Chapter 34

34

Saturday Morning: 10:30.

Jamie is at a hair appointment; I am recovering from a mild case of hangover. In nothing more than a pair of boxers, I sit on the couch drinking a cup for poorly made coffee.

There is a knock on the door. I make a move to answer it then relax back into the couch. I'm not expecting a visitor today and to open the door world require putting on a pair of pants, and that my friend, would disrupt the flow of my morning.

So I sip my coffee.

And the knock comes again, this time a little more frantic, punctuated with annoyed superiority.

Seconds pass and the rapping recedes. Whomever it was much have gotten the message.

The front page of the sports section gives a forecast of this weekend's Super Bowl. Cincinnati is favored over San Francisco by a touchdown and a half. I'm not sure who gave Brian Westburger the authority to make that call. The 49ers are clearly the better team. That's the nice thing about sports predictions. The clairvoyant is never held responsible for miscalculations.

I look up from the paper to sip from my mug and notice a round shadow bobbing behind the curtains of the living room window. Whoever was at the door is now leering outside.

Over on the mantle is my 22. I grab it, eager to see the look on this trespassers face when the barrel is at point blank range.

Throwing open the curtains I believe I'm more shocked at the outcome. There, desperately trying to peer into my home is a strikingly attractive woman somewhere around her early 40s.

Startled by the shotgun, but not deterred, the woman summons the ability to form the words, "Is Jamie here?"

When Jamie was in high school her mother passed away, suffering from what the doctors diagnosed as lung cancer. Three and a half years later her father married Susan who now happens to be staring through the window at my all but naked body.

Formalities aside, I invite her in, throwing on a pair of blue jeans and a t-shirt while she helps herself to the door. I pour her some coffee, she takes a seat on the couch, and our conversation begins in the -usual, “I’m your age but am having sex with your twenty-something stepdaughter” sort of way.

“I didn’t realize you were so…” she pauses.
“Old?” I reply.
“Seasoned.” She returns with a tiny fissure of a smile.

The morning is pleasant. I enjoy her company and we talk about trivial matters to thin the ice. Finally, settling in, she asks me about writing.

“Well, it passes the time.”
“You make it sound like knitting.”
“Yeah, well, it sort of is.”

As our conversation lengthens she begins to open up. Two days ago, Jamie’s father, who suffers from angry alcoholism, held Susan against a wall and hocked whiskey flavored spit into her eyes while accusing her of sleeping with another man. She snuck away in the night, hopped on a train, and came to the only person she could think of who might understand.

“I hope it’s ok that I barged in like this. I just don’t have anywhere else to go.”

I’m not used to visitors, but this was oddly all right with me.

“I don’t have an extra bed or anything, but there’s a fairly comfortable couch in my office you can have.”

She thanks me with a kiss on the cheek and I excuse myself to clean up the room. My office is my haven, and in other words, an embarrassment for all to behold.

While I’m tossing crumpled paper and bottle caps into a black plastic bag Jamie returns. I pause as the door closes, eavesdropping in on their conversation.

“What are you doing here?”
“Your father is away on business so I thought I’d get out of town and pay you a visit.”
“Bullshit. Where’s Dad?”
“He’s at home. We got into a pretty bad argument the other night and…”
“Well, you can’t stay here.”
“But Richard said…”
“Fuck what Richard said. You can’t stay here.”
“Your father’s been drinking again Jamie. He hit me a couple of…”
“I’m sure you deserved it.”
“No one deserves…”
“You do, Susan.”

“I thought you might be more accommodating knowing that your mother…”
“Shut up! You shut the fuck up. Don’t ever fucking mention my mother again. Do you hear me?”
“Ok. I hear you, Jamie. I’m not welcome here.”
“You’re goddamn right you’re not.”
“Well, then. I guess I should go."
“That’d be nice.”
“Tell Richard, ‘thank you’ for the coffee for me. I'll pass it along to your father that his precious daughter misses him.”
“Fuck you.”

And with the slam of a door it is over and Jamie continues on with her day. When I finally leave my office she is making a sandwich, probably turkey.

“What was that all about?” I ask.
“Just some unwelcome company, do you want one of these?”
“She seemed nice enough to me.”
“She’s a whore. Do you want a sandwich or what?”
“No. I’m not hungry. Maybe you should have been a little more compassionate, Jamie. She came to you in need.”
“Maybe you should have given her a sympathy fuck, Richard.”
“Maybe.”

Taking the hint I leave the kitchen and head over to my seat on the couch. I notice, tucked in with a throw pillow, two blue knitting needles and a ball of gray and green yarn. Susan must have left it behind in her haste. She’s working on some sort of garment, some article of clothing that will never be worn. I pick up the needles, examine the string, and understand what she has been fiddling on. Bitch’s step mom is making hats.