There was an open window in the front room and the woman got up to close it. Two fat houseflies were dead on the sill and she brushed them onto the floor. She’d vaccum tomorrow. The man was gone so she wandered the house, opening doors and entering rooms then leaving them again. There was a pile of clean, unfolded underclothes on a bed downstairs, she left it alone. An empty soup can stood at the sink in the kitchen. Pock marks of activity. The quiet alarmed her.

There was a music box on the mantle over the fireplace. A gift, years earlier, from the man’s mother. The woman wound it up and a yellow bear spun slowly around with a ludicrous grin on its face, to a Frank Sinatra tune. Fly Me To The Moon and let me play among the stars …

The woman felt like drinking champagne. She felt like lipstick. She felt like wearing a long dress and beads and waiting here at the mantle with her arm cocked, a saucy grin, the Sinatra notes tinkling and spinning the bear, but there was no champagne. She settled for a can of cold beer, popping the top with mock theatrics, playing to an empty room, a crowd of teddy bears all twirling and grinning with chipped mouths. She smudged cheap color onto her lips and wound the music back up. The orchestra kicked in somewhere in her head and she smiled and sipped the beer.

Next Week: A Dog Barks in the Night!

[Read here, and here, for earlier installments.]

… The phone rang and the man paused, arm in air, chip en route to mouth. The woman looked at him, frowning. “Just ignore it,” she said.

“I’m not even doing anything,” the man said. The potato chip landed and he crunched it through three more rings. Then a pause, then a voice joined them there in the room through the small black box on the wall.

“Oh, Hi, it’s me, just wanted to let you know I’m stopping by later to drop off the gurney. See you.”  Beep

“What’s a gurney?” the man asked the woman.

She hesitated, then answered. “It’s a metal stretcher with wheeled legs used for transporting hospital patients. Why?”

“Just wondering,” he said and then got up. There was a commercial on for Jeopardy, with a teaser: “It is the color of mourning in Iraq.”

“What is BLUE!” the woman shouted. Marco the returning champion said it, too; then, “Thanks, Alex, I’ll take colors for $600.” Another commercial came on, then, for a company that replaces windshields when they’ve cracked.  To sweeten the deal they give 25 dinners to a restaurant nearby once the windshield’s replaced.

“I’m going out for a minute,” the man yelled from the front of the house. The woman closed her eyes and shook her head.

Tune in tomorrow for: THE OPEN WINDOW

The heat was stifling. It was smothering them in great heaping waves, so the woman got up and adjusted the thermostat, to 68.  Satisfied, the man returned to his potato chips and television channel. The woman resumed her sitting. She sat and sat. She sat at an angle to him, in a chair by the door. And she watched — indifferent, helpless, bemused, and also two parts annoyed — as the end of one program signaled the jangle of 30-second sales pitches, and then the packaged theme music that started another.  The second program was punctuated — click, click, click — by intermittent jabs of the man’s finger on the small black stick he held in his hand, his arm extended straight out in an awkward twist toward the big box.

“I already saw this one, it’s a rerun,” the woman said and the man jabbed again at the stick.

“How bout this?” he asked, without looking at her.

“Yeah, okay.  This one’s good.”

The man set the stick down beside him and moved the potato chips onto his stomach.  He took his socks off slowly, wadded them up, and with a practiced jerk of his arm sent them flying to a spot inside the doorway of the room where the washer sat. 

“Can you pick those up, please, at the next commercial.” The woman said, “I’m tired of picking up socks all the time.”

The man nodded his head, the woman didn’t look at him. They both listened to the cat scratching at the door and ignored it.

Tune in next time, when: THE PHONE RINGS …