Goddamn!” she screamed, but what came out was only a whisper.
4
D OLORES WAS DOWN ON her knees wiping up tiny shards of glass the broom wouldn’t catch, bits of egg, cold coffee, and cursing with every breath: Damn him, the fucker!
Can’t even get angry if you’re a woman because you always have to clean up your own mess. Damned fucker! She’d have to buy some new dishes tomorrow, an expense she hadn’t budgeted. The flat had been only sparsely provided, and Mary Jenkins would miss what was broken. Women always end up paying.
She threw—not hard enough to break them—the dishes that had remained whole into the hot soapy water in the sink, along with the skillet. She scrubbed until her hands were red and swollen and rinsed with boiling water. She heated the fat in the bacon pan and poured it off carefully, this being one thing she didn’t want to happen, a fat burn, yes….Then she scrubbed the skillet, which was still hot and burned her middle finger slightly. But she paid no attention to that.
She stormed into the bedroom ripped the sheets off the bed, and remade it with clean sheets. She stuffed the used linen into the hamper, pounding it down as if she would crush it to ashes. Finally, she ran a bath and got in it and sat there and it was then she let tears come into her eyes, but as always, they came and stood for a moment, and then went back where they came from.
When will you learn? Will you ever learn? You were fine as you were, you were perfectly happy. Happy ever after. You let him in, you opened the door, you stupid! How could you let yourself forget that they never fail to hurt you? All women, they do it to all women. How could you let yourself fall again into the delusion that you can live in any kind of peace with a man? How could you forget that men are fuckers in all senses of the word?
Life was peaceful, no tumult. I didn’t have a bleeding heart. “Dolores, honey, don’t be a damned bleeding heart! Can’t you see that Stevenson is a weak-kneed shillyshallyer? We need someone tough, someone who knows how to win.” “Win what, Anthony?” “Stevenson’s an ass, Dolores.” “And you’re full of shit, Anthony.”
But he wasn’t, about her, anyway. A bleeding heart, that’s what she was, although not the way he meant it. Maybe the way he meant it too. But, God, what could you do? If you were one, you were one. Your only alternative was to avoid situations that would draw the blood.
“You can reach me there if you need me.” Indeed! The way men assuage their guilt. They abandon you, but leave a phone number. What on earth could she need him for? To wash the dishes? To make the bed? No, it was in case you find yourself pregnant. Better find it out hurryupquick, baby, he may leave town tomorrow.
Was there a London phone number on that card?
Probably. She hadn’t even glanced at it when she ripped it up and threw it out. Well, anyway. He hadn’t even told her how long he was staying, hadn’t asked how long she was. Just: I’ll call you. Oh, he probably will call if he’s here for a few days. He’ll call late at night, a little high after a rousing time with the boys at dinner, finding himself suddenly alone and not sleepy in his dull hotel room. Men can’t stand to be alone. He’ll want to come over for a quickie. Not because he’s so horny: at his age he isn’t. No, just because he gets the heebie-jeebies being alone in bed, alone in the dark. He’ll come over and talk for a little while over a drink, rush us into bed, and leap up and pull his pants back on and rush back to the hotel to fall asleep quickly, before the relaxation wears off.
Damn.
Acting so emotional. Acting, talking even, as if it mattered! As if I mattered, we mattered. Why did he have to do that? I would have accepted it the other way, but no, he had to say things, act ways to make me think to make me feel to seduce not just my body but my feelings and why? Just so he could make me feel rotten
4
D OLORES WAS DOWN ON her knees wiping up tiny shards of glass the broom wouldn’t catch, bits of egg, cold coffee, and cursing with every breath: Damn him, the fucker!
Can’t even get angry if you’re a woman because you always have to clean up your own mess. Damned fucker! She’d have to buy some new dishes tomorrow, an expense she hadn’t budgeted. The flat had been only sparsely provided, and Mary Jenkins would miss what was broken. Women always end up paying.
She threw—not hard enough to break them—the dishes that had remained whole into the hot soapy water in the sink, along with the skillet. She scrubbed until her hands were red and swollen and rinsed with boiling water. She heated the fat in the bacon pan and poured it off carefully, this being one thing she didn’t want to happen, a fat burn, yes….Then she scrubbed the skillet, which was still hot and burned her middle finger slightly. But she paid no attention to that.
She stormed into the bedroom ripped the sheets off the bed, and remade it with clean sheets. She stuffed the used linen into the hamper, pounding it down as if she would crush it to ashes. Finally, she ran a bath and got in it and sat there and it was then she let tears come into her eyes, but as always, they came and stood for a moment, and then went back where they came from.
When will you learn? Will you ever learn? You were fine as you were, you were perfectly happy. Happy ever after. You let him in, you opened the door, you stupid! How could you let yourself forget that they never fail to hurt you? All women, they do it to all women. How could you let yourself fall again into the delusion that you can live in any kind of peace with a man? How could you forget that men are fuckers in all senses of the word?
Life was peaceful, no tumult. I didn’t have a bleeding heart. “Dolores, honey, don’t be a damned bleeding heart! Can’t you see that Stevenson is a weak-kneed shillyshallyer? We need someone tough, someone who knows how to win.” “Win what, Anthony?” “Stevenson’s an ass, Dolores.” “And you’re full of shit, Anthony.”
But he wasn’t, about her, anyway. A bleeding heart, that’s what she was, although not the way he meant it. Maybe the way he meant it too. But, God, what could you do? If you were one, you were one. Your only alternative was to avoid situations that would draw the blood.
“You can reach me there if you need me.” Indeed! The way men assuage their guilt. They abandon you, but leave a phone number. What on earth could she need him for? To wash the dishes? To make the bed? No, it was in case you find yourself pregnant. Better find it out hurryupquick, baby, he may leave town tomorrow.
Was there a London phone number on that card?
Probably. She hadn’t even glanced at it when she ripped it up and threw it out. Well, anyway. He hadn’t even told her how long he was staying, hadn’t asked how long she was. Just: I’ll call you. Oh, he probably will call if he’s here for a few days. He’ll call late at night, a little high after a rousing time with the boys at dinner, finding himself suddenly alone and not sleepy in his dull hotel room. Men can’t stand to be alone. He’ll want to come over for a quickie. Not because he’s so horny: at his age he isn’t. No, just because he gets the heebie-jeebies being alone in bed, alone in the dark. He’ll come over and talk for a little while over a drink, rush us into bed, and leap up and pull his pants back on and rush back to the hotel to fall asleep quickly, before the relaxation wears off.
Damn.
Acting so emotional. Acting, talking even, as if it mattered! As if I mattered, we mattered. Why did he have to do that? I would have accepted it the other way, but no, he had to say things, act ways to make me think to make me feel to seduce not just my body but my feelings and why? Just so he could make me feel rotten
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