RUNNING DRY
by
M. Christian
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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PUBLISHED BY:
Camel Press on Smashwords
Running Dry
Copyright © 2010 by M. Christian
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Camel Press
PO Box 70515
Seattle, WA 98127
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Cover design by Sabrina Sun
Contact: info@camelpress.com
Copyright © 2010 by M. Christian.
ISBN: 978-1-60381-802-5
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For Jill
Preface
“They say the seas are going to dry up. Blow away.”
“I’ve heard that.”
“The moon, too. It’s going to leave, sail off into the sky. Leave us behind,” Sergio said, swinging his feet off the edge. First the left, then the right, dancing with the heights. “Do you think we’ll see that?”
“We could,” Doud said, arm around Sergio’s shoulders. To reassure him, and to remind himself that this was real, firm, and solid, he tugged him closer.
Mahogany eyes directed at him, Sergio said, “Everyone will get old, turn to dust. But we’ll still be here, won’t we? The earth will be like the desert. No oceans, no water, no one will be alive. But we’ll still be here.” His legs stopped swinging.
“Maybe. Other things could happen, too. You never know for sure. Time changes too much.” Sitting on the toes of rearing elephants, they looked down on the gleaming architecture of Babylon, a plaster movie set brilliantly white from a still-neighborly moon.
Despite their height, Doud wasn’t afraid. Not of falling, at least. He knew the elephants Sergio had made for Mr. Griffith, believed in his lover’s craftsmanship, and so implicitly trusted them to carry their weight. He hoped he knew Sergio as well, but he was still quietly grateful for the simple strength of his sculpture. Men were too complex, too unpredictable. Apparent solidity and dependability all too often hid deep flaws. The elephants of Intolerance, though, were wood and plaster.
Dependable wood, trustworthy plaster.
“Ever been to the desert?” Sergio asked unexpectedly. “I went there, with some friends, just after I came here. Hot, like a stove. But I didn’t think of cooking, the kitchen, or food, only that it was like a line across a page, like the start of a drawing. Now, I think of it like the way the world will be. All boiled away—just hot air and that line.” Drawing his hand across the horizon, he underlined distant Hollywood.
“Too hot and dry for me. But we can go sometime. Both of us.” He didn’t need to say we have lots of time.
“They say the war will end soon. The War to End All Wars—but that’s not true, eh? We’ll find out, I guess.”
“It’ll end. They always do.” Doud tried to catch his attention again, but the other man refused to look away from the bright lights of the distant city.
“Even our Babylon will be gone. Mr. Griffith’s film is over. They’ll break up my elephants.”
“There’ll be other pictures. You’ll see.”
After a moment of tense silence Sergio’s eyes swung back to Doud. “You’ll be there, won’t you?”
“I will,” Doud replied, gently stammering, delicately hesitant. I will. Not a promise, just desire. With it, abrupt reality on the toes of great white elephants: please, let this one work out. I don’t want to kill him.
“Kiss me,” Sergio said, closing those dark marble eyes.
And Doud did, a simple kiss on the edge of a Hollywood eternity.
Chapter 1
People will pay a fortune for crap, Shelly thought—certainly not for the first time, absolutely not for the last—but the trick is to be happy selling crap.
Taking another drag, she took a long leisurely moment to relish the smoke. A dozen or so Polaroids were splashes of color on her green glass and black steel desk. One of them was trapped under her Bitch Is Back coffee mug, but she didn’t tug it free. Awful, looking down at the spread, tapping each with a filter tip: ugly, piece of shit, hideous, crap, bullshit. A loser’s hand: talentless high, failures wild.
Deal me out. Tilting back, she blew a long, sinuous stream of steel gray towards the distant ceiling. Should just buy the lot, hang them on the walls and watch the money come rolling in. Pay the rent here, pay off the mortgage at home, kill the credit cards, and eat out—a lot. Looking up from the ugly colors, she focused on the gallery, and then through the front windows. Saturday morning Los Angeles drove by, out and about on Melrose: fit, hip, tanned and successful. Come on assholes, get your trendy Stairmaster asses in here and buy hideous junk.
Another thought, again not for the first or the last time. What the hell am I doing? She wasn’t a kid anymore, and at 40 was still a few years away from rocking on a porch somewhere. Sure, she wasn’t a beauty, but then she never had been: dark brown curls over a pair of amber eyes set a little too deep in her face. Nice nose above an expressive mouth quick to smile—or to sneer. Body of curves, when she was being polite with herself, a little chubby when she wasn’t. She may not have been called beautiful, but she was called fun, mouthy, a wicked broad, and other things that had made her playful lips curl into an even brighter grin.
Back to the spread: the blue and gold one, all streaks, splatters and blurs. The illicit love child of Pollack and DeKooning. It wasn’t hideous, just bad. Winner by default. Flipping the shot over, she scanned the name and phone number scrawled on the back in hurried purple ballpoint. Today’s your lucky day.
Propping the blue and gold shot against an unopened box of business cards she grabbed her sleek, Italian-designed phone. People might pay millions for crap, but she didn’t want to sell crap. What she wanted was to feel good about what she did, like actually selling something worth more than the paint and canvas. That’s what she believed she wanted, at least when she had enough in her bank account for the rent, the mortgage, the bills, and eating out.
Phone in hand, cool hum of a dial tone in her ear, the door opened to the cough of unseasonable Santa Ana air. For a second, the air conditioning fought the invading atmosphere before winning, transforming nose bleeding dryness into temperate store ambiance.
“Good afternoon,” she said long before glancing up from the periwinkle blue enameled ashtray she was grinding her cigarette into. “Give a holler if you need anything.”
When she was riding the buzz of a good day she’d spice it up a bit: “looking for anything in particular?” or “have a blank wall that needs something?” but she wasn’t, so she didn’t. Too many during the last few days had wandered in just to glance around, frown, step out, or simply steal a few quick lungfulls of AC.
Still, Mrs. Mankowitz’s daughter always tried to put on a polite face, even if the woman inside wanted to snap, growl, or yell out coiled-spring frustration. Besides, even with rent and mortgage paid, credit cards down to four digits, and a dinner out in the near future, a sale was still a sale. So what if it was a piece of crap and the buyer an idiot with too much money and no taste?
Objects D was just a twenty foot wide, forty foot long space, door to bathroom and storeroom in back, big windows in front so, she didn’t need to twist or turn to see him. Tall (damned tall), dark (swarthy but not black), and handsome (but not pretty). Good nose, great eyes, muscles but not on muscles. Just enough. Long dark hair simply shampooed, virgin, never fucked with by a stylist, and gripped by a cheap hair band into an unfashionably long ponytail. Simple burgundy, like Bistro vin ordinaire, cotton shirt, modestly buttoned despite the hot day. Black jeans, showing pale scuff zones of everyday wear. Work boots, but not Doc Martens or some style-of-the-moment footwear. Too clean and sharp to be a Working Joe, too rough and casual to be a player. Arty contractor? Successful (hahahaha) artist? Biz grunt. Set designer? Production Supervisor? A director? Maybe, but only of commercials.
Craned forward, he was examining a Lavelle print, one of her favorites. Not perusing, not scanning, not peering. Really, honestly looking at it, which added a tug of sincerity to her professional grin. It’d been too long since anyone had seen what she was offering—most of the AC thieves just cruising for matches to new ten thousand dollar Helten sofas, or Sedia sectionals.
Making sure her smoke was out so the smoldering, embarrassing carcinogens didn’t screw up the deal, she stood, then rounded her slab of thick glass and industrial tubing. Calm down girl. Don’t come on too strong, was her thought, even though she was buoyantly eager. It was something she hadn’t felt in a long time, a novel emotion. She knew, just knew, that he wasn’t going to ask if she had a ‘picture’ with a ‘peachy yellow and a flare or two of gold’ in it.
Still, she couldn’t resist letting a little of her excitement leak through some climbing octaves. “That’s one of my faves. Really. Great use of color, and I just adore the energy. Makes me feel better just looking at it.”
“I like it.” With obvious effort, he turned from the lines and color, large, dark eyes staying with the print until the last possible instant. When they left and floated to Shelly, his smile grew. “But I’m searching for something in particular.”
“Just let me know what you want and I’m sure I can get it for you.” She fought a wince. Christ, how much more desperate can I sound?
“Thank you.” His face was long, classical, his mouth full and expressive. His voice gently musical. The “ou” especially sounded like the closing note to an aria, gently melodious in a city known for crisp, brittle sentences. LA didn’t speak: it had meetings, appointments, interfaces. He didn’t speak, he sang. “I’m trying to track down an artist. I don’t see any of his things here, but I think you had him in here a while ago. He worked in lots of heavy reds. Portraits. Odd texture, too.” The last while rubbing thumb and forefinger together, trying to recall the exact feeling.
Mentally flipping Polaroids, she murmured a thoughtful “Humm ….” Not on the walls was a problem. Occasionally waiters and valets became artists but artists who slipped back into the steady income of waiters and valets rarely came back. Eating regularly killed more young creative types than starvation.
Heavy reds. Portraits … her internal catalog of painters and paintings stopped. Oh, crap. “Doesn’t ring any bells. Sorry,” she lied, walking back to her desk. “But let’s poke around and see what I can turn up.”
“I hope you can find him,” he said as she knelt down in front of her stubby little two-drawer filing cabinet. “Got a production starting, and I think he’d be perfect.”
Yanking open the stubborn top drawer, the precarious stack of exhibition catalogs and calendars on top threatening to topple, she tried to cover her nerves with prattle. “That’s wonderful! Well, if we can’t find who you’re thinking of, I’m sure I can point you to someone just as good.”
“I’m sure you could, but I’m interested in just this one for now.”
Reaching in, she grabbed a thick, blue rubber-banded stack of shots. Snapping the band free, she nervously shuffled them, pretending to glance at the colors as they flashed by. “If he was in here then he’s ... well, in here.” Shuffle, shuffle: sketches, a mosaic, parodies of advertising art, even some classic Vargas-style pinups. “So what kind of production are you working on?” He wasn’t in the pile she was dealing onto the desk, he was in another, in the bottom drawer, but she wasn’t going to tell him that.
Flipping through the images, she felt his eyes sweeping over each one, hunting a certain color, a special media.
“Oh … a horror film. Werewolves, I think.” A gentle chuckle. “I can’t keep them straight anymore. I’m just on set design, advising on title work. If you can find the one I’m thinking of, I think he’d he perfect.” Discomfort dulled his face, and he seemed to lose focus, gazing at her hands pinching and flipping the photos but not at the photos themselves. “I think I remember his name, if that helps.”
Her laugher came out staged. Badly acted. “Absolutely! You name him and I’ve got him.”
“Doud, that was his name. Do you know how to reach him?”
Crap. Better fess up. “Oh, yeah ... that’s right, I remember him now, he had a little show here a year or so ago. Portraits, like you said. Got some good press, too, considering how weird his medium was. Cow blood.” She staged a shudder before standing back up. “Disturbing stuff. Perfect for a horror movie.”
“Yes, that’s him. Do you know how to reach him? It’s really important.” The music in his voice was all of a sudden crammed with violins; sharp, tense notes.
“Hate to say it, but I don’t. He had that small show here, and that was it. Too bad, too—he was something else. Lots of great stuff. But that was it. He was only here for a few weeks, and then he just came in, took it all down, and walked out. Never really said why. Really disappointing. I thought he really could have gone somewhere.”
“Do you have any idea where he is? An old address or phone number? I really need to locate him. We go into production very soon. Could be great exposure. Money, too, of course.” All this with a grin that was a bit too wide, muscles too tight at the corners.
“I’m sorry. He left a number, but the last time I called it was disconnected. Too damned bad, really. Like I said, the guy had promise. Tell you what, why don’t I ask around? A lot of the artists hang out together. You’d be surprised who knows whom around here.”
“Thank you. Like I said, I need to find him.” From a back pocket he pulled out a thick leather wallet and extracted a business card. “If you find out anything, anything at all, give me a call. That’s my cell number.”
She glanced at the name, the title (Production Artist) and knew where the music in his voice came from: Vivaldi, Albinoni, Mascagni, Boccherini. One number, no address. “I will. Sure thing.”
“I hope so. I really need to find him.” Tension in his long body, dark eyes narrowed. “It’s very important.”
“Gotcha. Hey, while you’re here, let me show you some other artists who might work for your project. Take this guy, for instance—” She said, gesturing at a massive acrylic, a great molten wave of brilliant color bursting from a cartoonish crayon factory, bulbous walls split like ruptured organs.
“Not as interesting. But if you find Doud, call me immediately. If you don’t mind, I’ll be back tomorrow to see if you’ve had any luck.”
Then he was gone: door opened, door closed. Burning Santa Ana sweeping in, then gone, Shelly’s goosebumps never leaving her bare forearms.
Chapter 2
Even though he wasn’t hungry, he walked back into the kitchen, to the fridge, and took a brief inventory. A jar of pickles, half-full. The remains of a broiled chicken from the local chain store wrapped in foil. A brown-crusted pot of mustard he should throw away. Same with horseradish. Other things, scanned too fast, just registered as no, no, no. Then: peanut butter.
It was getting toward late afternoon, the time when the lowering sun splashed through the window right over his head, a blinding glare. Closing his eyes, he opened a drawer by feel, reached in among the tarnished silverware and felt around, cautious of the few sharp knives, until his thumb rolled into a spoon. Facing into the warm light, he performed a practiced little domestic ballet: spoon caught between two fingers of the hand wrapped around the cool glass of the peanut butter jar, other hand, a good grip on the lid. Good hard twist. Lid on the counter, by the empty drying rack, next to the sink full of dirty dishes. Spoon in a twisting scoop, and even though he wasn’t that hungry, he sucked on a fat glob of sweet, salty peanut butter.
Jar in hand, spoon a metal pacifier, he padded back through the apartment. The day was hot, and even though he’d suffered through six long years of LA heat waves in the place, a big change from San Francisco, he kept most of the windows closed. It was how he felt: dark, shaded, and silent.
It was also what he’d been called. His eyes were large, but seemed to be always staring past you, out at an unknown horizon, in a hawkish, could-be-called Middle Eastern face, in front of a rather flat head. Black hair, always with a faint sheen of richness, that would twist into Grecian curls—if he ever let it get that long. He looked like he was in his middle to late 40s. He wasn’t.
Past the living room full of heavy dark furniture. Past the bedroom, the massive bed with mahogany posts. The dresser with the straight-razor and pearl-handled hairbrush. Not for the first time, he thought about changing, hiring some red-cheeked kid to come in and change it all, maybe go back to modern and streamlined, or at least update himself to the 50s. It was also about time for a new place, maybe a bungalow or something with, rounded corners and glass brick. Those were good years, after all, at least for him. Even if he was tired of the hefty wood, the dull-colored rugs, the crystal he never used, he knew he wouldn’t change. Later, when he felt a bit better about everything, he might move yet again. A new apartment, maybe even a new city. He had money, careful savings and investments from long years painting signs, working as a draftsman, and even selling some art. Then he’d gotten into buying and selling houses. He’d done a lot of that. It problem wasn’t the expense, it just too much work to think about. But even as he enjoyed his peanut butter, he knew he’d have to start thinking about it, and soon. He’d been in LA for almost six years. Couldn’t stay in one place for too long.
Still sucking his spoon, Doud stood in the doorway to the spare bedroom, his studio. No curtains here, nothing dark or ponderous. No curtains at all, in fact, just clean (more accurately, just dirty) windows with a view of the silver flashes, reflections of the traffic on Sunset Boulevard. Bare hardwood floor. A metal stool. An easel. A plastic cart from an art supply store with stiff, stubborn wheels, the top a deli counter of jars—many still with their olive, pickle, mustard, horseradish, and even peanut butter labels—all full of brushes, knives, and various shades of brown water. Perched precariously on the side, a brand new box of charcoals.
On the good easel, a canvas. On the canvas, a few streaks of gray and black, the first strokes towards a portrait in a new medium.
Loudly sucking his spoon, he stared at it, hoping the painting would get better. But it didn’t. It wasn’t working. It wasn’t the same.
Never looking away from the canvas, he put his jar down on the cart. When his blind hunt for a clean space produced only musical chimes of full, half-full, and empty glasses he balanced the peanut butter jar carefully on the windowsill.
The man’s face was there, hanging clearly in his mind. The man from the night before. The man from that working class bar in Van Nuys. A roofer, he’d said he was. Between jobs. After a few beers they’d stumbled out of that sad little dive in the middle of the night, and for the first time he’d really seen him the under the hard, merciless white of a streetlight. Skin the same brown as his bedposts. Tanned, but glowing, as if lit by harsh fires deep inside. Hard eyes, mean eyes. He knew exactly how he wanted to capture him. The cant of his head; the shape of his skull; his plump, almost fat lips; his darker-than-black, curly hair. The memory of his face hovered, ghostly, at the end of Doud’s outstretched fingers.
He knew that if he didn’t get his portrait just right he’d never be able to get rid of that ghostly image, the incomplete painting hovering somewhere just out of the corner of his sight.
Never get rid of the guilt.
Picking up the charcoal again, he rolled it in his fingers, watching, hypnotized by the ashen dark that spread across the whorls of his fingertips. Some artists, he knew, actually got their fingers into their art, reaching in and spinning their fingers across their medium. He hadn’t tried that yet. Doubted he would. It was just too primitive, too basic, too big a step away from the mind, too small a step from the trees, the African savanna.
Not that the old way, how he used to work, was refined, but at least it was personal. Touching the canvas would be passionate, yes, but it would necessitate his fingers slipping and sliding against the weave of the canvas. That was too much Doud, not enough subject. Not like the way he used to work. Direct, life to canvas, straight route from inspiration to medium. Capturing their lives.
Not any more. Now it was charcoal, at least for today, just as it’d been oils, watercolors, and acrylics before. Tomorrow a collage or even a damned fresco for all he knew. But he couldn’t go back.
Practicing in the air, drawing imaginary charcoal streaks, he tried to visualize the way the dark, crumbly, powdery stuff would behave as he put it against the canvas. Stroke there, his eyes, stroke there, his lips, stroke there, his neck, stroke there, his teeth, filling in the ghostly likeness hanging in front of him. That part was easy.
Getting the new materials to behave and follow what he wanted to create, that was the hard part.
Anger, like the sun peaking suddenly over a building, blinded him. Hot urges: throw the dirty stick at the wall, snap the canvas frame in half, sweep it across all the pickle, horseradish, and peanut butter jars to create a primitive, visceral wave of just plain ugly water.
Deep breath, out in a long sigh. Even if he could capture him, hold his face exactly, precisely down on the tightly woven fabric, it wouldn’t be the same. The image of him would be there, but what had been important about him wouldn’t be. A picture would always be just a picture, but a painting—the way he used to do it, the way that felt right and natural—was an exchange. The man he’d talked to in that little bar, the man he’d walked out with, might be dead but his portrait, and a bit of his life and essence, would always be there.
At least that’s how it should be.
How can you say thank you and even I’m sorry with just charcoal on a stretched sheet of muslin?
Should he go back? That was an option, but the idea scared him. Even if he painted just for himself, as he used to, burning it as soon as he finished, pouring the ashes down the sink or flushing them down the toilet it would still be too easy to make a mistake. A part not burned, a bit not ruined enough by water. Evidence left behind of his crimes.
Give it all up? Admit to the world what he was, step out into the hard, unforgiving sunlight? Not a lot stayed with him as he traveled. Not his apartments, furniture, nothing really that was personal or intimate. But he did have time, years, decades. Momentum. Habits died hard, especially the habit of living.
Picking one of his favorite brushes from a pickle jar, he rubbed his charcoal-smudged fingers along its length, relishing its silky fineness. It felt good to hold it; like walking down a safe street, reading a familiar book. Relaxing. He grinned as he twirled it, appreciating its balance.
Memory, then: the coarse, rough man punching him in the neck. Doud falling, clammy pavement suddenly grinding across his artists’ fingertips. The man kicking, steel-toed boots breaking Doud’s ribs.
All because Doud had asked the roofer for “A kiss. Just a kiss.”
It was a game he’d played before, of course. Ask for something nice and sweet, and innocent and when they punched or kicked in response it would be permission for Doud to take what he needed. Later, he would think of it as self-defense, as protecting himself. Though that was a lie. It was nothing but an excuse. The roofer was never a threat.
After punches to his face and, after he fell to the ground, boots to his ribs, Doud had gotten up, and moved. Moved as only he could. Then he’d taken his kiss.
A kiss goodbye.
Anger didn’t matter, justification didn’t matter. Doud owed him, but had no way of repaying the debt.
So familiar, so practiced, even though it’d been many months since he’d last painted an honest and forgiving, portrait, Doud worked the brush some more until it had a neat, perfect tip. Sitting on his stool, he tilted his head back and opened his mouth. He then pushed what remained of that roofer up the shaft of his throat. Warm, wet, full, the sensation made him smile despite the solemnity of the occasion. When he felt it rise to the back of his throat he took the brush and dipped it into the reservoir. A pause, as the fluid soaked into the hairs, then out, past his teeth, past his face and back down to the easel, the canvas. Wet and red, he held the brush above the surface.
It would feel so good. It would feel wonderful. It would feel right: a way of giving back what he’d taken with a single, hard kiss. One stroke, then another. A painting done. Just a little blood. A pint, maybe more. Doud would barely miss it, especially since he’d taken so much from the roofer.
But that part of his life was over. It wasn’t safe anymore. It was that simple. He’d just have to find another way.
Plunging the dull red brush in the paint-brown water, he swirled it around angrily, washing it all away. Withdrawing it once, twice, three times, examining the head each time, even squeezing it between his fingers, he made sure only water and old paint oozed out. When it was clean, he wiped it on a rag and replaced the brush, with some solemnity, back among the others.
Then, a sound trickled into his consciousness, irritating and persistent. Harsh and mechanical. The phone. The damned phone.
Shouldn’t answer it. He rarely gave out his number, often thinking he should just have the phone disconnected. Still, it was a break, something to get him away from his studio, even just to hang up on a telemarketer.
Frowning, he walked down the hall, wiping his hands reflexively on his stiff studio towel, past the even darker bedroom, towards the setting sun brilliant in the kitchen, taking a hard right into the cool darkness of his living room. Modern, his phone was an infernal device full of functions and features that still confused him despite his having owned it for more than a year. “Hello?” he snapped into the receiver.
“Doud? It’s Shelly.” Static and cars roaring by told him she was using the building intercom, wired to his phone. “God I hate these things. Can you hear me? Listen, I had this guy come into the shop today asking about you. I thought you might want to know. He said he had work for you, but he was kind of weird. Buzz me in. I feel like a moron yelling into this thing.”
Even though she was a friend, he didn’t move to buzz. People would sometimes ask questions, friends always did, which was why he avoided contact with the first and rarely had the second. Shelly, though, was an exception. Although confused and even angered by his request to pull his paintings down from her gallery, she’d never questioned his decision. It was pleasant to know someone who didn’t want to dig up what he wanted to keep buried.
There was more than that, but what he couldn’t exactly say, making him hesitate even longer. When he had friends he usually ended it, or simply vanished, after ten years or so. Longer than that and questions became suspicions, like why Doud didn’t age. But Shelly was brusque, chain-smoking, sometimes demanding, and always wonderfully alive. For Doud, with blood seeping into every day of his very long life, being around someone who existed in a perpetual present, who accepted him as just a gay man with a few quirks was freeing. And nothing else. With her he didn’t have to be alone in his painful and lonely life, when he was with her he could almost forget it all, become a simple companion in her loud and raucous life.
And she was waiting downstairs.
Cursing inaudibly, he glanced down at his fingers, relieved that they were clean, the towel free of incriminating red. “Okay!” he yelled into the phone, jamming a finger down on the 9 button to release the door. The rag was tossed back towards the studio, landing on the floor.
A knock at the door, loud and strong. There in a few steps, he undid the chain, pulled back the bolt and jerked it open. Red cheeks even redder than usual, brown curls slightly limp. “Hi, hon,” she said bending in to peck him on the cheek before he could say anything. “So glad you’re around. God, what a nightmare getting over here. Traffic’s a mess.”
“That’s awful,” was all Doud could think of saying, getting out of her way as she rushed in. He closed and locked the door behind her. Even though he resented the intrusion, especially as she’d almost caught him with blood on his brush, it was good to see her.
“Anyway, what I came over for. This guy comes into the shop asking about your stuff. Now I know what you said before, about not painting again and not to even ask you about it but this guy really seemed interested. Really interested. Could mean money, I guess, but there was something else about him. Kind of intense. Knew your name, which is weird if you ask me, considering that scrawl you used to put on your work.”
Her bringing up his paintings wasn’t a good thing. “Thank you very much, Shelly, but I’m not working anymore. Like I told you.”
“I remember, but I wanted to come by anyway just to give you his card. He’s in ‘the biz’ so who knows where this could lead? Bucks, but maybe an in-road, too. Wouldn’t it be great to see your stuff up there on the screen?”
The idea filled Doud with dread. “Yes ... I guess it would, but I really have given up.”
Standing in the shadowy, narrow hall, she leaned towards the living room, too polite to just go in and sit down but obviously wanting to. It was one of the things he liked about her, that her broad and laughing self was always being restrained by an almost prim sense of social niceties. It made him relax around her, knowing that this leash would always keep her from acting out. “I’m sorry to hear that. Like I’ve told you, I think you’ve got something really special. I’m not bullshitting you. I wouldn’t do that. Not to you, anyway.”
Even though having his friend there was a relief, he had things to deal with. Like thanking a roofer for his liquid life. He might not like the medium, but it was something he had to learn to do. “I appreciate that,” he said, damning himself for automatically relocking the door. Reaching up for the bolt, he dug out a spontaneous excuse: “I’m sorry to be rude but I’m not feeling that well. I should get to bed. I hope you’ll understand.”
“Oh, gee, I’m so sorry, honey! I’ll head off then, no problem. Like I said, just wanted to let you know about this guy. He said he was going to come by tomorrow and see if I could get a hold of you. I’ll just let him know that you’re not interested. Or if you’d rather you could just give him a call, let him know yourself. He was kinda weird but, you know, who in this town isn’t? Anyway, I’d better get out of here then and leave you to your chicken soup.”
“I’ll be fine. Just need some sleep,” he said, only partially feigning weariness. “Dinner sometime?” he added, feeling guilty for shoving her out the door.