She had the physique of a mythical Greek hero, the confident posture of a business person, and offered Jaric a cigarette when she caught him staring in the parking lot of her night club.
It was 8:50 pm. Jaric clocked out of work at 6 every evening, but as far as his wife was concerned, his boss kept him occupied for hours past the end of his shift.
“You’ve got to set boundaries,” she always said. “The shop won’t go under just like that. Let them see how they get on without you.”
As always, Jaric nodded and agreed.
“Of course, dear,” he said. “I’ll talk to him,” he said.
As always, he clocked out at 6, wandered the city, and knew that upon his return, his wife would urge him to quit his job once again.
But it wasn’t time for that. Not now, when only a narrow patch of asphalt separated Jaric from her. She’d caught his eyes because of the colors of her hair – pink and purple and a deep marine blue.
Because of the neon sign above her head – eye-watering, rapidly blinking yellow and red.
Because of her size – taller than him, certainly. She would have been, even without the heels giving her 5 extra inches of height.
She took a drag from her cigarette and blew a cloud into the air. Jaric’s eyes followed the swirling pattern of the smoke – mesmerizing, playful, inscrutable. Pieces fit themselves together in his mind, and a picture started to take shape.
His breath puffed out in front of his mouth in a thin mist. She was still watching him. Not warily. She had no reason to be afraid. She was larger than him, most definitely stronger, and the door to the nightclub was half-opened next to her.
Jaric hadn’t known he was missing something until then. There was no way he could have. It was impossible to miss something you didn’t know was supposed to be there.
The neon sign of the club illuminated her towering frame, casting a shadow on the ground and over Jaric’s life, recontextualizing, throwing moments from his past in a stark contrast he’d until then been blind to. Deep, garish furrows that he would have never known were there. Gaps he would have continued to step over instinctively.
A gap where his peers had jeered over girls in the locker room as teenagers. A gap throughout the dispassionate, practical nature of his daughter’s conception. A gap of complete lack of understanding for the rom-coms his wife enjoyed, the ones that hinged on a husband’s straying eyes.
Decades worth of blank space in conversations with his wife.
“Would you like me better as a brunette?”
“There’s nothing wrong with your hair.”
“Do you want me to cut it?”
“It’s perfect.”
“Tina from work had her nose done just last weekend. And Priya is wanting to go a cup-size bigger.”
“Good for Tina and Priya.”
“We’d have the money for it. It’d be a one-time thing.”
“You’re perfect,” he’d said. “What are you talking about? You’re perfect.”
He couldn’t fathom why she’d looked unhappy. They’d gone to bed early that night, and he remembered the way she’d looked: like a statue, rigid and proud, pale frame clad in a new night dress.
“Aren’t you cold?”
“No,” she’d snapped, pulled up the blanket, turned on her side and said not a word for the rest of the evening.
A statue, yes. Cold and motionless and immovable. A dainty, oval face and a petite frame. Limbs so thin that his hand could engulf them completely. A statue so fragile to be placed behind a 3-inch glass wall.
Nothing about the woman in front of the nightclub was fragile.
She took another drag and puffed out smoke from full, painted lips, the cloud billowing upwards, illuminated by the neon sign of the club. If she was a statue, she was another kind. Not fragile and small. A statue towering over most men, a statue with a chiseled jaw and broad, muscular shoulders clad in a flimsy costume.
She told him that her name was Olivia. Her voice rumbled through her chest, so deep that the very air between them seemed to vibrate. Goosebumps broke out on his back.
Are you coming inside? she said. The show is about to start.
Olivia, he mouthed. Olivia, with a body like Adonis. Olivia, who had nothing fragile about her. Olivia, whose existence slotted into place inside him when Jaric hadn’t known that he was something in need of completion.
Are you coming, darling?
He had no voice to answer her with, so he left.
The air felt colder without the neon cigarette smoke to warm it. He patted his pockets. In vain, of course. He’d stopped smoking years ago. His wife didn’t approve of it.
Are you coming, darling?
It was 9:12 pm. The cold linen bed he shared with his wife awaited him – a bed so large that they hardly ever touched, despite her being a restless sleeper.
Are you coming, darling?
Picture frames decorated their house, all the ones that signified a happy household: their wedding day, baby pictures, his daughter’s first day of preschool. Posing, smiling, happy. Smile for the camera, baby. It’ll look good on the mantelpiece.
“Darling, darling, darling,” he mouthed under his breath, the faintest whisper escaping his lips. His chest didn’t rumble. The air didn’t vibrate. Goosebumps bloomed on his arms. From the cold, certainly.
“Darling,” he whispered, and thought of foundation applied thickly over a shaved jaw. Hair sculpted in a style impossible to achieve with real hair. He thought of deep, sultry words spoken from painted lips. “Darling. Darling…”
He kept walking. Pieces rearranged in a whirlwind of motion – swirling around his guts, lodging in his throat, slotting into place and filling every gap.
Jaric puffed clouds of condensed breath into the night and understood a part of himself he hadn’t known needed to be understood.
It was 9:17 pm, and Jaric loved his wife. He loved his daughter. He was committed to them. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt them.
Are you coming, darling?
It was 9:20 pm, and Jaric walked down the street on a route that would take twice as long to bring him home.
It was 9:21 pm, and he thought of Olivia and basked in a new, unfathomable joy he knew neither his wife nor his daughter would be able to give him.
Sophie Piechulek
