WIP: one of the middle chapters...

...

There are times when a song hits you and you can't get away. Somehow this other person, maybe millions of miles away, has put down on paper, or recorded, or whatever, exactly what it was that you're thinking. I'm sure it's different for different people, but for me, I really think that....

"You going to boil those noodles all night?" her voice came from behind me, and to my left. The noodles in the pot on the stove were threatening to mutiny, the force of the boil driving them to clilmb up, over the rim, reaching down the sides of to sear their tips on the burner below. A suicide mission, clearly. I reduced the heat, stirred slowly, my emergency noodle boiling training holding me in good stead in these times of trouble.

I grinned. No one would think that was funny but me.

Her eyes were in my back. And I just couldn't turn around this time. "So, I have to go." I nodded, focusing all my attention on the noodles. I heard her turn, and her sandals slipped from the fake wood floor of the kitchen to the rug in the other room. THAT, was the sound of leaving, if I ever heard it. Sort of a "shh" and then "pff", and then silence until I heard her hands push the door. I didn't hear it open.

I could almost hear her biting her lip. I'd seen it several times, and while I don't claim clairvoyance as part of my training, I'd place virtually any amount of money that she had her right hand on the door knob, and her left hand flat on the door, and her lower lip, just the right side, tucked up under her top teeth. It was an action that still defined her to me. I would miss that. Still no door.

I was totally wrong about the door, but not the lip. She surprised me, crossing back on to the fake wood floor of the kitchen. I dropped the spoon in the bowl of noodles. As it clanged around in the boiling water, I felt her behind me, just barely touching my back. "I don't know who fucked you up, but it's the best job I've ever seen." She leaned closer, brushing her lips against my right cheek.

My eyes welled up as I counted her steps across the kitchen. Numbers like that always make me cry. "I'll call you tomorrow," I blurted out, as she again crossed the threshold to the silence-imposing rug.

"You can call me any time." It seemed, at that moment, a rote response. I looked down at the noodles, more of a casserole of noodle-like mush at this point, hugging the upturned spoon handle like a monument to my sorrow. It was Jeff Lynne's voice, coming out of the tiny radio to my right, "Hello...?" I switched it off, impulsively pushing the pot off the burner and garnering a small burn on my fingertips for my efforts. The "F" of her expletive had been so...thick. When they teach little kids the sounds of our alphabet, they should play them recordings of that "F" sound. It was all that "F"-ness could ever aspire to be, an "F" to make Plato proud.

The aching in my fingertips subsided under the cold faucet. I watched the spray, as it slipped around my fingers, into my upturned palm, pooling and then spilling into the foreboding depths of the side of the double sink that was still usable. I considered a scene from the book, Marvin's hands, instead of mine, scrubbing off the chemicals at the end of his work day. The squelch of unknown elements, slowly sliding off his hands, mixing with the water, sliding down the drain with the rest of the detritus. My knee buckled. It does that when it's cold, and more often now when it's not, just to show me who's boss. Rain had started outside, though, and temperatures were falling, so I couldn't blame it...much. I wiggled the leg, willing it back to full strength, and straightened up, twisting the faucet handle into silence and relative dryness.

My favorite movie for awhile now has been High Fidelity. And while all I wanted to do was to throw open the window and yell into the oncoming rain, "you should have gotten to me sooner!", it didn't quite fit. Save it for another time, I guess. Instead, I dialer her number, standing at the door, watching the rain come down harder. It rang. Once, twice, three times. Numbers again.

"Hello...?" Fuck you, Jeff Lynne.

"You should come back. Weather's awful."

"It's fine. you should come out."

I opened the door, stepping out on to what I consistentily try to refer to as the front stoop. She stood just off the steps, on the sidewalk, ony about a quarter-soaked so far. Smiling. "It's only rain. You should enjoy it...or something." The "something" was ambiguous to me, as I guess it was supposed to be. Grammar.

"I don't enjoy. You should know that by now." Witty, I thought. She shivered a bit, and stood there, letting the rain soak her hair and shoulders, pinning her bangs to her forehead and cheeks. She was beautiful, and that came as a surprise to me--it's always been hard for me to find the rain-soaked, plaster-haired girl attractive. Never been my thing, really. She was biting her lip, half-smiling.

I took the first of the steps, slowly, and she smiled more fully, coaxing me out of my hobbit hole like one of those little squirrels that live outside the building where I work. I resented it, but not enough to stop. Second step, and my knee twinged again. This would end badly. Also ambiguous. Third step, numbers, and my knee stopped working, I couldn't tell you which part of me hit the pavement first, but there were at least two more steps, full of pain, vertigo, and darkness.

"Hello...?" Goddamn Jeff Lynne.