Pulpy and Midge

by Jessica Westhead

  ‘Good morning, Dan,’ she said.

  ‘I said to Pulpy, “Damn, those pancakes smell good!” I told him he’s got a special lady on his hands.’

  ‘I heard that. Thank you.’

  Pulpy ran his hand along the smooth underside of the table and watched the two of them.

  ‘Do you need any help there?’ said Dan.

  ‘No thanks, I’m fine. You have a seat with Pulpy. Would you like some coffee?’

  ‘Yes, please!’ Dan sat down. ‘Coffee is exactly what I would like!’

  ‘How do you take it?’

  ‘Just dump in a shitload of cream and sugar.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know if we have a shitload, Dan,’ she said, ‘but I’m sure you’ll manage.’

  ‘Banter, ha!’ said Dan. ‘I love banter in the morning. Pulpy, the honey that pours forth from this woman’s mouth, you could bottle it and make a fortune.’

  ‘Hmm,’ he said.

  ‘Pulpy?’ Midge tilted the coffee pot at him.

  ‘Yes, please.’ Pulpy faced his boss across the table. ‘So, I don’t think we ever ended up discussing the Social Committee last night.’

  ‘Ha, ha! No, we did not.’

  Pulpy reached for the sugar. The lid was off the bowl from last night. ‘So … should we? Discuss things?’

  Dan waved a hand. ‘Who needs discussion? Not me, that’s for sure.’

  Midge set glasses of orange juice in front of them.

  ‘Orange juice! Ha!’ Dan said to Pulpy.

  Pulpy blinked at him. ‘So what do you have planned for the rest of your day, Dan?’

  Dan took a long drink from his mug and stretched. ‘I was thinking I’d laze around the homestead, seeing as Beatrice is away and all.’

  ‘That sounds nice for a Saturday.’ Midge served the pancakes. ‘Could you get the syrup out of the fridge, please, Pulpy?’

  ‘A nice, lazy day.’ Pulpy opened the fridge and started moving things around.

  ‘Ho-ho, look at all those real estate agents!’ said Dan. ‘It’s like a convention on there! Are you two in the market?’

  ‘We might be,’ said Midge. ‘We’re considering our options.’

  ‘Well, I think you’ve got yourselves a little piece of heaven right here.’ Dan crossed his arms behind his head. ‘And I for one am looking forward to spending some more time in it today.’

  Pulpy froze with his hand on the ketchup bottle, which had been concealing the syrup. ‘Oh, you meant you wanted to laze around our homestead.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Dan. ‘You’re sure you don’t mind?’

  Midge gritted her teeth at Pulpy over the fridge door. ‘Well,’ she said.

  ‘Actually, Dan,’ said Pulpy, straightening up, ‘we sort of have a weekend routine.’

  ‘Oh? And what’s that?’

  ‘We just have things we like to do.’

  Dan opened and closed one of his big hands. ‘What kinds of things?’

  ‘Just – things.’ Pulpy sat back down at the table. ‘Would you like some syrup?’

  ‘No thanks. I just need some of this.’ Dan hacked a chunk of butter from the block on the table.

  Midge sat down between them. ‘I’ll have the syrup, please, Pulpy.’

  Pulpy eyeballed the distance from himself to Midge and from Midge to Dan. She was closer to Dan. He edged his chair toward his wife and handed her the syrup. ‘Sorry we can’t invite you to stay, Dan. We would if we could.’

  ‘No, no, it’s fine. I understand.’ Dan frowned at the pale, unmelted chunk of butter on his stack of pancakes. ‘I’ll just finish my breakfast and go.’

  ‘Sorry the butter’s cold, Dan,’ said Midge. ‘We like to keep it refrigerated.’

  ‘That’s okay, Midge.’ Dan smiled at her. ‘You’re still the hostess with the mostest in my books.’

  She focused on her knife and fork. ‘Thank you, Dan.’

  ‘But this is nice, though,’ Pulpy said to his boss. ‘Seeing you in the morning outside of work.’

  ‘Yes, nice.’ Dan pressed his thumb down on his pat of butter and stared at Midge. He wasn’t smiling anymore.

  Midge’s fork made a high-pitched scraping sound on her plate. ‘Oops. Sorry,’ she said.

  Dan kept looking at her as he rubbed the softening yellow square across his pancakes. ‘See that?’ he said, licking melted butter off his thumb. ‘Works every time.’

  Pulpy tipped the syrup bottle upside down and squeezed. The dark brown liquid oozed out in a long, wavering line.

  ‘What are you thinking about, Midge?’ said Pulpy later that day.

  ‘Shh!’ She put a mittened hand over his mouth. ‘He’s talking about the tango.’

  The instructor was performing a demonstration, and their classmates were gathered around him. ‘When doing an ice tango, every sinew of your body must strain against every other sinew,’ he said as he whooshed dramatically from side to side. ‘That sensual synergy is intrinsic to an elegant rink routine.’

  Midge made a funny little noise. ‘Elastic glue.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sometimes our marriage feels big and small at the same time,’ she said. ‘Like pulling apart, and then coming back together. Like glue, but elastic. Like elastic glue – is there such a thing?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘There probably is.’

  ‘You think I have these fantastic ideas, but they’re not. They’re just what I think.’

  ‘You think fantastically. That’s okay.’

  She stuck her toe pick into the ice. ‘Why haven’t you shown the catalogue to anyone at work yet?’

  ‘I’ve been meaning to. I just haven’t gotten the chance.’ He swallowed. ‘Midge, um, about last night. Did anything … ?’

  She jerked her head toward him. The absence of her scallops made his heart lurch.

  ‘I mean, I know you wouldn’t,’ he said quickly, and slid one of his skates back and forth. ‘I don’t remember very much, that’s all. But maybe if I went to bed – did I? And if you and Dan were alone – were you? He might’ve … because you know you can tell me if something –’

  She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again her lashes were wet. ‘I can’t remember, Pulpy. All I know is, you went to bed and it was just me and Dan, and he started asking me about candles. And then I woke up and made pancakes.’

  ‘Passion!’ yelled the instructor. ‘That is what this sport is all about.’

  Pulpy gave Midge a small smile. ‘It’s okay.’

  ‘Is it?’

  He squeezed her hand.

  Midge smiled back at him. ‘Do that again. I like it.’

  He gave her mitten another squeeze and waited for her to say something else.

  ‘Come on, let’s skate,’ she said. ‘Skate with me.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said, and together they pushed off, resuming their slow progress around the rink.

  ‘The problem with me cutting my hair,’ said Midge on Monday morning, ‘is that I couldn’t get the back. Could you do it for me?’

  Pulpy looked at her head. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘But you’re my husband.’

  They were sitting at the kitchen table, and Midge had already tucked a couple of paper towels into the neck of her robe. There was a pair of poultry shears on the placemat in front of her.

  ‘Aren’t those scissors for chicken?’ he said.

  ‘I found them at the back of the gadget drawer last night.’ She picked them up and made them open and close. ‘They’re better than my nail ones.’

  ‘What if I don’t do it right?’

  ‘You can’t do it wrong,’ she said. ‘You just cut and make it shorter.’

  ‘But how much shorter?’

  ‘I don’t know. An inch?’

  ‘An inch is a lot,’ he said.

  She shrugged. ‘If you don’t want to do it, I’m not going to make you.’

  ‘It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s just that, well, I’m not a barber, Midge.’
/>   ‘I know you’re not a barber, Pulpy. I only need you to cut the back.’ She took hold of his wrists. ‘Use your magic charade hands on me.’

  ‘All right, then,’ he said.

  ‘Good.’ She let him go and straightened in her chair. ‘We’ll sweep up afterwards.’

  Pulpy tried his best to picture an inch in his head, and then he picked up the scissors.

  On the way to work, Pulpy pressed one of his hands against the cold glass of the bus window.

  Midge’s hair had floated down around him in small brown puffs.

  Outside, everything was white. He wished the snow would melt. He wanted it to be spring. He wanted Midge to be able to wear her clamdiggers and not be cold.

  Pulpy closed his eyes and pictured sun. He pictured himself and Midge sitting in their backyard, passing the fly swatter back and forth for killing wasps.

  Then he felt the chill in the air and pictured Midge last Christmas, showing everyone how to trim a candlewick – you had to leave just enough. Then Midge with a fondue fork and that awful look on her face when she realized Al’s dog was in the backyard with Mrs. Wings.

  He opened his eyes and looked up. He was sitting near the back doors of the bus and the letters over the exit read ‘TO OPE DO R S AND ON ST P.’ Pulpy thought about someone standing there scraping off the N and the O and the S and the T and the E. He imagined them starting and then feeling like they just couldn’t stop.

  Midge’s clouds of hair on the floor. She’d been sweeping them up when he kissed her goodbye.

  The receptionist was standing outside the building when Pulpy got to work. She was holding a bucket in one hand and a big scoop in the other.

  ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘What are you doing out here?’

  ‘He’s got me salting.’ She showed him the bucket, which was full of dull-grey crystals. ‘Who asks a woman to salt?’

  He chewed on his lip. ‘Do you want me to do it?’

  The receptionist stabbed the air with her scoop. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m almost done.’

  Pulpy squinted at the snow and then at her. ‘You don’t have a coat on.’

  ‘Tell me that again. Tell me I don’t have a coat on. Don’t you think I know that? Don’t you think I’m freezing out here, with this salt, and that I’ve been freezing since I came outside without my coat? And that was half an hour ago.’ Her breath was coming out in big, white plumes.

  ‘Why aren’t you wearing your coat?’

  ‘He hands me the bucket and the scoop and says, “Can you salt around the building?” He’s holding the door open while he’s saying it. What else was I supposed to do?’

  ‘I’m sure he didn’t mean for you to go out in the cold like that,’ said Pulpy.

  ‘You’re sure, are you?’

  Her lips were a smear of gooey red against her pale face. Pulpy saw goosebumps on her bare forearms, and he couldn’t help but notice that she was wearing a very thin blouse.

  ‘Anyway, since when are you and the boss such bosom buddies?’ she said.

  Pulpy yanked his gaze back up. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘He’s just being nice to me. I don’t know why.’

  The receptionist tossed some salt on his shoes. ‘Better get inside where it’s warm.’

  Beatrice was sitting at the receptionist’s desk when Pulpy walked in.

  ‘Pulpy!’ She waved a file at him and then fanned it under her chin in an exaggerated way. ‘Whew! It is hot in here!’

  ‘Hi, Beatrice.’ He headed for the closet.

  ‘I’m redoing the filing system,’ she said. ‘It’s going to be much better when I’m done with it.’

  Pulpy dropped his coat on the closet floor. ‘The receptionist is outside.’

  ‘That’s right, with the salt.’ Beatrice was wearing what appeared to be a tight painter’s smock, with various colours splattered across it. ‘Is she doing a good job?’

  ‘She’s not wearing a coat.’

  ‘She isn’t? Well, that’s not very smart.’ Beatrice swivelled then and looked up at the clock, and turned back to him with her bright pink mouth in a little O. She wagged a finger back and forth. ‘Tsk, tsk. You are late, mister!’

  ‘Oh.’ He shuffled his feet. ‘Well, I – the bus – and Dan gave me flex hours …’

  She snorted. ‘I don’t care if you’re late!’

  ‘Hmm. Well, I should get upstairs.’

  ‘Come over here first. I want to show you something.’ Two of her fly-away hair strands twitched at him.

  He slowly approached the desk.

  ‘Dan told you I went on that spa retreat, right? On the weekend? He said you and Midge showed him a really good time, by the way. You had mojitos? Mmm! But like I was saying, from the spa, my skin is still really soft. I was feeling it this morning.’ She rolled up her sleeve and stroked her arm, then held it out to him.

  Pulpy nodded. ‘Nice.’

  ‘Go ahead, feel it for yourself. Feel my skin!’

  He hesitated, then reached out and prodded her with his fingertip. ‘Soft,’ he said.

  ‘It smells amazing too. Did you smell it?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘No, you’d know it if you did.’ She brandished her bare arm at him again. ‘Take a whiff, and then you can go.’

  ‘Um.’

  ‘Come on!’

  ‘All right,’ he said, and leaned forward.

  ‘Ho-ho! What’s going on down here?’ said Dan from the top of the steps.

  Pulpy shot back upright. ‘Nothing. I was just –’ He looked at Beatrice.

  ‘Don’t worry about my husband,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t mind you taking a sniff.’

  ‘Come on upstairs, Pulpy,’ said Dan. ‘I need to discuss something with you.’

  ‘She wanted me to smell her arm,’ said Pulpy as soon as he was in Dan’s office. ‘And touch it, but I only used one finger.’

  ‘I don’t care.’ Dan waved a hand at him. ‘Have a seat.’

  Pulpy sat on a hard-backed chair. ‘Midge uses Tropical Mist,’ he said, ‘and she always smells nice.’

  ‘And that’s the main thing. Nothing better than a good-smelling woman, no sir.’ Dan put his feet up on his desk and crossed them at the ankles. ‘Now let’s get down to business. From where I stand the situation is twofold: one, lack of hype, but we’ll fix that today with the office-wide potluck-reminder email you’ll send out; and two, lack of employee morale, but the whole point of the potluck is to boost team spirit, so there you have the whole chicken-and-egg thing, and there’s not much we can do to reverse that process. So, basically, you’ll send the email after this meeting, and we’ll go from there.’ Dan clapped his hands together and stood up.

  ‘Which is the chicken part?’ said Pulpy.

  ‘That’s the whole point.’ Dan came around and sat on his desk directly in front of Pulpy so that their legs were almost touching. ‘Because either way you look at it, morale will be hatched from the potluck, and the potluck’s success will depend on morale. I can’t think of any other reason that would account for a poor turnout.’ He lifted one foot to tap the underside of Pulpy’s chair. ‘Can you?’

  Pulpy shook his head slowly. ‘I can’t think of anything.’

  ‘Well, you let me know if you do.’ Dan bent his big head to look at Pulpy eye to eye. ‘I’m counting on you.’

  ‘You won’t regret it.’

  Dan gave him a light, stinging punch on the arm, and walked back to his chair. ‘Better get to it, then.’

  ‘Um, just one thing, speaking about employee morale.’ Pulpy cleared his throat. ‘I saw the receptionist out front this morning with a bucket of salt.’

  Dan nodded and pressed Enter a few times on his keyboard.

  ‘She didn’t have a coat on.’

  ‘Is that woman crazy?’ said Dan. ‘She sure acts crazy, from what I’ve seen. That is one crazy secretary.’

  ‘Receptionist,’ said Pulpy.

  ‘E
xcuse me?’ Dan shook his head. ‘Hold on.’ He pressed Enter one more time and then frowned at his screen. ‘Dammit.’

  ‘She likes “receptionist” better than “secretary.”’ Pulpy rubbed the back of his neck.

  Dan punched the Up arrow on his keyboard three times. Then he turned back to Pulpy. ‘The tag on her desk says “Secretary.”’

  ‘Yes.’ The fax machine on Dan’s desk let out a series of urgent bleeps, and Pulpy jolted at the sound. ‘But she doesn’t like that word.’

  ‘You have to wonder about people who are so particular about things.’

  Pulpy took a big breath and recited, ‘“For all clients to enjoy a quality product, and for all employees to enjoy quality respect.”’

  ‘That’s some kind of vision statement, isn’t it?’ said Dan. He shook his head appreciatively before reaching for the fax.

  Pulpy noticed some familiar shapes in Dan’s garbage can: Al’s animal figurines were in there, heaped on top of each other.

  Dan saw Pulpy looking and said, ‘Al never came and picked them up.’

  Pulpy didn’t say anything.

  Dan balled up the fax and tossed it into the trash with the animals. ‘I had a nice time with you and Midge on the weekend. A real nice time.’

  ‘It was,’ said Pulpy. ‘It was a good time.’

  ‘That wife of yours, ho-ho!’

  ‘What about her?’

  Dan pursed his lips and folded his hands in front of him. ‘Did you know, Pulpy, that there are so many candle-scent varieties that it would be appropriate to say they are endless? And not only are there the primary scents, but there are all the combinations you can make with them. A creative person would be hard-pressed to ever run out of fusion ideas.’

  ‘She told you that, I guess.’

  ‘She did. She’s a whiz with candles, that Midge. If I were you I’d be more concerned about her than about the receptionist.’

  Pulpy stood up. ‘Of course I’m more concerned about Midge. Midge is my wife.’ Al’s camel was crowning the trash pile beside the crumpled paper.

  ‘Yes, she is.’ Dan grinned at him.

  ‘I’d better go and send that email.’