Dory closed the fat, blue notebook and dropped it on the kitchen table. She sat and stared across the room, her gray eyes clouded in thought. She took the silver spoon out of her coffee and sucked on the end, sliding it over her tongue, in and out of her mouth.
She put the spoon down, opened the notebook flat on the table, and started reading where she had left off. Mouthing the words in silence, she absently twirled a finger through her rumpled blond hair. Her free hand floated down between her thighs.
_______
Mark fought to get a corner seat in the subway car. He wanted the illusion of privacy, needed to be alone with his chaotic thoughts.
Fucking asshole... stupid fucking asshole! He whacked himself in the head with the utterance of each "hole," perfectly on cue.
He was alone in a world of dread as he reflected on how the day had combusted. He arrived at the library, as planned. He settled in his usual nook. He set out his pens, reached into his knapsack to grab...
... no notebook. No fucking notebook in the sack!
Stupid, stupid fucking bastard!
His palms had started to sweat, and his heart felt like it was covered with crushed glass. A glass of water and a cigarette on the steps of the library helped him restore a thin veneer of mental order. Where was the fucking notebook? He hadn't opened the bag on the train, and he distinctly remembered having both book and satchel on the table when he had coffee at home this morn...
... on the table. Oh, Christ! There, out in the open, on the fucking kitchen table!
He had dashed nonstop back to the subway, engaged in a desperate flight to retrieve his notes before Dory woke and found them. It was a bad situation, but Mark hoped he could rely on Dory. Unless she had an audition she was not an early riser, and as a rule was never up before eleven on a Friday.
Mark took a minute to compose himself before entering the apartment. He had run all the way from the subway station and was hopelessly out of breath. The people on the train had thought him a touch deranged, the way he mumbled profanities and smacked himself in the head. He wanted to shed the aura of frenzy before stepping inside.
He swallowed some air, counted to ten, then opened the door. All seemed encouragingly dim and quiet. He slumped against the door and grinned. On the table, right where he had left it, was the thick, blue notebook.
There is a god, he thought.
He walked to the kitchen, put the book in his bag, and decided to celebrate with some coffee. He poured himself a cup from the glass pot, sat down at the broad wooden table, and sighed deeply before taking a sip. He knew he had been utterly, utterly careless. He lit a cigarette and had another, longer sip of scalding coffee.
Then it hit him. The pot was half-empty. He had made a fresh batch before he left this morning. Now half the fucking coffee was gone...
"You back already Mark?" It was Dory, calling from her bedroom.
"Uh, yeah, forgot something," he growled, almost to himself.
"Mark? You there?" Dory again. Pretty fuckin' cheery, he thought, for ten thirty in the A.M.
"Yeah, forgot something," he answered. Loud this time.
"Well, gooood morning! Be out in a sec," Bad sign. Way too chipper for Dory in the morning.
Mark felt the panic crawling up his spine, but knew he had to stay focused. For Christ's sake, he thought, calm the fuck down... you're acting like Oliver Stone or James Woods. A conspiracy behind every bush. Highly agitated, he lit another smoke and weighed the situation. So she was up, and had been in the kitchen. She probably hadn't even noticed the book on the table. And, even if she had, she wouldn't have read it. She wouldn't pry into his business, read his personal journal. But then, he wondered, does it count as prying if it's right there in front of you on the fucking table?
Dory appeared in the doorway. She was wearing a white t-shirt, a red plaid skirt that covered only a few inches of her creamy, savory thighs, and a matching pair of red wool knee socks. Her wide smile and hazy eyes were alive with fire.
A short plaid skirt... knee socks.
Mark knew he was a dead man.
"You sound so grumpy this morning. Whatever you forgot must be pretty important, for you to come all the way back to get it," Dory offered, as she drifted over to the sink.
"Not important, I mean... it's just, I needed it for an article I'm working on," he replied, while inside his head a voice shouted DENY EVERYTHING!
"Which article? The one about the poet you've been going on about, what's his name... Hinkler, Hunkler... want some more coffee?" Dory leaned across the counter for the pot. Her skirt hiked up another inch or so. Mark, determined to be stalwart, looked at his empty coffee cup instead.
