Eventually
| I once knew a man with an oven for a mouth. Hot and dry. Perfect for cooking a deadly disease. For a year, we took our coffee and walked the car lot together, a rippling ocean of hoods, some closed and glistening, others stretching open, wide metal mouths. We’d move slowly, as though time wasn’t money, edging our way between the rows of slick, oil- black wheels, until finally, with acres crossed, we’d pick a random, polished-to-perfection beauty. With the car between us, we’d circle it bumper to bumper, acquainting ourselves, prepping words to speak to payments, performance, gas mileage. We pretended those details mattered, a necessary part of the sale, more than our trustworthy smiles, hooded eyes, and imaginations. When we’d done enough to convince our boss, a leering fixture in the showroom window, that our efforts were legit—a walk- around to learn, not chat—we’d stop the dance and stand. With him on the driver’s side and me on the other, we’d watch cars speed down Fauntleroy, imagining our lives unfolding into more than a car lot and a commission. Until he spoke. Let’s run away, he would say, leaning against the door like an owner, demonstrating his desire, hanging an arm over the roof, casually pointing the edge of his coffee cup at me. Together, is what he meant. Us. Alone. You ought to be careful. One of these days, I might say yes, I would say, ignoring the short ties and tight suits grazing around us like pasture-fed cows. And? he would reply. Your girlfriend, the one you live with—she might mind, no? He would shrug as if to say his girlfriend wasn’t an issue. Like she at her job, patiently paying the bills while we scrambled to make quota, our commissions unreliable, the numbers they birthed unremarkable one month to the next, didn’t matter. It was foolish: a make-believe game played by children. Still... I watched the cigarette smoke spray from his nose and waited for him to say something more, a tangible offer that would warrant a packed bag or possibly a suitcase. All that ever followed was silence. In those days, blinded by arrogance and its cousin, youth, I wasn’t impatient. Eventually was an entity. Everything possessed the potential to happen later. The future was a hotel where I could stay, order room service, and sip tropical drinks by a cerulean pool, happy and oblivious, for as long as I liked. I didn’t see the milky bubble above his head: the clock. The universe. The god mercilessly autocorrecting, Let’s run away together into Soon, I’ll be gone. Out of things to say and without customers to entertain, we’d wander back inside, meander to our respective desks, and wait, fingers crossed, for the next chance to make our month, keep our jobs, and pay our rent. Days passed like years. A groundhog repeat, an endless loop. That is, until the crew came with a crane to take down the sign, revealing the truth: the lot, once a garden of metallic flowers, was a desiccated desert. Money wasted on all the usual vices. Unceremoniously, like our jobs never mattered, we were told to go. I didn’t linger. I left with empty hands. I never expected the job or me to last; I saw no point in placing pictures or mementos on a desk I was only renting. We passed in the hall on my way out, him holding a box. It wasn’t what I expected, him as the sentimental type. I nodded and said something empty and weightless: Guess we should have seen this coming. Maybe he said something weightless and empty back: Yeah. Guess so. It was the business, to come and go. Car people are like pennies, eventually turning up, sometimes worse for the wear, sometimes when you least expected it, but eventually—regardless. I was sure we would meet at another rodeo car show, another paved planet of the Ups. This wasn’t goodbye. It was only, So long. For now. A new lot, another year, pushing four-wheel dreams to fresh faces, having not seen him or, truthfully, embarrassingly, not thought of him much since the day the sign came down. A tight suit, bruised badly from years of bouncing about, sidled beside me and told me the news. He’s sick. Got cancer in the throat, the suit said with no emotion attached. Oh, I said. Alone, curled in the passenger’s seat, new car chemicals burning my nose. I wondered, How? He was fine. Healthy. But I’d been distracted. Daydreaming. Drinking coffee and watching the endless stream of Fauntleroy traffic. Worried more about my next stop, my next chance to make it out, than anything that might have been happening with him. A month or so later, the same tight suit, barely hanging on, ready to bounce off again to somewhere used but new, said, He’s not sick anymore. Oh, I said, feeling hopeful. He died—last week. I was numb. Nothing more. Years later, caught on occasion thinking of those days, I imagine a different story, one where the sign doesn’t come down— or it does, but it doesn’t matter because this time, we are off and running away together, driving fast, not caring about the four or five boxes, the one-bedroom apartment, the on-again, off-again man, that was then my life. We’re driving too fast, not considering the girlfriend patiently paying the bills, waiting for him at home. We race against time until we reach the sea, the sand beneath our bare feet still warm from the day’s sun. Having waited until dark to throw down a blanket, we press together, sit still as the silence, me with my wine, watching the waves, him with his whiskey and cigarettes, living well. His head nestled in my lap, we count stars. The moon vanishes suddenly, shifting night into dawn. Then, with the sun burning the truth across the sky, we wade into the foamy Pacific, icy crystals of sorrow shattering against our calves—foolish and cold, wet and joyful— laughably believing that time is negotiable. |
| VA WISWELL lives outside Seattle, Washington, with her human and animal family. Her work has appeared in The Lake, Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine, 34th Parallel Magazine, Sad Girls Literary Magazine, Ignatian Literary Magazine, and OJA & L Magazine, Front Porch Review, Five on the Fifth and Panoplyzine Magazine. Find her on Instagram at @vawiswell and www.vawiswell.com. |