"Romance Novel" by Cassandra Eddington
She placed the paperback down on a puddle of syrup. On the cover, a man with long hair floating to the left of his head, white shirt open, blown back, but still tucked into his blue jeans. Beside him, a woman clinging tightly to his arm. It was the woman who she thought most about.
She wondered why, in books, a woman’s desire was often described as a feeling deep within her stomach, muscles clenching. She’d never felt anything in her stomach.
She scratched her head and picked the debris out from beneath her fingernails, flicking it underneath the table. She didn’t feel anything like that around him. Maybe, she thought, something was wrong.
She fished around in her purse, her fingers brushing old gum wrappers and an empty candy carton, until she found the pointed edges of her cigarettes. She placed one between her lips and lit it. Her fingers curled in towards her palm as she inhaled. Exhaling, her forehead scrunched up as she squinted through the smoke. She coughed a bit of phlegm, then swallowed.
Across the table, Frank’s eyes were on his plate. There were crumbs buried in his mustache.
“I'm tired, Frank.”
“I know, Irma,” Frank replied.
He motioned to their usual waiter for the check, and she frowned.
“I didn’t say I want to go yet.”
“Hmph,” he said.
He scraped up a bit of congealed gravy with the edge of his fork and licked it.
Back home, a stack of fresh litter piled beside the front door. The corner of the couch was ripped open, wood visible beneath the layers of fabric and yellowing foam filler. Irma looked around. The cat was curled up, a doughnut asleep on the couch, nestled in a polyester blend blanket.
Frank set to work at the kitchen sink rinsing one of his dirty mugs. As he washed, coffee grounds came to rest like gravel along the sides and the bottom of the deep, stainless steel sink. At his feet, the tile was splotched here and there with sticky stains made fuzzy and black by socks walking over them.
Irma scratched her scalp.
“It’s a mess in here,” she said.
“Hmph,” he said.
He walked over to the stove, picked up the stained white kettle, old water sloshing around, and ran the faucet into the spout. He set it on the burner with a clank, metal on metal.
She sat at the table, sorting through the loose pile of mail, adding to the stack of junk mail, opening an envelope here and there to see just how far back the electric company was willing to run her tab. She cleared her throat, swallowed, ran her forefinger along her nostrils.
She watched him dig his multi-tool out of his back pocket and flip open the short blade. Poking at a crusty spot on the stove top, he flicked a small bit into his eye. He jumped and began to rub at it with the back of his hand.
In that moment, he looked just like a boy to Irma. Head tilted down, palm turned out and facing her. She wanted to scoop his head between her hands. She imagined it, the meaty weight of his skull settled into her own palms, a man made delicate, vulnerable. Just like that, she was up. She crossed the kitchen, taking her time, shoulders back, her breasts pushed into the thin material of her blouse. She turned on the overhead light. She wanted to see him, all of him.
She lowered her head to his level, his back hunched as he held his eye. She could feel his breath on her face.
“Come here,” she said.
And she peeled his eyelid back with the cracked pad of her thumb. His eye darted around in the socket, looking at her, looking away. It was inflamed, little red vessels creeping around the smooth white surface, over sunspots, and towards the brown iris. His pupil narrowed each time his eye rolled up towards the light from the broken fan. She blew on it, feeling little loose droplets passing her dry lips. He blinked and took a step back.
“It’s fine,” she said.
A single tear rolled down his rough cheek.
She brought one hand to her stomach and closed her eyes.
“What is it, Irma?”
She placed both hands on his upper arm.
“Nothing, Frank.”
“Hmph,” he said.
He returned to poking at the stovetop with his multitool. When she went to sit down at the kitchen table again, her purse fell to her feet. The paperback slid across the kitchen tile.
“What’s that?”
She groaned as she bent over to pick it up.
“Just a bit of fantasy,” she said.
Cassandra Eddington is a writer based in New York City and originally from Texas. She is a graduate of Wellesley College and the Creative Writing MFA program at Hunter College. You can find her online at cassandraeddington.com.
