I am invited to her house for lunch.
She is maybe ten years older than I am. She works as a social worker. She is tall and blond and beautiful. She is married to a tall blond attractive man.
I pull up outside of her house. A small tidy house with white curtains that flutter in the open windows. The small rectangle of lawn is perfectly tended. Bright flowers line a stone walkway up to the front door. A white wicker rocking chair sits invitingly on the porch. A bird feeder hangs from a branch of a small fruit tree.
I hear music through the open windows . . . Neil Young.
Can’t relate to joy . . . he tries to speak and . . . can’t begin to say.
I love that album.
I sit in my car with my windows open and listen for a few moments.
I am young and unmarried and drifting.
I want what she has.
I settle for a lunch invitation.
I am greeted at the door with a hug, but I peer around the embrace to take in the details of this life I do not have.
A fireplace with tiles in shades of gray and silver. A braided area rug that reminds me of one that used to lie beneath my feet at my grandparents’ house when I was very young . . . its loops a blend of greens and blues. A small piano with sheets of music in disarray atop its gleaming surface. Bookshelves lined with books, framed photos everywhere, artwork on the walls. A pair of pink fuzzy slippers sits on an ottoman next to a travel magazine. A jug of sun tea gleams ambered and lovely in a bay window.
I am filled with longing.
How did she get this life?
Lunch is not quite ready yet. I offer to help make the salad, but my offer is rejected. I am handed a glass of wine, and I wander about the house . . . touching her things.
A soft afghan tossed over the back of a chair. A dark wooden clock with no minute hand. Silver framed photos of family and friends. A large watercolor painting of a forested mountain under steel blue skies . . . it turns out she is an accomplished artist.
A series of hooks near the front door hold an assortment of keys that jingle as I run my fingers along them. Too many keys . . . I feel a moment’s irritation that she has so many keys when I have only two, both of which are shoved into my front pocket. Why should she get to open so many doors?
There is a large oval mirror hung too high on a living room wall to be of use.
I walk back into the kitchen to ask about the mirror. As I start to frame my question, I look up and realize that from this side of the house?
The mirror reflects a view of the lush green trees of the back yard.
Who thinks to do such a thing?
I stand to the side as plates are arranged, as silverware is laid out, as wine is poured, as food is served.
Everything is perfect.
How does she have all of this when all I have in the world fits into the back of my tiny Honda?
I feel a moment’s despair . . . my life will never look like this.
It feels as though I have never had a single perfect moment of my own and never will.
I try to savor this perfect moment of hers.
We talk of music and food and books and people we both know. We talk of places we would like to visit and places we have been. We talk of our pasts a bit, and my suspicions that my life is not likely to lead to this life are strengthened. I sense distaste in the listener, and so I adjust mid-tale . . . make my story brighter and funnier and more lovely. I am not in the mood for pity.
I am no longer sure what I am doing here.
I want her life.
We drink more wine and laugh at nothing in particular.
My laughter is more drunken and forced now . . . I am afraid that my uncertainty and slowly rising panic are apparent, and so I cover with giddy laughter.
When lunch is over, I am feeling incredibly vulnerable and emotional, and I simply cannot stand the silent tension that has suddenly filled the space between us. I gather up dishes and insist that I will help clean up. I stand at the sink and rinse off the plates, trying to figure out how I will say goodbye without looking like an idiot.
And then there are arms around me.
Hands entwined in mine as the warm water flows.
I want her life so badly.
I want what she has.
So I turn into this embrace.
I reach for what is hers.
Her husband.
People?
I was without internet access for much of the day.
Thought about waiting until tomorrow to post this — saving it.
That would make sense.
Fuck it.
Me
So well done. WOW. Again, masterful use of white space but the space feels different this time. Like trying to make the wrong sides of a magnet work together. Yet somehow, you made it happen in this piece and I gasped. Truly stunning.
(I really wanted something good to read tonight and struggled to find it in the material I have. Thanks.)
Robin -
I am so very very pleased that this story worked.
One of the few times when I had it mapped out in my head before I started.
Most times, I just start writing and I wait to see where my words take me.
So I am glad this worked.
Thank you!
Kris
Astounding that you don’t diagram each piece, because that is absolutely the way they read (love Robin’s remark about “use of white space,” because that’s how I see them as well. Or perhaps “fill in the blanks.” You are such a mistress of your craft, Kris. Lucky us.
As for the content, speechless, as usual. You certainly have lived a lot in your time on earth.
David -
Thank you, babe.
I worried I left too much white space this time, and so I left a single tag.
But I am fond of things unsaid.
As you know.
Kris
Are you this way in speech as well? a friend who’s really successful in insurance says his secret is saying as little as possible, and let the other speaker fill in the gaps. Empty pauses make me so nervous that I always dominate a discussion *long, sad sigh*
Hee hee!
No.
If I am comfortable with someone?
I talk endlessly.
Wow… beautiful yet again.
Thank you, Russell.
Thank you very much.
Oh Kris!
I know that longing. I know that want. Know that envy.
Different circumstances but I understand.
You have taken my breath away.
Stasha -
A long time ago.
The only time in my life I slept with a man because I wanted what his woman had.
This man was not a prize.
As his woman was about to discover.
Sigh.
Okay I guess I am dense. I read the tag and it didn’t jive with how I understood the story. So I reread the story THREE times and then I finally realized I was assuming the woman was there when you never said she was. And then I read it again to be sure and now I finally get it.
I am so glad you wrote that tag.
I really like this story. It is my new favorite.
Mine too.
Thank you!
Haven -
It brings me great joy to know that I confused you. That you understood the story one way and had to adjust your perceptions after reading the tag. I wanted to confuse . . . obviously.
I didn’t know how well it would work.
I’m glad that it did.
Me
I was confused when I got to the end also.
And read the tag and was like “HUH?”.
It took a minute to sink in.
And took a few more minutes for me to formulate a comment…
Good.
Love that.
Longing can make us do desperate things in an attempt to quiet it for a moment.
Even if we’re left with even more when it’s over.
Never filling or reflecting what you think it should.
Tops of too-high trees…
CJ -
Oh, you always see everything!
I love that about you.
Exactly.
Kris
I needed that tag as I had totally misread the story… as you know so many of us will.
Love it.
And now I have Neil Young in my head. Beautiful! Thank you.
Madeleine -
I considered not including the tag. Just letting the story stand on its own. But I worried too many people would get to the end and just say, “Huh?”
So a tag.
So that the whole story was clear.
And even all these years later?
I love Neil Young.
An album I gave to this man, and which he played as he prepared lunch for us.
Sigh.
I was not thinking “Huh?” at the end of the story.
I THOUGHT I understood it.
I would have forever thought the story meant you had lunch with the guy and his wife. Then his wife left a moment and he was all getting frisky in the kitchen with you when her back was turned.
The men in my life do not cook generally.
This bias is what caused me to cling tightly to the assumption that a woman was there with you.
Until I read the tag, of course. And THEN I was all “HUH?!”
The story on it’s own would not have been enough for me to understand what actually happened and I never would have questioned what I at first perceived your words to mean.
I really like understanding what actually happened. So thanks for the tag. And for making me question my bias.
OK, that’s hilarious!
I toyed with the idea of making very clear that there were only two of us at this lunch.
But there was no way to do that without jarring the reader out of the story, “Why did she just say that there are only two plates?”
So I tried to do it more subtly.
I am glad I included the tag.
Sometimes hints are not enough.
all your pieces are great, but this was superb because of what you didn’t say, and then left us wondering. In this case, I think of the tag as a part of the story. Ain’t these Internet Tubes & what they let you do incredible? It seems to me that you are perfectly matched to the medium, especially since I don’t know of any other blogger who is so conscientious about meaningful dialogue in the comments. It’s all of a piece.
You’re actually inspiring me to start trying to do my own scribbles. Except that my life has been so boring that I don’t have any subject matter, lol. Just those pesky inner thoughts.
Pesky inner thoughts are all that’s required, babe.
Scribble away!
Beautiful story. I know the feeling. Though? Being a packrat? My stuff never fit into the back of my car. Though sometimes? I wish it did.
I do have to say I didn’t quite get the story until I read the comments. Then it all made sense.
Read it again knowing with whom I am having lunch.
It makes sense.
As for the other?
I didn’t get to be a packrat.
Life required that things get left behind.
I did reread it after reading the comments. Since my first thought about men is not usually that they are that much of a prize? I originally thought you envied this woman’s life for other reasons. I envy the perfect house that feels like a home with the yard all done and the great kitchen. The perfect hostess who makes you feel happy to be there. The life that looks perfect from the outside.
Only? It so rarely is. Sigh.
My husband was an Army brat who joined the Air Force. He never got to be a packrat either. He also has trouble saving money. It may be related I’m thinking.
Good thing I do save :)
My brain does jump around a lot doesn’t it. Sigh.
Lizzie -
You make me laugh . . . that notion that men are not that much of a prize.
Love that.
He wasn’t that much of a prize (as his actions certainly demonstrated), but he represented for me all that I did not have. All that I thought I wanted. All that someone else had.
Sigh.
As for having a brain that jumps around a lot?
I find that serves me quite well in my writing.
As it does you.
Kris
Kris,
As you have said, your past has made you what you are.
Some kind of writer.
I’m not fooled very often. But you so got me.
And Mr Tall Blond Attractive Man?
Schmuck.
Bill
Bill -
Mr. Tall Blond Attractive Man was a schmuck.
I knew that even then.
My actions were less about him and so much more about me.
About an emptiness.
I was not all awesome in this situation either.
Nope.
Wow. You are AMAZING. I too, had to read the story a couple of times and the tag and then got it. You really messed with my head :)
Great stuff, I love!
Alison -
Happy sighs.
I do enjoy the occasional messing around with a reader’s head.
Thank you.
Me
It is really interesting to me the different ways this can be read. I read it that there were two people – you and the wife, and that this was a lunch of friendship or kindness. I got obviously confused at the end but thought she was hugging you to be nice? When her husband came up I thought you had done something with him later, which I thought was a bit harsh of you considering she’d tried to be nice. Then the tag confused me even more, because then I thought it was fiction, even though I know you don’t do fiction really (spam aside). I was not clear until I read the other comments. And then of course I reread it and I think I would still draw the same conclusion again that the husband wasn’t there.
How interesting to see the assumptions I walk into a story with. Thank you for that.
Ashleigh -
As I mentioned in an earlier response to another comment, I considered being really clear about the fact that there were only two of us at this lunch.
But I thought that pointing out would jar the reader out of the story and put the focus on exactly who was in the room.
I also thought (perhaps because it was so very clear to me) that readers would understand that there were only two people at this lunch.
The lack of normal conversation, the fact that I wandered alone through the house, that I had to return to the kitchen to ask a question, that there was only one hug exchanged, that there was only one listener mentioned. At one point I refer to “both” of us and at another I refer to the silence that falls “between” us.
I hoped all of that would be enough to dispel the vision of a third person.
I am very glad to have included the tag (which I considered omitting).
I did want the story to be understood in the end.
Thank you.
Kris
huh, well I got to the end of the story and thought, aha! I guess I might have, maybe, at some point been in similar situation. I know that want well. I always say I don’t regret anything i have done in my life, but sometimes I wish I had been a little wiser, and not for my benefit, but for others.
I admire your honesty, and you are such a great writer that you can tell this story and I “hear” absolutely no judgement from your readers. Brilliant!
Cristina -
Yes . . . sometimes I do wish I had been a little wiser for the benefit of others.
You stated that nicely.
As for judgment from my readers?
I own my part in this story. I did not behave well. I was not wise.
My readers are lovely and supportive, but even if there is judgment?
That judgment is for the actions of a young girl who no longer exists except in my memory.
I own that girl’s mistakes.
All of them.
Always.
Kris
This is truly incredible.
Tracy -
Awwww . . . thank you.
Me
Well done, you.
Loved all the details and how you set the mood.
Loved thinking you were having lunch with the woman.
Until the twist at the end.
You do subtlety well.
And? Perfect endings.
Sue -
Thank you.
As I said, this is one of the few times I had the piece mapped out in my head before I sat down to type.
I wasn’t positive it would work.
But when I had finished, I liked it very much.
I’m glad it worked for you as well.
Me
Amazing writing Kris. I had no preconceived notions when I started and the ending was still a surprise. I was able to visualize the house and surroundings and feel the emotion in it all. Fantastic.
Tina -
Happy sighs.
Thank you, babe.
Kris