“Should we wrap it up?”
“No… **** them.”
And so she held it open and I shoved the contents in, a navy blue national geographic mug with a gold globe and majestic lettering, suggesting prestige and class, and a worn paper copy of ‘Ender’s Game’. My stomach churned for a moment as I feared that I perhaps forgot to remove the bookmark, but the pages held nothing but themselves, and the words of Orson Scott Card, not me.
“You’re not going to write him anything, are you?”
Why did she ask that? She had a right, but didn’t she trust me? I did write him something. I used the bookmark, in reality a half-piece of paper folded twice, and wrote
“Thank you for letting me
read this
it took a while to
get back to you but
I see why you like it.”
I suspected he wasn’t as dense as his misogyny and drug use suggested, and in my form he could find an alternative meaning, the kind I provided him with, the kind when he said he wondered what I meant sometimes.
I reread my penciled note, my last farewell, and considered writing “good luck with everything”. What would he think if he read it, if they read it? They already laughed so it’d be nothing new. I decided against it. It would be a response to his arrogant, empty text, where he triumphantly, probably drunk, sent a blank text. Did you have to tell me you had nothing tell me? She was furious. I never did respond, and handwriting was too personal.
“I have nothing to say to him. I just want to give their **** back and get it out of my life.”
I didn’t check the price of the over-sized, padded envelope I was about to purchase, but I appreciated the convenience of the post office for making my task an easy one. There was something freeing about being passive and sending mail, rather than making the three hour drive for no reason other than to experience another awkward situation, and perhaps worse, another yelling altercation.
I was worried the glass would break in transit, for the fear they would open the package and see it as deliberate, and I imagined their conversation: mocking our relationship, calling us *******, suggested we did it on purpose, saying anything malicious to assert their manliness and inflate their egos.
“Should we send them separately?”
“Don’t waste your money on those ******.”
So I sealed it. The small, bulky package contained things to return seemed heavier than needed. I imagined their faces when they saw who sent it, their outward responses to one another, and their immediate reactions once opening it.
“This will shut him the **** up. I can’t believe he thought I stole it.. I thought it was yours when I packed it.”
“You don’t need to say anything,” she demanded. “He’ll get it back, you don’t need to explain.”
She was obviously more annoyed at the two than I, although I was immensely annoyed. He thought I stole his mug. Well, I am so kindly sending it back. Perhaps this would be enough to get a response regarding subleasing.
“I really don’t want to pay $300 a month for a place I’m not living,” I pleaded.
“If they don’t respond then we’ll put locks on our doors. I don’t want them using our rooms and letting their friends sleep there.. they’d probably let people live there and pocket the money for themselves.”
The line in front of us gave us enough time to contemplate the situation, the whole situation, and it reminded me to check if he said anything. Message read, Tuesday 10:10 p.m. No response. I didn’t dare write the other. Neither would she.
“Six-thousand one, Autumn Avenue,” I said out loud as I wrote the address. A strangeness filled me, as I looked at the names I’d just written and the address of my former college residence. We don’t live here anymore. I was glad of it. I was glad to be standing there with her, running a necessary errand of alleviating ourselves of the burden of owing them anything. No longer would we need to endure video games, constant presence of the boy who slept on the couch every single night, despite his room, rewatching Gordon Ramsey’s ‘Kitchen Nightmares’ over and over until he memorized them, nor did we need to deal with hearing the door slam at 3:00 a.m. and an alarming “I’m home, *******!” from a drunkard. No more cleaning up beer bottles and bowls with cigarette ashes, no more listening to hockey or male-dominated conversations lacking substance. No longer would I feel trapped, as if Giovanni’s room, in the upstairs loft, tension rising up the stairs and filling up the whole house, the way burnt Ramen would smell when he forget to monitor it. The “he”’s would be out of our lives, as soon as they signed the lease. We stood there at the table before the checkout, patiently, thinking of the same thing probably, except I imagined her wondering if I liked when he ****** me.
She took the pen from me and hovered it over the package, pretending to inscribe “Love, the girls” with a heart next to it. She laughed, and I did too. I could imagine them opening the package, the one retrieving his mug, undoubtedly making a snarky comment, and the other ******* about the bottom left corner of the cover of his book being bent. I wondered if he’d wonder whether I read the whole thing through.
I hoped the cup wasn’t broken. There was a crack on the bottom of the handle, and I imagined him sitting on the sofa drinking coffee and having it snap and spill all over his lap.
“Next,” the woman called us and we stepped to send it off. “Would you be interested in the priority tracking shipping? It’ll cost— ”
“No thanks, we’re not in a real rush to get it there.”
“It’ll be the same price as without it, $5.79.”
“Then sure.”
I paid in quarters, retrieved my change and we left.
“Hopefully now that he has his ******* cup back he’ll sign the lease.” We were both worried.
“Do you want to get some wine?” And so we drove. Up the street, left turn, on the main road, right turn through the drive through.
“Hello,” I said to the man in the turban. She gave me her license and her card. “Could we have a double-bottle of Yellow Tail’s Cabernet Sauvignon?”
“Big bottle?”
“Yes sir.”
“I wonder how much those Backwoods cigars are.. sir, could you tell me how much for the 5-pack?” He reached for the pack on the left. “$7.49.”
“Oh no. Do you have Black and Mild’s?
“Apple, wood-tip, wine—”
“Could we have a wood-tipped wine one?”
“It’s better than cigarettes.”
“I haven’t smoked tobacco since Christmas Eve so I’m okay with it. I need it after today.”
He handed me the goods, I gave him her card, we waited, I smiled at her and she smiled back, her pale face and sweet, soft features, like a little pet, and he reached down to give me the clipboard to sign her name.
“Thanks, have a good night.” And I drove off.
