by Cole Savage
“Wow, Kyle… Vignette. Look who’s expanded his twenty-word vocabulary. And by the way, when you started talking I looked around to see who I was talking too. College did wonders for you.”
“Hey, sweet stuff. I was having a moment.”
“I’m sorry. Please continue.”
“That day, I couldn’t tell you whether Mandy was a hundred pounds or three-hundred, or if the trees had leaves. All I saw was you.” Nicki raised her eyebrows, and afraid that people were eavesdropping, Kyle moved in close and lowered his tone. “Walking out of the shallow end of the pond, your ankles still underwater, you stopped and threw your head down in front of you and you twisted your hair to wring out the water. Then, you whipped your head back and shook your head, to shake the rest of the water out of your hair. The sterling silver Sapphire necklace around your neck that Trent gave you, sang with all the colors of the rainbow, reflected by the rays of the sun. Your shirt, as wet as it was, for all intents and purposes was invisible, like someone sucked all the air out between your t-shirt and boobs, and they just hung there, gravity working its magic. You grabbed your hair, you gathered it and brought it over your right shoulder, still squeezing the water out. Then, you crossed your arms under your boobs, like you were cold, lifting them and squeezing them close together” Kyle paused, looking at Nicki with deadpan seriousness and wide-eyed enthusiasm. “You walked out of the water, the sunlight in front of you, bathing your cleavage and eyes, in shadow, and light, like the bronze tones of a painting. Your flat stomach, tiny hips and legs, were dark, like they were every summer, and that little patch you call a bikini, that covered your womanhood, wouldn’t qualify as a Band-Aid.”
Crossing her arms on the table, Nicki turned stoic.
“Your amazing curves, that defy anatomy, screamed to be touched, to be loved. At an age where most girls your age were just starting to break out of their cocoons. There was an elegant savageness about the way you looked that day. I felt like a Lion on the hunt…Water was dripping from your chest, from between your thighs, running down your legs, and all I wanted to do was run over there and catch every drop that fell off your beautiful skin with my tongue, because those drops had been in all the places I wanted to be…Nicki if the female form was art, despite the grim landscape that I created for you, you would be ‘the’ Picasso…That day I got a glimpse into one of God’s perfect creatures. At night, while I sleep, I dream, and I feel like I’m sitting next to a cubist portrait of Picasso—all your sick dimensions flashing before my eyes, all at once. But I can’t touch it, I can only see it.” Nicki had no response, she leaned back in her chair, so Kyle said, “You ever have a dream where your half awake, half asleep, and as long as you stay focused on the dream you can control what you do in the dream?”
“All my dreams are nightmares, Kyle. Did you forget that I’m dying?”
“I was hoping we could talk about that.”
“Finish what you were saying, Kyle,” she said, numb and distraught.
“Anyway, in those dreams, it’s always the same. You’re standing in Hadley Pond, just like I described, and every time, I rush over to kiss you. It’s windy and your hair is whipping around your cheeks. When I’m close enough to smell your hair, to see the rise and fall of your chest, your head brushes against my face and I smell a fragrance I can’t describe in words, but if I could bottle it, I would call it the lineament of the Gods. When your exquisite body touches mine, your body feels like the points of a fire. I put my hands on your head and bring you close. I rub my face in your cool wet hair and kiss the corner of your eye. I move my hand down your back, your breast on mine, our stomachs touching, and I swallow. I close my eyes for a second, taking in your breath— mint leaves against a cool blue sky; warm against my skin. You look me in the eyes, as though you could shield yourself from the violation, lust, and dark radiance coming from my eyes.” Kyle paused to look at Nicki, he blew out his breathe, trying to stop his fractured breathing, afraid it would crest into tears. He studied her face, his charged eyes seeming to reach inside and read her thoughts. His gaze dropped to her mouth, his lips parted, his tongue ran along his lips, and Nicki felt a flush of color that spread to her throat, leaving a tingle in her thighs.
“In the dream I can feel every sensation below my maw, and just as I’m about to taste your lips, something wakes me up, no matter how hard I fight to stay in the dream, to see what happens next… But in the dream I knew that I was trying to enter a place where the rules were governed by people long since dead. Rules that I continually and irrevocably tried to set aside. It took three years, Nicki, before I stopped looking for your shadow, before I stopped rolling over in bed to give you a kiss and you weren’t there—a nightmare that didn’t stop for three years.
“And yet, you waited another year to ask me out. You weren’t very good at detecting not so subtle hints, Kyle.”
Nicki every guy in school, maybe even Pendleton County, liked you. But in their eyes, my eyes, you were a Unicorn— untouchable… I recited a thousand times how I was going to ask you out, and every time I approached you I got the butterflies and choked on the words.” Kyle put his hand on Nicki’s cheek and said, “do you have any idea what you did to me that day?” Nicki gently pulled his hand away, no expression at all, and Kyle said, “I’m sorry. Do you want me to stop?”
A single tear ran down Nicki’s cheek. A show of fatigue was evident on her face. Critical thoughts buzzing inside her head like a swarm of mosquitoes. A buried injury that wanted to make you step into her life and slip into the private places of her heart. She said, “Kyle, do you know that as long as I have known you, not one time did you ever pay me a compliment… Told me I was beautiful, that I was doing a good job at home, that I kept the house clean… Nice dress, Nicki. I love your boots. Good job at the reunion, Nicki. Great job, Nicki, the kids are still alive… Not one time, Kyle. Not one fucking time,” she said, pointing a finger at him. “Even at our wedding, everyone told me how beautiful I looked. You were more concerned about where the buffet was than taking a second to say, you look great, honey. And now, ten years later, you paint a beautiful, beckoning picture of me with words that have never escaped your boorish mouth. Like you were actually paying attention back then… The only things you ever talked about were mining, football, drinking and fighting. Oh, and how many touchdowns you scored in high school. I mean the times that you were actually home and not at some hot-pillow joint with some floozy.
Kyle turned his head away from Nicki, towards a wall covered in mining memorabilia. He felt a sickness in his stomach, a dampness on his palms, signs he wanted to shelter.
“Are you listening to me, you shit?” Kyle finally turned his gaze back to Nicki and his eyes seemed to except the pain he had caused her, a condition that was alien to him. A man who previously had no handle. Kyle said, “I never thought there’d be a time when you wouldn’t be there, Nicki. When we got married I thought it was forever. I took for granted all the things that mattered to me and I can’t find the words to say how sorry I am.” He looked down for a second and Nicki’s face turned volcanic. She leaned close to Kyle and said, “Fuck you for cheating on me, Kyle. Fuck you for reducing it to a punchline, like you got caught with your hand in the cookie jar. Fuck you. This isn’t about you. All of this,” she said using her finger to create a circle on the table, “was about us, you shit. Our lives, not yours. You went and broke our lives and now you say you can’t find the words to say you’re sorry when you just recited the most beautiful description of a woman I have ever heard. Fuck you. You are so much worse than a cheater. You killed us, and you killed us while I was helpless. Sorry won't unbreak the eggs. You just can’t clean up the mess and move on.”
The ten or so people in the bar quit talking and turned their gaze to Kyle’s table. Kyle excused himself and walked to the bathroom. Nicki waved the audience off and said, “Sorry.”
CHAPTER 10
Kyle returned five minutes later and took a seat next to Nicki.
/> “I deserved that”, he said, “but I really don’t know how to clean this up. I’m just a world-class fuck-up when it comes to relationships—a real dumbass. I thought you would like what I said because I recognized that I never complimented you back then,” he said leaning in close. “No one ever taught me how to do this shit. It’s not like my old man was a world class dad. On the days he was home, he was either smashed or beating Mom.
A cowboy walked by and Kyle paused. “I came to get our boys but I wanted to clear the air, too Do what you may with me, but don’t leave here until you hear me out.”
It was obvious that Nicki felt bad about her tirade, because she took his hand, her eyes glassed over, and she said, “No, you didn’t deserve that. You came her to take our boys home and I am grateful for that.”
Kyle cleared his throat, clenched his fist and said, “Thank you, but I did realize what an ass I was back then, and it took you leaving to realize that you’re right, I never took a minute to tell you how beautiful you always looked. Bad timing, I guess… But I need to clear something up before we say anything else, or you start throwing things around.” He paused to find the words. “I don’t want you to keep thinking that I was a complete shit-bird… I sent money.” Kyle pulled an envelope from his sports jacket, retrieved the letter and handed It to Nicki.
“This is from my bank showing a transfer to Trent’s mortgage company… Trent called me about three years ago and asked if I could help. He never told Karen how far behind he was on the property payments, so he gave me a song and a dance about you and the boys being homeless if I didn’t help, and he was already sick. The math wasn’t adding up for him. He knew without help he’d never be able to pay the house off before he died and he was worried sick about all of you. I know it was hard for him to call but he didn’t know where else to go. The transfer in your hand is for twenty thousand dollars. I gave him ten thousand to bring the mortgage current and another ten thousand to bring the principal down. That was all I had— I swear.”
Nicki scrutinized the document, thinking that her scenario, a sort of imagined revenge for this question, was quickly blown out of the water, leaving her unprepared by the level of the man’s obsession with her.
“I’m sorry, Nicki, I would’ve sent more but that was all I had in my savings.”
“Why didn’t you tell Karen, Kyle? Why didn’t you tell me? Do you have any idea the awful things I’ve said about you— thought of you, not to mention Karen? It would have saved you an awful lot of criticism.”
“I promised Trent that I wouldn’t.”
“Do you have a letter from the bank in your pocket, explaining, and excusing all your indiscretions?” Nicki said, her gaze pale, penetrating, like Karen’s. The resemblance between them, pointed.
“Fair enough, I deserve that but I’m not here to rehash the past. If I thought an apology would absolve me from my sins, I’d be happy to get on my knees and ask for absolution. He paused as a woman in a prairie dress walked by. “I heard the lyrics to a song once that said, History is like gravity, it weighs you down and keeps you far from me.”
“Ha, as if…Listen, Kyle. I need you to watch the boys. That’s it.”
“Whatever you need, Nicki, and I’m sorry I was such a disappointment.”
“You didn’t disappoint me. You just stopped surprising me.”
They spent time catching up, and Tim could see that they knew each other by the acrimony in their voices and aggressive hand gestures. He could see Nicki and Kyle holding hands, then Nicki yelling, her hands on the edge of the table, and after a while it became obvious to Tim that this was her ex. A few hours passed and the topic of the conversation appeared to Tim, to be getting heavy. Kyle moved to the chair next to Nicki and leaned in, whispering, as though suddenly, the conversation had taken a more personal tone.
“I’m glad things are going well for you, Kyle. But you haven’t told me. Is there a significant other in your life? Any plans for a Mrs.?”
“Nicki, you know me— going a mile a minute. Sure, I’ve had a few girlfriends over the years— nothing serious. You love them at night and in the morning they want to move in and make your life miserable,” he said, leaning in close. “You set the bar high a long time ago and most girls don’t want what I want. They’re busy pursuing their own careers. They aren’t like the girls in Franklin. Most of them are self-centered, looking for casual encounters, casual sex to relieve the stress that comes from battling life in the big city— personal career goals, status, things like that. They don’t have the time or inclination to deal with drama in their busy lives.”
Looking in his eyes, observing the eloquence of his rant, void of that hillbilly accent so ubiquitous back in school, she seemed captivated by his clear, concise words— gregarious and illuminating.
“Are you telling me that not one girl has fallen hard for you? One that wanted to finish the fairytale with you?”
“Oh, no. There’s been a few, but you know me, I blew that shit off real fast.”
“So, you’ve never fallen in love?”
“We’ve been here about an hour and you haven’t heard a word I said?”
“Well, we were mostly talking about me.”
“You know, Nicki, I’m sorry I was such an asshole back then. It took me a little time to grow up… Everything isn’t always black and white when you get married at eighteen, right out of high school. People need time to process events in their lives, but in case you weren’t listening— I left my heart in Franklin ten years ago and nobody else will ever have it.” Kyle’s expression was a mixture of excitement and confusion, as if Nicki was a fancy new toy Kyle didn’t quite know how to handle.
“What are you saying, Kyle?” the words fluctuating in the air, in the vicinity of her chest.
“Jesus, Nicki. I didn’t leave Franklin because I didn’t like you— you kicked me to the curb. It took me all of three months, after I left, to realize I had made the biggest mistake of my life.”
“Are you telling me that you wanted to come back?”
“I picked the phone up every day for six weeks trying to get the courage to call you and beg for forgiveness.”
“Why didn’t you, Kyle? Was it your ego on the steering wheel again?
“That’s not fair.”
“You don’t have the right to tell me what fair is, Kyle.” Nicki said feeling an unwanted twinge at the reference of their shared past. Kyle looked around the bar to see if anybody was looking.
“I raised these kids by myself, while you were chasing tail, shirking your responsibilities. Even if you just left me because you couldn’t keep your pants on, common decency dictated that you take responsibility for your kids. Meanwhile, I worked two jobs so your boys could eat and have clothes. I had to beg for discounted dental work so Tyler and Cole would have good teeth. Do you know how much peanut butter and jelly we eat— do you? A nice steak every once in a while would’ve been nice. I’ll bet you ate a lot of steak, Kyle? Do you know how many nights I sat up when the boys were sick and I had to work two shifts the next day?”
Nicki’s harsh words, towards Kyle, were like an anchor chain he’d have to drag with him the rest of the week.
“Nicki, I’m sorry you had to endure that but I can’t change it now. I wanted to call— I did. The moment I realized you were gone for good was the worst day of my life.” Kyle shifted in his seat.
“Let me ask you, Nicki. Would you have believed me if I told you I was willing to change because your absence was unbearable? Would you?” Nicki crossed her arms and looked at the people trickling in from Main Street for happy hour, and everybody wanted to know who this lovely man was.
A couple walked through the front door waving, and said, “Hey, Nicki,” headed in their direction. The woman whispered something to her male friend, and Nicki said, “Hey, Louise.” The man was wearing jeans and a white button-up, Louise, with long brown hair, was wearing a green cropped western dress with sequins.
“Louise, this is
Kyle— my ex. Kyle, this is Louise and Roscoe Wainwright. They’re transplants from Calhoun— Roscoe is a foreman at Kessler.”
“Pleasure to meet you,” said Kyle.
“The pleasure is ours,” said Roscoe.
“How’d you let this one get away, Nicki?” said Louise, her hand on Nicki’s shoulder. Nicki seemed irritated. Her face contained the empty look of a woman who believed the revelation of her thoughts could bring catastrophe upon her opponents.
“Oh, Kyle here is not a one-woman kind of guy, and we’ll just leave it at that,” Nicki said, hoping it didn't come out sarcastic.
“You know, Louise. I hope you’ll forgive me, but we are discussing some serious matters, as you well know.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, darling. I don’t know what I was thinking. Me and Roscoe will let the two of you be. Maybe we can share a drink later?”
“Absolutely, Louise— good to see you both.”
“Not a chance in hell,” Nicki leaned over and whispered to Kyle.
This happened a few more times and Nicki seemed angry with the distractions—one of the quandary’s from living in a small town. Everybody is either in your business or trying to be.
Then, some guy Nicki didn’t recognize, a miner by the garb he was wearing, dropped coins in the jukebox. The same jukebox they were sitting next to, and a Glenn Campbell song came on. Kyle took her hand gently, helped her up and said, “Let’s finish this outside.”
Nicki seemed thrilled with the idea, so after exchanging a few pleasantries with the people of Franklin, they walked to the door, ignoring the hard knot of closed faces looking at them.
They stepped onto Main, and now it was Twilight. Headed north on Main, they walked side by side, Kyle looking up at the moon just coming over the jagged peaks of the mountains. He talked about the beauty of his state and reminisced about childhood and how much he missed the mountains. Arms crossed, Nicki seemed cold, the biting chill of the mountains seeping into her bones, so Kyle took his coat off and placed it gently over her shoulders. Nicki seemed irritated that he had changed the subject, away from his love life, but not willing to push him back. Egos were a fragile thing and she wanted Kyle to want to talk about it, so she amused him by discussing stories from their childhood.