Sexual tension all over this.
With a zit like Mt. Baker, as seen from a hill on Orcas Island, on her cheek Rosa rose from her side of the bed. She reached in a fumble for her glasses. She looked in the full-length mirror of many discussions, fixed her hair some, then noticed the red pulsing thing.“Aw, man!” Rosa leaned in for a closer look. “Why today when we have that dinner party tonight?” Ernest was thinking of other things, this being Friday. Friday the Day She Has Lunch With An Old Boyfriend, Part I of II and III.
But he for now remains silent.
Staring at the ceiling. Relationship with the ceiling. An awareness of this relationship. Brain points it out frequently. Many of us have relationships with our ceilings, our walls, but how many looking up there go, “Hello, Ceiling, nice to stare at you again.”
Brain asks first thing this morning: “So, kid, how you feel? How intense shall I make your jealousies today?”
“Leave me alone,” Ernest’s reply. “In the end I win over you. That is all.”
“Since when is this a game?”
“Everything’s a game; unavoidable; the game of.”
“Mr. Ernest this morning a poet.”
“Brain the usual tormenting asshole.”
“Hey, hey! Represent resent. Think of all the good times. All the quality images poured into you, all those girls with distinct clarity imagined.”
“Fantastic.”
“Anyway, ready when you are.”
A pause. Now Ernest, perhaps against his will, keeps thinking nagging some might say bad thoughts. He waits. Has what he will say when she leaves the bathroom, before her shower. Rosa clockwork. Rosa refined. You can count on Rosa. Can count on her doing things in certain ways, well-defined manner. In the bathroom first contacts, then deal best as possible with Mt. Baker as seen from Orcas, then kitchen for coffee, a return to the bathroom for her eventual add quick shower. She dresses standing in front of the full-length mirror.
And so Ernest knows when to begin. Here she is! Not a stumble but a slow tired walk, contacts now in, pajamas flowing in the wind. Ernest, still under covers, splayed on his back, has decided to employ Humor as his method, in order to avoid, say, like, a fight then heart attack. Not worth it any more Ernest: “Um . . . Baby?”
“Yeah,” Rosa pause at the kitchen door, slight step toward him.
“Um, some guy called . . . I don’t know, and asked for you but I said you were in the bathroom. Told me he couldn’t make lunch today. He was sorry. So, um, no lunch.”
“Ha ha,” Rosa moves toward him. Coaxing, easy voice: “Don’t worry, angel, everything will be fine. It’s just a dumb little lunch, there will be no more, nothing will come of it, I’ll have my defenses up, you are my angel. We live together forever and I love you.” Kisses between each phrase, staccato rhythm.
Ernest allows it to soothe. Desires maturation. Wants to grow up and become a nice man.
And now quick! In rapid succession: Rosa coffee to her shower to toweling off to dressing in front of the mirror. She holds her fine form-fitting green blouse.
“Uh-uh. You are not wearing that one.”
“Oh, come on. It’s just a shirt. And I’m wearing jeans for you.”
“Yeah, but it’s a fine shirt. You look hot. You may not look hot today. Not until our dinner party tonight. Beginning of the holiday season. Don’t you have anything baggy? I know, wear that wack pink fleece.”
Becomes a banter, one between friends, you have to see it that way. Rosa standing in the closet looking for an appropriate outfit. She tries a white bra. She reaches for crimson blouse also form-hugging and waist tucking and bosom presenting. “Uh-uh, not that one either. That one’s worse than the other one. Come on, baby, hook me up. Don’t torture me. You can’t be leaning over some lunch table in that shit. We gotta have some rules.”
Because ‘Don’t you trust me?’ has already been employed at great length, Rosa’s not exploring any discussion, not in possession of desire to deal with intellect, will not expound with philosophy or self-help. Besides, how’s it possible to properly discuss with a monkey? Not possible. And Ernest the first to admit his primate nature: proud of it, beat on his chest flare lips canine showing. Instead, Rosa looks for an ‘acceptable’ outfit. But everyone can tell she’s still attempting to look good for this old boyfriend who sent an email out of the blue.
Brain singing a song about hating out of the blue: “At first everything was fine/ Love and warmth in the home/a table and kitchen to dine/You thought you had found her/Put everything aside/Gave her undivided/and then, oh oh My/It came out of the blue/Seemingly innocuous/totally left field/outright impossible/But there it was, oh oh/Formal invitation lunch on a work day/formal separation and a fast moving decline/Oh, oh, singing the blues now/Singing the blues, Because oh, oh/It came out of the blue/ out of the blue when everything was fine/Fine, fine, fine, and now what do I do?” Brain affecting Sinatra croon, as-a-million lounge acts across this great country. Brain polishing his shoes, tap dancing with smile, wearing tux with tails for a mile.
Instead, Rosa looks for what might appear to be an ‘appropriate’ or ‘acceptable’ outfit. She sings softly “Man I have a jealous boyfriend” to the melody of a Christmas tune. And she locates it! A decent sweater, not thick and bulky (she not the thick and bulky type, this tall and elegant woman, long arms thin wrists long fingers), and it is black. Ernest nods his head, looking her over as she holds up the black sweater to her chest: not see-through, no form fittingness, no breasts on a table look at these, and yet, you would admit, still looks fine, enough to impress somebody at least respectfully, and he, yes he, how about it – get this – nods his ‘approval.’
Rosa changes from her white bra to a black one. She reaches for the drawer and shuffles through the pile. Finds one. She even, this Ernest thanks her for, wears a T-shirt underneath the sweater, still looking hot he admits, consequently dressed and presentable, she looks at him and laughs at him: “My man, oh my man. And now I’m in my burqa [during these times trying]; Are you happy?”
“Yes, in fact, I am happy. And thank you.”
“Hm.”
“By the by, you still look smashing.”
“Hm,” Rosa walks to the hall. Ernest yells after her. She returns. “And you should be thankful for the freedoms you possess.”
With the wink-wink banter between friends. Rosa leans over and kisses him on the forehead, the cheek, the next cheek, and he is happy. He says to Brain, “I can do this; I am growing.” Brain expresses his doubts, and says, “We shall see. Seems innocent and ready, everything okay in the beginning. But just wait.” Planted an insidious seed. A bastardly deed. A devilish position. Ernest making valiant and grand to live by an alternate creed.
Ernest fields Brain’s barrage and, still, feels he can handle this, he is mellowing, might indeed be able to, functionally and spiritually and (dealing with psychosis) actually settle down with one woman. Fears of being left behind. Ultimate fear of betrayal, pain and the final big hurt. Yes, endures Brain’s barrage, but he, in there, knows he’ll be paying careful attention to the afternoon afterward, asking Rosa questions “How’d it go,” “What’d he say?”, What’d he want?”, listening to her answers, version of making sure.
The phone rings blatant and forceful intrusion. Ernest feels phone ringing, the old style dinging or new-style blinging, the sound of a pain, yip dog yipping, an insistent spoiled child in the living room during a dinner party. He ignores the phone. Rosa answers this morning, dressed properly and ready for her day, thinking about work and not some innocent lunch (she thinks, she thinks), and it’s from Linda Cohen at Advanced Marketing. She’s beside herself. The Boss, it seems, called from out of town in a tizzy. She, “Can you come in early? Like now?” He, “I’m standing in the kitchen in my underwear.”
She explains the panic. Did you mail the 3,000 pieces yet? Advertisements. They offer the product to select potential customers their names plucked from a purchased database. Most of them in the educational field, working in and around Washington DC, and Ernest has not done the job. Stammers, “I did a bunch of it yesterday. I mean, there’s so much, had to do all that folding.”
In fact, sitting there after Linda had gone home, he read about the trying days this challenged nation this nation at war a war against terrorism the whole world in this all of it the New York Times. She yells at him to get dressed and get in there. He of course agrees, Rosa standing over him inquiring look, brow raised – What did she want? – Rosa keeping close tabs, looking over him, the situation, why, this family; laying groundwork, getting ready, keeping time, watching clock, matter of her biology. And he knows in her look everything, and it would be a lie to say he wasn’t worried, that he fears his boss, knows he has to send massive mailing, all-important advertisement of product, folded in half, properly addressed, investigate addresses, postage arranged right, how the weight the size and the bulk of those advertisements for product, product, fears fired and slides leg into half trousers, and knows if he lost this time his girl, why, she would let him go, no, she would kill him, and he understands, also, that now’s the time for responsibility, time to, as friends always energetically, “step it up,” as mom when she died, and the phone his morning beginning earlier and Linda’s voice, through the Boss shrill and insistent, and Brain laughing, consistent.