After 20 years of marriage, Cheryl and Bryan are calling it quits. It’s not something she wants, but it’s happening anyway. He cheated on her, had a one-night stand with some girl in a bar. Cheryl was prepared to forgive and forget, but he asked her to move out instead.
In the end he got what he wanted: Cheryl filed for divorce, then went to New Zealand for her 40th birthday. She came back with stories about a few passion-filled nights spent in the Southern Hemisphere.
Before she left, she had to buy new silverware.
I arrived at sunset, and we watched the sky purple like a bruise. A few shades of peach, a brief blast of orange and the sky settled into navy blue dusk.
Cheryl showed me around: The bathroom was huge, large enough for a family of four, with double sinks and a long countertop. A deep bathtub surrounded by a tropical-patterned shower curtain. No pink rose make-love-to-me-now aromas lingered in this new space of hers, instead the prickle-pucker tang of citrus made me think of hot sand and Margaritas.
The bedroom was large, with a walk-in closet. One row of bars hung empty; a naked hanger swinging by its hooked tooth made a whirring sound as it sawed back and forth.
“Pretty big closet,” I said.
She shrugged. “I don’t care much for clothes.” She tugged at her new sweater, frowning. Then her electric smile was back. “Things change,” she said brightly, and I nodded.
A Queen-sized bed, made up with layers of pillows and a quilt with a wedding ring design, dominated the room, singing out an empty invitation. She didn’t look at it, other than to tell me the bed was new.
We went upstairs to the loft, where I admired her Mac computer, the printer on a pull-out shelf, clear plastic storage bins that housed paper, pens and sticky notes. Conversation stuttered; a series of dead sparks. I struggled for words, lost in compassion. This was my new friend. This was her new apartment, the first real night of her new, unasked-for, life.
We had no shared history between us; at this moment less of a connection than the man she would eventually meet in New Zealand. We finally took to staring at each other, and the silence was like a pause of breath, that space between the deep in and the sighing out.
Finally: “You’ve got to see the kitchen.” We crunched down the stairs together, her shoulder brushing mine with every step.
The kitchen was painted white, a plain fluorescent bar hummed overhead. Cabinets were bleached oak, chrome door pulls. The floor was cream-colored vinyl, a four-square pattern marked with bland daisies. Bare windows overlooked scrub field, a small cactus perched on the sill.
Every cupboard door was opened, loosing a stream of anecdotal, half-rhetorical questions, words shaking down around us like salt, no time for answers before the next spray of words: “Do you like chipotles? I have this great recipe for mayonnaise, I’ll have to cook for you sometime…”
On her knees Cheryl showed me the pots and pans, some were new, others bore the rings of her marriage, like age lines on a tree stump.
“Bryan and I got this our first year together. I’ve always used it to cook rice. He was nice enough to let me take it….”
I closed my eyes, wondering at a man who would even argue over a cooking pot, and decided some things were fairly easy to give away. I caught Cheryl’s glance then, and looked at my feet. The silence echoed between us. It was this room, this apartment, this little life that had been planted and was still stuck in frozen soil.
A few more cupboards were opened and closed. The refrigerator handle was yanked and bare shelves glittered in the harsh light. A carton of eggs, some milk and yogurt crouched on the smooth plastic shelf. The commentary burbled on: No time for shopping but we’d have pasta and a basil-tomato sauce she’d made some time ago, wonderful stuff, did I like marinara?
Cheryl’s chatter rippled like piano keys, arpeggios of panic. She was still in shock, her sense of outrage lingering behind adamant statements: “Bryan is a good man,” she told me, rather than the stories of his lies and false promises, of his failed vows and her loss of forever.
Instead she showed me where the cumin and chili peppers were stored in the spice rack, how the pots inside the Lazy Susan nest inside each other, how she stacks lids in that corner of the cupboard over there. She demonstrated where the oven racks and cookie sheets go (in the drawer under the oven), where she’d keep the potholders, the drawer she’d set aside for aluminum foil and plastic wrap.
Her prattle was sharper now, we were running out of things to look at. My face felt cold, my cheeks ached from smiling, and I was grinding my teeth together. Cheryl’s tension was contagious, reminding me of my own heartache, a shared past that was rising out of my memory in waves. Not the eddies or ripples that I had learned to live with as I rebuilt my own life, but the rolling breakers, the waves of loss and pain and sorrow that hobbled me in my own early days of starting over.
I finally turned my back on her, reaching blindly for the one drawer we hadn’t yet examined. I yanked the handle, my fingers grasping the chrome pull in a biting grip. The drawer flew open, rolling smoothly on quiet rails.
A sharp rattle, and I looked down. It was the silverware drawer, utensils set inside horizontally, an arrangement I’d never seen before. One of the spoons was rocking against its neighbor. I stared down at that spoon, felt my heart squeeze. Time rolled backwards as that one little spoon, one of eight and yet one of one, tilted apart and then clinked against its mate, a tinny sound that froze my hand and loosened my memory.
The spoons weren’t alone in the drawer; there were forks and butter knives and a grapefruit knife, too. I saw her mini whisks in the skinny opening at the back of the tray. But it was the spoons I kept staring at: “Will you spoon me tonight?” a whispered echo from the past. I didn’t know the voice, was it his, was it mine? It didn’t matter, the lack of holding went on and on.
Oh, those spoons. Curved cups that hold, like two bodies folded in the night, cuddled against the dark. Tiny bowls that hold soup or medicine, instruments of love or healing. Cupped hands: water sluicing down a lover’s back; a spoon to wash the soul.
Empty spoons now. Teaspoons and tablespoons, free of rust spots, scratches and the telltale tooth marks of a trip down the garbage disposal.
“Shall we eat?”
I whirled around, my reverie broken. I slammed the drawer closed, but could still hear the spoons rattling.
She was back on her knees tugging a huge stainless steel pot from its warren under the counter. Water ran in the sink. It whirred against the sides, creating a roaring symphony that matched the one in my head.
I sat down at the table, edged a small menorah to the side. Then I looked at it more closely; the price tag announcing $6.95 from Cost Plus. “You going to light this?”
She shrugged. “If I remember. I just wanted one. I’ve never had one before…not as an adult anyway.”
It’s then I know that her ex wasn’t Jewish. I pause for a moment, wanting to hear my next words more clearly. Mine wasn’t either, I say. It’s my first reference to him, and I know it won’t be the last. My hands caress the menorah lightly, then ball into fists I bury in my lap.
Cheryl smiles at me, a shy flicker, recognizing a link she wasn’t expecting to find. She opens the freezer, pulls out a tub of blood-red sauce, pops it into the microwave. The water boils and she adds angel hair pasta.
“Would you like wine?” she asks, already busy with corkscrew and glasses. She fills two, and as she hands mine over, the monogrammed stemware twinkles. For a long moment we stare at the B and C, intertwined over a D. I can’t believe she took those glasses; clearly, she can’t either. Her hand trembles as she sets it down carefully, then pushes it away.
In the stiff silence that follows, I set the table. Plates and forks and water glasses. She has no napkins, so I use paper towels, folding the oversized sheets into bulky triangles. I leave the spoons in the drawer, hoping she doesn’t use them to mound pasta on her fork.
Dinner is served – a warm spicy blend of tomatoes and garlic and basil. She fills our plates, then picks up her fork, and smiles sweetly at me. “Oh, you forgot the spoons. Don’t you use a spoon to eat pasta?” I shake my head, smile back. She starts to rise, her left hand already reaching towards the silverware drawer. Then she pauses.
“Fuck it. We can eat with our fingers for all I give a damn.”
I stare at her. Then we laugh. I turn my fork on its side, cut the pasta into ropey strands.
by Susan Rich, (c)2014 All Rights Reserved
