Blue
Lloyd had an extra incentive for getting home from work as soon as possible that night. When the end of his shift arrived, he swiped his magnetic ID card through the slot on the side of the digital time clock and then exited the office building. He hastily charged through the parking lot up to his trusty Pontiac Grand Am, a car he had inherited from his father almost ten years ago.
He opened the door and tossed his black jacket onto the back seat. He rolled up the sleeves of his blue button-down shirt and loosened his red tie. Black pants and black Land’s End shoes completed his work attire. He took his seat in front of the wheel, turned the ignition, and steered himself out of the lot, en route to the house he shared with his wife, Mira.
Every night, he looked forward to escaping the office and spending the remainder of his evening with the woman he loved. However, this particular night marked their three-month wedding anniversary. They celebrated their one-month anniversary in a cozy bed-and-breakfast out in the country, reservations made and paid for by Mira’s godmother as a wedding gift. Their two-month anniversary found them down the Jersey shore, dining in an Italian restaurant on the boardwalk and taking a moonlight stroll on the beach afterward.
For their upcoming milestone, Mira hinted at planning a special candlelight dinner. Before leaving for work that day, Lloyd caught sight of the delectable array of food she had gathered for their feast: salad fixings, chicken, grated parmesan, angel hair pasta, tomato sauce, zucchini, a fresh loaf of bread, and Jell-O pudding mix.
The mere glimpse of this cornucopia of his favorite foods made Lloyd all the more anxious for a swift commute home that night. The drive from work usually lasted a half hour, an average and tolerable duration on any other evening, but on this particular night, the time period proved interminable.
After what seemed like an eternity, Lloyd finally parked his car in front of his house, bounded up the steps, unlocked the door, and stepped inside his abode, eager to see the final result of Mira’s preparations. However, a wave of crestfallen shock quickly doused his excited senses, as the scene that greeted him was in sharp contrast to what he had fantasized about all day.
Mira sat on the couch, blankly and unhappily staring at the television, dressed in a T-shirt and pajamas bottoms, her red hair pulled shabbily back into a ponytail. She remained silent, failing to even acknowledge Lloyd’s arrival. A load of laundry sat in a crumpled heap in the middle of the living room floor. A cool, chilled air suffocated the house, far from the warm, happy ambiance he had expected.
“Hello dear,” Lloyd greeted with cheer.
“Hello,” Mira answered in monotone.
“What’s up?”
“Oh, nothing much.”
Mira added nothing more to the conversation, leaving Lloyd to ponder about her moody silence. He gently sat down next to her on the couch. She continued to register zero emotion on her face.
“How was your day?” Lloyd inquired.
“Not bad, I guess,” Mira replied, once again using a deadened tone that killed any chance of furthering the conversation.
“Mira, is something wrong?” he asked after enduring another silence.
“Nope,” she said unconvincingly.
“Yes, dear, something is wrong, I can tell. Come on, you can tell me.”
After a deep sigh, Mira said, “Did you forget to do something last night, Lloyd?”
Quickly, Lloyd reviewed the previous night in his mind: Ate dinner with her, caught the network news, went back out to pick up some odds and ends at the grocery store, helped her do some cleaning around the house, checked his email, and ended the night by watching television in bed with her.
“No,” he said, “I don’t think I forgot anything.”
“Well,” Mira retorted with mild sarcasm, “take a look at the laundry and then rethink your answer.”
Lloyd stood up and walked over to the pile that consisted chiefly of his clothes: cargo pants, faded T-shirts, and jeans. At first, everything appeared normal to him. Then, the anomaly became clear: all of the apparel on display had been speckled with splotches of blue ink.
“Now how did this happen?” Lloyd muttered to himself.
Without saying a word, Mira tossed something to the floor. The object rolled on the carpet and stopped next to Lloyd’s left foot. He picked it up and examined it: a blue Bic pen, with clear plastic sheathing around the ink tube, a removable blue cap at the top, and a permanent cap at the bottom. The top cap was dented, chewed, and frayed. Lloyd removed the cap to find the tip of the pen drenched in a mixture of water and ink. An explosion of ink covered much of the sheath’s inside, camouflaging part of the inner ink tube.
Suddenly, it all came back to him: Last night, when he went to the supermarket, he used the blue pen in question to cross off the items on his shopping list. When he finished, he put the pen back into his pocket. Unfortunately, he forgot all about it and neglected to remove it before putting his pants into the laundry basket.
“Oh crap,” Lloyd uttered.
“Oh crap, indeed,” Mira stoically said.
“Well, no big deal really. It looks like it’s mostly my clothes in here and I have enough to tide me over until I can get some replacements. It could’ve been worse.”
“Dig deeper,” she gravely instructed, and he obeyed.
Lloyd’s heart rate rose, along with the lump in his throat, as he sifted through the pile. He came to a dead stop and inhaled deeply in shock when he saw that amid the wounded apparel lay an article of clothing highly favored by Mira: a pink button-down sweater.
The sweater held much sentimental value for Mira. Her grandmother had given it to her as a present on the last Christmas that she had lived to celebrate, and Mira had also worn it on the day that Lloyd proposed to her.
Lloyd’s mouth dried up as he gaped and his mind blanked out as he stared at the stained sweater, thoroughly puzzled over how a minor oversight like that could result in such a catastrophe.
“Oh my God,” he blurted out, “I am so sorry, Mira. I really am.”
“I bet you are,” Mira said in a voice that sounded as if she took sardonic pride in Lloyd’s sorrow.
“I…I can’t believe I could’ve forgotten that. I thought I’d checked my pockets before I put them in the laundry basket. I always check them.”
“Not this time, apparently.”
“I am so sorry,” he repeated, sounding deeply despaired.
“Well, ‘Sorry’ isn’t going to fix my sweater, Lloyd,” she sniped back. A beep sounded from the kitchen, signaling the end of the preheating period for the oven. “Dinner’ll be ready in twenty minutes.”
She stalked off to the kitchen, leaving Lloyd to sit and sulk amongst the besmirched clothing. He sifted through the collection again, finding even more clothes this time that bore the hideous blue dots. Some belonged to Mira, though they were nowhere near as harmed as her beloved pink sweater. Lloyd cursed himself, knowing that regaining Mira’s affection and getting back into her good graces after this mishap would not be easy.
Twenty minutes later, they sat down to dinner. However, instead of an amorous atmosphere thanks to candlelight and romantic music, Lloyd and Mira ate with a definite lack of cheer, the house lights turned on, and the network news in the background. Mira said nothing, making quick work of her plateful of food in a manner that held nothing back regarding how little she desired to be around her husband at the time. Lloyd barely touched his food, the lump in his throat having descended into his stomach and quashing his appetite in the process.
“You done with that?” she asked him curtly as she stood up with her plate in hand.
“Yeah, I guess so,” he answered, handing her his plate.
Mira curiously looked at the abundance of food left unconsumed. “You didn’t like it?”
“It was good. I…I’m just not very hungry at the moment.”
Mira stood in her place for a moment. Then, she turned on the balls of her feet and shuffled off into the kitchen in spiteful silence.
Great, Lloyd thought, not only is she mad at me for ruining her sweater, but now she’s offended that I didn’t eat all of the dinner she specifically for tonight. I’m really batting a thousand here tonight.
Then, as he remained at the table and stared off into space, a plan formed in his head. He stood up and walked to the archway between the dining room and the kitchen, daring not to venture any farther.
“I’m gonna go out real quick,” he announced. “I’ll be right back.”
“Okay, see you,” she said as she washed the dishes.
This was yet another chillingly uncharacteristic reaction from her. Usually, whenever he went out, she always asked him where he was going. On this occasion, however, she didn’t seem to care at all, and Lloyd offered no more information than he had originally put forth. He quietly walked out the front door and into the night.
A few hours later, he returned home, tired and sullen, like a soldier after a long battle. He held a plastic bag in his hand and wore a hangdog expression on his face. He had no clue what type of atmosphere would greet him when he re-entered the house. He imagined Mira sitting on the couch again and angrily asking him where he had been. Few times had he ever seen her so mad and spiteful, and as a result of those scattered occurrences, he made it a point to never evoke such emotions from her on purpose. Yet somehow, fate always had something up its sleeve, some new way for Lloyd’s fumbling nature to turn every piece of gold he touched into lead. It never took her long to forgive him, though, which made this night most distressing of all. Never had her acrimony toward him lasted so long.
He took a deep breath before unlocking the front door and stepping into an empty living room. Lloyd listened for any sound that would localize Mira’s whereabouts. He heard water running in the basement so he walked to the stairs and slowly descended downward.
He stepped into the washroom, the tiny closed-off area that housed their washer and dryer. Mira stood in front of the utility sink in between the two appliances, her elbows delving deep into discolored, sudsy water. Lloyd tread lightly as he approached.
“Hey,” he greeted.
Mira turned her head to face him. “Hey,” she said, with a smidgen less recrimination in her voice than before. “Where’d you go?”
“Had to run an errand.” He placed the plastic bag onto the washer. “That’s for you.”
Mira quizzically stared at the bag. She removed her hands from the water in the sink and dried them off on a nearby towel. She took hold of the bag and peered inside. Her face lit up when she saw its contents: a replacement pink sweater.
“Lloyd…” She was lost for words. “Oh my…Lloyd, you…you shouldn’t have…you didn’t need to…”
“Yes I did,” Lloyd declared. “I messed up and I needed to make amends.”
She stared at him, glassy-eyed, a softness on her face that had been missing for the entire night.
“And it wasn’t easy to find that, let me tell you,” he continued. “I had to go to three different stores to find it.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “I just barely made it to the third store before it closed. Thankfully, they had one left in your size.”
She placed the bag on the washer again and then hugged and kissed him tightly. “Thank you.”
“Are you still mad at me?”
“I’ve cooled off. I talked to my mom and she told me how to get the blue stains out of the clothes.”
“That’s good. What’s in the water?” he asked, peering into the sink.
“It’s a combination of Arm & Hammer and some other detergents. So far, it’s worked pretty well.”
Lloyd grinned. “So am I off the hook now?”
Mira gave him a cocky half-smile. “Well, my mom told me not to kill you, and she’s been known to give good advice in the past. Plus,” she said, pointing to the bag, “this definitely earns you more brownie points, so I guess I can forgive you.”
“You guess?”
“I forgive you,” she said as she kissed him again.
They remained in each other’s arms for a while. Then, Mira went back and fished around in the sink. She pulled out her old pink sweater and held it up against the light as excess water dripped off of it. The blue spots were almost gone.
“A few more good soaks and it’ll be good as new.”
“So I can return the new one and get my money back?” Lloyd asked.
She gave him a comically serious look. “Don’t think you’re getting off so easily, buck-o,” she said as she laid the old sweater out on a small rack next to the dryer. She quickly snatched the bag with the new sweater in it and held it protectively. “Besides, I always have room in my wardrobe for another pretty pink sweater.”
“Fair enough,” Lloyd conceded. “I guess it’s the price I pay.”
A small silence occurred, a time period that proved much easier for Lloyd’s nerves to endure than the evening’s previous silences. Mira leered at him with sly, amorous eyes.
“Lloyd?”
“Yes, dear?”
“Tonight, we’ve had our first fight as a married couple.”
“I guess we did.”
“And you know what that means, right?”
“The honeymoon’s officially over?”
Mira walked up to him and planted yet another kiss on his lips. “Meet me upstairs in five minutes. We’ve fought and now it’s time to make up.” She sauntered out of sight.
It took a moment for Mira’s message to fully register in Lloyd’s brain. A smile creased his face and a pleasing wave of excitement crested throughout his body. The night would not prove to be a total washout after all.
(c)2009, Christopher Tait
Back