A Character

A character in the film reminded him of a former coworker. Trying to remember the guy’s name, he briefly spaced out on the film. He wondered what the character who reminded him of his former coworker might have said to the woman in the green dress when he was trying to remember the guy’s name to make her so angry. He didn’t dwell on it. When the credits were rolling, he remembered the former coworker’s name. Claude. But what was his last name?

At the coffee shop after the film, he ordered a BLT. He associated BLTs with old-style coffee shops, the kind with Formica counters and swivel stools and faux-leather-upholstered booths. His wife ordered apple pie and a cup of coffee. Somehow, drinking coffee at night didn’t keep her awake. The apple pie was topped with whipped cream. “So what did you think?” she asked him.

“What do you mean?”

“You know, the movie. What did you think?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I kind of liked it.”

“That’s it?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“I’d like to discuss the film. Just once. You never want to talk about films. Don’t you know that’s part of the fun, discussing it afterwards?”

“Anthony,” he replied. “Claude Anthony.”

Muffins

He was wearing the slippers his wife had bought him for his most recent birthday and the pajamas she’d bought him for Christmas two years earlier. She was nude underneath her bathrobe, after a shower. He still enjoyed her neckline. They were sitting at the kitchen table, eating buttered corn muffins with their coffee. He had never buttered a corn muffin before they met, or a muffin of any kind. Sometimes they ate bran muffins, and blueberry muffins once in a blue moon, but corn muffins were a fairly regular weekend treat. She tried baking them once, but the ones from Jensen’s Bakery were so much better. She knew Polly Jensen from the local Democratic club and enjoyed a little chat with her when the shop wasn’t busy. He was reading the morning paper. “Listen to this,” he said, and read her a story of local interest.

“Some people never learn,” she said, got up, rinsed her mug, and returned to the bathroom to brush her teeth.

Kind of a Message

“Someone called,” she told him when he returned home. He knew someone had called for him, otherwise she wouldn’t have mentioned it.

“Did they leave a message?”

“Kind of,” she said. “The caller only said, ‘He’ll know what this is about.’”

“Did they leave a name?”

“No.”

“Did they leave a number?”

“No.”

  “A man or a woman?”

“Woman.”

Who could it be? he wondered. A woman. She probably thinks I’m cheating on her. But I’m not. I’ve come close, I’ve been tempted, but I’ve never cheated.

“I’m not having an affair,” he said.

“I know,” she said.

How does she know? he wondered.