Author's Note
Though not my first short story, this is my first short story in a very long time. Any constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated.
Aside from the town in which this story takes place, any reference to persons, places or events is fictional. Any similarities are, of course, entirely coincidental.
I hope you enjoy.
*
"Excuse me," I said, waiving my hand to grab the woman's attention. She looked up from her book as I motioned to the clock on the wall.
"Oh I'm sorry. Could you give me five more minutes?"
I was at the gym, and this woman was cutting into my time on the elliptical machine.
But, then, what's five more minutes?
I said to myself. I was in no rush. I decided to make a go at some small talk.
"What are you reading?" I asked, pointing to the book laid out on the control panel in front of her.
"It's a biography of George Harrison."
"Are you a Beatles fan?"
"Of course. Who isn't?" She said as the machine gave an audible click and whirr, bringing her up to a higher level.
"Believe it or not, I could introduce you to a few people," I said in a jesting manner.
She flashed a bright smile. "No thanks. I prefer people with good taste in music."
I chuckled. "Me too."
I couldn't help but notice her body, well toned like a dancer. It stood out from those of the many undergraduates surrounding her, all pumping and huffing and sweating. Although she looked to be an older woman, she had a youthful, exuberant complexion. Her face was handsome, with pronounced features that betrayed some sort of Eastern European ancestry.
Later that afternoon I ran into Karin Baker again, this time while I was drinking chai and chatting with a friend at a local bakery on the corner of Jordan and 3
rd
street, an establishment that, no doubt, will be familiar to those who have attended the music school at Indiana University Bloomington.
Our rather heated discussion on the merits of digital music froze as she walked through the door, dragging a breeze of cold December air behind her. She looked up from the mat where she was stomping her slush covered boots and flashed that bright smile of hers in surprise. I motioned to her join us. We sat there for hours as it grew dark outside, myself sipping my tea until it got cold (as is my usual habit) while she carried the conversation with stories about her travels around the world and about running her own business. She was an interior decorator, it turned out, which she facetiously explained as marching into people's houses and getting the to buy very expensive furniture. I always try my best not to judge. After all, twenty four year old graduate students should not be judges of character. Karin was unbelievably easy to talk to – bright, intelligent, intense. She punctuated her stories with animated hand gestures and had a habit of nodding her head intently whenever I put my two scents in.
"She's something else, huh?" I said to my friend as Karin was walking out of the door. "Do you think I've got a shot?"
"I don't know. Don't you think she's too old for you?" She said.
There was no denying this. Karin must have been fifteen years older than me, at least.
Of course this didn't stop me from fantasizing about her later that night, and the next, and the one after that. I pictured the two of us in all sorts of scenarios, many of them taking place at the gym where I had met her. Karin Baker took a prominent role in my masturbation schedule. But at this the reader should not be alarmed. I knew that Karin and I would never be together. I was just behaving like a young man.
So I played it as cool as the weather. I never made a move, and Karin and I became friends. Every week we would meet at the same spot for tea. As winter dragged on we started doing other things as well – lunch dates, dinner dates, even the occasional movie. We began to spend a lot of time with each other, and before long my platonic relationship sparked the interest of my friends, who all seemed to agree that there was something off-kilter about the whole affair. I couldn't argue with them; it was a strange friendship indeed, though completely harmless as far as I was concerned.
One Sunday night I was slouched over a bar, enjoying a pint of stout when I felt a tap on my shoulder.
"Karin!" I said, very surprised to see her. My eyes shifted to the right and fell upon a man standing next to her. He looked to be in his early fifties. He was solidly built, with large, powerful looking hands, and he wore a short-cropped hair-cut and a mustache. His eyes appeared small relative to his face, and they were permanently squinted, so as to convey a cold seriousness.
"This is my husband Bill."
The shock was clear as day on my face. He didn't seem to notice; he just shot his hand forward. I met it with mine and he gave it a quick shake, dropping it like a piece of dirty tissue.
"So you go to school?" He asked.
I nodded and took a sip of my beer.
To this he responded with a strange sort of grunting sound. He sat down at the bar, demanding a menu an then jumping into it head first. Karin looked at me apologetically.
"I'm sorry about all that," she said. It was later that night. We were parked outside of my apartment. "He was in one of his moods."
"I'm just really surprised that you didn't tell me you were married."
I tried my best to hide it, but there was a hint of disappointment in my tone. Her failure to disavow this information somehow hurt.
"You know what it is? I guess I just don't like talking about him. I always get upset."
For the life of me, I can't understand why
, I thought to myself.
"Is that why you don't wear a wedding ring?" I pointed to her vacant left hand.
"You know, part of it is that I just don't like wearing jewelry. But now that you mention it, I bet that's also part of it."
It was raining, and the sound of the drops on the car roof, combined with the food in our stomachs made us both reluctant to move. I was fishing around for something complimentary to say about the man.
"What does he do?"
"He's chair of the economics department."
"Well then, he must be a really smart guy."
To this Karin didn't directly respond. Instead she looked out of the window for a few long moments.
"You'd think so," she finally said. "But I gotta tell you. Most of the time he sure doesn't act like it."
"Is he the absent minded type?"
"No, he's fully aware of everything the he does. I think he does stupid things just because he's inconsiderate. Like last night, he left the orange juice bottle on the countertop, unscrewed. He just left it there and walked away, and of course I had to clean up after him. He's always doing stuff like that. He never puts a top on anything or puts it away after he's done with it. He just leaves it around the house. And I've told him over and over again. Seriously. You know what my new name is for him? 'Retard boy'. I mean, he's gotta be retarded, right? Why else would he act like that?"
The light from an apartment directly above us was shining through the windshield. It cast a strange sort of illumination on Karin's face, and somehow I was looking at it from a new perspective. She seemed older to me at that moment, but in a displeasing sort of way that I couldn't quite put my finger on.
