Maneuvering a Moment
By: S. J. Gordon
Tags: Romance, Flash Fiction, Short Story, Fiction, Short Fiction

StephenKing @ pixabay.com

It saddened Deb when she felt her left eyelid began to twitch. Again.

“I wish you’d call me Deb, as I’ve asked before.”

Jeffery grunted. “I’ve always called you Deborah.”

“I know and I’ve always wondered why. I’ve certainly asked for Deb often enough.”

“Deborah is a beautiful and dignified name. Why in heaven would you want to spoil it with some common nickname?”

“Deborah is a lovely name but it’s so formal,” she answered. “I just thought something a little lighter would be more appropriate coming from my husband. You know. A sort of pet name.” She paused, wondering if she dared carry it further and felt it would be pointless. Her mouth apparently didn’t get that message. “And I could call you Jeff.”

Oh dear.

He snorted. “I don’t think so.”

She tried a different tack.

“I read a book that said mutual spiritual explorations are actually quite healthy.”

Jeffery answered with a baleful stare which Deb didn’t find particularly encouraging.

“I could show it to you,” she offered. “It’s on my nightstand.” She rose but made it only a few steps before he stopped her.

“Deborah, don’t be ridiculous. I’ve told you before, I have no interest in those worthless self-analysis books you’ve been reading,” he said impatiently. “Absolute trash. I can’t think what you find so interesting in them. Furthermore, I don’t understand why you persist in having these conversations.”

“I don’t think it counts as a conversation unless we both talk about the subject introduced,” Deb retorted.

“Now, you’re sounding petulant,” said Jeffery. He gave a long-suffering sigh. “That’s very unattractive. Deborah, I wouldn’t presume to tell you what you should or should not read. Do you think you could grant me the same courtesy?”

Defeated, Deb resumed her place on the loveseat. It was ugly with uncomfortable, scratchy brocade upholstery and she hated it. She had often thought she ought to get rid of it entirely. It was interesting to note, she further thought, that the most uncomfortable, useless piece of furniture in their house would be called a loveseat.

“Isn’t conversation generally enlivened by discussions of differing opinions?”

Jeffery didn’t answer and she drew herself farther back into the prickly cushions and hugged an equally displeasing throw pillow to her chest.

“Is there something wrong about an intelligent exchange of ideas?”

She might as well have been talking to the armoire. Jeffery had picked up his tablet and some prospectus or other and was lost in the latest emails and stock reports. Despite her continual efforts, she couldn’t remember the last time they’d had a complete conversation. Possibly not since they were first dating. That had been just three years ago but it was still a long time to go without so much as a cozy chat.

Jeffery didn’t stop her or, indeed, notice her this time as she rose and made her way upstairs to their bedroom.

The routine of changing into her nightgown and laying out Jeffery’s pajamas had a sort of soothing effect. Whatever her fantasies of wedded romance, whatever Jeffery’s distaste for soul-searching conversations, there was still the comfortable routine of day to day life. They might be in what society referred to as a rut, but at least it was a tolerably friendly one. There were no heated battles, tearful outbursts or painful accusations.

“No powerful emotions of any sort,” she said to her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Her reflection seemed to reproach her. Just what did she plan to do about it?

She hurried back into the bedroom and snatched the book from her bedside table. She flipped through the pages impatiently until she found the chapter she’d read several days earlier entitled, ‘Creating Beautiful Moments and Memories’. Then, she flipped forward to a different page and read further.

“Hard to get…” she mused, peering at the words on the page as if translating from Sanskrit. The book stressed the importance of equal effort in a relationship and she quite agreed. However, it also stressed the importance of shared moments of intimacy. If there was going to be a moment of intimacy, she’d have to make it happen, wouldn’t she? Not according to the book.

The real issue was what would become of them if she didn’t make it happen. She sat heavily on the edge of the bed. Being here with Jeffery was the only life she’d ever considered. How important was this scheme of hers? Was it make or break? Or was it really just a question of acceptance? If she tried to follow the book’s suggestion and it failed, then what?

Deb looked around the room, thinking. It was, she admitted, a lovely room even if none of it had been her choice. Her mother-in-law had brought in an interior decorator as a wedding present. The result was graceful, understated, tasteful. All attributes Deb could really appreciate but none were the result of any effort on her part. Perhaps, that was a clue to their problem.

She realized that, for all the room’s beauty, nothing in it spoke of the people who occupied it. Certainly, there was the silver framed wedding picture on the dresser but that was all. No stunning paintings by the brilliant but undiscovered Greek artist they met on their honeymoon. No cunning woven baskets from their trip to New Mexico and Arizona two winters ago. No shells collected as they’d walked along the beach in Cape Cod last summer.

With a sigh, she realized they never actually bought one of that dear old man’s paintings. She’d admired the pueblo style basket weaving but didn’t bring any home. And, now that she really thought back, most of the beach walks had been on her own while Jeffery was on a conference call with his office or returning ‘just a few critical emails’.

Not acceptable, as Jeffery would say. Spiritually unhealthy, as Deb was beginning to realize. She looked again at the passage in the book. It was a definitely dodgy plan but she feared not only their marriage but possibly their very souls were at stake. She examined the calendar on the clock and made a quick mental tally. If she was going to make this work, if this was going to yield the best results, she had only until Thursday to do it. She tucked her book into a drawer out of sight and squared her shoulders.

“The journey of a thousand miles seems pretty damned long from the starting line,” she said, “but it doesn’t get any shorter whining about it.”

The next morning was Sunday and Deb launched what, in her mind, she called Operation Passionate Moment. Jeffery had never responded to overt attempts to restore their intimacy. Deb was not a subtle person by nature but she was simply out of options. This scheme went against all her natural inclinations but as she dressed, she gave herself a firm mental lecture and resolved to push ahead.

Once downstairs, she was careful to avoid any mention of the previous evening. Over breakfast, she was serene but slightly detached. Jeffery read the Sunday Times entirely uninterrupted. Deb’s eyelid twitched madly, but his afternoon in his study with the newest biography of Winston Churchill was equally undisturbed. Deb entered only once with fresh flowers from her hothouse and her enigmatic, Mona Lisa smile went unnoticed.

Over salmon with a lemon sauce on Monday evening, Deb schooled her voice into finishing school perfection and remarked, “Margot called this afternoon to cancel Thursday’s bridge game.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, she and William have an unavoidable dinner engagement.” Smooth as silk and entirely unemotional.

Tuesday morning, she upped the ante slightly. Deb poured Jeffery a cup of coffee and took her seat at the breakfast table without a word. At this decidedly unusual event, Jeffery looked up from his paper questioningly but Deb offered only a cool sort of smile that made Da Vinci’s mysterious Lisa seem rather cuddly. Jeffery returned to his paper, his brow wrinkled slightly.

Later that afternoon, Deb ran into him at the club. She had been to lunch with some other wives and Jeffrey was heading out to play nine holes with one of the more up and coming of his vice presidents.

“Oh, Jeffery,” she said in her finishing school voice, pecking his cheek absently as she passed, “I though you mightn’t have the opportunity so, I’ve arranged for flowers to be delivered to your mother and your grandmother on Thursday.”

As she moved away down the corridor, Deb allowed herself a moment to enjoy the slightly confused and troubled look that had been on Jeffery’s face as he thanked her.

On Wednesday, Deb was out for the evening at a benefit dinner while Jeffery worked late. Before she left the house, however, she took her book from its hiding place in the drawer. She placed it, open to a certain page, on the coffee table near Jeffery’s chair in the study and, making sure it was the only item out of place in the room, went to dinner.

Thursday morning, Deb made sure she was first at the breakfast table. A large vase of her own pink and white roses stood over the plate of scones and clotted cream, faithfully mimicking the breakfast they shared the first morning they were married. She really hoped he’d remember the lovely little bed and breakfast where they’d stayed and not that she’d taken a sudden fit of violent sneezing, upsetting the clotted cream and ruining the innkeeper’s heirloom lace tablecloth.

When Jeffery entered and sat at the table, Deb rose, kissed his cheek and poured him a cup of coffee. Then, with a show of moving the roses out of his way, she gave the vase a surreptitious shake, sending a single petal falling into his lap. It was, she thought, hauntingly symbolic and would have been lovely filmed in black and white with, maybe, some shamisen music playing in the background.

Deb sat on the edge of her seat throughout breakfast, waiting for Jeffery to give some sign of, well, anything. So intense was her concentration, she jumped like a startled rabbit when he finally did speak.

“The coffee is a bit strong today, isn’t it?”

Deb slumped, elbows on the table. Moments later, Jeffery rose, gave her a swift peck on the cheek and left for the office.

A trip into Jeffery’s study showed Deb’s book still lying on the table, seemingly untouched.

“I suppose that’s that,” she said, closing the book with a slap. She looked at the cover accusingly. “I’ve bitten my tongue a hundred times in the last few days, playing it your way,” Deb told the book and gave it a shake. “All it got me was a sore tongue.”

It was a quiet, moping sort of day. Deb sat for an hour on the miserable loveseat, sniffling over their wedding album. By afternoon, Deb was actually looking forward to tea with her mother and mother-in-law. Usually, she avoided such events but today, she couldn’t face her silent house filled with all the physical manifestations of the ways in which her marriage was failing.

“Deborah, dear,” her mother-in-law rose from the table and greeted her with some air-kiss motions by each ear.

Her mother repeated the gesture. “Darling. That’s a lovely suit you’re wearing but what is that perfume? It’s very odd, almost like furniture polish.”

“Hello, Madeline. It’s essential oil of Bergamot, Mother. It has a relaxing and uplifting effect on the psyche,” Deb replied, hugging each of the women and taking the empty seat.

“Deborah darling, you know that is all a lot of nonsense,” said Madeline, shaking her head.

Deb didn’t answer but instead adroitly steered the conversation to subjects certain to interest her companions and not overtax her own limited concentration.

“Mother, have you seen Mrs. Tunbridge recently? I thought I saw her at Neiman’s last week but I couldn’t be certain. She looked, I don’t know, different somehow.”

“Oh, my dear, you can’t imagine,” her mother stage-whispered. Not a hair on poor Emma Tunbridge’s head was safe from that point as Deb’s companions analyzed her new wardrobe, hair and misguided lip injections.

Deb dragged through the front door two hours later, second guessing her decision to go to tea at all. She opened the closet in the vestibule to hang her coat and dropped it on the floor instead.

“Wha…,” she said, intelligently.

There was a garment bag hanging in the front of the closet with a note attached. The envelope was sealed with a red rose petal which Deb removed with great care and no small amount of confusion. The note inside was simple.

“Wear me.”

Deb turned back to examine the front door.

“It doesn’t look like a rabbit hole,” she murmured.

With a shrug, she took the garment bag into the powder room off the hall so as to obey the note. Inside the bag, she found a black silk sheath she hadn’t worn in at least a year. The lumps in the bottom of the garment bag turned out to be her best pair of black stiletto pumps. Now, Deb smiled in understanding.

“It worked after all,” she whispered.

The dress was one that Jeffery had, the last time she’d worn it, mentioned was his particular favorite. That should have been incentive for her to wear it again and often. Deb wondered now why she never had.

Still smiling, she slipped on the dress and put on one of the shoes. The left shoe felt odd and when she stopped to examine why, she found a second note. It was somewhat less intelligible than the first and hardly more verbose.

“Follow the yellow brick road.”

Back in the hallway, Deb looked around for any yellow bricks or, indeed, anything that resembled a road. On the floor a few steps ahead was a long, narrow jeweler’s box resting on a few rose petals. Deb opened it to find a gold bracelet, the links of which could, she supposed, be said to resemble a miniature brick road.

“Alright, then,” she said and clasped the bracelet around her left wrist. “Lead on, Toto.”

Sure enough, a few more steps down the hallway lay another box and a few more petals. This box held a necklace of the same pattern. Deb put it on as she hurried toward the dining room. She nearly tripped over the third box.

“Goodness,” she gasped, stooping to scoop up the tiny box. “What is at the end of this road, an overdraft statement?”

This box contained the matching earrings and a tiny note. Again, it wasted no words.

“Come into the dining room.”

Deb tiptoed to the dining room door and peeped in, sniffing the enticing scents of curry and flowers.

“Jeffery?”

She took a few tentative steps into the room and looked around in amazement. The room was aglow with at least fifty candles of various sizes scattered about on every surface of the room. A sudden, perverse fit of giggles gripped her as she noticed the rose petals strewn about among them. As she gently fingered several of the satiny fragments, her mind formed a picture of Jeffery dribbling fistfuls of petals from a basket over his arm. She bit her lip firmly to regain some composure and approached the table.

It was set with their wedding china and what looked like take-out from her favorite Indian restaurant. A fourth note leaned against a crystal flute.

“Turn around.”

Deb whirled to face the door. Jeffery stood there looking a little sheepish.

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” he said and held out a single rose. “Deb.”