Sorry it took me so long to reveal this review (new baby at home, so little time). Thanks so much for your feedback. I’ll be sure to go over the points to mentioned. As for an answer to your last question – I disagree that people don’t wait that long. When a man cheats on his wife, the mistress will listen to “I’m going to leave her” for a very long time. In this instance, for Anna, as long as Justine hasn’t gone through with the wedding, there’s still hope. I think I made it clear that they’ve avoided any conversation that would have led to the final “No, I don’t plan on leaving him” that would end the relationship before now. If I haven’t, please let me know. If you have any suggestions how to make that more clear, I’d be happy to hear them.
Short Story / Under the Influence
I watched the flame on the strawberries and cream jar candle on the bedside table dim to an ember and extinguish itself. The display on the alarm clock read five o’clock in the morning, its menacing red numbers casting odd shadows against the wall. Sitting up, I reached for the dress I’d thrown haphazardly to the floor a few hours earlier.
Even though she didn’t speak, I could feel Anna watching me from the other side of the bed. The air was thick with the weight of unspoken thoughts, hers and mine alike. Still, I found a strange comfort in the quiet; it was a familiar part of this routine that we had engineered. She moved, propping herself up on one elbow, bringing my attention back to her. The blanket slid down as she moved, leaving her upper body exposed. It was a deliberate accident, a ploy she often used to entice me to stay just a little while longer.
Anna’s sense of fashion leaned more toward comfort than style, preferring jeans to dresses and sneakers or boots to a shoe with a heel. She shunned cosmetics in general, using only a lightly tinted lip-gloss on a regular basis and opted to pull her long hair back in a simple ponytail rather than fussing with a curling iron or blow dryer. The overall effect caused her to look, at first glance, much younger than her twenty-nine years.
At times like these, when she and I were alone in the early morning hours, though, she seemed far more exotic. Her cheeks were flushed from exertion, causing her green seem as though they glowed. Her hair, the golden brown color of turning leaves in late fall, spread out behind her in a wild mass, shifting as she moved as though it were a living thing. She reached out her fingers and whispered them over my arm, burning an invisible line from the crook of my elbow to the veins in my wrist. She was stunning in these moments and I knew I could have her if I wanted.
“I can’t see you tonight,” I said, responding to her unasked question as I pulled my stockings on. “I have to be at the airport by six to meet Neil. He’s flying in from Seattle.”
At the mention of my fiancé’s name she drew her hand away. With that movement, she revoked the invitation and I knew there was little hope for the night ending happily. “How long is he staying this time?” she asked, pulling the blanket back up over her shoulders like a shield. I stifled a sigh at her jealousy and braced for the inevitable confrontation.
Anna hated Neil the way a child hates a rival, a senseless, all-consuming hatred. On the rare occasions when I’ve felt it necessary for them to be in the same room, Anna, barely able to maintain civility long enough to say hello, inevitably spent the time making snide remarks about anything from Neil’s hair to the way he eats pasta.
The first time I introduced them, a horrible idea in retrospect, I actually expected them to become friends. After all, I loved them both, enjoyed spending time with them both, they should have enjoyed spending time with each other just as much. The three of us met at a little Italian bistro called Café Valentino tucked away in a residential section of South Philadelphia. I chose the restaurant because I knew it would equally please both of them. The Café, decorated to give the illusion of an outdoor eatery along the coast of the Mediterranean, was artistic and obscure enough to appeal to Anna’s creative impulses but the Zagat rating and the cost were high enough to attract Neil’s gourmet tastes.
Unfortunately, Anna didn’t share my enthusiasm for forging a close relationship between the three of us. Halfway through the salad course, it became evident that the meal would not end well. Anna continually engaged me in conversation while intentionally ignoring Neil, changing the subject every time he found a way to interject. When Neil attempted to speak to Anna directly, she answered in monosyllables whenever possible and short sentences otherwise. Toward the end of the meal, I decided to see if they could make any progress without me at the table and excused myself to go to the ladies room.
The restaurant was small with seating for only forty people or so. The intimacy of the place leant a romantic ambiance but didn’t allow much privacy. On an evening when the restaurant was full, one conversation would drown out another easily enough but on this night there were only patrons at three other tables. From the alcove where the restrooms were situated, I peeked through the curtain that divided the room to watch them and listen to their conversation.
They looked strange sitting across from each other, like a mirror reflecting an opposite. On one side, Neil sat in his starched blue dress shirt and gray linen pants with a razor sharp crease up the front of the leg. His dark brown hair was cropped close to his head. His napkin lay unfolded across his lap and he lifted his pinky slightly when he sipped his coffee. He smiled at Anna as she insulted him, treating her the same way I’d seen him treat difficult clients, always maintaining his carefully constructed mask of civility.
On the other side, Anna sat with one leg tucked up under her long crinkled skirt. Her sandals, removed sometime in between the appetizer and the main course, sat under the table. Anna’s beaded bracelets constructed in brilliant shades of amber, gold and something like terra cotta jangled as she moved, the matching necklaces disappeared into the neckline of her tanktop. Holding her cup of tea with both hands, she bent her head over the steam, breathing in the spices. Anna was the passion to balance Neil’s calculation, a portrait of the gypsy in captivity.
“You’ll never be enough for her, you know,” Anna said to Neil, breaking the silence between them for the first time since I’d left the table.
Neil set his coffee cup to the side, a gesture I knew to mean he was preparing to negotiate, or in this case, argue. “What makes you think that, Anna?” He leaned back in his chair, attempting to draw her eyes, which were still focused on her tea, up to his gaze.
“Because, Neil,” Anna replied, her tone mimicking his forced courtesy. “She needs things that no man can give her, things that you, with all your money, can’t buy for her.”
Seeing the conversation quickly becoming disastrous, I hurried back to my seat to silence it.
The rest of the evening passed in long stretches of uncomfortable silence and short bursts of even more uncomfortable conversation. I rushed through my desert and left with Neil as quickly as I could manage.
When we got to the car, Neil asked me why I bothered with Anna. He hadn’t wanted me to talk to her anymore. He definitely suspected that Anna felt more than friendship for me. Fortunately, Neil would never ask me to give up a friend entirely. Instead, I agreed to limit the amount of time I spent with Anna, particularly when Neil was home. Despite our agreement, though, it still upset Neil when Anna called or stopped by.
“He’ll be home for a month. His next trip isn’t until the conference in Colorado, the first week of March. I think he might be going up to New York overnight somewhere in between but there’s nothing longer than that scheduled,” I replied as I finished dressing. I turned my back to her, ignoring the scowl on her face and went to the mirror to fix my hair.
Part of the reason my relationship with Anna worked is that Neil’s job required him to travel fairly often. Between conferences, meetings and consultations, I was lucky to see Neil for a combined total of three months out of the year. Neil’s absence occasionally put a strain on our relationship. His homecoming always put a strain on my relationship with Anna.
“How short of a leash do you think he’ll keep you on while he’s home? I mean, the rules change so often, I can’t always keep track.” The disdain in her voice burned like acid. I expected this, the fight, her anger, but part of me had still been hoping I could avoid it all. Her scowl deepened as she got up from the bed, wrapping the blanket around her body. “Should I even bother calling or will he just throw a fit?”
“You act as though he doesn’t have reason to be suspicious of us,” I replied as calmly as I could, raising my voice only so I could speak over her. “How am I supposed to reassure him that we’re nothing more than friends when that’s obviously not true. How am I supposed to get angry at him for wanting me to stay away from you when I wind up going home with you whenever we get together?”
“So what? It’s not as though you’ll ever leave him,” she replied. The pain in her voice was tangible like a million little needles sticking my skin. “It’s not as though you’d ever come here when you could go home to him. I’m just someone you pass the time with while he’s away at his meetings and conferences. I’m not a threat to him. Just tell him that he has nothing to worry about.”
“You know, I’m really sick of you acting like I’m using you,” I glared at her reflection in the mirror, starting to apply my lipstick. “Just because I won’t leave my fiancé for you, doesn’t mean I don’t genuinely care about you.”
Anna laughed at that but it was bitter, not amused. “You care about me? When we’re in bed together, you can say you love me. You’ve never been able to use that word when we’re standing face to face. Do you want to know something? I don’t think you ever will love me. Every single time you’ve said it, you’ve lied to me. You’re a liar, Justine.”
Losing the last of my patience I spun around to face her. “I’ve never lied to you and you know it. What is it you want from me, Anna? What, within reason, can I say to you or do for you that will fix this?”
She shook her head at me, walking to the bedroom door. “You want to know what I want from you? I want you to care just a little that it hurts me when you leave and go home to him. I want you to miss me when you can’t see me. Most of all, I want, just once, for you to pick me first. I guess we both know that will never happen, don’t we?” She left the room, slamming the door behind her without waiting for a response. I stood alone in the bedroom, the sudden silence ringing in my ears. Something told me Anna had just ended more than just our conversation.
There was a time when things weren’t so complicated between Anna and me. When I first met her three and half years ago, I almost thought I’d found the perfect relationship. We met at a housewarming for a mutual friend. Neil was away on a business trip so I went to the party alone. I mingled for a while, making small talk with the other guests. I’d just about reached my quota for inane conversation when Anna came in. Typically, she was two hours late and notably underdressed, her grayish sweater and jeans with paint splattered on the thigh standing out against the sea of upper middle class business people in button-front shirts or summer dresses. As an art lover, I found myself intrigued by the hand-made jewelry she wore. One piece in particular, her necklace, caught my interest, which she gave to me after we started seeing each other. In the center hung a large piece of coral intricately carved into a rose shape. It was surrounded with glass beads in leaf green, cobalt blue and a rich pinkish orange that matched the coral. It was the most beautiful piece of jewelry I’ve ever seen. Later, when we were tucked away in the corner of the patio where were talked for the rest of the evening, I found out that making jewelry was one of her hobbies. It also managed to afford her a decent income as a number of high-end boutiques in the surrounding cities carried her jewelry on consignment.
I enjoyed the time we spent together but didn’t expect the encounter to go any further. Anna surprised me by calling the next day and asked me over for lunch. She made salads with grilled chicken and homemade bread, which I impressed me since I can barely make, toast in the morning without burning it. We talked about everything that day; art, books, movies, families, high school and anything else we could think of. I told her about Neil and how we were looking to buy a house to settle down in. Our lunch date lasted from noon until ten o’clock that evening. We never left her house, opting to order pizza for dinner rather than cut our time short. Then, sitting on her couch, sipping a glass of chardonnay, she asked me if I’d ever been with a woman before.
Truthfully, I had been with a woman before. I’d dated a few girls in high school for novelty’s sake and tried a relationship with a woman shortly before I met Neil. I’d broken it off because I wanted to be with a man. The women I’d dated until that point had all wanted more of me than I was willing to give. A man is happy to take whatever a woman offers. A woman, on the other hand, always wants more. Of course, about a month into my relationship with Neil, I decided that I missed being with a woman.
For six months, everything seemed to work out perfectly. I felt a little guilty at first for lying to Neil but not enough to stop seeing Anna. I was happy, Anna seemed content with the arrangement and what Neil didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. Things changed, though, when Neil proposed.
I hadn’t realized until then that Anna probably expected me to leave Neil at some point. I never intended to do that. Once I told Neil I’d marry him, her illusions about our relationship were shattered and the arguing started.
I thought I was being fair. I wouldn’t give Anna up for Neil and I wouldn’t give Neil up for Anna. I spent more time with Anna than I did with Neil because Neil was away so often. I already lived with Neil. I didn’t see how Neil and I getting married made any difference. It did make a difference to Anna. That’s when the fighting started and it hadn’t stopped since.
The only time Anna and I fought anywhere near this badly, I was trying to convince her to be the maid of honor at my wedding. I took her out to dinner at our favorite restaurant, a tiny café that looked like a coffee shop and served meals that were all homemade by the old Sicilian woman who owned the place to pop the question.
I waited for our dinner to come, trying to find a way to ease into the conversation. When the opportunity didn’t present itself, I decided to just be direct. “Neil and I haven’t set a date for the wedding yet, but, I was hoping you’d be my maid of honor,” I said, smiling at her across the table.
I expected that Anna would need a little time to adjust to the idea of my marrying Neil. In the end, though, I thought our friendship would overrule the disdain she held for Neil and she’d be able to be happy for me. The level of her anger surprised me. She looked up at me briefly and motioned the waitress for the check though we’d barely touched our meals. After taking a few minutes to compose herself, using the time to sift through her woven straw-colored pocketbook for her wallet, she responded. “No.”
“I know it’s a little weird,” I said, taking the wallet out of her hand and setting it aside before laying my hand over hers. “It’s just that the maid of honor is supposed to be the most important woman in the bride’s life and in my life, that is, was and always will be you.”
I took it as a sign of encouragement that she didn’t pull her hand away. As she leaned across the table closer to me, I still had hope she’d agree. “There is very little I wouldn’t do for you, Justine,” she said to me, lowering her voice to an intimate whisper, similar to the one she used when we were in bed only angry. “But, I refuse to stand there in some ridiculous dress holding your flowers while you marry someone else.”
I was genuinely confused. I thought she’d be happy to be there, to be a part of things. After all, it was my wedding day. “I don’t understand why you’re so upset about this. I thought you’d want to be involved.”
She stared at me for a moment, the expression on her face flashing from outrage to amazement and back again. “What did you think would happen?” she screamed at me. “You’re marrying that mindless robot. Where are you going on your honeymoon? A business conference in Cleveland? Do you want me to go to that too?”
Without waiting for an answer she stormed out. I left the money for our uneaten dinner on the table and shouted an apology to the owner as I chased her outside. After another hour of arguing in the parking lot, I finally conceded defeat.
Letting myself out into the hallway, I half-expected to see Anna standing at the top of the stairway, waiting for me to apologize so we could pretend that all of our problems were fixed again for a little while. Instead, I heard the shower running in the bathroom up the hall. Only Betsy, the Calico kitten I’d given Anna a few months ago for her birthday, greeted me with wary yellow-green eyes. I reached down to scratch behind her ears, easily swaying her loyalty.
I picked up Betsy and went downstairs to the kitchen, the old hardwood steps creaking beneath us in the quiet of the house. The décor of the kitchen was typically Anna, a mishmash of styles and bold colors. Anna painted the wooden cabinets, originally an unimposing pine when she first moved in, in large alternating panels of bright Caribbean blue and Atlantic green. The curtains, which hung over the sink, were a hand sewn patchwork creation in blue, green, red and yellow. All of the cups and plates drying in the drain board were hand-thrown pottery in an assortment of colors left over from Anna’s detour into the world of clay, no two shaped or painted alike. Her collection of pots and pans were mostly second hand and just as eclectic, a few of the old cast-iron kind, some stainless steel and a few lacquered pots with cottage roses or cats painted on the sides. I’ve never understood her style. It looked like a pauper’s kitchen, the clashing pieces thrown together because the owner purchased what she could afford at the time. However, I’d seen Anna buy some of these things. She rarely worried about the cost of an item. Instead, she just purchased the things that attracted her attention with no regard for any sort of cohesive theme.
Setting Betsy down on the counter, I retrieved the bag of groceries I’d purchased the night before. If left to her own devices, Anna rarely ate anything of substance let alone a full breakfast. Aside from the bag, which she’d put away intact instead of unpacking, there was little left on the shelves of the refrigerator; a few bottles of soda, an expired carton of milk, a bottle of green ketchup and her tray of watercolor paint.
As I was separating the bacon and laying it in the pan, Anna appeared in the doorway. Betsy abandoned me in short order, weaving herself between Anna’s legs. “I thought you would have left by now,” she said.
Suddenly I felt silly standing there in her kitchen cooking a meal neither of us really wanted. I knew there were a lot of things wrong with our relationship but I was willing to keep pretending if she was. It seemed she wasn’t. “I thought I’d make breakfast,” I said, knowing it sounded as foolish as I felt.
She didn’t tell me to leave; she didn’t say anything at all. Instead she went to the opposite counter, turning her back to me as she made a pot of coffee. Her kitchen was small enough that we brushed against each other as we moved. There were times when we’d done this and the closeness felt intimate, each casual touch only half-accidental. This morning, we danced awkwardly around each other, trying to make more space than was possible. Distracted by my efforts to maintain some distance from her, I shifted the frying pan with my bare hand.
I turned off the pan and went to the sink, cursing under my breath. She was there with the cold water running, a damp rag in her hand to ease the burn. I tried to come up with the right words for an apology and couldn’t. I loved her. I really did. The real question was, did I love her enough? Could I really leave Neil and the entire life I’d built for myself?
If I could have removed Neil from the picture and inserted Anna seamlessly, I think I would have done it a long time ago. Unfortunately, life is rarely so simple as an even exchange. Neil and I, when we met, began very quickly to build a life together. We had joint checking accounts and the mortgage and car loans were in both of our names. I didn’t want to argue over our pets and our friends. I somehow didn’t think our German Shepherd would fare well if we arranged joint custody.
Unfortunately, Anna doesn’t understand my practical, logical approach. When it comes to romance, I enjoy the theory and Anna enjoys the practice. She wouldn’t think anything of leaving her life behind for love or passion. In fact, Anna probably wouldn’t think anything of leaving her life behind for the sheer experience of starting over. What I think impractical, she finds entertaining.
Anna laid a gentle kiss over the growing welt on my palm. The promise of her touch lingered for a moment between us until she turned her back on me again. Nothing had changed in the past half hour. I was beginning to think nothing would ever change between us. Why couldn’t Anna see that our situation was for the best? I was convinced at times that she looked for things to complain about. It was Anna’s inability to be content in any situation that kept happiness from her reach, not my relationship with Neil.
I needed to make a big gesture, something that would reassure Anna of her place in my life. I needed to give her something that made her feel special, no longer second-best. I offered her what she said she wanted, a chance to come before Neil just this once.
“Why don’t we go to see a play tonight. I’ll call Neil and tell him to take a cab home from the airport.” I turned around to her hopefully. “We’ll be able to spend a little more time together that way.”
In my mind, I envisioned her turning around with tears in her eyes full of forgiveness. We’d embrace and make love on the kitchen floor. Everything would go back to normal if I I could only make her happy for a moment.
Instead, she started to laugh as she walked to the door. “You know,” she said, pausing and turning around to me. “I told Neil once that he’d never be enough for you. I told him you needed things that no man could give you. The truth is, Justine, no one will ever be enough for you. The world you live in is just too complex for any normal person. Lock up when you leave.”
I stared after her as she left the house, closing the door between us.
You need to log in to urbis or create an urbis account to review this writing.
Reviews
Sort Reviews by Newest | Oldest | Highest Quality | Lowest Quality | Newest Comments |
This 179 word review has not been unlocked.
This 71 word review has not been unlocked.
This was well written and flowed well. I feel that this could be published with out a problem. There was a good flow and great use of description. I real did not see any major technical problems. You also have great use of descriptions. You paint a picture of the setting and make the reader feel they are there.
Nice Job!
- add/view comments (0)
This is a really excellent piece. For the most part, it felt very real, outlining the curious relationship decisions people make and the emotional fallout. Fantastic attention to detail without overdoing it.
A few notes to make it even better:
--The transition between the second and third paragraphs is jarring -- needs smoothing.
—The scene in their favorite restaurant has a few problems. In the sentence that begins “I took her out,” there is way too much verbage between that phrase and “to pop the question.” It stops the flow you’ve established. Also, in the sentence that begins, “I left the money,” your use of pronouns makes it sound as if the narrator is chasing the old Sicilian woman. Finally, the transition from this flashback back to the present is not clear. All of a sudden she goes from a parking lot to a hallway.
—Your timeline makes it so the engagement to Neil has lasted for 3 years, and Anna has been stewing about it for that long. Why the long engagement? Why would Anna put it with it for that long (that doesn’t jive with my experience of such arrangements)?
Beautiful storytelling brimming with creativity! You are a msterful storyteller, one with wit and insight regarding the human nature. This story is entirely believable: tragic and humorous at the same time. The characters are entirely human, well-written as if for a much larger story. It feels as if I’ve just seen a piece of their world, that there is so much more of their world to explore. Thank you for this enjoyable piece!
on the strawberries (I think “of” would be better than “on” here)
These two sentences hang me up as the reader: At times like these, when she and I were alone in the early morning hours, though, she seemed far more exotic. (suggest making this sentence more simply constructed. For example: She seemed far more exotic, in the early morning hours, when she and I were alone.) Her cheeks were flushed from exertion, causing her green seem as though they glowed. (causing her green? Eyes maybe?)
There is really very little to criticize here other than the couple of things mentioned above. I think it’s a good story, for the most part, but I think the ending warranted a little more about Justine that indicated that ‘she’ was the source of the problem, wanting Neil and Anna too, rather than making Anna look like an obsessed nut. I think Justine’s character needs a little more work (she’s kind of one-dimensional), but good job. Really. I’ll err on the high-side and give you an ‘8’.
There is a lot of “in these moments” statements. Suggest cutting them to one.
Really good peice.
I like that this Justiine is trying everything under the sun to keep her love triangle going.
The only thing i may have done is add an epilouge at the end with her meeting Neil at the airport or haveing her make a choice to stay with anna butyour ending worked great
Good Job and keep on writing
Dave
It’s an intriguing piece, the characters interesting and fascinating in their own ways. For some reason, I see parallels between Justine and Neil, something about the careful and pragmatic way they deal with things.
This story was also clever in how it showed two sides of the debate, the logical reality as opposed to the fanciful desires.
If anything, I would have liked to know more about Justine and Neil’s relationship. How they came to be, how they coexist, and maybe to show what Justine really has with him as opposed to what she has with Anna. It could flesh out what Justine has to lose if she chose one over the other, and therefore increase the stakes and garner a little more understanding from the audience. To me, Justine’s pragmatism seemed to border on idiocy, yet reasonable idiocy.
I think some more could be told about Justine as well, the story seems to focus mostly on Anna and her own traits. More contrast or comparison could be built with two equally dense parts of the story as opposed to seeing just one side.
I did enjoy this story, it did show two characters at a standstill and did a good job of showing both their situations.
intriguing. I enjoyed reading this well written story. It flows nicely and leaves one wanting more.
I think a word was left out in this sentence “Her cheeks were flushed from exertion, causing her green seem as though they glowed.”
The detailed descriptions give a beautiful, brilliant depth to your characters. It flows very well and very coherant. I’m not experienced enough to find anything wrong with this. Well done.
Showing 1 - 10 of 22
Next →
Review item
Add to faves
GENERAL
REVIEW QUEUE
Ratings & Rankings
