Coalescence. The process of how moisture in the air joins and joins until they’re massive enough to form raindrops. From what I remember of tenth grade science, we learned that as we did an experiment steaming water in a contained vessel until water droplets formed. The pattern against the foyer window is unbearable, yet I keep my forehead against the window, eyes closed, wishing I could just melt away and coalesce with one of the raindrops. The newly installed windowpane that we could not afford is the barrier keeping me from my impractical wish. I pull my head off and continue to stare at the sweaty silhouette I just left on the pane.
“Mom! There’s no milk left!” All right Jane, relax.
“Giselle, what the hell are you doing?” Luke demands from the bathroom as he struggles to tie his Windsor knot for the third interview he has coming up this month.
Reality jolts me back like a whip snapped around my neck pulling me back to the infinite cycle of the mundane. With my cleavage baring, I pull the ends of my robe tighter as I dart into the kitchen to prepare a secondary breakfast for my daughter. Twenty minutes until the bus comes. Damn. Pancakes? No. Eggs will be faster but she hates eggs. Sorry baby girl, I haven’t been to the grocery store in weeks. The FHA is breathing down our necks and what does a stay at home mother do in the face of adversity? She endures.
“Jane baby, all I can do is eggs, I know you hate them but it's either that or go to school hungry, pick one.”
“But mom!”
“Stop it. I will get you cereal today while you’re at school.”
“Goodbye.”
Stomping off it’s apparent she hates her life, this thirteen year old girl, used to living large within an affluent neighborhood. Reality collapsed on her when Luke was laid off eight months ago due to an acquisition and now we are slowly trickling into mediocrity with no backup plan for now. She scurries out of the house as the bus pulls up to our barely modest home in Greenwood Estates. How long will we be able to maintain? Don’t think about that now, I have emails to send so I can find a job to keep our mortgage afloat. Luke comes into the room fully dressed. The look in his eyes. Despair? Regret? Shame? Or are those the feelings that my brain has convinced me I see in everyone else when really it's what’s consuming my own conscience these days. I throw the familiar mask on and compliment my husband.
“You look amazing, here, don’t forget your coffee and I prepared your-“
“Just stop. What is your deal?”
“Excuse me?”
“Giselle. You have been sulking about this house for three weeks. We haven’t had sex in months. What the hell is wrong with you?”
Ugh, I can’t do this right now.
“Just go Luke. I’m fine.”
“I’ll be home late.”
No kiss. No hug. He doesn’t even look me in the eye anymore. The door slams shut and I’m once again staring at the rain. Is it the rain that I’m staring at or is it God? Grimacing at Him for allowing me to run myself into this mess. I noticed Luke left a stack of his documents on the counter that I recalled him saying he needed to bring with him. I put them in an envelope and went to run after him, cell phone in hand trying to scroll through my contacts to try to give him a call mid pursuit. Through the rain, and down the sidewalk, splashing through puddles, I tried my best to give chase until I collided with a man running perpendicular to me.
“Oh my God, I am so so sorry…” The papers were ruined, and my phone was on the ground mid call. I grabbed it as the man in front of me tried to help gather my husband’s papers.
“It’s all good, it’s my fault really. I wasn’t even paying attention.”
There was something familiar about this man’s voice, extremely deep and distinct. A sense of nostalgia took over me as soon as I heard him speak. I reached for my phone and noticed it was dialing somebody. I must’ve accidentally called somebody. Claire DuVeaux was dialing. I hung up right away and stood up to take back the soggy wet papers this man was trying to hand me.
“No no, it’s my fault. I was running after my husband like a maniac because he forgot something important for work and I just-“
“Giselle?”
“Pardon?”
“Giselle Dinolfi? Not sure if you remember me but it’s Bartholomew, Bartholomew Dunn. We went to school together.”
Holy shit. I haven’t seen this guy in decades. Bartholomew Dunn? Last I remember of him he was a straight-A student falling in with the wrong crowd. He always was attractive, a few years older than me, and played a couple of sports, but it never seemed to work out for the guy. It was like he was just a bad luck magnet. I cheered so I knew him a bit. He kept to himself mostly but he still got talked about in the girls locker room every now and then. No one extremely important, but definitely memorable.
“Oh my God, it’s been what? Twenty years?”
“Listen, I know how these things go… the catch up game, but I am so sorry I need to get somewhere and as you can see this weather isn’t very conducive to small talk. It’s been awhile. You look great. I mean great is an understatement… soaked hair, slippers, robe and all.”
I laughed, wiping the rain water out of my eyes. Jesus I must've looked like a hot mess.
“Well thank you.”
“Hey would you mind if we got some coffee soon? Let me give you my email. I don’t want to be too forward, ya know.”
I smiled and nodded. He handed me a business card of what seemed to be an IT store he ran somewhere downtown. I wonder how it’s doing.
“Go get out of this rain, and I’m sorry again for knocking over your papers.”
I smiled awkwardly and turned to jog back to my garage. I was soaked. I wiped my hair out of my eyes as I made my way through the garage to the laundry room to undress. I walked upstairs to my bathroom where I started the shower. I was freezing. Once I saw steam, I hopped in and leaned against the wall thankful for the warmth of the hot water.
I love Luke. I really do. We met on a singles cruise out of Boston going to Barbados. It was a costume themed party and I had just thrown up in the bathroom after my sixth long island. I was physically bombing in a drunken stupor draped in a liquor stained Mother Teresa costume; did someone say irony? Stumbling out of the bathroom I bumped into this random figure dressed like the Phantom of the Opera. He caught me awkwardly and instantly I knew he could smell the putrid stink of vomit on my breath.
“Hey, hey, hey… You ok?”
“Get off of me I’m fine.”
That was all I could muster up in my drunken stupor. After that? Blackout. Fast forward ten hours and I’m at the buffet line skipping food and consuming water like I had been living in the Sahara for six months.
“I see you’ve recovered.”
Who was this guy? The voice is familiar, but I couldn’t tell how many people I had already met on this cruise.
“You probably don’t remember me… Phantom of the Opera? I caught you falling to your doom on the way out of the women’s room last night? Then your lady friends came over and snatched you away from me… I tried my best to convince them that I wasn’t a predator but they were just as gone as you were.”
“Uh, thanks I guess, but I’m with someone.”
I really wasn’t but I had no time for creeper singles looking for love on a ten day cruise. I forced myself to get some breakfast and found my girls. After twenty minutes of the anticipated heckling from getting a smidge of attention, I decided to scan around for this mystery creeper to see what he looked like with a clear set of eyes. There. Wow. 6’3, slender build, dark brown hair and a chiseled jaw structure that reminded me of Tom Brady. He had a butt chin like John Travolta but I thought it was cute. He was with a group but fuck it. I grabbed Lizzy and made her come to the bagel section with me, which was where he was sitting at his booth. Not having been fully recovered yet, the rocking of the ship kept me slightly off balance so I held on to Lizzy for dear life; not because I was afraid I would stumble but just because I wanted to look absolutely graceful in my approach. I grabbed a bagel and started to spread cream cheese on it nice and casually.
I fucking hate cream cheese.
“You know, I hear cream cheese these days has a fat content that will turn you into Jabba the Hut within the year.”
Who the fuck is Jabba the Hut? Sounds like a nerd reference.
“Hahaha. Is that so?”
“Ahhh, just don’t want you to ruin that figure… Let me guess… Volleyball?”
“Not bad. Swimmer actually. A lifetime ago though so save the compliments for whatever girlfriend you meet on this cruise.”
Is that how you played hard to get? I was sinking. He stood up and grabbed his own bagel. Shit, what was I getting myself in to, I thought. I pressed on.
“So not to be cliché or anything but what brings a, I’m assuming, eligible bachelor on a singles cruise?”
“Well my journalism team and I are actually doing research as to how confined spaces affect the sexual libido of single individuals in the 21st century. It doesn’t break doors down, but the millennials eat this stuff up. Hopefully we get featured in Vogue, People or Essence or something of the sort. How about you?”
“Well, I’m on a bachelorette party so we are kind of smuggling a non single lady on the cruise right now.”
Simultaneous laughter from both of us, and from there it was all downhill. He was from Salem and eventually we became the disengaged couple that we are now. What I wouldn’t give to go back to the cruise and drink one less long island.
Fast forward to now, I felt the change in the water temperature and decided I had soaked long enough. I got out, dried off and threw on some loungewear. Rushing back downstairs, I went to open one of the cabinets to find something to eat, and there covered in a thin coat of cabinet dust were two bottles of red next to a couple of airport mini bottles of Bacardi. It’s too early, it’s too early, it’s too early…
The bottle opener was already slicing through the cork wrapping before I had the chance to convince myself that it was way too damn early for this. I had the whole day to myself like always, and I should be able to indulge at whatever time I want being as that I am the keeper of this house, and making sure everything in this house runs because of me. Was that corny having to pep talk myself into having a glass or two with breakfast? A glass of wine a day was healthy right? No one said it couldn’t be in the morning! I plopped down on the sofa and started flipping through the channels. I caught a great lifetime movie during my surfing, put my feet up and went into R&R mode. Moments later, the doorbell rang.
Who could this be at 8:30am in the morning?
“Um Bartholomew, what are you-”
“Just- let- me-“
“Oh my God… oh, my God!”
He slumped to the floor like a bag of sand.
“Don’t move, I’m calling an ambulance!”
He grabbed my arm and with the strength of desperation I thought it would break off. I was put in a trance once I saw from where all the blood was flowing; a black abyss of a bullet wound pumping from what seemed like a never ending flow of blood coming from the area of his femoral artery.
“No Giselle. I’m… fine… No cops. No ambulance…”
I quickly shut the door and dragged him into the kitchen. I ran into the garage to get the medical kit and began to prep for a bloody mess until I saw it- the glisten hit my eye like a beam of light when the sun emerges from an overcast cloud. Then another and another. I should have heard them sooner; the scatter of what might have been over a million dollars worth of diamonds covering my kitchen floor like a sheet of ice.
ns 172.70.131.5da2