if you want…”

We’d had coffee together before —our offices were near each other and we’d meet before work once in a while, Just last week, we’d met for lunch with James’ blessing. Why would this be any different? But I knew, I just knew something had changed tonight, some monumental shift in our personal paradigm had occurred. Events were spiraling out of control. Why couldn’t I bring myself to put a stop to it? I had gazed into those heated, desperate eyes and said yes.

And now James, ever calm, not taking his hands from the wheel nor his eyes from the road, had just asked me another question. “Sorry, what?” I asked, because I’d been so absorbed in my thoughts I hadn’t heard.

“I asked if you enjoyed your dinner,” he said. “I’m thinking it wasn’t worth the cost.”

“Yes, yes, you’re probably right,” I agreed, and wondered if he was really talking about the food.

Small Cuts (5) James Again #fiction

~ Meg ~ 22 Comments

This is a continuation of a series I started a long time ago. Maybe you remember it: two couples out for dinner together, the internal thoughts of each one? Read the opening thoughts of each of them: James, Elaine, Oliver and Genevieve. And now back to James again…

It always begins with words. Some will try to tell you it’s the sight of someone that brings on those first feelings of love, but that’s just lust, hormones, chemicals. Love, genuine affection, true feelings —they begin with words. The problems arise when the words are lies.

The ride home from the restaurant was quiet. I made several attempts at conversation, but gave up after receiving one or two word answers in return. I thought Elaine would say something about the way Genevieve and I talked for once. I wondered if she had noticed our hands touch across the table, or if she had been too enthralled with Ollie’s fawning. Whatever the case, she had no more words for me. Not tonight anyway.

I stole a quick glance at her out of the corner of my eye. Her pretty face was lighted from the glow of her phone’s screen. Facebook or Instagram, no doubt. She could spend hours scrolling through the newsfeed. Watching cooking videos for recipes she’d never try, taking trivia quizzes and commenting on all her many friends’ posts. Everyone’s highlight reel. I couldn’t understand it. It was fake life. By the time we got home, she would have posted photos of our meals, the selfie she took as soon as we got to our table and maybe a shot of me when I wasn’t looking. It was our fake life, too.

I met Elaine the old fashioned way —in a bar. I had gone out with a couple of other guys from the firm to celebrate winning a hard fought and highly lucrative settlement for our clients. The Bar was so named to attract the lawyers who had situated their offices strategically near the center city courthouse. Tonight my colleagues and I bought rounds of drinks for the house, toasted each other on our performances and got joyfully wasted in short order. So that was the state of things when Elaine and her friends walked in and settled at a table in the back. She was lovely. Flawless skin, dark hair she had piled in a loose bun with tendrils framing her face, dimples that appeared when she smiled —and she smiled often as I watched her.

For a man who needs to display unassailable confidence in front of the court, I am not especially outgoing when it comes to people in general. I am not unfriendly, just choosy about whom I decide to call a friend. So if not for alcohol fueled courage, I might never have approached the table of four women. Might never have talked with Elaine way past the time our friends had left for the night. All those words…

Sometimes, when that initial lust, those hormones and chemicals make the brain function poorly, you pretend. You pretend that every word the other person says to you is the most interesting thing in the world. You agree about everything. You like all the same things. You fake your way through topics of conversation in which you haven’t a clue. You hope the other person doesn’t notice.

I didn’t notice. Out of character, I did most of the talking, Elaine smiled, nodded, agreed, seemed genuinely interested. In retrospect, I realized that she asked questions to keep me talking —a deflection so I would’t catch on that she knew nothing about history, the law, classical music, Renaissance art. When last call came I was besotted. I asked her if we could see each other again and she readily agreed. I kissed her goodnight as she got into a taxi.

On our first date, I took her to the art museum. She had seemed enthusiastic that night at The Bar when I told her about the exhibit I wanted to see. She played the part perfectly that day and the next time we went out and for all the times after that as well. We fell in love. I proposed. We got married.

When in a relationship do the blinders come off? Or for that matter, when do we take our masks off and show our true selves? It’s never abrupt, rather more like a subtle slippage over time. Begging off on the gallery opening, staring at her iPad instead of the film on TV, playing her streaming music instead of mine. I can’t remember ever really noticing, not until I saw how she was with Oliver. It was the way we used to be in the beginning. Except this time, it didn’t feel like she was pretending.