She despises me.
As they entered crap-for-sale shop no. 5, she smiled blissfully at him as if they were part of some happy cruise ship commercial. His weary half-smile as he held the door didn’t slow her down. She hurried into the shop purposefully, cooing about some sugar bowl she’d noticed as they entered. Clearly the sex was better for her than it was for him to keep her in this gooey-eyed mood all morning.
God, I hate her.
Fifteen minutes later, Bob wasn’t sure where Brenda was in the store, and he didn’t much care as long as it was away from him. He was ambling carelessly down a few aisles, looking spitefully at the junk that stuffed the store claustrophobically. It was a big store, and shelves and clothing racks went from floor to ceiling. He had been stomping around angrily, but misery took a lot of effort to maintain, particularly when it was really just exaggerated boredom.
After a while he found himself looking lazily through the men’s coats. For some reason, there seemed to be more men’s coats here than just about anything else. They were too tightly packed to actually move the hangers, but he fingered the fabric and pushed a few coats a half-inch or so, pretending that it gave him a better view of the merchandise. Amid the tightly bunched rows of shoulders and sleeves he would occasionally pull out a coat that he would vaguely reject and be unable to squeeze back into the rack. He left a trail of protruding half-coats and limp sleeves dangling into the narrow aisle.
Almost buried under the faded shoulder of a baby blue Members Only jacket and a stained London Fog trench coat was a garment that caught Bob’s eye. He jammed his hand in and felt something rough and woolen. He pulled on the hanger once, twice, and slowly pried the long black overcoat into view. Bob noted that the black overcoat had one of those peculiar-looking capes attached to it. It was worn thin in a lot of places, and even though it was bulky, it seemed a little narrow for him. More for amusement than for any serious intent, Bob looked for a size tag in the collar. There was no tag or label of any kind. It occurred to him that the overcoat was probably so old that all of the tags had frayed away. It looked like one of those things that got donated to community theaters and showed up in everything from Victorian England costumes to WWII Americana musicals.
Feeling theatrical, Bob pulled the ratty old overcoat off its hanger. Smiling at his silly impulse, he twirled it over his head and wedged his arms into the sleeves. He expected the shoulders to be narrow as he pulled his arms to his sides, but the coat slipped down very comfortably. The smell wasn’t that bad, but it could use a dry cleaning, he thought. The waist was in fact a bit tight, but the sleeves were close enough, and the shoulders felt good. He had planned to lose some weight anyway, so he sucked in his gut and buttoned it halfway. At the end of his sleeve, he felt the tickle of the cardboard price tag against his thumb. Catching the dangling tag, he glanced at the faded yellow sticker and nodded at the odd price of $18.88.
He decided that the cape part was stylish and gave him an international look He slid his hands down the sides of the coat looking for pockets, missed, tried again, missed again, then feeling around finally realized that there were no pockets on the outside. Bob was a bit deflated. No pockets… a deal breaker. He smiled disappointedly and prepared to return the overcoat to menswear limbo.
“What on earth are you wearing?” the voice was a mixture of amusement and reproach.
God, NOW she appears.
Holding out his arms, he turned toward his wife without looking, “You like it? I think it’s kind of neat.”
Sighing gently and shaking her head, Brenda raised her chin as she spoke, “I’m sure it is. I’m done. Sorry I took so long. Come on, put that back on the rack and we’re out of here, I promise.”
A command wrapped in an apology. Nice.
His breath shortened, and his lips tightened slightly. Bob did not look at his wife. “Winter’s coming. I could use a new coat.”
Her mind already jumping to the next location, Brenda offered, “Okay, let’s go to the coat outlet and find you something. I’m glad you mentioned it; I can look for a raincoat for David while we’re there. He’s outgrown the one from last year.”
Bob pulled a hatchet out of his pocket and slammed it into his wife’s skull. This time it only took one chop to shut her up.
Without a word, Bob picked up his old coat and the hanger and walked sideways down the aisle toward his wife.
“Honey, what are you…?” Brenda sighed in minor annoyance as her husband brushed past her and up to the checkout counter. He held out the price tag at the end of his sleeve for the clerk. He turned to his wife and noted the silver soup ladle and the commemorative RC Cola bottle in her hands with the yellow tags still on them. “You said you were done…?”
Plus the 6% sales tax, his black wool overcoat cape came to $20.01. The clerk called it $20 even.
Despite her misgivings about the ratty-looking old overcoat, Brenda had dutifully taken it in to be dry cleaned that week. She didn’t want the musty odor lingering in the closet, so she tossed it in with Bob’s work shirts and her dress suits. She resolved to get it cleaned as often as possible under the guise of showing concern for this thing that obviously meant so much to Bob. Her real hope was that it would fall apart under the cleanings.
It was Sunday evening, and they had just gotten home from visiting relatives. It had been a good day, and when Brenda had indicated that she did not feel like cooking, Bob suggested Mexican. Bob sat in the booth across from his wife and eight-year-old son. His teenage daughter sat next to him pretending that her parents and brother were strangers who had the audacity to sit at her table without asking. Autumn weather had come early that year, with lots of chilly wind.
To Brenda’s surprise, the old overcoat cape had not really drawn that much attention and it really didn’t look any worse than the denim jacket with the pharmaceutical company logo that her husband wore all too often. Bob had long ago learned not to ask his daughter to put his jackets on the inside of the booth next to her or, for that matter, to make any effort on his behalf. So he sat there wearing it, leaning over his plate when crunching salsa and chips. Bob eschewed his usual enchilada and beans and ordered the lowcarb fajitas. The good mood of the day was still in full swing as Bob and Brenda laughed along with their children.
A dozen girls walked in the restaurant, chattering. Facing the door, Bob saw them as they came in, and he tried very hard to look without being obvious. From the distance, they all seemed to be varieties of beautiful. His eyes lingered a few extra seconds at the moving jumble of firm young body parts that strained against T-shirts inside half-opened jackets and hips that curved into tight buttocks. With the practiced restraint of the middle-aged voyeur, he managed to suppress the words, “Oh, good God…” even though his lips still went through the motions.
Dear God, just tell me they aren’t high-schoolers.
There was the brief thought that looking at such young girls was revolting, or at least illegal, if they were underage. But the firm, full bodies still waved unabashedly at him from the edge of his vision. Besides, if they were in college, it was probably only revolting, not illegal. Yes, had to be college. Bob decided that a group of high school girls would not be out at a restaurant on a Sunday evening; they were probably from the private college down the street.
Bob noticed a couple of waiters quickly pulling tables together, and the dozen or so little packets of young female body parts were being led to them. The tables were off to his right, and behind Brenda’s field of vision, so Bob took a moment to give the female buffet a closer look. They were all attractive in that young way, and one or two made a definite impression. None of the girls actually giggled, and Bob recognized the casual, yet restrained, social dynamic of the college sorority in action.