She closed her eyes against the dark, willing sleep to come. But as the truth sank in that she was finally being punished like she deserved, her fear slowly melted into relief.
KIM AWOKE TO PAIN. She sucked in her breath as she hauled herself upright and out of bed, biting her lip to keep quiet so she didn’t wake Rick. Her reflection in the bathroom mirror told her she’d be spending a lot of extra time on her makeup that morning.
Her aches eased a bit under the hot shower spray, and once she was toweled off and dressed she didn’t feel too badly. She ate breakfast in silence, her mind churning through the events from the night before and continuing to process the realization she’d had that was already easing the guilt she had carried for so long.
Her makeup took twice as long as usual to apply. Both cheekbones sported purple blooms that fought to be seen beneath foundation and concealer. As the powders layered thicker and thicker Kim knew there was no way she’d be able to hide the bruises well enough to fool anyone. The girls at the salon would be all over her asking what had happened. She had Club that afternoon as well, and those girls would sink their teeth into any kind of personal drama and not let go until they were satisfied with the story.
So what’s my story?
Giving up on hiding her injuries, she chucked the foundation and concealer back in the bag and continued with the rest of her makeup. As she brushed on blush and dabbed eyeliner, she concocted a cover for her bruises and practiced how she would say it so as not to encourage more questions. Her wrist and shoulder were still sensitive as well, so she took that into account as she crafted her tale. When she was done, she rehearsed a few times so the explanation would sound natural.
She didn’t make it past the reception desk before Bette and Ru-miko were clucking over her face. “Girl, what happened? You poor thing!” Rumiko said as she winced at Kim’s face.
“Oh Kim!” Bette said, her voice low with concern. “That looks painful”
Kim nodded a little and sighed. “Yeah, it is a little bit. But not too bad. Rick and I were rearranging furniture last night, and he’s got this really tall bookshelf that’s heavier than it looks” The girls groaned in sympathy, and she waited to see if more description was necessary.
“A bookshelf fell on you?” Rumiko shook her head. “Oh man, that makes my skin tingle! Oww!” She gave a little shudder and tottered away on her high heels.
Bette wrinkled her nose. “Wow, really—a bookshelf?”
“Yeah. Wrenched my wrist and shoulder a little too. It’s not terrible, but I’m not looking forward to how they’ll feel by the end of the day” She made a face of mild irritation and then changed the subject. “So has anyone brought up the Fourth of July party for this year? It’s next week and we still haven’t set anything up”
“No, not yet” Bette pulled her date book from her purse. “What time did we all meet last year? I can’t remember”
“Some of us did dinner beforehand, around six, then met at the park at eight. Should we just do that again?”
“That sounds fun, sure. I’ll let the others know. Significant others are invited?”
“Of course” She glanced back at her station. “I need to get set up; my first appointment is going to be here any minute” Kim went back to her station, sighing with relief that she’d passed the first test. She’d called in sick at the Club before coming in to work so she wouldn’t have to face the girls that afternoon. She couldn’t deal with them right now, and if she waited a couple days the marks might be faded enough that they’d never even see them.
Her first client arrived before she finished prepping. Full of apologies, she led the woman back to the sinks to wash her hair, and by the time she was wrapping the towel around the woman’s dripping hair her wrist and shoulder were throbbing. She clenched her teeth as she combed through the woman’s long, thick tresses, then made an excuse that allowed her to go back to the supply room to massage her wrist and arm.
She took a few deep breaths. Penance. This is your penance. It’s hardly anything considering what you did. Grin and bear it. She went back out to her client and apologized yet again, then did her best to concentrate on her work and not on the pain.
It was a long day. Her shoulder screamed if her arm was up for more than a few seconds at a time—a difficult position to avoid. Lunch couldn’t come soon enough, and her only consolation was that her day at the salon ended in two more hours.
Suzie came back to her station just before her first post-lunch appointment. “Rumiko told me what happened, you poor thing. How are you doing?”
Kim put on a brave face. “It’s going alright”
Suzie wasn’t buying it. “You don’t look alright”
“I don’t?”
Suzie gave her a small smile. “Want something for the pain? I’m sure I’ve got some Tylenol or something in my purse”
“No, that’s okay. Thanks though” This was all part of the punishment. She just had to learn how to deal with it. It was the least she could do.
But, by the time she got home, she’d decided six hours of near-constant agony without painkillers was plenty. She popped three ibuprofen and crawled into bed. Don’t worry, you have a lifetime to ramp up your tolerance. Twenty minutes later, the medicine kicked in and the pain began to ease. She fell asleep with a smile on her lips.
KIM AWAKENED TO THE SOUND of the door closing. Her eyes flew open. She looked to the clock and saw it was already five-thirty. She struggled to sit up without using either arm and sat on the edge of the bed for a minute before standing. Even with the ibuprofen the pain was still there, and now she felt groggy from her nap.
She shuffled out to the living room and found Rick on the couch. “You’re not at Club?” he asked through a mouthful of chips.
Hello to you too. “I canceled”
“Oh”
She waited for him to ask why, or to say anything at all about last night, but he went back to watching the sitcom rerun he had playing on the television. She went to the kitchen and pulled a package of hamburger patties from the freezer and a box of instant mashed potatoes from the pantry. She fixed dinner in silence, but found herself keeping an eye on him, stopping what she was doing and holding her breath in anticipation whenever he shifted in his seat. When he failed to address her, she went nearly limp with relief and resumed her cooking with renewed attention to detail so that everything about the meal was exactly the way he liked it.
She waited until a commercial break to announce dinner was ready, having spent the last three minutes setting the table and arranging the food on his plate as though she were auditioning at a fancy restaurant. He shut off the television and came to the table, kissing her lightly on the cheek before sitting down. She waited again for him to acknowledge the elephant in the room, but he acted as though nothing was different.
“Mm, great burger, babe”
“Thanks”
“How was your day?”
“Um, it was…fine” I’m not bringing it up if he’s not.
“Good, good” He shoveled coleslaw into his mouth and flashed her a smile as he chewed. She didn’t know whether to brace herself or relax, but she answered his smile with a brief one of her own and began to eat. He talked about his day, about a movie he’d seen an ad for and wanted to take her to, about completely normal and mundane things that left Kim wondering if she’d dreamed her injuries into existence.
When they finished she picked up his plate along with hers, then nearly dropped hers when her wrist gave out. She gasped in pain and set the plate down sharply on the table. He frowned. “What’s wrong? You alright?”
She looked at him askance. “My wrist hurts”
“Really? What did you do?” The look on her face seemed to jog his memory. “Ohh. From last night. Right” He drained the last of his beer and picked up the plates. “Here, I’ll get those” He cleared the table while she sat in stunned silence. “Yeah, I’m sorry about that, babe. I think I had a couple too many beers last ni
ght. I’ll try not to do that again” He came back to the table to retrieve the rest of the dishes and planted a kiss on her temple. “You look really tired. Why don’t you go to bed and I’ll take care of the dishes, hm?”
“Oh. Okay. Thanks”
She wandered back into the bedroom and changed into her pajamas. It wasn’t even seven yet, but she felt like she could sleep until noon the next day. She swallowed another dose of medicine and laid herself down with care so as not to aggravate her shoulder. Before she fell asleep, she realized he hadn’t given her a gift.
BY THE FOURTH OF JULY her face was fine. She’d gotten a brace for her wrist and learned how to cut and style with her elbow against her body to keep her shoulder from getting too much of a workout. Nothing else was ever said about the incident, and Kim had come to not only accept that it had happened, but to actually appreciate it. For the first time in months, she’d had no desire to cut herself. Her arms were healing well, and besides the faint scars left from some of her more industrious slices, there was little to indicate anything had ever happened. She was almost ready to venture out in short sleeves again.
During the afternoon of July third, Kim and her friends spent their free time planning the next evening’s festivities. Emma and Rumiko made an executive decision to replace a restaurant dinner with a potluck picnic and put together a sign-up sheet for assign ing the dishes. When Emma came around to Kim, she waved the sign-up and said, “What can I put you down for, girl? Got a secret potato salad recipe you wanna break out?”
Kim laughed and continued to wrap her client’s hair in foils. “Not so much. But you can put us down for it anyway. I know where I can get some that’s really good”
“Great. Anything else you want to bring?”
“I’ll bring a couple two-liters, too. That alright?”
“Sure thing” Emma made the notes on the sign-up. “Alrighty then, tomorrow evening, six o’clock at the park. Bette said to look for the three oak trees when you get there. She’s going to stake out a place there early in the morning so we have a place to sit”
“Sounds fun. Thanks, Emma”
“You’re welcome. Is Rick coming?”
She grinned. “Yeah, though he gave me some eye rolling when I told him about it. I promised there would be other guys there—Mitch is coming, right?”
“Yes, but only because I promised to make cupcakes for dessert”
“Ooh, good one. That’ll make Rick happy too”
She was nervous about her friends meeting Rick, and vise versa, but was also a little relieved it was finally happening. Her salon friends were the only friends she had, and while she didn’t do much with them outside of work, they still meant a lot to her. They’d all ribbed her when she’d shown off her ring, saying she’d bought it herself since they’d never met the man. But given recent events, she’d been afraid to introduce them, afraid they wouldn’t measure up in his eyes.
On the way home that afternoon she picked up a couple quarts of potato salad and some Coke from her grocery store. On a whim she tossed in a frozen pizza for dinner and ice cream for dessert. It had been awhile since they’d had either one, and she didn’t feel like cooking. Rick was a fan of homemade meals, and while she didn’t mind cooking, it was not among her favorite things to do. She had a feeling that, if Rick could have his way, she’d have a hot dinner coming out of the oven half an hour after he got home every night, like some 1950s housewife. She figured it was an attempt to have something he was denied during his childhood—framed that way, she didn’t mind at all.
They ate their dessert over a game of Scrabble, which he won by a landslide. “Spelling never was one of my strengths,” she admitted. “But you’ve got to admit I didn’t do too bad given I had so many vowels”
“I’ll give you that, yes” He scraped the last of the triple fudge from his bowl. “Hey, it’s only eight o’clock—wanna go to a movie?”
She smiled as she stacked his empty bowl in hers and took them to the kitchen. They never went out in the evenings. “Sure! What should we see?”
“Trevor said ‘Dead to the World’ was good. I’ll check the times and see where it’s playing” He picked up the phone and began to dial.
Kim wrinkled her nose as her vision of laughing the evening away at a romantic comedy faded to black in her mind. “That’s the scary horror one, right?
“Yeah”
“I’m not really a horror movie kind of girl. I’ll have nightmares”
“You already have nightmares; maybe this’ll give them some variety”
“Rick!”
He began writing down times and places on a notepad by the phone. “Oh come on, Kim, don’t be a wuss. It’s a movie, it’s not real”
She didn’t bother replying, because she knew it wouldn’t change anything. That was another thing she’d learned.
They drove to the theater with the windows down and the radio blaring a hard rock band Rick liked. Kim cringed every time they pulled up to a stoplight and got dirty looks from other drivers. Rick never seemed to notice. They joined the mostly male crowd just before the previews started, sitting six rows from the front on the aisle—or at least, Rick was on the aisle. Kim was stuck beside a greasy teenaged boy with the stink of cigarette smoke wafting off him.
They leaned their heads back as far as they could to take in the entire screen when the previews started. Action flick explosions nearly blinded her at this distance, and every preview seemed to have at least two. She had a headache by the time the movie started. She closed her eyes and leaned against Rick’s shoulder, but he shrugged her off. She sighed and hunkered down in her seat, trying not to get too close to the teenager so Rick wouldn’t think she was trying to flirt with him.
Half an hour into the movie she was as disturbed as she was willing to get. “I’ll be back later,” she said as she hopped over his lap and into the aisle.
“Where are you going?” he hissed.
“Bathroom, and then…” She waved her hand vaguely. “I don’t know. I’ll be back later”
He waved her away and she ran to the door, the sound of a woman’s blood-curdling scream following her through the doors and raising goosebumps on her arms. After visiting the washroom, she walked down the hall, passing the doors to the theater where Rick was, and turning into the next one down instead, where a romantic comedy was playing.
She hadn’t watched a movie in ages, either at home or in the theater. She snuck to an empty aisle seat, feeling conspicuous sitting amidst the couples and groups of girlfriends that filled the seats around her. She sank down in the seat, eyes half shut from the headache, and watched the typical story unfold. She kept waiting for the heartwarming moment, the “awwww”-inspiring climax, the warm, fuzzy feeling a good romantic comedy always gave her, but when the heroine finally got her man, Kim just felt underwhelmed. When the lights went up, she felt as empty as she had when she came in.
Relationships are nothing like that. She’d always known movies didn’t reflect real life, but she’d never seen a romance while actually in a relationship, and now she realized just how far off the mark Hollywood was. She shuffled out the door with the rest of the crowd, then back into the theater where Rick was. She was just in time to see a severed head come rolling down the stairs of the haunted house. She groaned as she walked back to her seat.
Rick glared at her when she sat back down, as did the teenager who had sprawled his long legs into the space in front of her seat. Rick didn’t speak to her until the movie had ended. “Where were you that whole time?”
“I told you I was going to go out for a while. I got a headache being this close, and the movie was freaking me out. I went next door to ‘Love and Marriage.’”
Rick snorted. “Was it as lame as its title?”
“No. But it wasn’t what I was hoping it would be”
“Those kinds of movies are such a waste of time. They’re never realistic. They just set women up for disappointment”
It was
Kim’s turn to snort. “You’ve got that right”
Rick either didn’t catch her meaning or else didn’t care about her disillusionment. “That’s why I like movies like ‘Dead to the World.’ They’re completely over the top and don’t try in any way, shape, or form to be realistic”
She opened her mouth to reply, but gave up. She didn’t feel like arguing, and she knew there was no point. She let him lead her back to the car, feeling glum and moody and dissatisfied with the evening.
Oh well. At least they had the picnic tomorrow.
Kim was up before Rick the next morning. She had never been able to sleep in on her days off, but Rick had no problem tacking on an extra couple hours when he didn’t have to work. She tried not to be jealous as she drank her coffee.
Three children decked out in patriotic colors skipped past the window, followed by their hand-holding parents. Kim recognized them as the family that lived down the hall. Their kids were always out playing on the greenbelt during the day. They looked friendly, and she sometimes imagined what it would be like to have a child and get together with women like her for playdates. Not that they planned on having kids anytime soon.
She watched the family as they tromped through the grass towards the sidewalk. The little one tripped and began to wail; the mother picked her up and kissed her hair as they followed the rest of the kids. Tears formed in Kim’s eyes, and she drew away from the window in surprise. It had been a long time since a display of motherly love had made her cry.
She drained the rest of her coffee and went to take her shower. Rick was awake when she got out, and she made him breakfast and joined him at the table while he ate. “So what’s the plan for the day?” she asked as he finished his waffles. “I figure if we left here by 5:45 we’d get to the picnic by six, though the parking there might be a little dicey, so maybe 5:30 is better in case we have to walk far”
The Weight of Shadows Page 12