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2003-02-24

A Night at DeMarco's

(From November 3rd, 2002)

"Dooley," she'd said earlier, while at the bar, "what do you see in me?"

"What do I see in you?" He echoed, neverously. He shook his glass of scotch and Coke for comfort.

"Oh, you know what I mean," she swallowed what lay in her shotglass and grimaced. "Or maybe you don't. I don't know." She took a moment to straighten the cuffs of her blouse, smoothing out the non-existent wrinkles. The top two buttons were left undone.

"Are you feeling alright?"

"Why? Don't you?"

"It's just a bit warm in here," he suggested. "That's all."

"I didn't notice," she shrugged, not bother to find the thermostat. Instead she reached for a lemon that sat along the bar counter and began to cut it into fat wedges. A transparent juice began to bleed across her fingers and onto the countertop. "We should go away somewhere."

It seemed as if the scotch and Coke had almost evaporated into nothing. He shook it anyway, out of habit. "Like where?"

"Oh, I don't know... Upstate maybe... Or New Hampshire."

"What's up in New Hampshire?"

She turned and faced him, sucking hard on one of her lemon slices. "Don't you want to go to New Hampshire, Dooley?"

"Not if I don't know what the hell is up there in the first place." His drink was gone, and he was getting annoyed with her questions.

"Well, if you don't want to go, you don't have to."

"I didn't say that."

"It doesn't matter," she dismissed the problem as though he were an insolent child. "New Hampshire isn't that great this time of year, anyway. I know how much you hate the snow."

"Well, at least I'm not missing anything," he smiled caustically. He waited until she mixed him another drink--a bloody Mary this time--before saying anything else. "Want to order out Italian? We can call DeMarco's hand have 'em come over, you know? Maybe even get that chicken piccata you like so much."

"Fabulous," she cooed, moving over so that she could sit in his lap and rub his temples. "You always seem to know what I want, even if I don't." The nubs of her manicured nails were now going in slow, calculated circles along the side of his head. One... Two... Three... It was always the same rhythm every night.

"And you can order a white wine..." He suggested quietly, his mind wandering beyond the living room.

"Mmm-hmmm," she agreed, still rubbing his temples with fierce concentration. "That sounds great."

"Yeah, it does," he mused, not bothering to move from the couch. When she was this close, he could see all the individual moles on her left cheek, right behind the ear. She'd tried to cover them up with some kind of powder, but they still poked through all the same. A couple of them were fat and bugly, like little hills that had been dusted over in some kind of cream colored snow. It was ugly, and he wondered silently why he'd never noticed that before. He'd never really paid much attention.

"Mark," her voice had become fairy-like all of a sudden, like she was living in some kind of sugary dream, "Maybe we could spend the weekend up at the lodge... Charlie and I own a timeshare in the mountains, you know. Of course, it's been ages since we've driven up there..." She sat there, rubbing his temples and looking up at him like some kind of puppy, eager to please. He hated to see her that way--so submissive and accomadating. It was a sad waste of time.

posted at 11:25 p.m.

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