Sneak Preview

Here's the beginning of a short story I've been working on:

No one asks me where I was that day. Mostly because I live in Bethesda. Well, North Bethesda. Really, it’s Rockville; and it’s not even really the North Bethesda part of Rockville, it’s the Rockville part of Rockville. I don’t know why I tell people Bethesda.

I was home. I work. Of course I work. I wasn’t working that day, because I thought I deserved a break and the new girl we hired – she’s not really a girl, I guess; she’s in her late 20s and I’m in my mid 30s, but it’s not like we’re going to be best friends ever because, well, she’s my assistant and I guess she wants to keep those boundaries clear. Anyway Nancy has been there long enough that she could handle anything that came up, and it was just going to be the one day. I wanted to take this stolen vacation around the weekend, turn a Monday or a Friday into a three day weekend, but Mark didn’t want to take the time off because wow, I mean, his career? It’s really taking off. I guess.

Kirsten doesn’t work. She stays at home because she and Tyler have cats. They’re show cats or important cats, or they’re cats that can’t really be at home alone and she stays there and Tyler works and I think she even administers suppositories. Like, one of the side effects of being these kinds of cats is that they can’t poop right. I’m not really a cat person, but those cats make me a little sad. It’s like, forces beyond their control only wanted them to be pretty and not to be, you know, functional. And now they can’t poop when they want and there’re four of them, and none of them can poop when they want, so it’s not like they can get encouragement from a working cat. And then, they’re stuck home all day with Kirsten. She’s also awfully quick with those suppositories.

Kirsten called because her husband works in the Pentagon, and he had gone to work that day, and she said turn on the TV, and she sounded tinny and distant. She used to come over for coffee on the weekends, a girls’ coffee klatch, and we’d talk about our husbands but mostly she’d talk about the cats and I guess I may have said something unkind about the cats or I don’t know. I can’t hear about those cats every time. I’d like to talk about me for a change, you know? Mark says I need to give other people a chance.

I was going to go to one of those Paint Your Own Pottery places. I wanted to paint a pitcher, and I was going to paint it a color that wouldn’t necessarily match the kitchen because I think it adds drama. I was going to paint it red, maybe, glossy red, or some of it red. And then I’d get a salad from Cosi. I think it’s such a treat, painting your own pottery. But then the phone rang and it was Kirsten and Tyler had gone to work and she said turn on the TV so I did and we both wondered, but didn’t ask, if Tyler was going to be coming home. There was so much smoke.

Actually, I did ask. And Kirsten started crying. And I got really annoyed with Kirsten because she already takes up so many of our conversations with those goddamned cats that if she also gets to be a widow? I didn’t say that part aloud.

Mark works in Baltimore. He sells real estate in Baltimore. There was no danger of Mark not getting to come home, because he doesn’t even sell real estate in the sketchier parts of Baltimore. I would think sometimes, at work, what it would be like if Mark were killed in some kind of freak accident – like a drug deal gone sour, not that Mark would be the one with the drugs, but he’d be the unfortunate victim. Innocent victim. Then, you know, people would want to have lunch with me once I came back to work. And maybe they’d stop by for a bit of a chat. Everyone is so busy lately. I’m busy, too, but I don’t think anyone should ever be so busy they can’t stop and, you know, connect with another human being. If Mark were dead, people would wonder how I was.