“What’s it gonna be?” she asked, her fingers running slowly over the stem of her wine glass, the dim light glittering off of her red nail polish.
He was mesmerized. He smiled but the smile didn’t look comfortable on his face. He squirmed a bit. He tried to say a few things, a few times, but sputtered. He finally sat back in his chair and sighed heavily. He spun his glass on the table, watching the golden whiskey play the light back at his unseeing eyes. He slowly lifted the glass to his lips, took a long sip, held it in his mouth, felt it, and then gently, slowly, let the beverage burn its way down the back of his throat. He lifted the glass in her direction before responding, his eyes dropping to her knees, and then her ankles, peeking out from her fishnet stockings and descending into red stilettos.
“I have to hand it to you, Marilyn, you’ve really got me over a barrel here.” He paused, slowly bringing his eyes up her legs, up her body, pausing at the jewel that decorated her cleavage, taking a long, vengeful look at her neck, and finally coming to rest in her deep green eyes. He wished he could drown in the algae pool of her eyes.
“Oh come on Tommy. You don’t know the first thing about me and I don’t know the first thing about you. But I do know this: you’re a man and I’m a woman and in this church that means folks are gonna talk. We may as well just get it over with and give them something to talk about.”
Marilyn scowled at him and rolled her eyes as she reached for the dark bottle to refill her wine glass. It was a lovely organic cabernet sauvignon from Californa. The booze had been Tommy’s idea, his way of breaking the ice. She couldn’t see how any ice had been broken at all but was enjoying the drink. And despite her protests to the contrary, it was awfully nice to be with a man who was quite content to just sit across the room from her.
Tommy paused. His glass was nearly empty and he knew there wouldn’t be any courage in the bottom of it, or even in the bottom of the bottle for that matter. What Marilyn didn’t know was that when Tommy drank whiskey he was feeling desperate. He was also feeling lonely. He missed her and deep down, he didn’t really believe he’d ever see her again.
Marilyn started to look sad when he didn’t reply, instead brooding over his glass. He was so quiet. She knew his wife had died in some horrible accident but she had never heard the full story, only the whispers. Tommy grew up in the church. He was used to the whispers. He might even be immune to them by now, but for Marilyn they’d been the hardest part about joining the church.
“Tommy, I don’t know what you want. I don’t even really know what I want. I’m not sure this is a good idea.”
Tommy looked up at her as if he’d forgotten she was even there. For a moment he saw long, straight brown hair and deep brown eyes, but when she began to speak his mirage disappeared.
“You’re so quiet Tommy. And I’m not a mind reader. What do you need right now?” Marilyn leaned forward, crossing her legs and resting an elbow on a leg, head in hand. She tilted her head a little to one side and decided that she really cared about Tommy.
“Mari,” Tommy started, paused, then his eyes twitched and his mouth contorted a bit. She reached out and put her hand on his arm. Tommy rested his forehead in his palm and she watched as tears began to run down his cheeks and pool in the corners of his mouth. She said nothing and quietly moved her chair closer.
Tommy looked up and into her eyes. He didn’t know where to begin.
“Tommy, I want you to keep looking into my eyes,” she said. “Now we’re going to take a deep breath in, all the way down into our bellies.” She paused. “Then we’re slowly going to let it out.” Tommy struggled to keep his breath even. He wavered. “Stay with me now. Look in my eyes. Deep breath in… and out. And another one in… and out.” Tommy started to look more stable. And then he began to speak.
“Mari, I don’t know where to begin. I miss her so much that I don’t even… I don’t… I can’t…”
“It’s okay,” she said, pondering this strange twist. “Why don’t you start by telling me her name?” Tommy looked all strange-faced again.
“I haven’t spoken her name since…” She lifted his head to face her and took an exaggerated deep breath. He looked into her eyes and breathed with her. “Tanya Nicole. She went by Nic.”
“That is a good name.”
“She was shorter than you. Her hair was brown and straight and she always kept it long. I used to tease her that her hair and eyes were the colour of the dirt God used to make Adam.” Tommy put his glass down. Then he reached over with his dominant left hand and refilled it, not with one finger as before but all the way to the top. “I’ve never told this story before,” he said, as if by way of explanation for the full glass of whiskey.
“Hey, I have all night and a reputation to live up to, take your time.”
“I met Nic in college. I’d just finished my mission and was trying to figure out whether or not I was comfortable in anything other than a shirt and tie, or if maybe I could wear a coloured shirt. I was tugging at a shirt by the mirror in a changeroom when she walked by. She turned around to face me and told me to stop tugging because it looked perfectly fine the way it was. Then she introduced herself and asked if I wanted help shopping. I was so nervous the whole time, it was awful.” He paused for a sip of whiskey.
“A year later we were married.” He paused again and took a deep breath. “And two years later our first child died.”
Marilyn stared at him, wide-eyed and in disbelief. She couldn’t image the pain of losing a child.
Tommy drained his glass in one long gulp. “I don’t remember the funeral. I just remember a constant feeling that something was missing, something was wrong. I never got to say goodbye. One night I kissed her and hugged her and turned on her nightlight. One night she said ‘Dada,’ and the next morning she was so cold and blue.” Tommy’s hands had started to shake. Marilyn grabbed the blanket from the back of her chair and wrapped it around his shoulders. Tommy sat and shivered for a while, then he reached for the bottle of whiskey. This time he didn’t bother with the glass.
“I wasn’t there for Nic after Tiffany died. I wasn’t even there for me. We barely spoke. We both went to work, going through the motions. At least, I thought we did. One day I got a phone call from one of Nic’s friends, a lady she worked with, wondering what happened to Nic, whom she hadn’t seen in over a month.” He paused, taking a drink. He remembered the phone call, remembered looking over at his wife, completely confused and a bit afraid. “I tried to talk to Nic that night when she got home but she was cold and mean. What did I care, she wanted to know. Why would it matter now if it hadn’t mattered since Tiffany died?” He took another drink. The bottle was getting low.
“The night I lost my faith in God,” Tommy began, “was the night my wife waked out on me. She yelled and said some awful things. I told her I loved her and she said ‘Fuck you Tommy, you don’t have the balls to love anyone but yourself,’ and then she started doing things like putting on shoes and shoving things in her purse. I watched her go. I was completely numb and I felt stuck to the spot, like my feet were made of cement. I watched her leave and I just stood there without saying anything. It was my fault she…”
Again Marilyn intervened and grabbed his gaze, breathing deeply with him. He paused for another drink and continued.
“The police came to the door three hours later. I couldn’t breath. They told me there had been an accident. They asked me if I knew my wife had been injecting drugs, and if she’d been high tonight. They wanted to search the house and take me in, figuring I was also using. They wouldn’t let me see her. They wouldn’t let me see her body, saying only that there had to be an autopsy, and that I wouldn’t want to see ‘what was left.’”
Marilyn reached out and touched Tommy lightly on the arm again. He pulled her closer into an awkward embrace. He was crying and he was squeezing her very tightly. She wrapped her arms around him and massaged his upper back with her right hand. The whole time she kept breathing deeply. Eventually, when his breath pattern matched hers, he let go.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”
“Don’t worry. You needed that and I’m glad I’m able to be here for you,” said Marilyn evenly, wondering where her calm came from.
“I don’t believe in heaven,” he continued. “I don’t believe the sealing ordinances were anything other than rituals, designed to make us feel better about something we have no control over, something no loving God would ever put us through.”
“So why do you still go to church then? What is that all about?” Marilyn asked.
“I need the community. I grew up in the church. I don’t know… I’m not close with anyone outside of the church. I need them to get me through the rest of this Godforsaken life. I need their faith because it sustains me when I have no faith of my own. It gives me direction when I feel lost.”
Marilyn paused to drain her own glass. God, help me out here. I’m in over my head and so is Tommy. Throw us a bone, will ya?
“Tommy, what do you need right now to be okay?” she asked. She was afraid of the answer.
“I don’t know. I don’t… I’m not okay. I don’t want to be okay.”
“So is it true then, what she said the night she left? That you’re only focused on yourself? Do you not want to be a part of the world anymore?”
“What’s the point Mari? I have nothing left to live for. If I die and find out there’s a heaven, my wife and I won’t be there and our little girl will. Where does that leave us? How do I forgive her for not reaching out to me and how do I forgive myself for not running after her, for not… caring enough to even notice how far gone she really was?”
“Tommy, you’re a beautiful person and in spite of it all you’re a strong person or you wouldn’t be here right now. You want to live, deep down, and I can tell or you never would have invited me over. I really like you and I’d like to get to know you better but it’s going to take time and effort. And all of those people who know you from the church, they love you too, even if they have odd ways of showing it like Mrs. Dumont next door who can probably see my car in your driveway and is probably busy calling Mrs. Price to discuss our declining virtue.” Marilyn paused. She wasn’t sure exactly that she wanted to say what was coming next.
“Tommy,” she said as he looked into her eyes, “you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Tonight I think you should go to bed and ponder. I’ll stay on your couch if you don’t mind because I don’t think it would be a good idea to leave you alone tonight. And in the morning we’ll have an awkward breakfast and go from there. How does that sound?”
Tommy looked at her. He looked sad, and he felt resigned and angry. How did this come to pass? Why him? And where’d this lady come from? Was he curious enough to care about sticking around?
“Oh what the heck,” Tommy said, cracking something that could've been mistaken for a smile. “I’ll show you where the blankets are. Let’s give ‘em something to talk about, shall we?”
