by Paige Powers
“Smells great, babe,” he called towards the kitchen. He saw Mina start, then turn to him with a smile. “Can’t wait to eat it.”
He dropped the bag with the two books in it on the couch before walking into the kitchen. Standing directly behind Mina, he ran his hands from her shoulders down her back before resting them on her voluptuous hips. “Of course,” he whispered, leaning forward so that his lips just grazed her right ear, “the chef looks just as scrumptious as the food.”
Mina giggled, lightly pressing her body back into Ben’s, but didn’t take her attention off from the food. “Who says scrumptious anymore? Nerd.”
“Ouch.” Ben nuzzled Mina’s neck. “I’m trying to sex you up in the kitchen and you’re going to make fun of the way I talk?”
“Sex you up? You’re making it too easy.” Ben could hear the smile in Mina’s voice as she said, “I’ll, uh, sex you up later. I wanted to surprise you with lunch! You know I’m not the best cook but I can make a damn good grilled cheese. Go sit down on the couch and I’ll bring it over to you in a minute when it’s ready.”
With a perfunctory kiss on the cheek, Ben broke away. He took the few brief steps into the living room and sunk down on the couch, hiding the bag of books under a pillow. Now that Mina was going to surprise him with a nice home-cooked meal, he was going to try and amp up the book surprise. How, he didn’t know yet. But in the next couple minutes he would definitely figure it out.
It didn’t take long before Mina was presenting him with a plate of crispy, golden-brown grilled cheese with cheddar dripping out of the side. A moment later she brought out a bowl of hot soup, placing it on the coffee table in front of the couch. After one final trip into the kitchen, she carried out a plate of her own food and settled next to her boyfriend. The bag of books crinkled under the pillow, making a crystalline sparkling sound.
Ben reached underneath and yanked out the bag, causing Mina to squeal a little bit. She gave him a confused look as he reached in with his free hand, the non-greasy one, and pulled out the book he bought for her.
“I wanted to surprise you too,” he told her. She placed her food down on the table and reached out with her hands. Slowly he handed her the book, wanting to be careful with the delicate pages. “I went shopping today at Argosy. I just got paid so I figured I’d buy us something nice.”
“Oh, Ben.” Mina lifted her hand to his cheek and caressed it softly. “That’s so sweet, but you must have spent so much money. I know Argosy is really expensive.”
“Baby, don’t worry about it. I wanted to do something nice for you.”
Mina looked down at the book, her eyes becoming mildly unfocused. She leisurely moved her hand and placed the book next to her on the couch. When she brought her gaze back to him, she said, “It’s very nice. It’s just a bit out of our price range, is all.”
It stung – the rejection of the present that he had thought so long and hard about for her. He didn’t want to show it though, didn’t want to expose his weakness to the world. So instead of responding, Ben picked up the television remote and turned on the TV. He found a marathon of the old episodes of Law and Order: SVU and turned the volume up as loud as he could bear it without worrying about hurting his eardrums. Then, tossing the remote to the ground, where it bounced along the carpet, he grabbed his bowl of soup and grilled cheese and went to town.
For the next hour or so, the couple sat silently on the couch. The grilled cheese was perfectly crisp but the crunch of bread between the teeth couldn’t be heard over the glaringly loud music playing on the screen. The episode was about a young girl who had been raped but couldn’t remember the name of her rapist. As usual, Detective Benson was the voice of reason while Detective Stabler was the angry hothead.
At the conclusion of the episode, where the visual of the TV screen was slightly blocked by the multitude of dirty dishes sitting on the coffee table, Mina reached for Ben’s hand to give it a loving squeeze. He pulled away. From the corner of his eyes, he could see her eyes getting cloudy with tears. Rather than cry in front of him, Mina stood up. She gathered up the dirty dishes and brought them into the kitchen. Ben could hear the plates clanging together as they were dropped into the sink, followed by the hiss of water as the faucet was turned on. He tuned out the musical mess of his angry girlfriend and tuned back into another episode of Law and Order: SVU.
Twenty minutes into the new episode, Mina stormed into the room and stood in front of the television. Her hands, now resting on her hips, were still wet and somewhat soapy. The wet parts of her tank top radiated out in large round spots from her hips towards her stomach. It nearly reached the sides of her breasts but not quite.
“I don’t care if you want to be petty,” she snapped, “or if you’re not going to speak to me for the rest of the afternoon. Be a child. See if I care. All I want to make sure of is that you show up at the charity gala tonight at Highline Ballroom. It’s really important for me to be there so, in turn, it’s really important for you to be there. Don’t embarrass me.”
She stepped around the coffee table, bent over, and snatched the television remote from off the rug. “And,” she added, “turn off the TV and do some fucking work. You think that last story you wrote is going to hold you over forever? It was only, like, six hundred dollars.” A nasty undertone ran through her voice. “I’m tired of being the only one in this relationship who gives a shit.” With that, she clicked off the television and stalked off into the bedroom, the remote control still clutched in her fist.
The jab was like an ice-cold dagger being shoved into his heart. Writing was Ben’s biggest passion in life. He loved the way that words could change someone’s perspective or even someone’s world. When he had been going through difficult times in his own life, he always turned to writing. Early years of college had him spending nights writing angst-ridden love poems in notebooks or scrawling down blurbs on the side of papers. Now he appreciated the way that writing could bridge boundaries or gaps between different people. Language could be molded to fit into any situation, to evoke emotions, to shove people into another world or universe.
That being said, the writing industry wasn’t the easiest industry to break into. A lot of bigger firms that specialized in social media exploits or article-writing wanted candidates who had a certain amount of experience. It was extremely frustrating. How was one supposed to gain experience if one wasn’t allowed to get a job? Other ways to get into the industry were through magazines and newspapers, although those were quickly being replaced by their online counterparts, or through writing and publishing one’s own work.
Ben decided to go down that route. He routinely sent out poetry and short stories to literary magazines that might get him some more exposure. Though he submitted manuscripts of longer pieces to publishers, none had been picked up yet. Most of the time he worked as a freelancer for various clients, writing anything from press releases and articles to erotic poems. It allowed him to have a decent income, especially if clients were willing to take him on for multiple projects.
Did he know that freelancing was something he probably couldn’t stick with forever? Absolutely. But he didn’t need Mina throwing it in his face. He tried damn hard at his job and even harder at getting published. Sometimes the world didn’t work the way everyone would like it to. One day he’d get a break.
As the door to the bedroom slammed shut, Ben let loose a groan and pushed himself off from the couch. He went into the kitchen and poured himself an ice-cold glass of milk before settling down at the computer. He opened up Microsoft Word, and then just sat there staring at the blank screen. There was a story inside of him somewhere; he knew that. It was just a matter of pulling it to the surface and painting the words across the page.
He knew he should write. He knew that was what he should spend his afternoon doing. However, he was angry at Mina – at her reaction to the book, at her spiteful words – so instead of writing, he pulled up Facebook and found Starla’s page. For the next hour, he soaked her in.
Everything on her Facebook page he had read before. He had seen the Notes she wrote, little ditties about her daily life. He had seen every picture, and read through all the comments. But there was something soothing about seeing it all again, something familiar.
When the hour was done, he wrote. The words flowed out of him like river water, spilling onto the page, staining it with excellence and freshness. He wrote about pain that sat inside of our hearts, solid and unmoving, like blockages. How one day, that pain could expand and kill us. That was how broken hearts happened. People ignored their pain, thinking they’d find solace in an unhappy world, and then one day, they broke. He wrote about the only way to fix a broken heart – through true love – but how most people didn’t know how amazing the love they had was. Everybody lets love go in hopes that they will find something better out in the world but most people don’t find anything better. All they end up with is regret, knowing too late that they once had the most important thing in the world but they had let it go. For what? Nothing.
His anger and frustration quickly turned into a story about lost love. He crafted a character who he named Belinda. Belinda had decided at an early age that the most significant aspect in her life was her career. She was a doctor at a prestigious hospital in the Northwest and often spent large chunks of time there. Her relationships with friends and family fell to the wayside. Then one day, a patient came into the emergency room with a blunt force trauma injury to his skull. He had been walking down the street to meet his parents for dinner when a masked criminal robbed him. The patient hadn’t wanted to give up his money so the criminal beat him within an inch of his life, leaving the patient bloodied and almost dead on a sidewalk. Lucky for the patient, a young couple came strolling down the street a few minutes later. Although the girl needed a minute to vomit – she didn’t do well with blood – her boyfriend called the police. The patient arrived at the emergency room just in time. Belinda told him, once he was resting up, that if he had arrived any later, he wouldn’t have made it.
Belinda and this patient, Joseph, developed a relationship. During her spare time at the hospital, she would often bring Joseph coffee or sweets. The two would converse about whatever topics came to mind. Belinda told him that she was scared she would end up alone someday but that she was also unwilling to give up the career that she had worked so hard for. Joseph told her about his family. The two kept up even after Joseph had left the hospital and returned to his normal life. Though he attempted to start a real loving relationship with Belinda, she stuck to her guns, refusing to leave the hospital behind.
One day, after a particularly gruesome surgery in which the patient did not survive, Belinda broke down. She realized how much she missed having great company and finally understood that she needed love in her life. Running out of the hospital into the parking lot, she called Joseph, ready to tell him that she wanted to commit, that she loved him. Only then did she find out from Joseph’s mother, who picked up the phone, that he had died the week before in a car accident.
It is too often that people refuse love, only to find out there is nothing left, Ben typed at the bottom of the page, finally ending the story. He looked at the time at the corner of the screen and was shocked to see that he had spent the entire afternoon crafting his story. It was still a rough draft, so there was plenty of editing left to do. Overall, though, he was proud of the story that he had written. It had been a while since he had been so inspired. He made a mental note to message Starla and thank her, should the story ever be published.
The time on the clock also reminded him that he needed to get up and get ready for the gala that night. The gala events were usually extremely expensive and Ben found them to be full of pretentious people. However they were for charity and it was great to be able to raise money for the less fortunate. Ben found himself more than slightly annoyed that Mina had berated him earlier over the price of a book when she probably spent thousands of dollars on gala tickets for the both of them. Still, he saved his story on the computer, pushed the chair back, stood up, and walked to the bedroom to get ready. He knew bringing up the price of the tickets would just start a fuss. Frankly it wasn’t something he wanted to deal with right then, no matter how stupid the entire ordeal was.
Mina had already left, probably sneaking out at some point while he was engrossed with writing his story. She had picked out his gala outfit and left it on the bed, though. There was a crimson dress shirt and a nice suit, as well as a shimmering black tie and a pair of nicely polished black dress shoes. Ben assumed that Mina’s own dress was red. It was rare for them to go out to a public event and not be matching.
He dressed slowly then made his way out of the apartment to the street. He had decided to take a yellow cab to the event. It would be slightly more expensive, but since he had already gotten yelled at for spending money that day, he didn’t see an issue in spending a bit more. These gala events always had open bars at them. In Ben’s opinion, the open bar was the best part of the entire night, as he could shove as many cocktails as he wanted down his throat. No point in walking a ridiculous amount of blocks or taking the subway when he could have the ease of a cab.
Most of the cabs zooming past him didn’t have the lights illuminated so he knew they weren’t available. Hailing a cab is only for those with a certain amount of patience. He stood at the corner of the street, looking stoic in his suit, before finally seeing an approaching yellow cab with a few numbers illuminated. Standing on the curb, he thrust his arm into the street to hail the cab. The driver saw him and, thankfully, stopped the car.
“Highline Ballroom on West 16th,” Ben said as he opened the cab door and climbed in. The cab was cruising down the street almost as soon as Ben closed the door behind him. It was a relatively quick and painless journey. Soon enough the cab was stalling outside of Highline Ballroom. Ben peeled some bills off the roll in his pocket and handed them to the driver. He stepped out of the cab and slammed the door shut. As the cab driver sped away into the night, Ben called Mina to tell her that he had arrived.
She came out to greet him, looking stunning in a floor-length burgundy gown and a fresh coat of red lipstick. Instead of speaking, she just gestured him to follow her inside. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes and instead trailed behind his girlfriend until they reached the grand hall that held the gala. The lights were dimmed, replaced by strings of tiny golden lights that were hung across the ceiling. The walls were lit up with muted shades of purple and blue, basking the room in a mix of colors.
Waiters and waitresses mingled amongst the guests. They wore crisp white shirts under black vests, and stiff black pants. In their hands, the waiters and waitresses held plates filled with hors d’oeuvres ranging from crackers with bruschetta and cheese puffs dotted with black caviar to crab toasts and stuffed mushrooms. The guests snatched these bite-sized snacks from off the platters and popped them into their mouths in between sips of Prosecco or vodka-sodas.
“I’m going to grab a drink and I’ll be right back,” Ben said to Mina, breaking away before she could say anything. He made a beeline towards the bar. There he wedged himself in between a stuffy-looking older man with a crooked tie and a diamond-covered older woman. He managed to flag down the bartender and requested a double whiskey and coke. Part of him knew that Mina would criticize him for his drink choice but if he was going to make it through a few hours of this gala, he wanted something stronger.
He weaved through the masses back to his girlfriend, who was engaged in a conversation with a few well-dressed men about the ethics of journalism. As he approached the group, Mina smiled and introduced him. “This is my boyfriend, Benjamin Brindell,” she told the group. “Ben, this is Jack Halloway, James Van Dennten, and Harvey Griswold. We all work together.”
With his free hand, Ben exchanged several handshakes with the men, paying particular attention to the charismatic Jack Halloway. Halloway had a fake smile on his face and his eyes trained on Mina. Ben didn’t like that.
H
e stood on the outskirts of the group, free hand resting on Mina’s waist, as he listened to the four journalists discuss their profession. Ben couldn’t really interject much as he didn’t know too much about the industry. He was content to sip on his double whiskey and coke, feeling the leisurely buzz of the alcohol run through his body. When he finished the first drink, the final drips of whiskey stinging his throat, he motioned over a waitress. Placing the empty glass on the tray, he quietly asked the waitress if she could bring him a second. The waitress nodded before disappearing into the crowd.
The conversation switched to writing in general. The journalists chatted about AP style writing for a moment. Then, out of nowhere, Jack Halloway asked, “So have you written anything lately, Ben? Mina told us that you sold a story earlier this week but do you have anything else on the market?”
“Actually,” said Ben, “I just spent this afternoon writing a new story. I think it has a lot of potential.”
“Oh yeah? What is it about?”
The waitress returned. Ben lifted the drink from her tray and thanked her. He could feel the heat of Mina’s gaze burning into him; she hated it when he drank more than one drink, especially at the galas. She found it to be embarrassing. Ben figured it came from childhood pain. He knew that her father used to drink heavily and, when he did, he was quite a force to be reckoned with. It was only a rumor but Mr. Gurkiri supposedly once stripped down to his skivvies on stage and proceeded to rant about his wealth for over ten minutes before his discomfited wife could manage to convince him down.
But as much as he cared about Mina’s emotions, there was no way that Ben could make it through the entire gala with only one drink. So, ignoring her fiery stare, he took a sip before answering. “It’s about lost love. I wanted to really capture the emotion and the pain of loving someone and not having that as a part of your life. It’s beautiful, really.”
Halloway snickered. “Sounds a bit cliché, buddy.”