March 9 - Mari

I felt the familiar pop of my stockings running against the inside of my shoe as I unbuttoned a shirt I refuse to believe is too tight walking in the door.  These little rooms are ours.    I have to look at the opening of my boot to see if they ran twice because the first time I looked was perforce and I did not register any injury to the fake tan of the nylon.  I hope they have not run, because I need more stockings and won’t have time to get more tonight.

“Are you home?”

Silence.

She’s not.  But I always get home first.  That’s nothing new.  I wake up first, I leave first, and I get home first.  I usually go to bed first too, but that’s neither here nor there.  If you take into account the process of going to bed, we go to bed together.  It’s just that she showers in the evenings and I don’t.  I shower when I wake up.  I like to start the day fresh.

“Are you home?”

Still silence. 

Sometimes she doesn’t hear me.

“Mari?”

No response.

So I am alone.

It’s late enough that I don’t mind pouring myself a beer.  It’s hot.  After all, it’s summer.  She won’t mind that I’m drinking.  She never has.  But we barely speak to each other when she’s home.  We live separate lives that happen to converge in bed.  Realistically, it’s the perfect relationship.  For me anyway. 

I can’t find the bottle opener.  I never can.  I don’t really need one to open the bottle, but it would be nice.  Definitely a little classier; I’d feel a lot less like an alcoholic.  But I follow Hemingway’s advice about drinking and writing, so I open it against the edge of a linoleum counter.  I drink.  Perhaps I drink too much.  I’d like to say I have an excuse, but I don’t.  I just drink.

Dear Mari,

I went out for more.  Call me when you get home?

-Liz

I always leave a note.  She doesn’t really care what I went out for, so I just say more.  She won’t accuse me of lying later.  Capricious woman.  I’ll leave.  I did run my stockings after all, so I must make time.