by C. L. Donley
“It’s just that I leave for Prague on Monday. I’d like to have as much of you as I can before I leave.”
“I know. Me too. If I could, I would. You know that. But I had a long day today and another tomorrow. Stopping by to see Val and then Cynthia right after.
“Val? Don’t you mean your father?”
“No.”
“You know, I wouldn’t mind going with you once, to see him. It wouldn’t frighten me if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I’m not.”
“How’s Cynthia, then?”
“She’s good.”
“Please send her my love. We had such a lovely dinner the other night. I miss her. Will you tell her?”
“I will.”
And like that, Esmee is back in “three words maximum” hell. She can’t think of what she’s said to land herself there and never knows how to get out.
“Is the house nearly done? I’m afraid I’ll be gone before I see the finished product.”
“You will, unfortunately.”
“It’ll be good once it’s done. Seeing your old flame seems to take a lot out of you, darling. More than seeing your father, I think.”
“It does,” Ben admitted, without elaborating.
“Call me jealous, but I think she’s still in love with you.”
Ben didn’t answer at all.
“…Or is it the other way around?”
“Esmee, enough.”
“…Love, you promised me we would always be honest with each other.”
“Yes, and honestly, I don’t want to talk about this. With anyone.”
“Not even with me?”
“Especially not with you.”
More than three words. At least she’s made it out of hell. And in record time.
“At least now I know the reason you don’t seem to adore me. For a moment I thought perhaps you were homosexual.”
Ben just sighs in the darkness.
“Well. Seems you can’t bring yourself to hate me either. Honestly, darling I’m relieved. This, I can deal with. This, I understand.”
Ben was nearly sick with deja vu.
“I meant what I said about not wanting to talk about this, Esmee.”
“Of course, darling.”
“Great.”
“…Good night, then,” Esmee politely responds. Ben knows it’s her polite English version of a protest. If they can’t talk about this, then they wouldn’t talk about anything. Which suited him fine.
“Good night.”
* * *
The next morning, Esmee is already gone when he wakes. He showers, feeling relieved that she has chosen to give him the space that he often requests from her. He decides that he’ll have to make it up to her tonight, with dinner. Meanwhile, he braces himself for his afternoon meeting with Cynthia, likely one of his last.
When Ben shows up to his property on Moss Lane, men in boots are crawling all over the place like giant ants. He lets out a deep sigh from his car as he looks at his little project coming right along. Not a cloud in the sky, no shipment delays, no emergency pipe bursts to call about. No need to design for the client, since he was selling. No budget concerns to brief him on, he certainly made sure of that. And while he’s glad to have spared himself the decisions of laminate versus tile, he should have taken advantage of every moment he could’ve had with Cynthia, warming her up, lowering her defenses. As it is, he’s lucky to see her once a week or talk to her for an hour. Now their time is almost through and they’ve barely scratched the surface of what was really on his mind. He honestly doesn’t quite know what it is. All he knows is that his mouth still feels burdened, his ears unsatisfied.
He shows up on the day that the meager master bedroom window is in the midst of being transformed into an intimate balcony area that juts out like a lip, as though it’d always been there. He walks through the open front door by way of the newly constructed porch, her signature Southern-style influence that seemed to infect every Gordon creation. He finds her immediately, with an old sweat sock on her hand and several cans of stain in front of her as she sits on the newly stripped stairs.
“So? What do you think?”she asks without looking up.
“It’s… coming along.”
“Coming along? That’s all you have to say?”
“I’m honestly impressed. Something about it feels… very grand already. You’ve pulled out all the stops.”
Cynthia smiles. “Couldn’t very well waste an unlimited budget now, could I? Did you see the balcony?”
“I did.”
“Ask me how much.”
He laughs. He could care less, but he can’t resist humoring her. A cup of coffee was still around five dollars these days, wasn’t it?
“Ten thousand,” he throws out.
“Jesus!”
“That’s what I’d pay for a balcony like that.”
“Okay, fair enough. It does add a lot of value.”
“Don’t keep me in suspense, Cynth,” he says. She grins.
“Five. hundred. dollars,” she dramatically discloses.
“Get out!” he feigns wonder.
“It’s impressive and you know it,” she says in a reprimanding tone.
“It is,” he concedes. “Don’t you have people for this?” he nods towards the stain cans strewn about her.
“Having your ‘people’ select the stain for your stairs is like hiring someone to masturbate yourself.”
“It’s a thing,” Ben defends his position, smiling.
“Perhaps, but it garners mixed results. This has to be done right.”
“Isn’t it all done right, Miss Gordon?”
“Let me rephrase: this has to be done perfectly.”
“Care to talk about more ancient history?” Ben suddenly blurts out. It’s the politest opener he could manage.
“I don’t. But I take it you do?” Cynthia groans, popping open the can of walnut colored stain.
“My father told me that you had it out for him. For what happened to your mom.”
Cynthia dabs a bit of the dark stain on the sock and onto the stair that is eye level to her.
“Which thing are we talking about here?” she asks with a furrowed brow, “lotta things happened to my mom.”
“The things that would concern the Dvorak Group directly.”
“Which would be…”
“Apparently we owned the factory where she got laid off. And the company that gave her the subprime loan for her house.”
“Fuck’s sake. Fuckin’ one percenters, man,” she scoffed as she shook her head.
Ben chuckled as Cynthia continued to rub in a back and forth motion on the stairs. Suddenly she stops, examining the dark patch. She pops open another can.
“How would I even have known something like that?” Cynthia wonders aloud.
“I don’t know.”
“Well, that’s one hell of a motive,” she sighs, turning her sock to the opposite side and dipping it into the next can, “I suppose you could say I had the opportunity. Just had to convince you that I somehow had the means.”
“Your first house. That you mentioned at dinner. That was what you did with the money?”
“Yes.”
“Because you were homeless?”
Cynthia stops staining for a moment but then resumes, without looking up.
“Ancient history, but yes.”
“While you were working downstairs?”
“Yes.”
“The whole time?”
“Pretty much. What’s with the interrogation?”
“Why wouldn’t you tell me something so important?”
Cynthia furrows her brow again. “Didn’t I?”
“Uh, no, Cynth, you didn’t.”
“You knew mom and I had fallen on hard times.”
“Yeah, I thought that meant you had to work to pay for culinary school, I didn’t think you didn’t fucking have a home.”
Cynthia shrugs. “It really wa
sn’t all that bad. It got a little old. Winter time’s a bitch, but… you know. We had a system. Never thought I’d say it, but Jersey’s not a bad place to be homeless. Some days I kinda miss it.”
“I must’ve sounded like an idiot.”
“How so?”
“Droning on and on. About whatever 20-something yuppies drone on about. Grad school.”
“Are you kidding? I loved being with you in the city. On campus. I was totally swooning.”
“Were you?” he grins.
“Um… yes,” she says as though it were obvious. “You were this… hot, older boy. Rich. You had a car. I could give a shit about not having a house back then. Me playin’ social. You jammin heavy den makin’ a lime wit’ ya dougla gyal. Likkle jagabat, eh?” Cynthia smiles, a million miles away rubbing the stain into the stairs. Ben has no idea what she’s said, but it’s probably as hot as it sounds.
“Never got to spend it on you.”
“What, money? You lived in Soho, Ben. And you let me stay there rent-free.”
“That’s not what I mean, you know that.”
“Yeah, well. You were still a ‘scrub’ at work, according to you. I definitely was.”
“Is that why you took the money?”
“Honestly, Benji. It’s done. I took the money and ran.”
“It matters your circumstances,” he says, trying to continue the conversation.
“There are plenty of people with homes who would’ve also been happy to fuck off for 100 grand. Stop trying to make it virtuous.”
Ben scoffs in amusement and frustration. “Who the hell downplays the fact that they were homeless?”
“I’m not downplaying anything. I’m telling you, it doesn’t matter my circumstances, I made a choice.”
“So you’d do the same thing again? Right now?”
“If I hadn’t done it the first time, I wouldn’t be here.”
Ben toys with an empty gum wrapper in his hand. His security blanket for the moment. How long had he been fiddling with it? And where was the gum? He eyes the shiny paper, made dull with crumpling wrinkles.
“If it was a house you needed… I don’t know why you just tell me about it.”
“Because you were my… I was your… girl… thing,” Cynthia answers, returning the top to one can of stain, “and it was lovely, and surreal.”
“As in ‘not real.’”
“As in, I was young and irresponsible, and all I knew was that I didn’t want it to end. And that would’ve ended it.”
Ben doesn’t move, trying not to show his satisfaction at her words. Did Cynthia know what she was confessing to him? She’s all but revealing she was in love.
“You’re wrong, by the way,” he says.
“Really.”
“What kind of guy do you think I was?”
“I don’t fuckin’ know, Ben. I was a homeless 20-year-old, trying desperately to keep my job while also fucking the heir apparent without getting in trouble. They’d warned us up and down about all of you, and there I was nodding my head like I was listening, trying to hide my morning dick breath. You had this whole thing about getting close to people and having them use you. ‘Spoiling’ people who were once genuine. You think I wasn’t willing to die before I became one of those people to you? You obviously hated being associated with anything Dvorak at the time, so what was I gonna ask? I mean, honestly, it didn’t really enter my mind. And yes, as in ‘not real.’ You had a fiancée!”
“Did he tell you that?”
“You certainly didn’t.”
“I’m not too sure how he found out about us, actually.”
“Probably by opening his eyes and looking.”
“I wonder if he paid Doug, too.”
“Benji, enough with your dad.”
“Why are you defending him?”
“Do you think it’s possible that maybe, for a split second, maybe your dad saw something in me?”
“I doubt it.”
“That so,” she gently retorts. Obviously wounded.
“That’s not a reflection on you at all, I just mean… I’m sure he made you think he was being generous toward you, but you had something that he needed. You had more power than he let on.”
“I know that you know your father in a way that I never could, but with all due respect Benji, you weren’t in the room.”
“I didn’t need to be to know that he still got what he wanted. He drove us apart.”
“He gave me an opportunity,” Cynthia rebuts, shedding the sweat sock stained with Kona on one side and Mahogany on the other, “and I can’t explain it, but I think he knew that I was going to do everything I could to make his investment worth it. I think somehow he knew.”
“…I’m glad my dad could give you everything you never had,” Ben can’t help sniping.
“He gave me the chance to never have to be manipulated by my circumstances ever again, and yeah, I’m grateful to him. Stop pretending like we had a chance, Ben.”
“I was gonna propose. To you.”
Cynthia doesn’t stop her work at that piece of news. She’s simply quiet as she sighs.
“Well. That would’ve been stupid,” she finally says.
“You would’ve said ‘no’?”
“Probably. Could’ve avoided this whole mess, now, couldn’t we?”
“Why?”
“Because I was twenty!”
“I know that. We could’ve had a long engagement.”
“Oh, Lord. Now I know I dodged a bullet.”
The air becomes dead with silence. Ben feels her remorse, as well as his own wounded pride. He knows he deserves it.
He doesn’t know how much longer he has before Cynthia will change the subject again. His closing window makes him brave.
“Did you really not know? How I felt?”
Cynthia scoffs a scoff of frustration.“I mean… I know we were making plans, but… marriage? I just remember feeling like you were trying to get rid of me. Like a pet your parents wouldn’t allow you to have so you were just… hiding me in a shoebox.”
“How could you say we didn’t have a chance?”
“It was a Romeo and Juliet level clusterfuck, Ben.”
“We have more of a chance now than most people. And we’re practically strangers now.”
Cynthia didn’t know which part of that statement she objected to more.
“Is there a point to this?” Cynthia asks.
“No. I suppose… I’m just looking for answers.”
“If you think after ten years, that I’m still the kind of girl that wants to follow around some indecisive workaholic, then you haven’t been paying attention.”
“Fair enough,” Ben says, feeling like the challenger after the first round against the heavyweight champion. Beaten. Bloody. “So what’s the timeline, Miss Gordon?”
“Everything’s on schedule. Early even. The big reveal’s next week.”
“All this will be done by next week?”
“Miraculous, isn’t it? Gabe and I will be there. I trust Esmee will want to see the finished product.”
“Esmee?”
“Your fiancée.”
“Yeah, I— I know who she is, I’m wondering why you think she would come.”
“I… guess…” Cynthia begins before she just laughs and shakes her head. “Ay…yayay.”
Her reaction makes Ben pause. She won’t be there because she’ll be gone. But Cynthia doesn’t know that.
“You disapprove of our relationship?” he asks.
“To each his own, Benji.”
“Give me your honest opinion, Cynth.”
“Stop.”
“I’m serious.”
“Ben, don’t think I don’t know you’re over there licking your wounds over the conversation we just had. I can’t even share my opinion about our relationship without hurting your feelings.”
“I want you to give me your most rawest, realest opinion of my impending marriage. I swear I will not get a
ngry.”
“Which stain do you like?” Cynthia suddenly asks.
He gives a sigh of indecision. “What’s going on the walls?”
“White, more or less.”
“This will be the trim as well?”
“Correct.”
“The darkest one.”
“Great choice.”
“…Is this some kind of Yoda moment you’re about to spring on me?”
Cynthia laughs as she hangs her head, her eyes sparkling like jewels and his heart skips a beat. It was the way she laughed when he told a bad joke. Or gave her a compliment out of the blue. Or unknowingly said what she was thinking.
“What can I say, Ben. You know me well.”
“You’re saying ‘just fucking pick one?’”
“I’m saying… I understand the obsession with making the right choice. One you’re gonna look at every day. Trust someone who has experience with staining. Not many people get a chance to buy more than one house, see more than one stain. I mean… you can re-stain shit, but you get where I’m going with this,” Cynthia explains with her hands. Ben nods.
“They’re all great. Melanie, me, Esmee, old whats-her-face from Brazil… you could be happy with anyone. Content, I should say. Once you make your decision, you’ll give it everything you have to make it work. You’re afraid to invest. You’re used to everything being either a good deal or a bad deal.”
Ben is having a hard time listening after hearing Cynthia put herself in this list.
“But this isn’t like a money deal. It’s like staining. Meaning, they’re all great. Context matters, of course. Complimentary matches matter, of course, but… stain is beautiful. So beautiful in fact, that you can’t make a wrong choice. So… pick the one that speaks to you, Ben.”
* * *
Ben drives back into the city, distracted. He gets to the Dvorak group parking garage, to the top level just outside his office. He can’t get out because he is sitting. Just sitting. How could she say they didn’t have a chance? Why would his father bother with breaking up something that didn’t have a chance?
“You’re wrong,” he says to no one, an elbow propped across the steering wheel. He’s never known Cynthia to be so wrong about him before. She was right about making things work, but he could never stomach a bad deal. And there was no worse deal than marrying the wrong woman.
She was also right that he needed to fuckin’ pick already. It was the one area of life that he was ever indecisive.
