honey – three good words

Hello, all you lovely people. I don’t know how many of you remember this short story, but I thought I’d rewrite it again, see what I can do with it. I’m in a bit of a revising mood. Oh, and here’s the original – actually, a first draft – if you’d like to compare :)
j.d.

It was ridiculous where they met again.

Ellen was shopping at the deli for a dinner she’d promised her friends. She had most of what she needed at home except the ciabatta and two or three cheeses to round off the menu, her friends were picky like that. Scanning a selection of blues, Ellen heard someone not far off start an order very precisely – ‘. . . ten slices of the Dijon one, please, yes thank you, and fifty grams of the St Aubrey, no make it a hundred.’

Ellen looked over to observe this particular specimen of wealth. It was the voice: it was soaked with the certainty of real gold and genuine diamonds. The woman was, unsurprisingly, a tall blonde with perfectly done hair. She was over forty by a few years, maybe more, but she’d kept herself very well. Quite the looker actually, stunning in the right light. Her makeup was perfect, her clothes of the best quality. The jewellery flashing at her ears, around her neck and on her fingers was not tacky, and her handbag was that particular kind of smooth dusty blue that whispered bespoke. She was beautiful and rich, quite likely the CEO of something, or a therapist, maybe an attorney. There was a self-assuredness about her that spoke of genuine . . . power. Ellen saw how other customers glanced at her admiringly, the shop assistants behind the counter standing to attention like the rank and file, smiling brightly.

‘Honey, what do you say? A little Beluga or would Salmon be enough?’

Wait, they sell Beluga here? Ellen had always wanted to try some, just to see if it really was worth the preposterous price. Ellen tried to concentrate on which of the blues she should pick, but couldn’t help herself, she looked again. The blonde was talking to a man who must have turned up at one point. He was tallish with perfectly cut dark hair and wearing a suit of course. There was something in the way he moved that made Ellen look again. He had to be older though, never mind the dyed grey. Maybe a little discrete Botox around the eyes – no, that neck was too young for early, maybe mid-fifties, unless surgeries were getting really good lately. By the smoothness of that neck, and something in the way he moved, he had to be at least ten years younger than the blonde, maybe even fifteen. Then again, you could never tell with these people. Fork over fifty grand and suddenly you looked twenty years younger and fooled everyone.

Say, the blonde. She could have been fifty already, but she did look great. Round breasts too, possibly with the help of an enhancement. Her legs were slender and very long. Her whole body looked firm, all the gentle curves in their right place. She probably went jogging every day, yoga, some cardio – or she had a personal trainer, some super-encouraging Chris or Tyler with a six-pack and a health plan. Ellen turned back to her blues, full of carbs and lactose and bacteria. Health plans weren’t all that bad, really. Lucia was a nutritionist wasn’t she? At least she was working on her portfolio. Got everyone in their circle started on almonds, honey, and kale, though Ellen tried not to overdo it with the quinoa, she was more of a couscous person anyway. They did say it paid off later if you took care of your ‘intake saturation’, whatever that meant. Ellen felt it was bit like a down-payment for a house you’d later be living in. Make sure the walls didn’t cave in and all the furniture was in place once you were set to go. And anyway, who knew what would be around when she was past her 50s? Look at the world now, avocados everywhere.

But she liked avocados, long before it was fashionable to obsess about them in online photo-shoots where the poor things always ended up de-stoned and half-naked, sliced, baked, cubed and sprinkled over sauteed eggs. The blonde was ordering again. And really, if she had the means to keep herself really well, why not use them? Ellen wasn’t one to say no to a stint in a day-spa either. The blonde really did look good, not just pretty: beautiful. Was it all that surprising then that she was with someone far younger than herself? Men did that all the time. Suddenly they got their prescribed crisis and started shopping for ‘new and improved’. Now women were catching up too, and this woman actually looked really good, so why not? Ellen picked out a Belgian blue.

While the shop assistant sliced away, Ellen witnessed a short discussion between the blonde and her companion. It was too low for Ellen to hear and she anyway had to figure out how much Gruyère she wanted, the shop assistant was already smiling very helpfully. Ellen decided for the usual, a nice wedge that showed goodwill to her guests and wouldn’t make her hate herself next time she checked her bank statement. The rich blonde chose Beluga after all, wow, a whole tin of the stuff, Christ – but then, what was a fortune to Ellen was probably just peanuts for that beautiful woman. Ellen tried not to care.

The smiling shop assistant packed up Ellen’s cheeses in perfect wraps of brown paper and string, they looked as ‘no filter’-worthy as ever. Ellen couldn’t help think that the rich blonde would have been able to buy a piece of everything, not just the Belgian blue, the Gruyère, and some excellent Cheddar that her friends loved and somehow never could find on their own. The rich blonde would have bought enough to put together one of those fantastic cheese platters with grapes, figs, pine-nuts, and artsy sprays of aceto balsamico online folks kept on posting to the vast envy of everyone who knew how much the damn slices actually cost . . . But, Ellen wasn’t the blonde. She had a good life though, she really couldn’t complain. It just wasn’t as richly expensive, as glitteringly affluent as the blonde’s – that had to be Prada, surely. Then again, wasn’t it nice to see that a woman had such money and power, and not just status. She was definitely no Mrs. let alone the-wife-of. Everything about her told Ellen that she had worked hard to get where she was now, that she owed little to others and really owned herself. It was in a way reassuring. The possibility, at least, was there.

The cheeses were wrapped. Ellen smiled a thank you at the shop assistant and took the bag with Deluca’s Delicatessen curled across the pistachio green paper, showing the world once more that Ellen was an adult now, with money to spare. She actually went shopping in delis and knew what to buy there. She probably shouldn’t have felt so . . . satisfied by that fact, but she wouldn’t deny herself the pleasure either. She just finished a very adult kind of shopping – cheese for crying out loud. She was definitely a grown up.

Due to a sudden crowding at the second sale’s counter, Ellen had to walk the other way, past the rich blonde and whoever she was with. Still riding on the pleasurable wave of proven adulthood, Ellen said ‘Excuse me’ graciously, and moved past the other customers as best as she could, avoiding the stacked wheels of Gouda, the slim glasses of black olives, and the exotic olive oils. Maybe it was curiosity that made her check, but Ellen did take a closer look at the beautiful blonde, Mr tall, dark, and possibly handsome at her side – really, they looked Hollywood-cast.

It was only a glance, a glimpse of his face, just as they too turned to leave.

There was a second of genuine shock. Not surprise, but something equal to the sudden snap and crackle of electric when she put on her favourite rainy-day sweater: a jolt that was almost painful, making her whole body jump inside her skin. Heart racing, Ellen finally stopped at a shelf full of chutneys and breathed in deeply. Maybe she had seen wrong. Yes, maybe she had seen wrong. She must have. It would be ridiculous to meet in a place like this, especially if he was with that blonde. And who would she be anyway? But she had called him ‘Honey’. Maybe she was his mother? Even before thinking it, Ellen knew that was wrong. If the blonde had children at all, they would not be older than ten.

A row of chutneys glared back at her in oranges and reds. She must have seen wrong. It was probably a trick of the light and it was really only a glimpse. Anyone could look like anything in a second. Yes, exactly. Ellen exhaled and went to pay her cheeses and ciabatta. She had to wait in line and couldn’t help it, she looked along the other queue, Deluca’s was a middle sized place, maybe a quart smaller than that Trader Joe’s she went to in New York. They were there. She was in her open Burberry, marine sheath and Prada handbag, and he was in that suit. There was no way he bought it himself, he’d been a ripped jeans, vintage shirt, and beanie kind of person. She was talking to him and he was nodding. Ellen recognized the movement. It was in the shoulders and the turn of his head. It was in the way his hair fell and the angle of his face, showing a profile she could not forget. Just as the blonde moved to pay, he turned and their eyes met. Three things happened at the same time. Ellen’s mind forgot all the words. Her mouth remembered, ‘Fuck’. Her ears heard she actually said that out loud.

The older lady in front of her launched a baleful stare. Ellen couldn’t care less. It was him. Denying it was impossible, she knew it deep down, possibly on a molecular level. And he knew it was her, she could see it. ‘Miss?’ the young man at the cashier asked. Ellen heard herself say, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’ She almost dropped the bag of cheeses, her hands had forgotten how to hand. Blushing such a flaming red the heat radiated off her skin, Ellen paid, not without dropping her card, then punching in the wrong number. Everything was going wrong, falling apart. Finally her fingers remembered what they were supposed to do. Payment accepted, receipt, a generic ‘Have a nice day’.

They walked past her just as she was done. He did not look. They left Deluca’s as a new couple came in and were gone. Ellen thanked the young man at the cashier and walked out into the rest of her evening.

Ellen tried, but denial was not possible. She had seen. He was not a figment of her imagination after all, as she had come to believe over the past year, ok, seven months. Six and half. And three days. Four.

It had been too perfect, suspiciously so. Those weeks had been too wonderful to be real. She must have read it or seen it somewhere. It could not have happened. Probably some rom-com Beverly made her watch. It could not have happened if she woke up that Monday morning and it was as if nothing had ever happened. Ellen had come to believe that, since it made it easier. She could live with it if she believed it was a dream, a hallucination, something she made up. If it did try to creep in, she’d act like it was a snippet from a movie. Easy questions like, Where did she read that? Probably a blurb or magazine somewhere. A fiction, that was how she could live with it, bear it. By believing it never really happened, she could smile ‘I’m fine’ and type out a ‘thumbs up’ and various species of smiley faces. Now that was impossible. It was him. She would have recognized that face anywhere.

Home. Ellen climbed the stairs, trying not to think further than that she got the cheeses she wanted and that the ciabatta was fresh – ‘Oh. Hi.’ Tara, one of her best friends, was waiting in front of her door with bags of shopping, grinning, ‘I got bored waiting and decided you need some help.’ Ellen smiled gratefully, opened the door to her apartment and stepped back into her life. Once in her tiny kitchen she started preparing the dinner she promised her friends, laughing with Tara who had new office stories to tell, Tara’s work was basically Parks & Rec. She really was a great friend. She somehow always knew when to turn up in time, almost as if she had a radar for when Ellen was about to ‘fall off the deep end’ as she called it. Once again, Tara lassoed Ellen back in, Ellen who smiled and laughed and was just grateful.

A week later. Ellen came home feeling exhausted. The whole week had been one giant drain. She had managed her dinner quite well, what with Tara making her laugh the whole time. Once Jeff, Leon, Beverly and whoever she was seeing again, Ellen always forgot his name, joined everything was great again anyway. But even after they left the memory was there, waiting like a bear-trap under pretty maple leaves, snapping shut the moment Ellen walked into her bedroom. The tears were back, but she refused. She would not. She refused to. It would not happen. No tear would pearl and slide, she would not reach for any Kleenex, she would simply brush her teeth, change for bed, and sleep.

Ellen managed very well until she was in bed, turned on the TV and found one of those sticky-sweet movies, the one with that young woman who had a face like a sweet young puppy – and just got kicked like one by the bastard friend she had, shouting gleefully, ‘He’s just not that into you!’ or something like that. The jerk of a friend was really relishing it. Ellen saw the tears slide down the pretty face on-screen and clenched her teeth. She would not. She would not. But she did. Awfully. She cleaned out her whole box of Kleenex, she just couldn’t stop.

Somehow Ellen fell asleep. When she woke up she saw the massacre of Kleenex on her bed and floor. That was the beginning of the end. Saturday was . . . not good. It was so bad, she called Lucia, because she’d already annoyed Tara enough with the mess, Tara who told her, ‘You sure about this?’ back then, adding, ‘He’s a bit too, y’know.’ She never said what ‘y’know’ was. Anyway, Ellen couldn’t tell Tara because Tara would inevitably be very sensible and sane about it and Ellen didn’t want sensible and sane. She wanted, ‘I’m so sorry, honey, that must have been awful,’ because it was. Lucia was very patient when it came to midnight sobbing. Except Lucia was ‘detoxing from connectivity’ again and never took her calls. Sunday turned up all shiny and bright like it didn’t care, and it might have gotten much worse if Lucia hadn’t come over after all. She’d gotten an ‘emergency vibe’ from her blanked phone and so switched it on. ‘That’s when I saw your calls, sweetie. I grabbed some stuff and came over, you poor thing.’ Ellen just nodded and sobbed and let her in.

Lucia had with her almond milk because cows were sacred, Ecuadorian coffee straight from the farmer whose barista cousin she met personally, ‘Angél is such a dear’; vegan carrot cake ‘from that place Olli talked about? They’re really good at this, trust me’, and two bottles of organic wine that she swore ‘was really good, I promise, Ellie, really, I checked this time, you’ll love it.’ Most importantly, she also had a jute bag of DVDs with her, because one thing about Lucia was that she was a die-hard rom-com fan. This always surprised Ellen because, to her knowledge, Lucia had been a Gender Studies post-grad in another life, one that was full of steaks, milkshakes, and chilli cheese fries. She didn’t like talking about it. Ellen was not going to argue this time either, made room for Lucia on her bed and thus the rest of her Sunday was spent watching all kinds of ‘love-drenched screen-treacle’ as Tara called it, eating vegan carrot cake that wasn’t half bad actually, and drinking genuinely excellent coffee. Ellen remembered to give compliments to Angél. Lucia smiled proudly as if she’d picked the beans herself. Ellen reminded her snide side to be kind, Lucia was being a genuine friend.

They watched one rom-com after the other, the worse the better. Lucia was convinced it was all cathartic reverse therapy. Ellen had no idea what that meant, but it did help in some way, since at one point they both had enough of loud orchestras, spectacular sunsets, and gliding shots of longing stares, and just sat and talked and laughed like friends, drinking the organic wine that was better than ok but not actually fine. They ended up falling asleep on Ellen’s bed, chuckling sleepily at the awful quotes they still remembered from their rom-com binge.

Monday showed up without asking and Ellen had a headache, a bad one, but she didn’t mind too much. Lucia was gone by the time her alarm went off, but she had taped a post-it to Ellen’s forehead, Lucia liked to do things like that. It was hugs and kisses and Need to talk? Call me! :), which made Ellen smile a real smile. Lucia had her ways, but she really was a very sweet friend, she really was. Ellen crawled out of bed, showered, dressed and went to work, lying that she felt a bit under the weather when someone asked her what was wrong. It was pouring outside so they believed her.

Even so, each day was a trial. By Thursday, Ellen was exhausted all over again. She didn’t want to remember anymore. The memories didn’t care and invaded everything. Kicking them out was a constant effort. By Friday, though, she began to feel that anger she loved, that anger that was her friend, that anger that she had met him – in a delicatessen of all places! He’d made fun of such places. He’d called them pretentious, ‘Just another way any basic urbanite can show off.’ And she foolishly believed he meant it. That anger Ellen wanted returned, the fury that she listen so avidly, answered so truthfully, and actually believe everything that happened meant something was happening. That rage that she had been stupid enough to give herself away like that, as if she didn’t know about the games people played. Ellen loved that anger, it brought her back into the life she knew, the life that was hers again. By Saturday morning Ellen knew her anger was real. Soon, very soon, she would spend her hours and days furiously living her own life, relishing her own peace of mind. She would, however, wait a few more weeks until she went to Deluca’s Delicatessen, she wasn’t particularly interested in being a full adult again.