What's For Dinner?

"Here you go!"
"Thanks, babe. Looks good." He swirled his spoon through the soup, looking for hidden vegetables, but he only saw potatoes and corn. "This tastes really good. But...mm, I don't like clams." He flipped the offending mollusk back into the tureen.
"Babe, it's clam chowder."
"I know, but I don't like the texture."
"Saying, 'I like clam chowder' and sitting down to a bowl of clam chowder, one might expect to find clams. In the clam chowder."
"It's good! All I'm saying is I don't like the clams."
"Jesus, Lee. Whatever. Put them in my bowl."
"Do you want me to fish that other one out of the pot?"
"Leave it. I put your dick in my mouth; I'll survive your half-eaten clam. Just don't do it for company."
"Of course."
"You eat that gloopy canned soup crap. Why's this different? They both have clams."
"I know. But I can taste the clams in this."
"You are fucking weird, do you know that?"
"Thank you for making me the soup, babe."
Jen fished the last of the clams out of the tureen, "You're welcome, Lee. I love you, too."

Cruel Numbers

Lee studied himself in the mirror. Shoes—basketball, with an improbable shine—just so, pants sagging just so, knit cap hugging his brain just so. Looking good. He was new enough at this job to still care about the swath he cut through his coworkers. "Okay, babe, I'm off."

"Gimme a kiss." Lee walked into the dining room where Jen sat hunched over her $14-million-dollar sewing machine, the one the size of a pitbull and bristling with knobs and geegaws covered in multi-colored hieroglyphics.

Smooch, right on top of her head. She reached up to give him a pat goodbye on his ass, turned around and looked up with her hand still on the fabric of his jersey. "You're wearing that? Today?"

"Yeah!"

"But why a Barry Sanders jersey?"

"I like Barry Sanders. Besides, nobody I like is playing, so why not?"

"True...but you could wear your Jerry Rice and show some hometown pride?" She smiled.

Oh, he loved it when she smiled. His friends often thought Jen was a bitch, but she almost never smiled for them. Fools. "Jerry? Nah, I don't want people to think I'm rubbing it in."

"But everyone is going to think that's a Deion jersey."

"WHAT? No. No they will not."

"They might."

"This clearly is not a 21. It's a 20."

She was still smiling. "Hon, not everybody loves football that much." She jiggled him playfully by the belt. "Look, I'll give you twenty bucks for every time today someone says something about your Barry Sanders jersey, and you give me twenty every time you get a comment about your Deion Sanders shirt. What do you think?"

Lee kissed her again, headed for the door. "You're on!"

Lee ended up buying Jen a $420 snowboarding parka two days later.

Past times

He could tell by the way she slammed the pots down on the burners that she was irritated with him.

"I didn't think anybody read those things."

She didn't turn around, kept pulling cans and condiments out of the cupboard. "You read them. Every month. With glee." The pop and crank of the can opener.

"I'll get another job." Lee had the newspaper open on the table in front of him, but with Jen's assault on dinner the paper's quiet rustlings couldn't get past her turned, rigid back. "Everybody's hiring. The Chron had an article yesterday—"

One more pot set down a little too firmly for normalcy. "Lee." She turned around. "We are getting married in almost exactly two months, and you got fired from your job. How are you going to look for a new job and plan a wedding? How are we going to pay for it?" She wiped her hands, grabbed a tomato off the counter and half-turned away. "My dad is going to have a shit-fit."

"Since when do you care what your dad thinks?"

Oh-oh. She was facing him again, leaning forward. "Oooh, I could just stab you"—and she wasn't menacing him with the tomato—sometimes. Sometimes, Lee, you just...how could you say that in a company newsletter? What were you thinking?" Now she was crying. "Your hobby is 'pocket pool'?"

"Nobody reads those! It was a joke!" Jesus, lighten up! "Baby, I will get another job." He stroked her shoulders, gently, oh so carefully. Is this how the spider feels? Poor fucking spiders! "Dad won't know, I'll be here to help you plan, it'll be what you want." She wasn't crying anymore, wasn't staring at him with maniac eyes, was looking at the cracking linoleum. "C'mon, let me give you a hand with dinner. Gimme the salad stuff."

Sniff. Jen started stirring the bubbling sauce in the pot. "I could still stab you, you know."

"I know."

The Jelly Donut

"Here." Lee's arm snaked past her head and dropped a white paper bag on the kitchen table, thud.

"Not on my papers!" She pushed the bag to a clear spot, then picked it up and looked inside, curious about its weight and feel. "Donuts?" She turned to Lee, rummaging in the fridge. "You know I'm trying to fit into that dress." She jiggled the bottom of the bag, looking at the contents.

"I was driving past and couldn't help myself. That place is so good you don't even need to smell the grease to be chummed in." He put the carton of orange juice and two mismatched glasses down, gave her a smack on the forehead before taking the bag and upending it onto a plate.

They sat there examining the pile of sugar- and grease-infused carb packets. The classic glazed, a twist, cake donuts covered in chocolate frosting and Christmas-colored jimmies, the red oozing out of a smushed jelly donut, a handful of holes, a craggy old-fashioned. He poured them each a glass of juice.

She licked the glaze off her thumb and picked up a second donut. "Where did you say you were this morning?"

Lee stuffed half a twist in his mouth. "Terra Linda, baby, Terra Linda."

What?

"What are you doing?"

He glanced up to where she was sitting on the bed. "I spilled jelly on the floor."

"Wipe it up."

"Oh, I am." He spit on the floor again. "I don't want to leave the floor sticky." He rubbed the spit across the remaining jelly with with a crumpled paper towel.

Lee looked up in surprise at the sound of exasperation in her voice. "I mean, use a sponge, for crissakes, not saliva! God, how guy can you be?"

"What?" He wadded up the paper towel with a flourish. "See?" He patted the floor. "Not sticky."

"You disgust me."

"What?" He was looking at her now.

She wrinkled her nose. "It's unsanitary is what."

"No. This would be unsanitary." He flicked a blob of jelly off the half-eaten piece of toast onto the floor. Catching her eye, he bent down, slurped it off the floor, then sat back. For good measure he swiped the spot with the still-wadded up paper towel. "Oh, I think I got a cat hair." He fished around his lips with his fingers. "Got it!" He looked back at Jen.

"What?"

The Princess & The Minotaur. Ongoing.

“I think your girlfriend is looking for you.”

Lee blinked up from his beer into a swirl of dark makeup and shining eyes. "What?"

The girl pointed with her chin. "Your girlfriend's paging you. She looks irritated."

Lee looked over his shoulder. It was only a little before 7 but the bar was crammed with junior account managers and web monkeys venting steam over booze and buffalo wings. Sure enough, Tania was at the table he and his officemates staked out every Thursday evening, waving her arm and calling his name with a frown on her face, though nothing penetrated the downstairs din of the bar or the two pints he'd already drunk. He waved hi and turned back to his drink.

"That's not my girlfriend. I just work with her." Lee didn't know whether to be amused or pissed that now even people outside the office assumed he and Tania were dating. He found the attention flattering, especially since it raised his status among his almost-completely male workgroup. But lately he'd begun thinking of her flirting and attentions around the office as the stink of territorial pissing. What had his dad always said? Better to be pissed off than pissed on.

A lot about work had been stinking to Lee these days, turning their weekly bar runs desperate, and the next morning at the bank, a cluster of hung-over heads bobbing over half-height cube walls, verging on the pathetic. Some Fridays, after a night of beers and depth charges, Lee was pretty sure any verge he'd been toying with was way behind him, up the hill and over the road and into the last town. Would a jump off the edge be any worse than a sour stomach and pounding head?

"Why are you laughing?"

With a flourish half-drunk and half all-out balls, Lee tipped his mostly-fresh pint in the direction of the girl with too much makeup and said, "When she finds out I'm going out with you she'll really be pissed."

The Princess and the Minotaur ...continued

She handed the Coke bottle back across, and Lee held it pinched between the first two fingers of his left hand. She was curled into the seat, arms resting on her knees. He reached highway speed and asked, "Design check!"

"It's a good one. The mystery shack slides down Confusion Hill." She put the pen in her shirt pocket, then focused on the passing scenery. "People don't write stories about working in an office or walking down a sidewalk. Those aren't the stories that endure—"

"Chekov did."

"Fuck you. Is that the kind of myth you envision for your life? The Ugly Dolls, the piercings, my stunningly impressive collection of tilt-pens, the mess I endure to keep my hair this lovely shade of shocking-pink. I want it all to say, Hey Asshole, this isn't the straight 'n' narrow here, so if you can't endure a few twists and turns, keep on walking."

"What the hell happened to you growing up that the straight and narrow–you know, normal life–is so ugly?" Lee flicked his fingers. "This Coke is about as apple pie as it gets but, my, it sure went down easy."

"Hah...and where were you when you bought it?" He thought about that as they passed Redwood Carvings For Christ and the turn-off for the Drive-Thru Tree.

"Lee-bee, I would pee all over myself if I could find a guy willing to walk in the labryinth for me." She took her feet off the dashboard and folded them under her. "Where are they?"

"I get worried when I don't know where you are."

"I know how to take care of myself."

"I don't like it when you storm off like that. I worry."

"Fuck off, will you? I needed some space, some time to think.

"I made you some meatloaf."

"Thanks, babe. I love you, too."

The Princess and the Minotaur

"I used to think your standards were too high. Now..."

"What have you got against Bigfoot"

"That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is, you keep setting up obstacles to getting what you want. It's not just Bigfoot, it's everything you do. The hair, the clothes, the lunchboxes for Christ's sake. You're 31. What are you doing?"

"How long have we been friends? And pull over there, yeah, on the left. No one's coming, so go ahead and cross it."

"It's double yellow. About twelve years, or is it 15? Yeah, it's been 15 years, 'cause we started hanging out after I ditched Julie. Make it fast, alright? And get me a coke!"

She took her hand off the door and half-turned in the seat. "It's a labyrinth. Think about it." She swung the door open, stepped out, and bent down, one hand resting on the half-rolled-down window. Her left hand pinched her skirt close to her knees against the wind. "There's change on the floor; get one out of the machine." She pushed the door shut and dodged the cars in the parking lot as she half ran to the gift shop.

Lee flicked aside the cds and empty Thirsty Thirty-Two cups looking for change. Seventy cents later he got out and made his way to the soda machine. He leaned against the machine, holding the icy bottle in his hand and squinted at the constant trickle of road-trippers crossing the lot. Is it really a get-away if you never get away from pavement. He wondered. And what is a labyrinth? Does she mean the lunchboxes? Why can't she be serious for a change? Guys don't like it when you're weird all the time. A little, that's fun, but man, when it won't shut off it's embarrassing.

"That was quick. Did you get it? Have some coke, it's still cold. Mmm."

[To be continued...]