Storm (unfinished)

Day 1

Driving home from work one Thursday evening in an unexpected January rain, Larry practiced his speech. “Amy, this just isn’t working out,” he’d begin. She would be confused and distressed at first. There might be tears, but he would be firm. He would be comforting but distant. Things would be ok for her, he’d promise. He’d priced out a couple of apartments in town; he’d even offer to pay for a couple of months of rent until she’d gotten herself established, until she’d found a new job.

After they broke up, she obviously couldn’t stay at the firm; she would understand that, of course. Or at least he hoped he wouldn’t have to spell that out. Maybe he should tell her he’d be happy to place her somewhere else. She was a good architect, had won all those awards. It shouldn’t be hard for her to find something new.

It wasn’t like this should be any big surprise to her, he reassured himself. She was always in her studio or at the gym; she hated meeting clients for dinner, the structured rituals of playing tennis, drinks at the club. She hated golf. They hadn’t spent a lot of time together, not in months. She would get it: they had had just drifted apart. He hoped she wouldn’t probe too hard. He hoped she wouldn’t ask about Katherine.

But then when he arrived home, Amy wasn’t there yet, and when she finally returned – with kung pao chicken, eggrolls, and fried rice – he realized he didn’t feel like making his speech on an empty stomach. Not yet.

By the time he was ready – the ravaged cartons and empty packets of soy sauce and hot mustard still littering the table – a cold front had moved in from the northwest. The rain turned to ice. Somewhere nearby, a wire snapped loose, weighed down by the accumulating ice. The lights went out, and he knew: his speech would have to wait.

They stoked the wood-burning stove with logs of oak and cherry. Lit candles and oil lamps. Made awful espresso using Amy’s favored Moka pot, a relic she preferred over his sleek and fabulous Rancilio Silvia. Poured glasses of wine. Played dirty scrabble and endless rounds of euchre. It would have been a perfect evening. If only he hadn’t been wondering what Katherine was doing that night.


Day 2:

They had slept in down sleeping bags, nestled near the woodstove. He was plenty warm, but when he awoke, the air he sniffed was cold. Amy was gone. And then he heard the sounds of the snow blower. Snow? He looked outside. The world was white – there was nearly 18” of the stuff, blown up into curling drifts along the driveway, the road undecipherable at the horizon.. Nobody would be coming by today. Not out here. He doubted they’d get power back either. For today, they were stuck.

Amy came in, red-cheeked and happy. The snow was fairly wet and would settle soon. She was thinking of skiing over to Ben’s place a couple of miles away – did he want to come along? The thought of Ben cheered him. Ben was his partner, his best friend since high school; the one with the real sense of design. Seeing Ben always made him feel better. But the thought of having a chance to make a private call to Katherine cheered him more. So he told Amy he’d stay.

She left and he hauled out the old rotary dial phone, the one that didn’t need any power to operate and plugged it into the phone jack. A dial tone. Connectivity. Bliss. He dialed Katherine’s number.

Katherine was fine. Her power had returned early this moring. Not for the first time he wished for a home in town instead of his genteel rural isolation, where nothing ever was restored until absolutely every other wire in the state had been fixed. If he were in town, he might be finished with Amy. He and Katherine might be meeting for a drink at the wine bar. She might becoming home with him that evening.

She, however, wanted to know was whether he had talked with Amy yet. And then she was upset that he hadn’t. “Stop worrying about your past,” she’d said. “Think about your future.”

Katherine was right, of course. She was always right. Every detail of her was exactly right. He poured himself a drink. Talisker. The drink of Robert Louis Stevenson and every romantic, or so someone had once said.

What was he going to do? He gulped his drink and poured himself another.
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This fragmentary foray into fiction-writing was inspired by Jen in A2 and The Writing Game. The prompts came from Leslie at My Mommy's Place. For a complete list of participants, and better stories, see this post.