Symbiosis

This weekend, we have the story of two couples, and what it takes to survive a marriage on top of all that life throws at us. —Matt Salesses, Good Men Project Fiction Editor

♦◊♦

Jack watched out the picture window as the Millers walked from Stormy’s blue Ford up the drive and climbed the steps to the front door, still holding hands. Ben didn’t stumble or anything, but he concentrated hard on his own footsteps as he followed his wife in her white turtleneck and loose brown skirt. He was like a child heading to the principal’s office. His nose was purple.

Ben Miller was one of Jack’s colleagues at the firm, and they’d been talking about city living one day and Jack had said, “What you guys need is some fresh air.” He’d invited Ben and his wife to get out of the city for an evening, drive out and hang at his and Kayla’s place. To Jack’s surprise, Ben accepted.

“They’re here,” Jack hollered over his shoulder.

Kayla appeared from the kitchen in her burlap William Sonoma apron that Jack’s sister had gotten her for Christmas, with Kayla embroidered in green letters above an artichoke that angled out  over her breasts. She brushed her hands together and raised her eyebrows in question.

“Yes,” Jack said. “He’s definitely been drinking.”

Kayla shot him her unhappy I-knew-it smile and disappeared back into the kitchen as the doorbell chimed. Her dread came entirely from Jack’s descriptions of Ben, and was, to Jack’s thinking, vastly overblown.

After greetings, Jack offered drinks. “I’m having Dewar’s and soda,” he said. “Kayla is going to make a pitcher of shandy.”

“I’d love a Scotch,” Ben said. When Jack looked at him for more instructions, Ben said, “Neat.”

Stormy asked, “What’s a shandy?”

After Jack told her pilsner beer and sparkling lemonade, she said she’d have one of those, whenever Kayla had one, no rush. Her neck in the turtleneck was skinny, holding up her bobbling head of black hair. Several months ago, Ben had made a passing reference to health problems in language making clear that there’d be no more information forthcoming. She looked frail.

“Please,” Jack said, “have a seat.” In the kitchen, he quick made the drinks, while Kayla banged around on the counter by the oven. The smell of salty pork and seafood blended warm in the air.

Jack sat in his chair. Ben and Stormy sat together on the sofa. The day’s dying light brightened the window behind them, shrouding both their faces in shadow. Kayla scurried out and set appetizer plates and napkins on the coffee table, then disappeared into the kitchen to return immediately with a dish of prosciutto wrapped scallops, and another dish of prosciutto wrapped cantaloupe. The living room filled with the warm aroma of pork and seafood, garlic and lemon.

“Oh wow,” Stormy said. “Those smell so good—they look so good.”

“Have as many as you want,” Kayla said. “I’ve got a whole ‘nother rack of them broiling.”

Jack passed around plates and they all ate heartily—Stormy in particular; skinny as she was, she was putting it away. Her wrists were thin and bony, her hands claws with a manicure and soft red polish. Her wedding ring fit though, fit perfectly. Jack poured more shandy for the girls. He refilled his Scotch, going heavy on soda, offered Ben more.

Ben said no thanks, he was pacing himself. Jack and Kayla exchanged a glance. It wasn’t long until Ben proved not to be pacing himself at all. He said that he had to check something on Stormy’s car.

“Check what?” Jack asked.

“It’ll only take a second,” he said, and excused himself out the door.

Stormy said, “I told him on the way over that my back tire has a leak. It’s probably that.”

Jack said, “I’m going to put the loin on the grill,” and he rushed through the kitchen out the back door. He ran across his neighbors Steve and Julie’s back yard and around their house, and peeked out from behind Julie’s rhododendron. Sure enough, Ben was at the open trunk, taking slugs from a clear bottle—vodka. Smirnoff, by the shape of it, and the red label. Jack ran around, twisted the gas line open and popped the igniter on the grill. He watched the blue flame spread across the bottom of the grill, and then met Ben coming back inside.

“Everything cool?” he said.

“Probably,” Ben said. “Tire’s got a slow leak.”

“Stormy told us.” Kayla looked hard at Ben’s face. It was flushed like he’d been running. His nose glowed from deep inside like a charcoal briquette, and one other fiery splotch was rising on his left cheekbone.

“Probably hard to get good work done in the city,” Jack said.

“I’ll check later and see if the spare’s good,” Ben said.

“I don’t know how you guys stand it,” Kayla said, “cooped up in the city all the time.”

Stormy shrugged and, holding her palm under her chin, deposited another scallop into her mouth. She said to her husband over the garbled food, “You need to eat.”

He nodded and obediently reached for a scallop.

♦◊♦

Stormy wolfed down dinner. Scarfed three slices of pork, two helpings of roasted root vegetables, and polished off her side salad to boot. Her jawbone shifted just under her skin as she chewed, concentrated on her food; she looked like an eater just freed from Krakow.

Ben took a long drink of wine, took the napkin from his lap, wiped his mouth slowly, replaced the napkin and reached for his fork with a shaky hand.

 ♦◊♦

Back in the living room, before anyone was settled in, Kayla said, “I got this new game called ‘In a Pickle.’”

“Let’s play it,” Jack said.

Ben said, “I’m going to step out and check on the tire, before I forget.” He plodded to the front door. He opened the door. Stepped out, and pulled it slowly almost all the way closed. A second later, it closed the rest of the way.

“Didn’t he just check the tire?” Kayla asked.

“Not the spare,” Stormy said. “He’s worried that the spare isn’t pumped up.”

Jack said, “I’m going to run to the garage and grab more beers for shandy.”

“I don’t need any more,” Stormy said. “I’m driving.”

“I’m not,” Kayla said. “Skip the lemonade this time. I’ll just have a beer.”

“Ben didn’t sleep well last night,” Stormy said to Kayla. “It’s a long boring story, very boring. He’s been tired all day.”

In the dark garage, Jack made his way around his table saw and stood at the bay door window. From this angle, he couldn’t see Ben, but he saw the trunk flapped vertical as a wren’s ass.

“Where’s my beer?” Kayla asked him as he came back in.

“We’re out,” he said. “You want wine?”

Ben maneuvered himself back into the house, and to the couch beside Stormy.

Jack pointed at Ben’s empty glass. “Want me to refresh that for you? I hear that Stormy’s your DD tonight.”

Ben looked at Stormy. “How long you want to stay?”

“It’s early,” Jack said.

Stormy patted Ben’s leg. “You have time for one more.”

“You guys ready for desert?” Kayla said. “Blueberry torte. I made it from scratch.”

“Sure,” Ben said. His left eye drooped deeper than his right; his purple nose glowed.

Stormy said, “Maybe just a sliver.”

♦◊♦

Jack slipped into the kitchen where Kayla was plating up the torte. He leaned in so his mouth was close to her ear. On the counter beyond the four white plates was the black plastic toaster an old colleague of Jack’s had given him when he and Kayla got married. It was the kind with wide slots for bagels, and had T-FAL printed on the greasy-crumbed metal slot guard. Beside it were two wooden pepper mills, one that had been empty of peppercorns for about three years. Two heads of garlic lay in a small yellow bowl beside a fat saltshaker with a blue Post-it note pressed around it with popcorn topping written in black marker. Back by the tile counter wall were bananas covered in tiny brown spots amazingly similar in shape and disbursement as the freckle clusters on Kayla’s forearms, cheekbones and legs. Her chest was freckled too, but not her soft breasts or her pale stomach.

“Dude’s going to fall off the couch,” Jack whispered.

“Shush, you,” Kayla whispered back. She craned her neck away from his mouth to look back over both their shoulders toward the dining room: the edge of the table, Jack’s balled up linen napkin, his chair pushed back almost to the wall. The easy calm of soft jazz from out there into the kitchen—when it had become clear they were not going to play a game, she’d flipped on her Pink Martini channel to fill in the gaps in conversation.

“How could anyone exist like that?” Jack said.

“I wouldn’t.” Kayla had on the dangling eggplant earrings—also a Christmas gift from Jack’s sister—and her neck smelled of the new perfume she’d been wearing lately. She had on a new ochre blouse, cut low down between her breasts—she had a sexy little silky thing on under it so not too much cleavage showed.

The blouse had a flower pattern in orange-red ink, and in addition to that were hundreds more little flowers of a different kind embroidered in bumpy gold thread like braille dots. The blouse gathered in a strip around her body, under her breasts. There was a zipper under her left arm so she could get out of the form-fitting thing.

Jack said, “He won’t hear. He’s listing like a sinking ship.” He took a couple steps back so Kayla could turn around and lean her butt against the counter.

“Listening like a sinking ship?” she said.

“Listing.”

For some reason, that made them start laughing, laughter like a boiling pan of milk, fast and overflowing and unstoppable. They were actually a little drunk themselves. They laughed and laughed, and tried to stop, and when they thought it had subsided they glanced at one another and it came roiling out of them again.

“He’s out seeing about the tire again,” Jack said, making air quotes.

She gave him her stop-shitting-me smirk.

“I shit you not.”

She nodded. “What the hell we going to talk to them about now?”

“All this great food you made.” He stepped forward to hug her.

She let him. “You helped,” she said. When he had stopped hugging her, she said, “We should have done this more often. Cook together, I mean.”

“He hides it pretty well, actually,” Jack said. “Considering.”

“What do you think is wrong with her?” Kayla licked blackberry off her fingers. “Cancer maybe?” She wiped her licked fingers on the hip of her jeans. “You notice how thin her hair is?”

“No.”

“You can see her scalp through it.”

Jack put his hands in his pockets and cocked out his knee. He was wearing his faded jeans with a button down white Oxford, untucked, sleeves rolled up. His forehead was still unlined. He was grey at the edges of his ears, but only slightly. Two steps back from him in the dark kitchen, the gray would disappear and he’d look young as he was in college.

“How do they hold it together?” Kayla said.

“Maybe they don’t.”

Out in the living room, the front door opened—Ben returning yet again. Stormy’s voice talked, and then Ben’s, rumbling and low.

Jack said, “Can you tell what they’re—”

“Hush.” Kayla put her hand over his mouth. It smelled like blueberry torte.

He held her wrist, pulled her hand away. “They can’t hear us. Hell, we could have sex right here on the counter and they wouldn’t hear.” He reached his arms around her from behind and kissed strands of hair on her neck.

She pushed his arms from around her and said, “We’ve been in here too long.”

“I bet he gets whiskey dick.”

She handed him two of the plates with glopped torte and little balls of ice cream, already melting and sliding around the warm plates like egg yolks.

“Go,” she said, shooing him with her flipping fingers. “Go, go.”

The two stopped at the doorway with the plates and watched Ben and Stormy. They were standing in the living, unaware that they were not still alone. Ben’s shoulders slumped over, and his face sagged.

“Poor baby’s tired,” Stormy said. She put her claw hand on his cheek.

He said, “You’re the one who must be worn out. I’m okay to drive if you need.”

“I’m okay,” Stormy said. “I’m fine.” She put her other hand up, palmed his red cheeks and kissed his mouth.

He put his hands on her saddle-horn hips and said, “You sure you’re okay?”

“I’ll make it.”

“How’s your head?”

“We could go home any time.”

Ben embraced her gently.

“Fresh blueberry torte,” Jack called out as he pretended to burst into the living room for the first time. Kayla followed him with two more plates and a wide smile.

Ben looked at them with cloudy eyes, confused as a child just wakened from sleep.

Stormy said, “Looks yummy.”

Ben said, “I think we’re going to have to pass. Stormy’s wearing down.”

“Awe,” Kayla said. “Are you sure?” She said, “Let me pack you up some torte.” She motioned with her shoulder for Jack to go back to the kitchen. “Ice cream too,” she said. “You have to eat it with ice cream.”

“That would be delightful,” Stormy said. Ben plopped heavily back on the couch to wait—or to keep from pitching over—and she palmed his shoulder as if to keep her own balance.

“Is the tire okay?” Jack asked. “We could pull it and run it over to Sam’s and get it plugged real fast.”

“It’s fine,” Stormy said.

 ♦◊♦

Jack and Kayla watched the two make their wobbly way down to the blue Ford. They clung to each other in the little bubble of light from over the garage, separated and rounded the car to their own doors.

“Wow,” Jack said as the car backed down the driveway.

“Unbelievable,” Kayla said.

“They’d both fall over if they weren’t leaning together.”

“They would.”

“Sad.”

“Pathetic.”

“Let’s go up to bed,” Jack said. He followed her to the bottom of the steps.

“I cooked all afternoon,” she said. “I’m wiped out.”

For the second time that night, he hugged her from behind. He said, “I’ll get the dishes in the morning.” He kissed her neck.

“Jack,” she said, pushing his arms down and away, “please.” She said, “I’m sleepy.”

He let his arms fall, made his way to the basement door. He said, “I’ll be up in a bit.”

“I’ll be out cold.”

Kayla climbed her steps and Jack descended his. The exposed basement pipes hissed—she was already brushing her teeth, washing her face. Jack sat at his desk, reached out and poked the button at the bottom of his computer screen.

–

—photo Flickr/piropiro3