“If I’d had any inkling this was gonna happen, I’d never have ________”
worn these high-heeled shoes.
tried the fish instead of the beef.
had that fourth martini.
said what I was really thinking.
bent down to pick up that dollar bill.
agreed to a second date in the first place.
“I got my trill, on Blueberry Hill,” she spoke-sang under her breath before going into a fit of giggles that took her an unexpectedly long time to recover from, almost three vehicles going through the toll.
All this in response to voice of the driver of an old, long, black Cadillac whose purply-blue hued hair was rivaled only by the vibrating lilt of her sung “Have a nice day!” after she slowed to hand her $1.75 in coins to Jeannetta’s gloved outstretched hand.
It was moments like this that kept her job interesting, and she shook her head in awed appreciation before returning her attention to her half-eaten baloney sandwich.
“Allow me to speak candidly,” she said with earnestness to no one in particular before finding herself poised halfway between the kitchen and the veranda staring out the window.
And just like that, the realization that had prompted the remark in the first place drifted out of her consciousness and on to wherever such realizations go when unattended.
And so it was that she sat down once again to a cup of camomile tea and a romance novel to while away a long day’s afternoon.
“I’m still looking for that loophole,” she said to no one in particular, as she lit up another Marlboro to replace the one she’d just smoked down to a nubbin before tamping it out in the Hellman’s jar top she used as an ashtray.
As the cat rubbed her ankles, she paused a moment to reflect on the fact that she’d probably never find one, but she said it again anyway, with a tiny, grim little laugh, “Yep, I’m still looking for the loophole.”
And with that, she went back to cutting coupons out of the Post, shaking her head at the price of milk these days.
“As if,” she said to no one in particular, never entertaining for one second that she would try even one of Bitsy Devoe’s shortbread sweets as they were passed by on delicately-doilied silver trays by somber, tight-lipped staff in impossibly-starched black uniforms.
Bitsy had conveniently forgotten that the recipe that she was now widely known for had actually been hers once upon a time, given innocently and generously on loan, for goodness sakes, for an event for which Bitsy’s originally-planned recipe had miserably failed, and for which Bitsy had since become quite famous for making.
As if to punctuate her resentment, she put her cigarette out in vase of delphiniums that sat on the foyer table, and with a wry smile of self-approval, proceeded back to the bar area to partake of a third Gin Gimlet.
“Brilliant, just brilliant,” she said to no one in particular as she heard the sickening metallic sound of the car’s right front shank as it scraped along the cement wall that she had tried to avoid having to drive by in the first place.
Had it not been for the annoying oversized truck that had stopped just before the exit, blocking it, she’d never have taken the sharply curved driveway leading out of the parking garage at such a fast pace.
She didn’t stop to survey the damage – what was done was done – but as she drove off, she quickly began thinking of scenarios (other than her own road rage) that might help her husband take the news more easily.
“Winsome, I am not,” she said through gritted teeth to no one in particular as she sucked in a third time and desperately tried to pull her usual size 6 jeans’ zipper up.
Sadly, it would not go past halfway, and she was left with the sinking-in reality that she had indeed put on some weight around her hips over the holidays despite her best efforts to be mindful of her sweets and alcohol intake.
She peeled off the betraying jeans with a few choice swear words, leaving them in a pile, and dejectedly put on her comfy sweat pants vowing not to eat again until those GD jeans fit.
“Yeah, that’s right. I’m allergic to you,” she muttered under her breath to no one in particular as she watched Phil Peters walk away from the water cooler in order to catch up to the passing ample sway of Georgina Johnson’s hips – which always seemed to be in some kind of competition with her tight knit skirts for space.
She continued to appear very involved in stirring the Cup-a-Soup she had just filled with hot water but inside her heart plummeted several stories to its usual bed of disappointment and resentment as she once again caught her own narrow, rather restrained-looking hips from the corner of her eye.
And upon hearing the annoying tinkle of Georgina’s thin, high-pitched laugh – the laugh she only pulled out for unsuspecting admirers – she turned her back to them both and made a beleaguered beeline for her desk.
“Well, now, won’t that be a treat,” he muttered under his breath no no one in particular after Nester Johnson’s wife handed him an invite to her annual Hogs and Heifers party, turned and walked away with a little backwards glance and a coral-colored-lipsticked air kiss.
While he thoroughly felt compassion for her seeing as how she was married to one of the most foul men he’d met so far in this Godforsaken town, there was nothing short of J Lo or Madonna being headliner at the party that would ever make him willingly choose to attend.
And with that, he tossed the invite into the bin, put a fresh toothpick between his teeth and returned to wiping down the bar.
“I’m sorry, sir, but we have no reservation under that name,” she said in a put-on pseudo-British accent to no one in particular just as the timer on the microwave turned over to zero and made its angry announcement that her TV dinner was heated through.
“You’ll have to make other arrangements for this evening’s repast.”
And with that, she delivered her meal with a sly, self-satisfied smile and a flourish to the folding tray at the Laz E boy recliner in front of the TV, eager to return to her beloved The Price is Right reruns.
Beyond the Skinny Branches 