I can't say there weren't warning signs. We hadn't been making love often; it was done to about once a month or so. I was stressed-out: driving all over the city as a gardener plus sending applications off everywhere and going in for job interviews.
Maria had just lost her job (the company downsized) and wasn't finding another one. I knew that was playing hell with her ego, not to mention our finances.
I came home to see Maria staring blankly at the TV, shoes off and arms crossed, the tension obvious on her lovely cinnamon brown face as she chewed her fingernails. Maria was only five feet tall. She had long, rich, coppery hair and enormous brown eyes which were accented by thick fake eyelashes. Her breasts were huge: they jutted out like a shelf when encased in a bra, fell softly when set free from it. Maria! My oh-so-femme, heavily made-up darling dripping with jewelry who could massage away the pain in my neck and arms with those slender hands of hers and arouse the most urgent, fiery lust in my belly as she did so.
But . . . I knew better than to ask if she'd found a job. I couldn't even ask her how the day went.
"Kaye, could you get me another drink?" she asked as she chewed on a fingernail.
"Sure," I told her. She's not drinking too much, is she? I wondered but decided this wasn't the time to discuss it. "When will the soup be ready?" I asked.
"It's probably ready now," she said. "I already had mine."
I brought the drink to her and put on on the table for myself, then returned to the kitchen for the soup. I sat beside her with my tray on my lap. Maria sipped her drink, then nibbled a stubby, Oil Slick blue nail (her habit meant that her nail polish was always coming off and looking ragged). I didn't think Maria had been crying this time; she just had that pinched and hopeless look I'd come to dread.
I put a hand on hers; she accepted it listlessly. With my other hand, I massaged the back of my neck: it really was sore. So were my arms. I thought: I should take a shower . . . and ask her to join me. Maybe I should offer to give her a massage. Maria is so pretty and I love her so much . . . I wanted to suck on those nipples, to bury my face in those great womanly globes . . . but I was very tired.
The phone rang.
Maria picked it up. "No . . . sorry, no, she's not home now. I don't know. Bye." Then she told me, "Bill collector."
"For me or for you?" I asked.
"Me. One for you called earlier." Both our student loans had gone into default and been turned over to collection agencies
When the show she was watching ended, Maria switched channels with the remote. "Crap," she said before handing it to me and getting up. She pulled her earrings off and headed to the bathroom.
I surfed with the remote and left it on ESPN because they were showing a football game.
Maria called out something garbled from the bathroom.
"What? What?" I yelled.
Maria put her head out the hallway and said, "I'm taking my car into the shop tomorrow." She was wearing a lovely, ankle-length orange nightgown; orange shows off her complexion beautifully.
