A Talk in the Park
by Robert Boucheron
Leaves, red on yellow, layered the park’s faded lawns and gravel pathways. Marcia selected a bench near the east entrance and awaited Andrew, a former colleague. She’d dined with him and his wife once at a restaurant on Third, and kept up with him by email, but regretted letting him badger her into this in-person meeting. He’d been hinting at problems in his twenty-year marriage, in which Marcia wanted no involvement. Andrew and his wife both had blond hair, blue eyes, and heavy lips. Marcia pictured their only child, a girl, with the same Scandinavian features.
Andrew had suggested “popping up” to her place with some lunch. Marcia suggested “popping over” to the park. When he complained about the brisk weather, she advised him to wear an extra layer. But it was a beautiful day, with the sun filtering through the tree branches, the slightest breeze, and temperatures in the fifties. Marcia had packed her tote with a small thermos of green tea and a tuna sandwich on whole wheat. She smiled at a gray squirrel sitting on its haunches in the path, holding the smile as Andrew approached in a down jacket over a fleece. The squirrel scampered off.
Marcia leaned away from a hug, and Andrew segued his bend into a sitting maneuver. He laid out a Starbucks coffee and two biscotti sealed in cellophane.
“That’s your lunch? You must have half my tuna.”
“No, no,” said Andrew.
“Yes, yes,” said Marcia. “Then we’ll split the biscotti.”
As Marcia extracted half her sandwich (cut on the diagonal), she pointed a finger at the revisiting squirrel. “Scoot, you.”
“So,” Andrew said, “how’s things?”
“Well, I got out with my walking group yesterday. And—oh, my reading group has started two very interesting books.”
Andrew bit into his half of the tuna sandwich and nodded.
“Do you know about John Kennedy Toole?” Andrew shook his head. “He’s famous for A Confederacy of Dunces.” Another head shake. “But before that, he wrote The Neon Bible, which, if you ask me, is even better.”
Andrew took the Starbucks cup away from his mouth. “I don’t do a lot of reading.”
Marcia crossed her legs and looked across the park at a dark-skinned nanny pushing a brown-haired boy in a stroller. She wished Andrew would come out with whatever they were there for.
“Thanks for sharing your sandwich,” Andrew said. “It’s really great.”
“Napkin? Andrew—”
Andrew smiled.
“You seem a bit agitated.”
“Yes, well.” Andrew wiped his lips with the napkin Marcia proffered. “That’s kind of why I wanted to talk to you.” He wiped his fingers. “Tracy and I, we’re breaking up.” Andrew lifted his hands. “Marriage over. Poof.”
Ah, Tracy. That was his wife’s name. But what was her (Marcia’s) role in the matter? Nothing beyond commiseration, she hoped.
“I’m so sorry to hear this news,” she said. “So difficult. I once read that marital separation is the most stressful—”
“I’m being thrown out.”
Marcia thought of another concern. “What about your daughter? Is she staying with Tracy?”
“Well, she’s off at school. But yeah, she’ll be there when she’s back.”
“School? Where’s she going?”
“Vassar.”
“Mazel tov.”
“Thanks.”
“Her first year?” Andrew nodded. Marcia searched for supplemental words of solicitude.
“I was wondering,” Andrew said.
The nanny came by with the stroller, its wheels crunching gravel. Its brown-haired passenger pointed at the gray squirrel.
“The thing is, I’ve got to be out by Monday, with no place to go.”
No place to go? A grown man with an income?
“So, I was wondering . . .” Andrew released a low chuckle. “if I could bunk with you for a while?”
What? Despite the preliminary allusion to habitation, Marcia had failed to foresee this twist. Yes, she had a two-bedroom co-op, but no, she didn’t envision Andrew occupying one of those bedrooms—or sharing one, God forbid. Her only roommate over the years had been a cat, an American Shorthair named Mindy, now deceased. There’d been the occasional notion of a Mr. Somebody, but not with any resemblance to the specimen before her. She’d heard firsthand of too many torturous affairs. Half the books she perused and half the movies centered on failed couplings.
“That would be very awkward,” she said.
Andrew ran his tongue between his lips. He picked up a biscotto, tore the cellophane, and pointed at the second. “Do you want one of these?”
Marcia shook her head as Andrew bit and chewed.
“The thing is,” Andrew said, “I’ve got this short notice, and everything here, the prices are crazy. You know how crazy the prices are.”
“But, Andrew, you’re hardly poor.”
“I’m hardly rich. And I’m on the hook for support payments.”
Andrew’s complexion darkened to a bluish red, which Marcia, intent on developing a rejoinder, ignored. “If it’s too much here,” she said, “you could relocate. Staten Island, perhaps.”
Andrew worked his lips into a sputter. “So that’s how it is?”
Marcia now took notice of Andrew’s discoloration. “Meaning what?”
“Meaning I’m down and out, and what am I getting? I’m getting kicked.” Andrew punctuated this statement with a thrust of his right foot. The gray squirrel darted up a nearby maple.
“Are you serious?”
“The one time I need help, the one time I need succor—”
Did he say “succor”? Such histrionics.
“I get a kick in the head.” Once more thrusting his right foot. “Oh, I can see myself lying on the sidewalk outside your building in the freezing cold. You come along, and what do you do? You step around me. No, first you look down your nose at me. Then you step around and go your pompous way. Right? Isn’t that what you’d do?”
“Certainly not. I’d call 311.”
A tad cruel, but Marcia had tired of Andrew’s complaints, which, like Portnoy’s, she was sure, had more to do with libido than domicile. Andrew ripped open the second biscotto and bit off half with his incisors. Chocolate crumbs fell onto his chin as he gnawed and swallowed.
“If I had any guts, I’d kill myself.”
Marcia raised her eyebrows. More histrionics.
“But I hate pain. I couldn’t do it.”
Pain? Marcia knew she shouldn’t, but couldn’t restrain herself. “Andrew, do you remember John Kennedy Toole? My reading group—I was talking about him before.”
Andrew stuffed the other half of the second biscotto into his mouth.
“He killed himself at an early age—very tragic. But the point is, he did it by running a hose from the exhaust pipe of his car into the passenger compartment. I understand there’s no pain. You just go to sleep.” Marcia caught herself and amended her remarks. “Andrew, I’m not suggesting you actually do anything like that. I’m just saying that if you did, it doesn’t have to be painful.”
“I don’t own a car.”
“You could rent one.”
Marcia packed the lunch debris except for a few crumbs, which she tossed to the reappearing squirrel. When she looked up, Andrew was walking away.
***
Marcia ran into Andrew a year later. She was trekking east, the park fence to her right, when she noticed Andrew’s golden plumage approaching, his hand enveloping that of a brown-haired adolescent. Brown? From blond on blonde? Was his daughter adopted? Had there been an interloper in the marriage? Was that the cause of the breakup? The parties stopped and exchanged salutations. Andrew said, “Allow me to introduce Kaitlyn.”
Ah, Kaitlyn. Marcia had forgotten her name, but remembered one important fact. “And how are things going at Vassar?”
Kaitlyn blushed, then laughed.
“Heh, heh,” Andrew said. “Kaitlyn isn’t my daughter. But my daughter—she’s doing okay. Sophomore year.”
Now it was Marcia’s turn to blush.
“Simple mistake,” Kaitlyn said with a wave.
“Heh, heh,” Andrew said.
As the obligation to produce pleasantries pressed upon Marcia, a helmeted delivery person on a motorized bicycle barged onto the scene, forcing Marcia, Andrew, and Kaitlyn against the fence. A happy reprieve for Marcia, who could turn from small talk to the interruption.
“Get off the sidewalk, you idiot! ¡Salga de la acera, idiota!”
“Wow,” Kaitlyn said, “your Spanish is awesome.”
“Oh, it’s nothing. Just a few words, for what good they do.”
Should she tell Andrew how delighted she was to find him still in the neighborhood? Which she was. What if he had killed himself or had moved to Staten Island? Marcia’s conscience would have bothered her for months. And those remarks about 311 and carbon monoxide, which she’d thought so clever at the time—forgotten, she hoped.
And herself, she wondered, as she parted from the twosome. Was it time to reconsider a companion? Marcia reached the corner of Second and waited for the light to change. Wasn’t it selfish not to share her space? Eleven hundred square feet for one individual. The white walk signal came on. Marcia checked left and right for cars, bicycles, scooters, skateboards, and runners (yes, a runner had once knocked her over) before stepping off the curb. But where to put the litter box so it wouldn’t stink up the apartment?
Robert Perron is the author of the novel The Blue House Raid. Past life includes high-tech and military service. His short stories have appeared in As You Were: The Military Review, The Lowestoft Chronicle, and many other literary journals, plus a collection, Wasteland and Other Stories. Visit his website at https://robertperron.com.
