Holy Water by James P. Othmer Page A
Authors: James P. Othmer
Tags: General Fiction, madmaxau
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pucks of chlorine. In addition to the test strips, he has more elaborate testing kits, small chemistry sets with tubes and droppers and their own color charts.
Everything he needs to get it right is here. All he needs is to figure out the prescribed sequence, the proper balance, and they ’ ll be swimming in no time. Because it needs both, he decides to dump in half a gallon of alkalinity increaser and then four or five—how many gallons of water does the pool hold again? Twenty thousand? Thirty? What the hell, make it an even six scoops of soda ash. Standing back up, brushing off his pants, he figures he ’ ll give it a few hours and see how this all takes before reappraising.
~ * ~
Inside, he finds Rachel standing in her office with her back to him, dressed for a casual night out. Fitted jeans and riding boots, a green embroidered silk shirt. She is tall and athletic and in many ways, he thinks, still beautiful. But in other ways she isn ’ t. Her long, dark brown, shampoo-commercial-worthy hair is now dry and frayed (stress? age? meds?), and for the past three months an unnatural Marilyn Monroe blond. Her once perfect Mediterranean skin has deep creases around her eyes and mouth, a condition he attributes to her increased propensity for frowning, twitching, and furrowing her brow. And her eyes, her wide dark gorgeous clean-edged eyes, which had an energy that coursed through him when she was happy or angry or horny, now seem a half-shade lighter, ten watts duller, and, up close, softer, milkier, murkier. Of all the things they have been through in the past year, it ’ s the change in Rachel ’ s eyes that saddens him most.
“ Hey, ” he says, but she turns and gives him a shush wave. She ’ s wearing a wireless Skype headset and is holding some kind of spreadsheet. In a way, he ’ s relieved that she ’ s busy. Soon she ’ ll be leaving for a dinner date with one of her new girlfriends from her most recently organized social group, and he ’ ll be off to the latest iteration of what has become a tedious monthly male ritual: Meat Night, with five neighbors, five other men he barely knows, at a house a few blocks away. Not enough time to sit her down to talk about water for the third world or outsourcing, the chemistry of their pool and their marriage.
Maybe later. Maybe tomorrow.
He leans over her desk to wave good-bye. He mouths the words Meat Night and she looks at him as if he is insane. As he straightens up to leave, he notices a paperback on her desk called The Postmodern Cauldron: Diary of a 21st-century Witch.
Before he can pick it up, Rachel snaps it away and glares at him again, as if he is the crazy one.
~ * ~
Conceive Now!
It ’ s too late for the butcher shop, and that ’ s too bad, because it would have been a nice manly touch, a butcher-shop-procured prime cut of an exotic species wrapped in a sheet of coarse white paper, a hint of blood beginning to soak through. The only thing better, Henry imagines, would be to have killed and butchered the species in question himself. Maybe next time. This time, however, the A&P meat counter will have to suffice.
He takes special care to avoid aisle four, personal hygiene, because the last thing he wants right now is to start thinking about the quantity and quality of deodorant shelf space. Instead he takes the long way along the far edge of the store, where the aisles are lined exclusively with frozen and refrigerated goods. At the butcher ’ s counter in the back of the store there is a small line. An overweight young mother in camouflage stretch pants is yelling at her two-year-old son, telling him he ’ d better start adjusting his attitude right quick. Directly in front of him a middle-aged couple in matching Dale Earnhardt, Jr. number 8 NASCAR shirts and hats are having a heated debate over whether they should go with the sweet or the spicy Italian sausage. When Henry looks
Everything he needs to get it right is here. All he needs is to figure out the prescribed sequence, the proper balance, and they ’ ll be swimming in no time. Because it needs both, he decides to dump in half a gallon of alkalinity increaser and then four or five—how many gallons of water does the pool hold again? Twenty thousand? Thirty? What the hell, make it an even six scoops of soda ash. Standing back up, brushing off his pants, he figures he ’ ll give it a few hours and see how this all takes before reappraising.
~ * ~
Inside, he finds Rachel standing in her office with her back to him, dressed for a casual night out. Fitted jeans and riding boots, a green embroidered silk shirt. She is tall and athletic and in many ways, he thinks, still beautiful. But in other ways she isn ’ t. Her long, dark brown, shampoo-commercial-worthy hair is now dry and frayed (stress? age? meds?), and for the past three months an unnatural Marilyn Monroe blond. Her once perfect Mediterranean skin has deep creases around her eyes and mouth, a condition he attributes to her increased propensity for frowning, twitching, and furrowing her brow. And her eyes, her wide dark gorgeous clean-edged eyes, which had an energy that coursed through him when she was happy or angry or horny, now seem a half-shade lighter, ten watts duller, and, up close, softer, milkier, murkier. Of all the things they have been through in the past year, it ’ s the change in Rachel ’ s eyes that saddens him most.
“ Hey, ” he says, but she turns and gives him a shush wave. She ’ s wearing a wireless Skype headset and is holding some kind of spreadsheet. In a way, he ’ s relieved that she ’ s busy. Soon she ’ ll be leaving for a dinner date with one of her new girlfriends from her most recently organized social group, and he ’ ll be off to the latest iteration of what has become a tedious monthly male ritual: Meat Night, with five neighbors, five other men he barely knows, at a house a few blocks away. Not enough time to sit her down to talk about water for the third world or outsourcing, the chemistry of their pool and their marriage.
Maybe later. Maybe tomorrow.
He leans over her desk to wave good-bye. He mouths the words Meat Night and she looks at him as if he is insane. As he straightens up to leave, he notices a paperback on her desk called The Postmodern Cauldron: Diary of a 21st-century Witch.
Before he can pick it up, Rachel snaps it away and glares at him again, as if he is the crazy one.
~ * ~
Conceive Now!
It ’ s too late for the butcher shop, and that ’ s too bad, because it would have been a nice manly touch, a butcher-shop-procured prime cut of an exotic species wrapped in a sheet of coarse white paper, a hint of blood beginning to soak through. The only thing better, Henry imagines, would be to have killed and butchered the species in question himself. Maybe next time. This time, however, the A&P meat counter will have to suffice.
He takes special care to avoid aisle four, personal hygiene, because the last thing he wants right now is to start thinking about the quantity and quality of deodorant shelf space. Instead he takes the long way along the far edge of the store, where the aisles are lined exclusively with frozen and refrigerated goods. At the butcher ’ s counter in the back of the store there is a small line. An overweight young mother in camouflage stretch pants is yelling at her two-year-old son, telling him he ’ d better start adjusting his attitude right quick. Directly in front of him a middle-aged couple in matching Dale Earnhardt, Jr. number 8 NASCAR shirts and hats are having a heated debate over whether they should go with the sweet or the spicy Italian sausage. When Henry looks
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