Calvin’s cell phone rang, disturbing the silence. The ring tone was “Love Her Madly” by The Doors, which meant it was Ronnie calling, which, consequently, meant Calvin was late for dinner.
“Shit,” Calvin muttered as he answered his phone. “Hello, Ronnie?”
He tried to sound as if he innocently forgot about meeting her, but there was no way around the earful he took from her. It was half past five already. “Thirty minutes!” she reiterated as if it were to be the last meal they were to share together. And maybe that was her intention. Maybe she had finally taken enough of his shit and was going to put the baby up for adoption or seek out full custody after it was born.
Calvin didn’t really believe that, but his mind was active.
He said he was sorry and told Ronnie to wait, that he was downtown and would be to the restaurant in five minutes. “I’ve been waiting for thirty minutes,” she said, to which he asked her, “What’s five more?” to which she hung up on him.
Calvin actually forgot about the strange museum he had somehow spent over two hours in. It seemed like twenty minutes. He made his way to the front of the place, the framed pictures on the walls laughing at his rushed departure as if they knew he was trying to save a failing relationship. The corpses that seemed to hide in the dark corners like scraps in a meat market were vanquished.
At the front door Calvin had a sudden fear that it wouldn’t open, that he would be trapped inside the Museum of Death to perish with the remains of the decaying façade only to be found, photographed and framed like the people in the pictures adorning the walls, their final moments there for all to see whether the deceased wanted it or not.
But the door opened freely just as it had when Calvin entered.
Once outside, he dialed Ronnie’s phone number again, hoping she wouldn’t be in one of her “I’ll talk to you when I damn well feel like it” moods. As she answered, clearly irritated, Calvin saw something on the ground that caught his attention.
“Calvin!”
The flyer on the ground—red paper with black lettering—read: THE HALL OF HELL — COME ONE COME ALL — SEE THE NEW MUSEUM OF DEATH! It caught Calvin’s attention so abruptly and damningly that he once again forgot about Ronnie, but this time he was aware of the phone up to his ear, her voice screeching at him, and made a smooth retrieval of the situation.
“Ronnie? Are you there, you’re breaking up.”
“Can you hear me? Where are you? Are you coming?”
“Hang tight, I’ll be there in a minute.”
Calvin pocketed the flyer. Reading it right now would be bad. How he knew this and why it was so, he couldn’t say, but there was something in his guts that told him to save the flyer for later, that if he were to read it now on his way to the Moonlighter Café, somehow he would not make it there.
Two hours in the Museum of Death felt like twenty minutes, after all, and this flyer hadn’t been sitting on the steps when he walked in. Someone had put it there for him to find when he left, which meant someone knew he was in there.
How was that for unsettling?
He wondered what the words said on the flyer, wondered the whole way to dinner, but he knew better than to pull it out of his pocket, and thankfully the café was only a block away.
Chapter Four
“I don’t want to break up with you, Cal, it’s just…”
Ronnie was clearly having trouble with the whole dinner thing. At first she wanted to maim Calvin verbally, but once they grudgingly conversed with one another she lightened up. That she was only pecking at her meal attested to the fact that she was distraught.
“It’s just what?” Calvin asked.
“It sounds so stupid, I don’t even want to say it. It’s just, what you did yesterday.” She bit her lip. “I like being with you, but I don’t find it very funny when you look at things like that on the Internet.” Ronnie looked down at her half eaten plate of food—a tuna melt and fries—then said, “It really creeps me out, and I don’t need that.”
Calvin could see how much it affected her. It was something he couldn’t quite understand but had to accept if they were going to continue their relationship. His mind had been plastered with images afoul in the past twenty-four hours, but he had also done a lot of soul searching and realized that he wanted to commit himself to Ronnie and their unborn child.
What about the flyer in your pocket? Gonna commit to that too?
“I’m sorry,” Calvin said—two words he said too frequently. It was the nature of the beast for man to be sorry to woman, or at least it seemed that way, but sorry was rarely enough. There would have to be some further explanation. It was clear in her eyes. They said, “Just how sorry are you? Pray tell,” and so he did.
“I didn’t mean to freak you out with the foot video, or the other one. I just thought it would be good for you, you know. At least I think it’s good to understand one’s mortality.”
Perhaps not the right expansion on “I’m sorry.”
“Well, I don’t think that way,” Ronnie said.
“I know. I should have thought about your feelings before I went and showed you the video. It was stupid of me to be so crass.”
Good one! That was definitely a point for Calvin. Now to lay it on a little bit thicker, but not too thick. That would show how much bullshit he was actually feeding her, and that would be just as devastating as saying nothing at all.
“I want to see us together. This past day without you has been hard. I haven’t known what to do with myself. You make me whole, Ronnie.” He grabbed her hand, his thumb rubbing circles over her knuckles. “And I want us to raise our baby together.”
That’s good enough, Cal. Stop right there. Note the glimmer in her eyes; that means it’s working.
“That’s sweet. I’ve missed you too, and I’m glad you’re finally willing to talk about the future.”
“Yeah, there’s a lot to talk about and I’ve been kind of a hard-ass. Better dig in before your dinner gets cold.”
Ronnie cracked a smile and grabbed half of her tuna melt. She’d only taken one bite. She nodded and said, though a mouthful of food, “This is really good.”
Calvin nodded and said, “Good, glad you like it,” but his mind was already beginning to wander. The flyer was burning a hole in his pocket. He wanted so badly to read the details of this Hall of Hell. Maybe he could just slip away to the bathroom and take a quick peek at the red slip of paper, just to stifle his curiosity.
Curiosity killed the cat, he thought. Well, good for curiosity. Never did like cats.
“I’m gonna use the bathroom, okay?”
“Sure,” Ronnie said. She bit into her sandwich with a competitor’s zeal. Looked like her appetite returned with a vengeance.
As Ronnie watched Calvin strut across the café floor to the bathroom, she was relieved that he had apologized for his stupidity. That was a little more than she expected him to do and very delightful, because she never really wanted to leave him, just felt a little time apart may help, and sure enough, it had.
Oh, how much time apart did you have? the devil on her left shoulder asked. A day? Grow up, girl. You let him off far too easy.
She’d dated guys throughout high school and a few after, and Calvin was still the best man she ever met. At first, when she missed her period three months ago she was devastated when the pregnancy test came out positive. She wasn’t ready for this, and certainly not with a guy she’d only known for a year. When she broke the news they didn’t jump for joy the way people who are planning a family do. Terrible thoughts went through her mind, whether to abort the child or at the very least give it up for adoption. In her darkest hours she still considered adoption as a possibility, but not an open adoption. If she were to give her child away she wouldn’t want anything to do with the baby. She firmly believed that whoever raises a child is the real parent. At that point she would be nothing more than the incubator.