Some Friday Fiction!

At the wake, Nancy waved aside tides of teary condolences searching for the woman in jade. Judging from the suit, as well as the look on her face, Nancy had no doubt she’d attend. And she was right. Spotting the emerald offender at the buffet table, nose crinkled deliberately over a piece of salmon, Nancy physically pushed through the crowd of commiserates until she was nearly atop the woman. “How did you know my husband?” Hillary jumped seeing Nancy so close, and her bloodshot eyes went wide at the justifiably accusatory tone. “Were you sleeping with him?”

Despite what one may think under the civilly censured circumstances, Hillary was not a liar. “Yes.”

Nancy’s eyes scrutinized Hillary’s, which were filled with solemn apology, defying her acute sexuality. Her tits were bigger than Nancy’s, and pulled taught against the white blouse under her jacket. Long like Nancy’s, her neck lacked elegance, and her shoulders jutted sharply. They were about the same height, though, and Nancy could look her square in the face. Despite the severe angles, a definite vulnerability shone through: her shapely, pink lips pursed like a child’s. Nancy demanded, “What’s your name?”

“Hillary Watson.” She did not waver. She too knew this day would come, and had prepared for the inevitable introduction.

Nancy stuck her hand out obtrusively and managed a tight smile. “I’m Nancy Guthrie, Charles’ widow. Nice to meet you, Hillary.”

“Hi. I’m sorry about Charles.” She cupped Hillary’s hand in her own. She seemed dreamy and a bit vague, but benign.

Nancy, in no mood to discuss her dead husband with his mistress, asked indifferently. “How’s the salmon?”

“I don’t know yet, I haven’t tried it.” Hillary answered with due uncertainty, eyeing the fish and then her thin, empty hands: she didn’t even have a fork.

“Well, I hope you enjoy it.” Nancy turned stiffly, and walked away, accepting heartfelt wishes and greeting old friends with an untarnished smile, while Hillary looked for cutlery.

As can be suspected, Hillary’s presence at the funeral pressed on Nancy perpetually in the days and weeks following. Her distraught imagination brought her to the verge of chagrin, infuriation, self-pity, and recrimination. Finally, four weeks later, Nancy decided to give her a ring. She got the number from Charles’ elderly secretary who, after vehemently denying knowledge of such a woman, apologized demurely, “I didn’t think it was any of my business.”

“Apparently, it wasn’t any of my business, either,” Nancy laughed good-naturedly. She didn’t blame the secretary. How could she? It was Charles’ dick.

Of course, Hillary didn’t anticipate the call, and certainly didn’t expect Nancy to invite her to her house in the woods. Despite the unpredictable, unsettling invitation, Hillary graciously accepted, even after Nancy quipped, “Don’t worry, I’m not asking you up to kill you.” Hillary laughed with an incongruous snort, “Why would you?”

Charles bought the house a few years into their marriage, despite Nancy’s subsequently revoked objections. Three hours north of the city, pushed back from the road, and tucked in among acres of forest, the house became an asylum: free from the city and its distractions and intrusions. In the beginning, the 19th century hunting mansion stood as a testament to their love: sturdy and isolated from complication. Every room entertained carnal coalescence, broken only for a swim, hike, or their respective, obsessive works. In those years, the consumption of mind and body enticed equally.

A few years and a few career moves later, Charles traveled more, often for weeks at a time, while Nancy’s writing career kept her busy in her own right. They made their way to the house occasionally, and rarely: staying for only a few days and without the sexual tour of duty. Their desks littered with notes, Nancy and Charles passed the time in relative silence. Over the past few years, Charles stopped driving the winding Taconic at all, and the house fell under Nancy’s domain. She researched meticulously for weeks on end, weaving the threads of history into best sellers that sent her across the country, leaving Charles to his duties as chief of staff – and apparently other things – in the city. They rarely made love. Now, morbidly and officially, the house was all hers.

Though on some level the women had always anticipated meeting, neither ever quite imagined the actual act of conversing. Sitting in the spacious living room, a subtle discomfort threatened overpowering awkwardness. Hillary fidgeted, explaining that she preferred acrylic paint in her work. Among her inspirations, she cited gummy bears, fiber optics, and hieroglyphics. A dilettante of architecture, she rambled about the house as Nancy – back straight – sipped her wine and feigned interest: wide eyes glazed with preoccupation. “The beams are phenomenal! Obviously they add to the whole ‘rustic’ aesthetic, but I think they also break up the space, and create really intriguing angles where otherwise there would be…” she considered, puzzled: “just negative space.”

Nancy nodded with apathetic acknowledgment. “Yes, yes: the beams add a certain provincial air, I suppose. Now, let me ask you Hillary: how did you meet my husband?”

The air went out of room, and the women stared at one another in a vacuum of anticipation. The hum of the mini fridge seemed the only tangible evidence that the room itself still existed. Nancy’s heart rasped uneasily in her ear, as if a reminder of Charles’ own weak beat. Hillary softly scratched her fingernail over her thigh, wishing she had the courage to claw. An ice cube dropped in the freezer, breaking the spell. Then, with a sigh and a wink, Hillary made the sisterly suggestion. “You know what I think? I think we need to smoke a joint. I think it’ll help us both process.”

With the promise of summer, the June night breeze curled about the women, standing on the cobblestone patio and passing a hefty joint. The house loomed behind, lights reflecting off Hillary’s free flowing hair. Freed from its bun, and thicker than imagined, it fell in an illustrious cascade to her shoulders. If Nancy hadn’t known better, she would have asked to touch it, examine its alluring glimmer. Hillary was younger than Nancy, yes, but more than that, she was youthful. Not in a childish way, but with a casual whimsy the academic, doctor’s wife Nancy could never achieve. Hillary was a young artist.

Recounting her induction into the world of adultery, Hillary explained: “My friend, Abby, was having a show of her paintings. Her husband, Jacob, your husband’s partner, was also there…with Charles. I was in line for the bathroom, dressed nicely but not as fancy as Charles, who was wearing a suit, and I must have looked sad because Charles asked me if I was all right. I had just finished a show of my own, and had received pretty good reception for it, but I had no idea where I was going next. I was telling him this, even though I had just met him – shit, what a loon I was!” She exploded with a startlingly exuberant laugh, and continued. “Insanity aside, Charles was right there with me, nodding and giving me advice. He seemed like the most sensible person in the world, Nancy!” At this she gripped Nancy’s arm with absolute tenderness. Nancy took a sudden sharp breath, moved despite herself. “It really was a beautiful moment. It seemed predestined, or something. It was inspiring! Right off the bat, I felt imbued with creativity!”

Nancy remembered that night. She was in the throes of completing her second book, and had sent Charles on his way to the show with a distracted kiss. Had Nancy known that Charles would meet a woman with whom he would begin a protracted affair, she would have allowed herself a little art. It was too late for that, though. She listened intently as Hillary explained her misgivings over sleeping with a married man. She insisted that she hadn’t been able to resist, but made clear that she wasn’t ashamed of her actions. “Charlie,” she called him with familiarity that didn’t sit well with Nancy, “saved me from myself. I lost direction, and, it seemed, inspiration. I was questioning my work, my choices. It wasn’t just the sex, which I’m sure you can agree was pretty incredible!” Nancy smiled politely. “I know it sounds trite, Charlie made me believe that I could break barriers.” Hillary grew more animated with each syllable, hands waving and eyes flashing; Nancy felt an unexpected pang of jealousy over the girl’s tepid, sordid inspiration. Her marriage had long lost its flair, suffering under the corrosion of consistency. Hillary never experienced this boredom, it seemed, and Nancy imagined that if the roles had been reversed: if she played the role of Charles’ clandestine lover, they would have dazzled indefinitely.

Seized by reverie, she took the joint from Hillary, dispelling the smoke in a hacking cough. Recovered, she laughed, forgetting the present circumstances. “God! I haven’t smoked dope in years! The last time I smoked was with Charles. While on vacation in Miami. We got stoned in the hotel looking over the water. We got it…the weed that is, not the hotel room, from the bellboy. Although, I guess we sort of did get the room from the bellboy, but I digress.” She smiled to herself. “We went on a ‘journey’ for candy: and what a journey it was! Charles insisted on having those jelly cherries, you know the ones?” Hillary nodded approvingly, attentive. “Anyway, we had to go to no less than ten places just to find the goddamn things! But, when we got there, Charles decided to get sour gummy worms instead. He loved them, and I remember telling him that he should get them, but that was before he got bent on finding the cherries. I think he just wanted to find them. Their consumption placed second.” Under the house, in the June breeze and surrounded by trees fresh from spring, stronger for their suffering, Nancy realized that despite Charles’ philandering, her memories could not – and would not – be tarnished.

Hillary smiled sisterly; the light lit up half her face, giving her an astrological allure. “Charlie told me about that. He said it was a really great time.”

“Really?” The fact that Charles had discussed her with Hillary was as unsettling as it was reassuring.

“Yeah. He always talked about you: your progress on a new book, or how great your last piece was and how I ‘really’ needed to read it. Of course, he thought you were beautiful, how could he not, but he always said you were ‘the most stimulatingly brilliant, incandescent mind and body.’ I was no replacement, nor was I even competition.”

Nancy took solace in her unwitting omnipresence. It was Nancy’s presence around which the affair unfolded. Hospital schedule and adultery aside, Charles was a doting husband. He rarely missed a book signing or a speech, and if Nancy needed him to entertain her at a stodgy event, he came along, making light-hearted jabs at nearly every guest, eliciting naught giggle after naughty giggle. Hillary saw him only when Nancy didn’t need him more. Nancy’s specter loomed above each torrid thrust. More of a relief was the confirmation that even in infidelity, Charles maintained deference. But Nancy wouldn’t expect anything less. Charles was the most respectful man she had ever met. That was clear from the day they met.

Only a few months out of Columbia, from where she received her PhD in history after graduating from Vassar with a degree in English. Nancy’s life had become one achievement after another, spurred into the field by her historian father, who had raised her alone after Nancy’s mother succumbed to cancer. In recent years, however, adoration for the subject overwhelmed her. The chronology of events paled to the personalities behind the events: their motivations, their ideas, and their dreams. The humanity of history interested Nancy more than treaties and boundaries. While weary of his only daughter’s historical scope, Nancy’s father was proud. She loved him more than anything, and fragmented into anguish when he was killed by a drunk driver weeks before graduation. They had planned to work together.

Thereafter, Nancy’s work became a testament to him as she struggled to achieve and maintain her father’s passion. Working zestfully, Nancy hoped that through the past she could secure her future. What would become her first published article was a scattered slew of notes the Charles approached her at a crowded café in downtown Manhattan. Blond hair a tangled mess from frustrated runs of her hand, Nancy stooped over the table, flipping pages over and scribbling indecipherable letters. At this point, she was less impassioned than impatient in an attempt to produce something palatable – or, at least, readable. Regardless of her extensive education, Nancy really had no idea what she was doing, and was very near a total meltdown when Charles appeared. “Excuse me, I see that you’re working, but is anyone sitting here? There’s no where else to sit, and I really need a break.”

Standing in his scrubs, fresh from rounds, Charles’ strapping figure stunned Nancy more than any other. Jaw strong, chin noble, and nose wide, dignity poured generously from his smile. Needless to say, the attraction was immediate, and Nancy blushed when she invited him to join her.

“What are you working on?” Attentive despite his apparent exhaustion, Charles’ amiable, glittering blue eyes contrasted notably with his black, messy hair.

Nancy leaned back and crossed her arms with the soft defense of a woman who wants to be seduced. “Oh, some dry old piece on the role of royal jesters in the dark ages: besides comedy, the formed an intricate network of informers in the court of England.”

“That doesn’t sound dry.” He scoffed reassuringly.

She leaned on the table and hunched histrionically. “It’s not, I suppose. I’m just…ug, I can’t even find the words. Sick to fucking death!” Her explicit outburst surprised her, and Nancy laughed self-consciously. Charles enveloped her small hand in his own.

“My professional suggestion: take a break. The body and mind can only take so much before shutting down. I’m sure a woman like you has more inspiration than she really knows. You emanate intelligence and creativity. I saw it from across the room. I said to myself, ‘That’s a woman who knows something.’”

At first, Nancy thought Charles was just trying to make her feel better. It wasn’t until after they were married that she found out that the thought had, in fact, occurred. Nothing about his interest in her was manufactured.

They stared at each other for nearly a minute, and the idea of marriage scurried across Nancy’s imagination. She shooed it away. “What made you want to be a doctor?”

“The answer,” he ruminated ridiculously, grinning, “is two-fold: one, my father and his brothers are all doctors, as are my two brothers, so it was a natural, familial decision. Two, I feel as if I’ve been given a gift. I know every doctor says that, but I really believe it. I’m already a better doctor than my father, and forget about my brothers! More than that, I want to help as many people as possible. I want to heal.” He had none of the pretense or arrogance of the other would-be doctors Nancy knew. Sincere, engaging, curious, and of course gorgeous, Charles seemed like a colorful buoy in the expanse of Nancy’s mournful uncertainty and blind ambition. Certain she could teach him a thing or two, Charles called her his intellectual ideal, asking to take her for dinner. She accepted instantly. Seven months later, they were married.

Magnificent, the first years of marriage played like a dream. Respectively rich already, they accumulated noble notoriety in their fields for not only their talent, but for their missions. Charles wanted to use medicine to change the world, and Nancy wanted to illuminate the unexamined channels of history, and the people who dug them. Nancy, whose debut article got rave reviews for its clarity, moxie, and information, would do research, making histrionics out of history, and Charles would pour over charts, journals, and studies, often writing his own scientific inquiries and recommendations for the medicinal future. Their backgrounds complemented one another, but on more than one occasion they would argue passionately over the relationship between history and science. Invariably their “argument” would be resolved the old fashioned way.

In those years, Dr. and Mrs. Charles Guthrie were a team, and quite a happy one at that. As happens, things change. In fact, Nancy changed: withdrawing into herself and her work as she strove for the more beautiful, informative sentences imaginable. For his part, Charles still told Nancy great jokes and rubbed her back when he sat with her at her crowded desk. He still told her (almost) everything, and his eyes still glittered when he looked at his wife, but he too was consumed with his own path, his own goals, working away from home and away from Nancy. The world could be a better place, and medicine was a tool he needed to master. Patients were affairs of reconstruction, resurrection, and redemption. For what, Nancy could never be certain. Regardless, Nancy and Charles still wanted the same thing: a more transparent, comprehensible, and therefore digestible world. They just had different scopes, and methodologies.