Pulpy and Midge (14 page)

Pulpy opened his mouth to say something but then closed it again.

‘Do you have any more limes, Midge?' Dan called from the counter. He'd rolled up his shirt sleeves to expose his thick, hairy forearms.

‘Hold on, I'll get them for you.' She got off the loveseat and hurried past Pulpy to the kitchen.

Pulpy sat down by himself and watched the two of them hand ingredients to each other. They were both laughing, and Midge wasn't paying any attention to him at all.

‘Pulpy? Pulpy, wake up.'

Pulpy opened his eyes the next morning to see Midge standing over him with an urgent look on her face. He patted the spot beside him and closed his eyes again. ‘Come back in.'

‘Pulpy, I made pancakes.'

‘Yum!' he said with his eyes shut.

‘I made pancakes so we can feed him and then ask him to leave.'

He opened one eye. ‘Ask who to leave?'

‘Dan.'

He sat up and rubbed his face. ‘Dan's still here?'

‘I couldn't let him drive home in the state he was in. He's on the couch,' she said. ‘But I don't want him staying all morning, and we have Ice Dance.'

He checked the time. ‘How long have you been awake?'

‘Long enough to make pancakes. Please, Pulpy.'

‘I don't remember going to sleep.' He got out of bed. ‘Did we give him a blanket?'

‘There's a blanket on him.'

Together they walked down the hall and through the kitchen, and stood on the border of tile and carpet peering at their guest.

Dan was turned away from them on the couch with a blanket covering his legs. He was still wearing his clothes from the night before.

‘See? He's still sleeping,' she said.

‘He looks pretty comfortable. Nobody's ever slept on that couch before.'

Midge shrugged.

Pulpy cleared his throat.

Dan didn't move.

Pulpy leaned in a bit and knocked on the wall. ‘Hello?'

Dan shifted a little on the cushions.

‘I'm going to take the pancakes out,' said Midge. She headed for the kitchen.

‘Pancakes?' Dan said, and rolled over to face Pulpy.

‘Hello,' said Pulpy. ‘Good morning.'

‘Uh. Morning.' Dan sat up slowly. ‘What time is it?'

‘Eleven.'

‘Eleven, eh? What time did we hit the sheets?'

‘I can't remember.'

‘Ho-ho! That is the sign of a good night!' Dan grinned. ‘Damn, those pancakes smell good! You've got a special lady on your hands, my man. That Midge – she's a firecracker!'

‘She is,' said Pulpy. ‘Bang.'

‘Bang is right. Bang is what my head is doing right now. Those mojitos pack a
punch
!'

‘They do indeed.' Pulpy stood there. ‘Well, I'll let you get up. We're in the kitchen.'

‘I'll be right there.'

Pulpy turned around. Midge was setting plates on the table.

He sat down. ‘Do you want me to help?'

‘No, you sit.'

‘Okay.' He pulled in his chair.

Dan joined them. ‘Good morning, Midge!'

‘Good morning, Dan,' she said.

‘I said to Pulpy, “Damn, those pancakes smell good!” I told him he's got a special lady on his hands.'

‘I heard that. Thank you.'

Pulpy ran his hand along the smooth underside of the table and watched the two of them.

‘Do you need any help there?' said Dan.

‘No thanks, I'm fine. You have a seat with Pulpy. Would you like some coffee?'

‘Yes, please!' Dan sat down. ‘Coffee is exactly what I would like!'

‘How do you take it?'

‘Just dump in a shitload of cream and sugar.'

‘Well, I don't know if we have a shitload, Dan,' she said, ‘but I'm sure you'll manage.'

‘Banter, ha!' said Dan. ‘I love banter in the morning. Pulpy, the honey that pours forth from this woman's mouth, you could bottle it and make a fortune.'

‘Hmm,' he said.

‘Pulpy?' Midge tilted the coffee pot at him.

‘Yes, please.' Pulpy faced his boss across the table. ‘So, I don't think we ever ended up discussing the Social Committee last night.'

‘Ha, ha! No, we did not.'

Pulpy reached for the sugar. The lid was off the bowl from last night. ‘So … should we? Discuss things?'

Dan waved a hand. ‘Who needs discussion? Not me, that's for sure.'

Midge set glasses of orange juice in front of them.

‘Orange juice! Ha!' Dan said to Pulpy.

Pulpy blinked at him. ‘So what do you have planned for the rest of your day, Dan?'

Dan took a long drink from his mug and stretched. ‘I was thinking I'd laze around the homestead, seeing as Beatrice is away and all.'

‘That sounds nice for a Saturday.' Midge served the pancakes. ‘Could you get the syrup out of the fridge, please, Pulpy?'

‘A nice, lazy day.' Pulpy opened the fridge and started moving things around.

‘Ho-ho, look at all those real estate agents!' said Dan. ‘It's like a convention on there! Are you two in the market?'

‘We might be,' said Midge. ‘We're considering our options.'

‘Well, I think you've got yourselves a little piece of heaven right here.' Dan crossed his arms behind his head. ‘And I for one am looking forward to spending some more time in it today.'

Pulpy froze with his hand on the ketchup bottle, which had been concealing the syrup. ‘Oh, you meant you wanted to laze around
our
homestead.'

‘That's right,' said Dan. ‘You're sure you don't mind?'

Midge gritted her teeth at Pulpy over the fridge door. ‘Well,' she said.

‘Actually, Dan,' said Pulpy, straightening up, ‘we sort of have a weekend routine.'

‘Oh? And what's that?'

‘We just have things we like to do.'

Dan opened and closed one of his big hands. ‘What kinds of things?'

‘Just – things.' Pulpy sat back down at the table. ‘Would you like some syrup?'

‘No thanks. I just need some of this.' Dan hacked a chunk of butter from the block on the table.

Midge sat down between them. ‘I'll have the syrup, please, Pulpy.'

Pulpy eyeballed the distance from himself to Midge and from Midge to Dan. She was closer to Dan. He edged his chair toward his wife and handed her the syrup. ‘Sorry we can't invite you to stay, Dan. We would if we could.'

‘No, no, it's fine. I understand.' Dan frowned at the pale, unmelted chunk of butter on his stack of pancakes. ‘I'll just finish my breakfast and go.'

‘Sorry the butter's cold, Dan,' said Midge. ‘We like to keep it refrigerated.'

‘That's okay, Midge.' Dan smiled at her. ‘You're still the hostess with the mostest in my books.'

She focused on her knife and fork. ‘Thank you, Dan.'

‘But this is nice, though,' Pulpy said to his boss. ‘Seeing you in the morning outside of work.'

‘Yes, nice.' Dan pressed his thumb down on his pat of butter and stared at Midge. He wasn't smiling anymore.

Midge's fork made a high-pitched scraping sound on her plate. ‘Oops. Sorry,' she said.

Dan kept looking at her as he rubbed the softening yellow square across his pancakes. ‘See that?' he said, licking melted butter off his thumb. ‘Works every time.'

Pulpy tipped the syrup bottle upside down and squeezed. The dark brown liquid oozed out in a long, wavering line.

‘What are you thinking about, Midge?' said Pulpy later that day.

‘Shh!' She put a mittened hand over his mouth. ‘He's talking about the tango.'

The instructor was performing a demonstration, and their classmates were gathered around him. ‘When doing an ice tango, every sinew of your body must strain against every other sinew,' he said as he whooshed dramatically from side to side. ‘That sensual synergy is intrinsic to an elegant rink routine.'

Midge made a funny little noise. ‘Elastic glue.'

‘What?'

‘Sometimes our marriage feels big and small at the same time,' she said. ‘Like pulling apart, and then coming back together. Like glue, but elastic. Like elastic glue – is there such a thing?'

‘Sure,' he said. ‘There probably is.'

‘You think I have these fantastic ideas, but they're not. They're just what I think.'

‘You think fantastically. That's okay.'

She stuck her toe pick into the ice. ‘Why haven't you shown the catalogue to anyone at work yet?'

‘I've been meaning to. I just haven't gotten the chance.' He swallowed. ‘Midge, um, about last night. Did anything … ?'

She jerked her head toward him. The absence of her scallops made his heart lurch.

‘I mean, I know
you
wouldn't,' he said quickly, and slid one of his skates back and forth. ‘I don't remember very much, that's all. But maybe if I went to bed – did I? And if you and Dan were alone – were you? He might've … because you know you can tell me if something –'

She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again her lashes were wet. ‘I can't remember, Pulpy. All I know is, you went to bed and it was just me and Dan, and he started asking me about candles. And then I woke up and made pancakes.'

‘Passion!' yelled the instructor. ‘That is what this sport is all about.'

Pulpy gave Midge a small smile. ‘It's okay.'

‘Is it?'

He squeezed her hand.

Midge smiled back at him. ‘Do that again. I like it.'

He gave her mitten another squeeze and waited for her to say something else.

‘Come on, let's skate,' she said. ‘Skate with me.'

‘Okay,' he said, and together they pushed off, resuming their slow progress around the rink.

‘The problem with me cutting my hair,' said Midge on Monday morning, ‘is that I couldn't get the back. Could you do it for me?'

Pulpy looked at her head. ‘I don't know.'

‘But you're my husband.'

They were sitting at the kitchen table, and Midge had already tucked a couple of paper towels into the neck of her robe. There was a pair of poultry shears on the placemat in front of her.

‘Aren't those scissors for chicken?' he said.

‘I found them at the back of the gadget drawer last night.' She picked them up and made them open and close. ‘They're better than my nail ones.'

‘What if I don't do it right?'

‘You can't do it wrong,' she said. ‘You just cut and make it shorter.'

‘But how much shorter?'

‘I don't know. An inch?'

‘An inch is a lot,' he said.

She shrugged. ‘If you don't want to do it, I'm not going to make you.'

‘It's not that I don't want to. It's just that, well, I'm not a barber, Midge.'

‘I know you're not a barber, Pulpy. I only need you to cut the
back.
' She took hold of his wrists. ‘Use your magic charade hands on me.'

‘All right, then,' he said.

‘Good.' She let him go and straightened in her chair. ‘We'll sweep up afterwards.'

Pulpy tried his best to picture an inch in his head, and then he picked up the scissors.

On the way to work, Pulpy pressed one of his hands against the cold glass of the bus window.

Midge's hair had floated down around him in small brown puffs.

Outside, everything was white. He wished the snow would melt. He wanted it to be spring. He wanted Midge to be able to wear her clamdiggers and not be cold.

Pulpy closed his eyes and pictured sun. He pictured himself and Midge sitting in their backyard, passing the fly swatter back and forth for killing wasps.

Then he felt the chill in the air and pictured Midge last Christmas, showing everyone how to trim a candlewick – you had to leave just enough. Then Midge with a fondue fork and that awful look on her face when she realized Al's dog was in the backyard with Mrs. Wings.

He opened his eyes and looked up. He was sitting near the back doors of the bus and the letters over the exit read ‘TO OPE DO R S AND ON ST P.' Pulpy thought about someone standing there scraping off the N and the O and the S and the T and the E. He imagined them starting and then feeling like they just couldn't stop.

Midge's clouds of hair on the floor. She'd been sweeping them up when he kissed her goodbye.

The receptionist was standing outside the building when Pulpy got to work. She was holding a bucket in one hand and a big scoop in the other.

‘Hi,' he said. ‘What are you doing out here?'

‘He's got me salting.' She showed him the bucket, which was full of dull-grey crystals. ‘Who asks a woman to salt?'

He chewed on his lip. ‘Do you want me to do it?'

The receptionist stabbed the air with her scoop. ‘No,' she said. ‘I'm almost done.'

Pulpy squinted at the snow and then at her. ‘You don't have a coat on.'

‘Tell me that again. Tell me I don't have a coat on. Don't you think I know that? Don't you think I'm freezing out here, with this salt, and that I've been freezing since I came outside without my coat? And that was half an hour ago.' Her breath was coming out in big, white plumes.

‘Why aren't you wearing your coat?'

‘He hands me the bucket and the scoop and says, “Can you salt around the building?” He's holding the door open while he's saying it. What else was I supposed to do?'

‘I'm sure he didn't mean for you to go out in the cold like that,' said Pulpy.

‘You're sure, are you?'

Her lips were a smear of gooey red against her pale face. Pulpy saw goosebumps on her bare forearms, and he couldn't help but notice that she was wearing a very thin blouse.

‘Anyway, since when are you and the boss such bosom buddies?' she said.

Pulpy yanked his gaze back up. ‘What do you mean?'