Devils in the Sugar Shop

by Timothy Schaffert

  your boy,

  troy

  Peach hit “reply.”

  To: Troy.Allyson@theomahastreet.com

  From: Peach@mermaidssingingbooks.com

  Subject: Re: dare i eat a peach?

  Divorce your wife, you pig, then you can lick me up and down, night and day. In the meantime, I’ll be fooling around with a dumb bank exec down the street who’s had his eye on me for weeks, a pretty little redheaded nobody in a suit working his way up at the First National, already has an office up close to the tippy-top, with a long view of the dirty river. I think he’s the assistant to the vice president of the associate to the executive of new products or something. Just a heartbeat away, baby. (What, you’re surprised that I get attention? I AM one of the Ten Omaha Beauties to Watch, not for nothin’.) We almost have lunch together frequently, kind of, because we both like to eat alone at the bar at M’s Pub, and sometimes we end up eating alone together, and even sometimes splitting a bottle of that Mountain Dome, the sparkly stuff with the gnomes on the label that you and I drank one of the few times you’ve had the nuts enough to take me out in public. When I drink it with the redhead, I feel a little like I’m abusing you. Because remember how much you loved getting sauced on that Mountain Dome, both of us sitting there at M’s the night before Thanksgiving, just around the corner from your apartment, both of us pretending you weren’t terrified that one of Ashley’s friends would see me with my foot out of my shoe, my toes pushing down your sock to touch the bare skin of your ankle? Your eyes kept darting around like you even expected Ashley to pop up, though you yourself had taken her and Lee to the airport that day to visit, who was it, her sister? Where was it, Chicago? And on the back of the label you nervously peeled off the third bottle of wine, you wrote I (heart) You which is just close enough to I Love You to make me hate you with all my guts. Even if it’s true, why say it? (or write it, rather?) I’m nothing to you, if you’re saying that to me, because how could you mean that you (heart) me and yet still not tell Ashley that you’re unhappy with her?

  The next time I see that redhead at M’s, I’m going to slip that wine label I saved from that night before Thanksgiving into his jacket pocket without him knowing, and he’s going to get home and see it and think that I (heart) him, and he, instead of me, is going to cherish that label and keep it in a little dumb porcelain box painted with tiny frolicking zebras.

  Color me,

  Peach

  To: Peach@mermaidssingingbooks.com

  maybe your redhead’s your stalker. ever think of that? and maybe he takes requests. he needs to class it up a little, move beyond pasting your pieces on nudie mag centerfolds. next time, i’d like to see your head on the body of jacqueline bisset in that wet t-shirt in ‘the deep.’ or on pam grier in ‘foxy brown.’

  To: Troy.Allyson@theomahastreet.com

  Or maybe YOU’RE my stalker, did you ever think of that? The fact that you don’t use capital letters in your e-mails is a sign of something very sick.

  To: Peach@mermaidssingingbooks.com

  true, i’m a broken man, beyond repair. why do you even want me? the other night, after we watched a dvd and i futzed with remote controls, ashley said to me these words: ‘you always turn the tv off wrong.’

  To: Troy.Allyson@theomahastreet.com

  I’m totally on Ashley’s side. She only knows the half of it, poor dear. Here’s an amateur theatrical about two old people (grab your hanky, this is rough stuff):

  ME: Remember what it was like when it was illicit? When you sent me dirty e-mails that you thought were poetry? Back when I daydreamed about ruining your marriage by showing up at your home with evidence of your love, handing Ashley that wine label on which you proclaimed that you (heart) me?

  YOU: i remember nothing. my whole past is a blur. i can’t bear to think back on it, because of all the horrible things i’ve done. the horrible things i’ve done to you, to ashley. i’ve cheated, i’ve deceived, i’ve turned the tv off wrong.

  ME: Oh, well, at least you’ve suffered for years for all you put me through. I’ve already poked out your eyes with a red-hot knitting needle, and scissored out your licker, and lobotomized you with a lawnmower. I propose a truce. Let’s be happy, for once. After all, we got what we wanted, didn’t we?

  YOU: did we? what did we want? what was it we even wanted? we wanted what? there was something we wanted, but what was it?

  [a cold, deadly, profound silence echoes across the stage. Exeunt.]

  To: Peach@mermaidssingingbooks.com

  compelling drama. i like how you weren’t afraid to portray the characters as morally reprehensible. now, who was YOU based on? and who was ME? were they anyone i know? YOU isn’t me, is it? or is ME me? if ME’s me, i object. i’m not that ill-tempered. and if i’m YOU, i’ll kill myself right now. and why does YOU only speak in the lowercase? sorry to be so unforgiving, but better you hear it from me than be savaged by the critics.

  but really, i can picture the play performed by finger puppets. or i could see me playing YOU. i don’t think i could play ME. i don’t have the killer tits for it. what’s your little show called anyway?

  To: Troy.Allyson@theomahastreet.com

  It’s called "It Hurts When I Go Like This."

  Let’s pretend we broke up, and have to get back together. Let’s toss one off at the motel where they filmed that scene in "Election" where Matthew Broderick tried to cheat on his wife.

  Can you sneak away later tonight?

  To: Peach@mermaidssingingbooks.com

  i saw matthew broderick and sarah jessica parker eating at sushi ichiban when they were in town filming that movie. they had eel and sake and sarah jessica picked each little orange egg off her salmon roe with her chopsticks, and ate them one by one. did i ever tell you that?

  anyway, can’t come over tonight. i’ve got that orgy, remember? i’d let you come along, lovey, but i’m the jealous type, and if one of those slobs so much as tapped you with his pecker, i’d have to rip it clean off him and deep-throat him with it, and that’s really not in the spirit of the swing club.

  To: Troy.Allyson@theomahastreet.com

  What the?

  To: Peach@mermaidssingingbooks.com

  helloooo. tap tap tap. is this thing on? the swing club. i e-mailed you about it last night. i’m expanding some articles i’m doing for the paper into a book, i think.

  To: Troy.Allyson@theomahastreet.com

  I don’t remember any e-mail about any orgies. You’ve ceased to make sense.

  To: Peach@mermaidssingingbooks.com

  SHIT. no no no. i just checked my sent file. i spent all afternoon writing you an e-mail yesterday, then as i was leaving the office, running late, i typed in the first few letters of your e-mail address, and the auto-address took over, and i hit send. but i sent it to my daughter. christ. i’m forwarding it to you here. is it as bad as I think it is? worse?

  To: PeytonAllyson1@student.ums.edu

  From: Troy.Allyson@theomahastreet.com

  Subject: parties

  peach,

  i so much want to be fucking you silly right now, or to at least see you in that flimsy slutty frederick’s of hollywood thing you wore for me once, the black seethru shortie. i admit it, i’m a cliche of a letch. i like my ladies looking cheap, with the pumps, the lipstick, the whole dirty works (but i never really cared for garter belts and stockings; when a woman undoes all those hooks and clips she looks to me like she’s disassembling a peg leg).

  i confess that i want to ruin you, and then put you back together.

  ashley is having some kind of sex-toy tupperwaretype thing at the apartment tomorrow night and i had thought i’d be free to slip over to your place and under your sheets and up your skirt, but i have to work. kind of. i have my own sex party to go to. i told you about those social clubs for swingers i’m writing about? i’ll have to show you a brochure they sent me, with a ‘typical night scenario’ that has this friendly stiffness, like a 1950s pamphlet on etiquette and
personal hygiene. ‘all have rsvp’d several days ago, so we could plan hors d’oeuvres accordingly.’

  anyway, a couple in the burbs is having a cocktail party. they’re expecting about 15 couples. i talked ashley into going to one with me some months ago, and we pretended to be a nervous couple somewhat interested, only there to observe, though i think we really were a nervous couple somewhat interested. i slapped on this pricey cologne peyton gave me a few christmases ago that i never wear. ashley got her hair bent at a salon and her fingernails and toenails polished up, and she wore a new black dress and tucked away the price tags so she could return it the next day. the strap on the dress kept dropping off her shoulder, showing off the black strap of her bra, in a way that i must confess drove me wild.

  the party, in a split-level done up in country decor, was painfully normal. the music was garth brooks from years ago. all the women gravitated to the kitchen, and the men sat in the sofas and wing chairs to talk football. i couldn’t even concentrate on whether the women were attractive because i was so distracted by the inadequacies of the men. trousers too short. a beer gut. sweat stains on a dress shirt. a man with a mullet and a mustache and a nascar t-shirt.

  now don’t get me wrong. my wayward gay son didn’t inherit his particular kinds of inclinations from me. i wasn’t looking to get it on with any of these chaps. but i’m also not one of those straight guys who claims to have no ability to determine if a guy’s good-looking or not. i mean, i’ve been known to let my eye wander in the locker room, and to appreciate a dude who’s well put together. i’ll happily admit to a kind of curiosity about shapes and sizes, etc., and i’ve been known to look, not necessarily with desire (unless you want to call it that, in which case i’m not at all threatened if you do), but with, say, an aesthetic interest.

  what i’m getting at: a roomful of pretty men would have given the whole thing a much-needed volt of fantasy.

  i found myself alone in a corner of the kitchen with the wife of a guy named chuck. it was a cool fall night, but it was hot in the house, and chuck’s wife picked up an ice cube from the bucket and ran it over her collarbone in a completely un-self-conscious way, in a way so not meant to be sexy that it was sexy as all get out, and i said, ‘garanimals,’ and she said, ‘garanimals?’ and i said i’d been trying to remember that old line of kids’ clothes from the 70s where you’d know which shirt went with which pants because you could match up the animalshaped tags. you know, like the corduroys with the giraffe tag went with the sweater with the giraffe tag, and she said, ‘oh yeah, garanimals. i always wanted some, but my mom said they were too expensive.’ so then i asked her, ‘who do you belong to?’ and i kind of tugged on the sleeve of her blouse, and that’s when i found out she was the wife of a guy named chuck.

  then she said, ‘so you were thinking of garanimals because you were wondering whose wife was whose?’

  then i said, ‘maybe.’ and then i says, ‘what’s a nice girl like you doing in a etc. etc. etc. dot dot dot,’ (and those were my exact words; i was striving for her to think that i was infinitely more charming than her husband) and she said, ‘can i be utterly frank, um . . . what did you say your name was? or did you say your name?’ and i didn’t want to give my real name, but i couldn’t think of another name, i was drawing a complete blank, all possible names escaped me, and i ended up saying, ‘frank. i’m frank.’

  ‘oh really?’ she said, kind of laughing, then she said, ‘well, so, can i be utterly frank, frank?’ and when i said yes, she leaned in and i could smell the antiseptic bite of hard liquor on her breath, and she said, ‘i come here for the girls. i mean, i’m not gay, but i just don’t want to touch any of the men. so when chuck and me first started swinging with this bunch, i’d just end up kind of lurking naked in the shadows, and then i noticed that some of the other women tended to drift away from the action too, and me and a few of these women eventually started sneaking off to an empty room to cuddle in a bed. it’s usually me and betsy and tara and kara and, every now and again, eileen. we just lie there and rest, and it’s comforting. we just pet each other some, run our fingers through each other’s hair, and that’s about it. now i actually look forward to it. to the isolation. to our sweet catnap.’

  a game of strip yahtzee that broke out in a back room got ashley all antsy and she came into the kitchen to drag me off, but chuck’s wife had already given me her e-mail address. she and chuck are the ones hosting the party tomorrow night, and she’s given me the okay to stop by by myself (men by themselves are typically discouraged from attending the swing club parties . . . otherwise there’d be an army of wifeless men converging on a smattering of defenseless females).

  wanna see the invite? (it’s attached). chuck’s wife is partydoll.

  To:

  From: partydoll@swiftnet.com

  Ladies and gents,

  I tried to attach an animation to this e-mail, but my computer kept crashing so I don’t know if it worked (I’m so tech-challenged! Chuck’s the real brains of this operation, sad to say! LOL).

  Anyway, Chuck was going to take me on a fancypants romantic cruise, a vacation full of bubble baths and too much champagne and Egyptian cotton sheets (is that a good kind of sheet? I’m so luxury-challenged!) to celebrate his love for me (big laff), but we’ve decided to throw a party instead! Come to 14812 W. Josephine Lane (in the Pumpkin Willow development, which has neither pumpkins nor willows) on Saturday, cocktails at 7 p.m., swinging from the chandeliers and dancing with lampshades on your head by 8:30 p.m. RSVP so that we know how much schnapps to steal from the liquor store! (big laff)

  Peach unknotted Plum’s scarf from her hair and took off Plum’s sweater. She changed the CD from Vivaldi’s “Spring” to some Jean Stafford lovelorn standards and patted down the static electricity that turned her hair wispy. She hit “reply.”

  To: Troy.Allyson@theomahastreet.com

  Hm. Well, sweetie. Yeah. That mis-sent email is definitely as bad as you think it is (that is, if you think it’s very very bad), and most probably even worse. Here’s what you’re going to do: you’re going to tell Peyton lies, and you and I will just make those lies all true. You call her right now, and tell her the truth: that it was an intimate e-mail meant for your lover. And here’s the lie: you tell her that you were so distraught when you discovered that you’d mistakenly sent the e-mail that you looked deep within, came face to face with your dead, black soul, and you had a powerful epiphany. You were so heartbroken by the thought of bringing heartbreak to your family that you ended it right then with that rotten Peach. Yessiree, you called that trollop up and you gave her the what-for. You told that lunatic slut to foxtrot right on out of your life, that the sordid but sweet nothing you’d let her pull you into was officially kaput.

  But here’s the real truth: Peach is the one doing the breaking up. I can’t do this anymore, Troy. You did right to accidentally send that e-mail to Peyton. I wish I had never seen it. What is it about it that has me so upset? I don’t know. Maybe it’s the strap of your wife’s black dress, and how it fell from her shoulder, and made you feel affection. Or maybe it’s that you wouldn’t know to keep that sort of thing to yourself. Mostly I’m probably just embarrassed now that Peyton knows, even though I don’t know Peyton at all. But I’m now that horrible, hated woman who’s sleeping with Peyton’s father. I liked it better when everything could be denied and avoided and no one knew a thing about me. I thought we could go on forever, etc. etc. etc. dot dot dot. Every story I’ve ever heard about a woman who gets involved with a married man ends the same. And I was just enough of an idiot to think, That won’t be us.

  But who knows, maybe I’ll give you another shot. I am, after all, truly loony-tunes (mostly thanks to you). You might win me back if you start lying through your teeth and promising me impossible things. Then, at least, I could play dumb.

  Plum

  Plum sipped a whiskey alone, slouching in the corner of one of Mr. Toad’s wooden pews, and consi
dered leaving before Tucker arrived. She should be with her sister, she reasoned, go with her to the Sugar Shop party, keep Peach from doing something ridiculous. Peach was the one who was on the edge, not Plum. Not Plum at all.

  But Plum did recognize herself as bitter with stalker envy. Peach always got all the attention, always had, even way back in the womb. Plum had been the first to poke her head out into the light, to wink at the ob-gyn, but it was Peach who’d provoked all the fuss with her prebirth collapse. Peach, the umbilical cord tight at her throat, pulled an Isadora Duncan as her first act of life. Blue, strangled, she practically fainted into the handsome doctor’s strong hands. And hence Plum’s ridiculous name—in the few days after Peach’s nearly stillbirth, her mother could see only a tint of skim-milk blue whenever she looked at her daughter, and she’d compulsively pinched the infant’s cheeks to bring up a peachy blush. But shouldn’t Plum have been Peach, which was clearly the superior name, and shouldn’t Peach have been Plum? Plum was the one born naturally with the pale-pink hue and downy fuzz, and Peach born purple, after all. She realized, however, that she should feel lucky to at least not be named Persimmon or Pomegranate.

  The last time Plum sat alone at Mr. Toad, she was waiting for Mickey to join her after work. He bumped her elbow when he bent to kiss her hello, and she spilled chardonnay in her hair. After Mickey got her all napkined off, the waitress asked him what he’d like to drink, and Mickey looked at Plum and said, “What are you wearing?”

  Plum loved Mickey. She wasn’t contemplating an affair, she didn’t think, but she was definitely contemplating the contemplation of it. Don’t show up, don’t show up, Plum chanted just above her breath, staring at the door, still in her coat.

  Tucker walked in as she took a glove off to pluck from the tip of her tongue a loose hair from her coat’s fake rabbit-fur collar. He smiled, and she nervously moved her fingers to touch at the heartbeat in her throat.