"Ah feel a darn fool."
It's spoken to no one in particular - merely left to float freely in the air. One more frustration to gather in the darkening storm cloud overhanging this night. What's worse, her company tacitly agrees, the stranger staring back with discomfort. It feels an age before she can turn away from the mirror.
She's a plain woman. Plain speaking, plain eating, plain living. Hard work and honesty were built into her bones. Yet she'd be lying if a part of her didn't want to run. It'd be easy. Almost too easy, in fact. Just one cockamamie excuse; a single falsehood. Then she could return to her familiar world of soft dresses, comfortable slippers, and schlocky game shows. Escape the silvery nightmare entrapping her, that lifted some things and exposed certain others. It just felt…unnatural at her age.
But not as unnatural as the lie would.
Or the gosh-danged way he'd react to it, all cool and calm, but with that little edge of disappointment only she could tell existed. That was what had drawn her to him in the first place: the enigma. All stuff and puff 'til you cored your way to the centre. Most stopped at the surface - more fool them.
No, she could do this. She was a big girl. Well, woman. Also, technically more 'obese' than 'big', but the pills didn't help. Not to mention her hip-
The horn was neither shrill nor loud. More a meek warbling that echoed across the evening clad acres, a few birds awakening from their restful sleep in trees of under-ripened fruit. The irritated cries mingled weakly with the second toot before departing, inordinately frustrated by the third. They knew their place. More than could be said about her.
It was now or never.
Which in retrospect was a silly thing to think, she acknowledged, walking the steady step-step-step of a woman out of practice with high heels and steep stairs. No, she'd always choose now. Never didn't exist as far as she was concerned. Though two headstones were significant exceptions.
Pain and guilt added to the storm. They at least would be familiar. One of the few things, in fact.
Soon enough the cool door handle is in hand, and a last, desperate thought asks if it's too late to catch a cold? She shushes it out, this time with a broom. It doesn't come back.
"Deep breaths," the woman mutters, her voice cracking slightly as she adjusts the borrowed pearls and snow-white stole awkwardly. If not for the doctor's report or those little white pills taken twice a day, she'd be a mite concerned over how hard her heart was beating.
One breath later and the door is open, a vision of beauty standing in its portal.
And he is beautiful, which was funny in a way. Men weren't supposed to be beautiful; she'd been told. They were meant to be words like 'rugged' or 'chiselled'. Her husband, Cortland (long rest his soul) had been. She could see him now, crystal clear in her memory despite the odd falter here and there. He'd been a brawny, squat, truck of a man, with huge hands for fixing tractors or gathering up wayward kids. An easy-going smile was ever present through thick and thin.
Her paramour was rather the opposite, being rail thin with the long, careful fingers of a pianist. He had shoulder length steel grey hair tied in a braid, much like she’d seen in a period drama once. Prench, maybe? While he wore a smile, it was nervous - the idle tugging of his dark suit's lapels told her more than any words could.
"You look breathtaking," he said after a moment of drinking her in. "Not that you don't normally, of course."
"Good to see you're quick on your feet," she let out a cackle at odds with her dignified appearance, posture once ramrod now softening.
"I hope I'm not the only one tonight."
The rod returned with friends this time. Silence swiftly looms awkward, only broken by the intermittent sounds of retired livestock or buzzing insects. It’s a warm evening, even as dark as it was. A blessing at the least.
"Shall we start then, Granny Smith?" He ekes out, teeth grazing ever so lightly on his oversized moustache, a desperate twinkle hiding behind pince-nez older than him.
She takes a deep breath and steps away from her home of forty years. All's fine, until a silver heel sinks softly in damp-ish earth. Not the most auspicious of starts.
"Land sakes Kibitz, ah said you can call me by your silly little nickname. Ain't gonna get sore over it."
She had before, but it grew on her. First time she'd not been called "Ma" or "Granny" in twenty-odd years. These things took some time to acclimatise to, like seeds in new soil.
"Then just this way, my dear Dam."
There were three forks.
Granny Smith eyed the cutlery resting neatly on a little cream napkin, her lips pursing as the live band crooned their soft stories of love and affection in the background. Each piece of silverware looked near-identical; why did they need this many?
Six forks altogether. The thought alone befuddled her.
“They’re for different courses, madam,” coughed the seemingly omniscient waiter, his white suit, perfect gloves, and cut-glass accent giving her the feeling this was all some elaborate joke - a dumb cliche from an even more trite flick caught late one night. She’d stepped out of Kansas, but the other side of the rainbow wasn’t a fantasy land.
"Thank you." It was a lie, albeit one that felt a lot more comfortable. Certainly, more comfortable than checking her menu again and wondering if it came in Trottish.
“May I suggest the concombre a la menthe, madam?”
Call it a motherly nature, but she found herself softening. The waiter probably thought he was being kind in helping someone who was clearly out of their depth. Granny Smith couldn't hold that against him, even if he came across a bit condescending. Everyone at the Ruby Shard seemed to. It was just that kind of place. Beneath that stuffed shirt of his, he was probably just another working stiff like herself… 'cept she got a better deal on the uniform. At least until he spoke again.
"It may be more…agreeable to a woman of your years,"
Like a thrown dart, her finger stabbed savagely at something with more syllables and vowels than all her medication combined. "I'll have that. Please," she ground out, politeness certainly the kinder of her two immediate reflexes at that moment. Slugging him wouldn't do any good in the long run, after all.
"Ah, very good, madam." He smiled, gathering the two menus with a grin as real as a two note bill. "I'll return as soon as possible."
"Oh, take your time," she said, all sweetness and innocence until he slipped out of earshot. "…pompous little nincompoop."
Between Cortland and Kibitz, she was sure men somehow instinctively knew the worst possible time to have a bathroom break.
"So," she poked a mystery fork lightly at the remnants of her starter, something Kibitz had mercifully chosen for both of them. "How's that competition 'o yours comin' along, then?"
"Competition?" He paused, napkin mid dab, "Oh, you mean my composition, yes. It's…well, it's not really getting along at all. I've been rather distracted, you see."
"Distracted?"
"Yes, it's hard to work on things creatively when your thoughts are consumed by a woman such as yourself."
"Oh, you smoothie," she giggled like it was fifty years ago, when all that mattered was test scores and moonlight kisses snuck behind Pa's back in the orchards. "Sorry, ah'm not a good moose."
"I suspect you mean 'muse', darling," he said, innocently - his smile genial. It hurt more that way, she found.
"…so, what's it about?" Granny Smith eventually approached, sipping lightly at the too-sweet white wine she'd settled for. Hard Cider is too low class for a place like this, apparently.
"Love-"
She raised a bushy eyebrow. As if sensing the precipice he was hanging over, Kibitz voice sped up, hands flapping to and fro like a manic mini-opera.
"-well, tragic love, to be exact. The kind of heart wrenching, soul shattering love that makes a grown man weep. Poetry thrives on raw emotion, you understand? Putting it down on paper is- well, it can be difficult - especially getting back into that frame of mind."
He’d shown Granny Smith his work once, long before they’d begun dating. It had been a cold, blustery day in autumn when she’d found him entrenched within the library, a wall of books his shield against the world. She had no truck with that foolishness, especially since Principal Celestia needed him for some clerical task beyond her understanding. Food was simple, IT practically magic. Kibitz would only go if she read it, though, needing an ‘outside opinion’. Personally, she thought it was sappy. There was lots of stuff about flowers and spring, but the words were pretty. That had been enough, apparently.
"Ya got experience in that department?"
He ran a neatly manicured finger around his tumbler’s lip, amber fluid reflecting the mangled face of a man momentarily in deep thought.
"... some," he finally uttered with a sigh as he emptied the half-full scotch like a linebacker.
This was new. Then again, Granny Smith reflected, isn’t that what the dating game was all about? You talk, you dance, you make love, but it all ends the same way: you learnt. If something unseemly came up, well, you’d learnt more than enough at that point to decide the way forward was directly towards a glowing ‘exit’ door.
"Well, if you need some notes…" she said, shifting in her seat, a low irritation growing as that damn dress of hers rode up for the third time.
"Now Dam, please!" He reached across the table, his cool hands encircling her own. “I know you're comfortable talking about Cortland, but, well…it makes me feel guilty.” Even through the impressive moustache, she could see him chewing on his lip. “He sounded like a fine gentleman. It's bad enough I'm romancing his wife. I'd rather not mine the man's death for some meagre poetry no one will read.”
She laughed. It started off as a quiet titter, something Kibitz had rarely seen from the usually boisterous women, before evolving into her more familiar squawk, each guffaw punctuated by a wheezy breath. It didn’t end though. It rolled on and on until the woman's green skin was nearly as red as her produce. He stared, people stared, the waiters stared.
"What’s so funny?"
"You called Cortland a 'gentleman',” a new, wheezing laugh began once more before she muffled it. “He was a lot 'o things, Kibitz, but he weren’t no gentleman. The big lug would stick out like a sore thumb in a place like this.”
‘Just like me’ was left unspoken, but hung in the air, nonetheless.
Two more white wines and another scotch later, their food begrudgingly arrived. Mercifully, it was a different waiter; on the flip side, however, this one had the disposition of a rock. This was quite unhelpful, considering the current situation.
“This ain't what ah ordered!”
“My colleague took your order quite successfully, madam,” the gorilla in a suit rumbled. He delicately peeled back a notepad and tapped the page’s contents with a wafer-thin pencil. “You ordered Soupe de Courgettes à la Crème Fraîche et à la Coriandre, while your gentleman friend ordered Pork Scallopini with Apples and Sage."
She glared venomously at the ice-cold bowl, its noxious contents uncannily matching her own skin tone. “It tastes like a washroom!”
The waiter's face remained unmoving. His pencil continued tapping a gentle beat on the notebook. She could just about make out the words on his page, but found it irritatingly difficult to confirm. His overwhelming bulk sucked up the building's soft lighting.
It was a quiet interlude, but Kibitz made it all the same. A weak cough drew their attention away from a potential conflict and towards his finger, which dipped barely into the chilled soup. It was a bizarre sensation, knowing two people were raptly watching as he licked his digit.
“Yes,” he mumbled after a tense few seconds, “Cilantro, definitely.”
“What do ya mean ‘sil-ant-ro’, and where’s he going?” Granny Smith snarled as the waiter retreated, tilting his head to Kibitz before silently moving onwards.
“It’s a herb, Dam. Some people find it…soapy.”
He was so calm, so subdued, so…normal about all this.
She could have done it quietly, but at the moment, it didn’t matter. Nothing did. None of this ridiculous cockamamie more-money-than-sense foolishness mattered. So, her chair was scraped with all the strength she could muster - a stark message followed by a swift exit.
Needless to say, if the diners hadn’t noticed her before, they did now.
She wouldn’t cry. Her days of tears were long gone, but part of her wished she could. It wouldn’t have helped much, but at least it gave the illusion of feeling better, rather than a cynical emptiness that felt an awful lot like ‘I told you so’ in no words.
At the very least, not crying made her look less pathetic. Some gussied up old biddy sitting on the curb in floods of tears wasn’t how she’d wanted to end the night, and she’d damn well ensure it stayed that way.
“Dam?”
“Go away!” It was meant to be a snarl, but sounded uncomfortably like a sob to her ears.
“Dam, please!”
Granny Smith felt him sit down next to her - no doubt getting his fancy suit dirty. She wouldn’t look, though. That would cause its own set of problems.
“What's the matter? Talk to me… please?”
There was silence, and then a noise - a familiar one at that.
So, she looked. It broke her.
He was crying. She’d never seen a grown man cry, and it was…uncomfortable. Both her Pa and Cortland had been stubborn men, made of iron. They didn’t open up about their problems and kept things to themselves. She’d been the one to break the cycle, teaching Bright Mac that it was fine to be a little more honest with yourself. Her husband hadn’t taken that well, not wanting ‘to raise a sissy’. Words had been said, some harsher than others. She’d loved him, but Cortland wasn’t perfect.
“I’m such a…such a stupid, blockheaded, insensitive fool!” Kibitz blubbed into his knees, his pince-nez held in a rather indelicate grip. "I knew somehow I’d ruin this night…”
“Well, if you’re a blockhead, then so am ah,” she replied hesitantly, pulling him into an awkward embrace. “Ah should have been more honest, Kibitz. This fancy stuff, dinner, dancing, it…ain't what ah'm about. Tartarus, ah still don’t rightly reckon what you see in me. You’re all upmarket, with a good education and such. Ah'm some fat old farmer from the backwoods. Tartarus, ah ain't even a farmer anymore… not really.” The last part hurt to say, but it was something she’d grown used to over the last few years.
He snorted, letting out a surprisingly bitter bark of a laugh. “If we are being honest, Dam, then let me say this much. While I may have several degrees, they don’t do you much good in my position. Having a public break down tends to preclude shareholders from putting their faith in your competency."
“What?”
She could see a wry smile on his face even amidst the tears, “They never diagnosed what it was exactly. I suspect a mixture of stress and the lifestyle. I rarely had more than an hour to myself a day, barely slept and was kept upright through large amounts of caffeine or pills that became illegal within weeks of the government actually paying attention to what corporations sell. Long story short, I…snapped. In a way that makes you persona non grata in boardrooms.''
“Oh.” What more could she say?
“So don’t praise me too much… wait, have I been correcting you tonight?”
Now it was her turn to snort. Kibitz flinched, but she held tight. It wasn’t that hard. He was built like a bird.
“Yeah, but you ain't the first man who thinks he knows best. Just don’t make a habit of it and ah’ll let it slide,” she chuckled, somehow happier despite the utter mess this had all become.
They stayed that way for a while, just letting the night pass by in each other's arms. It was warm and the Ruby Shard exclusive enough that it attracted little nearby traffic. The air was pleasantly clear.
“Kibitz?” she mumbled into his chest.
“Mmm, Dam?”
“Shall we go back to the acres?” She pulled away, grinning cheekily. "Ah've some brandy that’s just asking to be drunk.”
“I think that’s the best thing I’ve heard all night.”
Author's Note
Notes are here.
