Minor Differences: A Love Story

ProetryPlace Blog 42

Minor Differences, A Love Story

Part One of Two

    “Ohhh. Are you leaving me now?” Her husky whisper was still heavy with sleep. His hands felt cold on her warm bare shoulders. They carried the subtle scent of musk, earthy and animal.

    “It’s almost eight. I don’t want to be late.” He had already showered, shaved and dressed for work and caught five minutes of the Weather Channel and a glimpse of Matt Lauer in some secret spot on the globe before returning to the bedroom to waken her.

    Her hand caught his, pulling him to her. “I’m all dressed and ready to go,” he said, and bent to plant a platonic peck on her cheek. He felt her indolent warmth rise to meet him. She turned toward him to receive his lips on hers and reached up to pull his shampooed head down to her searching mouth.

    “Baby, I’ve got to go . . . !”

    Later, he had considered calling in sick and spending the entire morning in bed. But, he was not practiced at deceit, and he deferred to duties beyond his connubial obligations. Quickly redressing in the semi-darkness of the shaded room, he prepared to leave without further contact or goodbyes. She did not lift her face from the pillowed comfort of puffy down to acknowledge or resist his departure except to utter a satisfied, throaty, “Bye now, Mik.”

    “Bye Nettie.” He grabbed the car keys from the dresser and willed himself to leave the room.

    He had missed the heaviest of the morning traffic. He parked in a far corner of the office lot, glanced at his watch and quickly walked toward the double glass entry doors of Universal Engineering, reluctantly shifting his thoughts from his wife to the tasks and problems that would confront him during the next eight to ten hours.

    Inside, the receptionist absently handed him two pink message slips. Her bottle-black hair hung loosely, covering half of her face as she spoke quietly and confidentially into the telephone. She did not look up or bother to address him by name. He hadn’t learned her name either. He called her Gina—of the species Lollobrigida. She welcomed visiting strangers warmly but except for the top brass and a few young studs like Brad, she could not waste any of her limited attention span on most of the common staff. Mik’s own preference was for brains over boobs, but he doubted that any man could help but appreciate her up-front assets.

    He glanced at the pink sheets. Good, the one o’clock meeting is cancelled. No reason given. And Brad is back and wants to talk. He will be waiting in my office.

    He’d hired Brad Stoner three years ago to help catch up with some of the minor engineering drawings that kept piling up. Stoner lacked full academic credentials, but he was a quick study. Where he lacked pure intellect, his determination, study and hard work more than compensated. Mik had given Brad personal attention and mentoring to develop his raw potential and had alerted top management to Brad’s achievements. And he had come to rely on Brad, gradually delegating more complex and difficult problems to him.

    “Hey old man,” Brad greeted him, “you’re smiling, and you’re late. Catch an early nooner?”

    Sometimes Brad is a little too perceptive, he thought. He dropped his attaché case on his desk and reached out to shake Brad’s hand and throw an arm around his shoulders. “Let’s get some coffee, my friend.”

    Mik had eventually come to regard Brad like the younger brother he never had, and Brad reciprocated with warm respect. Yet something remote and undefined limited their friendly intimacy. Maybe it was the working relationship. Maybe it was the age difference or generation gap. Whatever, it was always there, like a haunting fragrance, perceptible but unidentified.

    The office crew had finished with coffee and break-room gossip an hour ago. The dark dregs from the Pyrex pot were strong and bitter. “No time to make fresh, this will have to do,” Mik said. “Do you want some of the swill? You seem busting with news. How was your trip?”

    “It’ll wait till we get back to your office,” Brad said. Then, unable to resist his constant exuberance, he whispered, “I’m getting married again, Mik.”

    Stoner had been married two years ago for exactly eight months. Julie, his bride, a beautiful, slim blond, was a perfect complement to her tall, broad-shouldered, raven-haired husband. They cohabited for a year, but Brad had been reluctant to set the wedding date. Finally they eloped for a solitary but elaborately staged wedding and honeymoon in Hawaii.

    Mik and Nettie were invited to the newlyweds’ apartment only once, a few months after the wedding. They sat together on a stiffly upholstered settee to view photos of the happy couple in tux and short white wedding dress holding hands and embracing under a canopy of orchids, or tanned and athletic in shorts and tees with a grotto waterfall splashing behind them, or in a mock pose with Brad rescuing Julie from the rim of a steaming volcano.

    They had leafed through the expensive, professional album and given up the appropriate responses, a duet of “ohs” and “ahs” and “beautifuls,” but each had felt ill-at-ease with the newly-weds, sensing something oddly amiss in the elaborate picture show and something lacking or fictitious in their current behavior.

    On their drive home, Nettie was the first to remark, “God, I felt like I was at a bad Neil Simon play. Like they were pretending . . . posing all the time. They acted so un-newly-married, didn’t you think? Maybe it was just the feeling I got from those cold furnishings—they looked like samples from that ultra-modern furniture showroom at the mall.”

    “That furniture expresses them perfectly. Smart, stylish and expensive. But yeah, they were so, uh, so perfunctory . . . not at all intimate.” Mik dropped his hand on Nettie’s thigh. “Not even a pat on the ass. If you treated me like that, I’d think you were hinting at divorce.”

    Mik and Nettie’s furnishings comprised an informal and varied collection of mostly early-American pieces, overstuffed contemporary and inherited or purchased antiques of any era or origination. The eclectic collection had grown sporadically over the years, and somehow, it all fit together, a comfortable mélange they both approved.

    When Mik proposed marriage, Nettie had said, “We’re just too different.”

    Mik replied, “It’ll keep life interesting, you’ll see.”

    Over the years, he had repeated this assertion, always in response to her “We are so different,” or “We don’t agree on anything.” There was some truth in both of their statements. Differences abounded in their tastes in food, music and literature that years of marriage did not alter. Nettie was strictly meat and potatoes. Mik went for extensive smorgasbords or exotic international cuisine. He detested the hip-hop and rap that turned her on, as much as she disliked the classics or the Coltrane that he loved. They disagreed on points of religion, although neither of them practiced one formally or attended any church. They rarely disagreed on politics, but neither was a strong member of any party. Minor differences.

    Once, in their fifth year of marriage, while their furnishings were more meager but less worn than now, she had said to him one evening, out of the blue, “Maybe we should get a separation.”

    The notion was so remote to Mik, it was as if she had spoken a foreign language. The words just did not register. “What?” was all he could manage to respond.

    “Nothing. Go back to your reading.” And she let the statement recede from their consciousness, like a stone skipping away over quiet water.

    In fact, their bond was strong and genuine. Their basic perceptions and values were rarely dissimilar. Motherhood and Apple Pie. Honesty and Integrity, Home and Family and God bless the USA. Both were predisposed to kindness and consideration, not only for each other but for those less fortunate. Both were imbued with a need to care and to share, yet either could tear out your throat or your heart with spiteful slams if aroused in the heat of argument.

    Nettie’s killer instinct was more highly developed—she had majored in psychology with a minor in American Lit. She was more likely to hurl the hurtful phrase, then rush back like Florence Nightingale to repair the wounds with skilled understanding and gentle compassion. Careful and deliberate, Mik eschewed pernicious utterances until he flew over the edge, out of control. Only then did he select the most viscous and cutting articulations of attack. With that release, he withdrew for hours or days of brooding, resentment, and remorse.

    Each knew the others soft spots well. They both had learned to avoid them unless willing to suffer the anguish of the retribution that was almost sure to follow. Each anticipated the other’s thoughts or reactions, whether agreeable or not. Though as comfortable together now as their dissimilar and well-used furniture, each still thought the other to be the most interesting person on the planet. And they were good in bed together.

    Neither of them had been surprised when Brad announced that Julie had moved in with another man and was suing for divorce based on irreconcilable differences. Nor did it seem odd that Brad seemed hardly perplexed. He continued his private life as he had before and during the marriage—heavily involved in spectator and participation sports, body training four times a week at Singleton’s Spa and pick-up basketball games at the Y. It seemed quite in character—as if Brad had selected a mate much as he might have impulsively purchased a stylish new suit or a sporty new car, then quickly tired of it to the point of neglect and eventual abandonment. But they continued to wonder about the true nature of those irreconcilable differences.

    Walking back to Mik’s office, Brad attracted the usual flirtations from the female staff, single and married, young and old. They appreciated his considerate and deferential good manners but especially his smashing good looks. Need a favor from one of them? Have Brad Stoner ask her for it. He plied them with a wink and a smile, a quick personal inquiry or a bad, bad joke. Stoner was not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but he did have a unique shine

    Mik shut the office door. His surprise at Brad’s whispered announcement in the break room had abated somewhat, like the cooling of the hot, bitter coffee. Still, he was eager to know more. “Okay, let’s hear about it,” he said.

    “Well, the wedding date is two weeks from today—a civil ceremony. We want you and Nettie to be our witnesses. No one else is coming.”

    “Wow, that was fast!” He refrained from asking, “Is she pregnant?” or “Are you sure this time?” He said, “I’m not sure what’s on our calendar two weeks from now, but it’s probably not anything we can’t change. Nettie will be very happy for you. So am I.”

    Mik sat on the edge of his desk, eying the telephone. He itched to call home, to tell Nettie. He thought how he might phrase the surprise announcement and hoped she would not still be in the shower. He realized he still lacked some essential information to pass on.

    “So, Brad, who is this lucky girl that will claim you as her prize? You haven’t mentioned seeing anyone regularly . . . much less a new love life . . . or that you’ve been thinking of a new wife.”

    Brad blinked studiously and cleared his throat. Mik had never known his friend to lack confidence in any situation. Now he watched Brad Stoner shift his gaze nervously from the office window to meet his own eyes and back again.

    “We’ve kept it very quiet,” Brad said, “and it won’t be a new wife for me, it will be a new husband.”

    Mik’s mouth twisted as if he’d just ingested something of doubtful origin. He thought, what the hell are you talking about, man?

    He said, “A new husband? I don’t get it, Brad.”

    Brad smiled but offered little in the way of explanation. “You may have seen him sometime. He’s the wrestler—The Unholy Terror. Also known as Norman Kramer.”

    “But, he’s a man!” Mik blinked stupidly.

    “You got it, my friend.”

Richard Allen Anderson     http://richardandersonblogs.blogspot.com     February, 2014