reflections
It was nearly 11 at night, and I was pissed. The dinner I'd spent hours cooking now clung limply to the gold-rimmed white china plates I'd so lovingly arranged around the table. The taper candles that had been brand new hours before had melted over the silver candlesticks, coating the shining metal with white waxy drips in silence. The entire house was silent. The pulse of Coltrane's Love Supreme I'd swayed to while setting the table had long since ceased to bring life to the room. As my fingers traced the outline of the lip of my wineglass, I turned and looked at my reflection in the front window of my home. The darkness of the night was the perfect backdrop for my isolation. Great. Twinned in the reflection of the glass were the two flames of the candles I'd lit with such anticipation hours before. To the right of the first flame, I saw myself, reflected in the glass, alone again, of course, illuminated by the dancing flames. Somehow, the delicacy of the candlelight seemed a rebuke to the grim face reflected in the window glass.
I considered myself, as I stared at my reflection in the window, as though I was seeing myself for the first time. The girl, no, the woman before me seemed almost like a stranger. The reflection wore the short hair he preferred, a chin-length bob with bangs. The woman in the window wore a black, knee-length trench coat, with the collar upturned, like the protagonist in a spy novel. What the reflection didn't reveal was that beneath the coat, I wore nothing but a black corset, a garter belt and silky soft thigh highs.
I thought he'd like this.
Sick of staring at myself in the window, I crossed my legs and took another sip of wine. Surveying the evening's damage, I found I was grateful that I'd decided to decant the 1999 Borolo and help myself rather than waiting for him to come home. As I brought my glass to my lips, savoring the velvety texture of the wine, the silence of the house seemed oppressive.
I wondered what was wrong with me.
Trying to banish that thought, I picked up my uneaten plate of food and my wineglass and made my way to my kitchen. Indulging in another sip, I scraped the food off my plate into the trash and lightly rinsed my plate before putting it into the dishwasher. Once again, I brought the precious wine to my mouth and savored it as it danced over my tongue and brought my senses to life.
I knew what I had to do next.
Gently putting my glass on the counter, I returned to the dining room and purposefully blew out first one candle, then the other, before picking up his full plate and returning to the kitchen. With measured movements, I took a butter knife and used it to scrape first a lamb chop, then a side of steamed, garlic-infused spinach, followed by the Yukon gold mashed potatoes I'd made by hand, hours ago. With each scrape against the plate, I tried to will myself to scrape him out of my life, but I knew it was useless. No matter what I did to the china, I was still the woman, practically nude in a trench coat, who was wiping food off of plates, waiting for him. I still wanted him to come to me.
Fuck me.
The comforting thing about cleaning is that when you're done, no one can tell what happened before. As I returned to the dining room for what was probably the tenth time, the immaculate space confirmed what my mind wanted to know. If anyone had entered my house tonight, they'd never be able to tell. They'd never notice the effort I'd put into the meal; they wouldn't see my desperate attempt to capture his attention. The most casual observer would only see my everyday centerpiece, an iron candelabra with three votives covered by smoky glass window shades. They wouldn't see my desperation. I wanted him here. I wanted him to notice me, to want me.
Returning to the kitchen, my eyes swiveled and took in the clean expanse. Yep. If someone came into my kitchen he or she would never know about the meal I'd prepared tonight. Hell, my kitchen still looked brand-new. Even the best detective on one of those Law and Order shows would never be able to tell that I'd cooked my first meal for him in my kitchen tonight. Surveying my work, I was pleased. So pleased that I emptied the last of the fan-tab-u-listic Borolo into my glass and set the decanter into the sink for a rinse.
With gentle movements, I brought the glass to my lips and took a sip. In the hour since my last glass, the wine had opened up even more and was so rich and supple, I couldn't contain my moan. The shitty insecure douche part of my psyche – my inner teen – tried to rear her ugly head to say that I'll never moan like that for a man. Thankfully, I wasn't in the mood to take her shit tonight, so I relished my wine and strolled back into the living room, once again looking out the window.
With the houselights off, I sat in my living room chair, snuggled into a blanket and sipped my wine while I stared out the window. The darkness of my home only served to illuminate the scene beyond my window. A streetlamp lit the corner and every now and again a stray car would coast up 14th. Absently, I checked my cell phone, for the hundredth time tonight, and I wasn't sure how I felt when I noticed that I had no missed calls, no texts, no voicemails and no emails. I was so utterly alone that even the usual spam mongers hadn't bothered me tonight.
Relishing the last sip of the Barolo, I rose and returned to the kitchen. Finding the bottle empty, I rinsed my glass and sought another distraction. Tonight's silent rejection weighed on me and all I wanted was a release, an escape. This was the perfect night to dip into my secret stash of emergency vodka.
I paused a moment to praise the creators of Ketel One as I dropped three ice cubes into a small glass before pouring the thick clear liquid over them. I needed, no, I deserved, this escape.
Clutching my martini on the rocks, I returned to my perch in the living room and stared outside. While I was refreshing my drink, it had started to snow, and it was beautiful.
I'd moved to Denver three months ago, supposedly following the love of my life. I'd left the desert heat of Arizona in trade for the 300 days of sunshine of Colorado. No one told me that it could be sunny and 10 degrees at the same time. No matter the weather, I'd fallen in love with Denver, and with my neighborhood. The house I bought was a little over 100 years old, which felt ancient to me. In Phoenix, homes built in the 1940s were considered historic. My home was similar to a Denver square, but it was smaller, more like a rectangle. Despite its small size, it was large on charm. The wide-plank pine floors, combined with the oak woodwork that surrounded every window and the pocket doors around the living room all combined to imbue my home with early 20th century charm. I love it and the craftsmanship contained within.
I decorated simply. Most of my furniture was cast-offs from my parents. Renee had sent her piano, because I'd first learned to play chopsticks on it, and not much else. Charlie, being more practical, had sent a dining room table and chairs, two easy chairs and an antique radio that I'd converted to a stereo case. My neighbor Quin had found a dresser in the alley that was perfect for my needs. When I moved into my first home, the only new piece of furniture I bought was a king-sized bed. I'd always wanted one, and when the inspection on the house revealed that I needed a new roof and a new furnace, careful budgeting left room for the bed that had become my sanctuary.
I loved sitting in my living room chair, snuggled beneath a blanket, looking out the window and listening to music. Before I'd returned to my comfortable perch, I'd put Split Lip Rayfield's album "Live at the Bluebird" into my CD player. I'd always remember that night. On my first weekend in Denver, I'd walked the two blocks to the Bluebird Theater and had reveled in one of Kirk Rundstrom's last shows in Denver. The day after the show he'd been diagnosed with terminal cancer. As he played that night his energy exploded throughout the theater and captured me with every movement and every lyric. I'd camped out by the back bar and had drunk them in, my hips swaying in time, uncontrollably. As the crowds' screams drowned out their last farewell I returned my empty glass to the bar and walked home, alone.
He was supposed to go with me that night, but had called to say he had to work late. Understanding the pressures of his job, I'd let him know that I'd be fine, on my own. Not wanting to spend my first weekend trapped in the house, I'd gone alone. When we lived in Phoenix, I never needed to venture out alone on the weekends. He'd always been there and we'd done so much together. He'd moved before I had, since I was waiting to find a job. In the six months before my move, he'd flown to Phoenix almost every weekend. After three months in Denver, it sometimes felt like I'd seen him more often before I'd moved.
I absently pressed play on my stereo remote and in moments I heard Coltrane's Love Supreme echo throughout my empty living room. Shaken from my reverie, I returned to the kitchen to refresh my martini. Going through the motions, I pretended to myself that hearing Coltrane's sax didn't nearly cripple my body with longing for the kind of love every note described.
I desperately wanted a smoke. I'd been "quitting" for about six months, but I always kept a stash in the hall closet. With a fumbling hand, I grasped my secret pack of yellow American Sprits and a book of matches before slipping off my heels and trading them for comfy boots.
Stepping outside, I lit my smoke and realized that a feather-light coating of snow had fallen since I'd returned home. Grateful for my gloves, I surveyed my snow-covered sidewalks and knew I needed to clear them. Since the snow was so unbelievably light, I grabbed my broom, rather than my shovel, and began to sweep the light dusting of snow off of my stairs.
Feeling motivated, and honestly, a bit drunk, I swept my stairs and kept going up the sidewalk. Swish to the right, swish to the left, with each movement, I found myself soothed, and the ache of being stood up seemed to fade somehow. It must have been the combination of the wine, the vodka, the cold and the peacefulness of the slowly falling snow that centered by soul.
My neighbor Jane has a bad back, so out of habit I cleared her walk. When I first moved in last October, Jane greeted me with a handmade card requesting that I shovel her walks. At first I thought it was a bit forward, but I wanted to be a good neighbor. I may not have been the first owner of this century-old home, but it was my first ever house. I'd lived in a condo in Phoenix and neighborliness extended to getting someone's mail or feeding their cat. Shoveling snow and raking leaves were new examples of being a good neighbor.
In the dark, with the snow still lightly falling, I swept the sidewalk clean. It soothed me.
My cigarette still wasn't done, so I kept going; sweeping the snow off the sidewalk with a steady back and forth swish, pausing every now and again to savor a drag. I found myself staring at the brick façade of Jane's neighbor's home. I knew that the house had sold months ago, shortly after I bought mine, but none of the other neighbors had met the new owner. Feeling neighborly, I started to sweep the new owner's walk, swishing back and forth until I reached the steps that led to the front porch. As I reached the three flagstone steps that led to the porch, I paused to take a long drag on my contraband cigarette. Exhaling, I tilted my face towards the midnight sky and felt the soft drops of snow land and melt on my cheeks. Even though I lived in the heart of the city, my home bounded by two busy streets, the night was silent, muffled somewhat by the snow.
My heart crashed into my stomach when I heard a screen door smash into brick. Blinking I turned to face the front porch and saw a man glowering at me from the front porch.
"What the fuck are you doing on my property?" he shouted.
I lamely swished the broom and stared at the flagstone beneath me while I tried to form words. "I, um, I live two houses down and was just clearing the sidewalks, I mean, I always do Jane's next door, so I thought I'd keep going and, fuck, I'm sorry." I turned and ran back to my house in shame, never once looking at the angry man who'd shouted at me. As soon as I stepped on my porch, I stubbed my cigarette out in the ashtray, dropped the broom in its place and flung myself into my house.
Once inside, I peeled off my gloves and hat and coat, dropping them unceremoniously into a heap on the floor in the entryway. My heart was racing and I felt like a fool.