Friday, July 6, 2012

chocolate

(Dedicated to Ross Parsons.)

The television blared with shrill music as the group of top models floating around their oversaturated bright colored lives. They flung their beautiful hair around the camera and complained about the competition. Stephanie scrunched up her face, squinting at the screen. Whenever it said the age of the models, she was always surprised, not that she thought they were older or younger, just ageless beings. Their shiny lives glowed in the dark silence of the night. She took another bite of pizza and spilled a droplet of sauce on her bed.

She looked down at the tiny stain on the green sheet. Slowly resting her beer on the nightstand, she rose and ran her hands over the bed. Loosening the fitted sheet she tossed it unceremoniously into the laundry bin. She hugged her arms to herself and looked at the pile of dirty fabric. She hadn't done laundry since the accident. She hadn't done anything to the bedroom at all. It had been a month and now, due to her pizza clumsiness, she was obligated to wash away the last trace of Steve's smell.

Leaving the television on, Stephanie floated downstairs into the chocolate shop. In her pajamas and a pair of flip flops, she unlocked the door and surveyed the clean, quiet little room. She was no stranger to insomnia, but it was getting worse. She listened to nothing, to her quiet apartment upstairs. Now, no one woke up and noticed she was gone.

Nightly, she would haunt her chocolate shop, careful to keep the noise down as she worked, even though there was no one left to disturb.

While she chopped up cocoa beans, the cat crawled in through the crack in the window and rubbed itself against her calves. Stephanie smiled down at the black feline, and the sweetness of it stung. She poured ingredients into a pan and turned the stove on. A tiny tear ran down her cheek and fell onto her breast. Placing her palms on the tile, she leaned heavily against the counter. A low, fatigued moan escaped her chest and she looked down into the brewing pot.

Shining in the dark brown pool was a light reflection. Stephanie leaned close, furrowing her eyebrows at the glimmer. The reflection could have been a pattern of her hair shadows, or a weird light thing, but it looked exactly like him. The harder she stared, the more she was sure. He looked up at her, and just as he started to notice and realize that it was her, the chocolate started boiling and he disappeared, sucked under and drowned into the bubbles.

Knocking over a bottle of something and a can of coconut, Stephanie messed with the dials until the boiling subsided. The chocolate relaxed into a flat sheet, and he was nowhere in the shadows. She plunged her hands into the hot liquid and thrashed the pot off the stove. It clanged against the wall and fell to the floor. Screaming in rage, Stephanie slumped against the counter, collapsing down to the ground, and put her chocolate stained hands up to her face.

She stayed up crying and cleaning the shop all night. She knew that it was impossible. She hadn't seen him; she was overtired and upset and needed to refill her prescription. Light poured into the scoured and exfoliated kitchen. She opened the shop to let customers in. The reality of bright light and chattering tourists gently washed away her fevered hallucination.

Partway through the day a little boy about eleven years old entered wearing a red hockey jersey and a weird airplane pilot style hat. He ordered two cups of hot chocolate and politely sat at the counter.

Stephanie poured the two cups of hot cocoa into white ceramic mugs and there he was again, peering up at her from the brown chocolate, the reflection of her dead husband, smiling and waving straight at her in both mugs of cocoa.

"Whip cream please," said the boy.
"Wha-?" Stephanie said, turning around.
"Whip cream." The little boy looked over his shoulder at the door and smiled. Then he looked at his watch. Then he asked her what time it was. Then he looked at his watch again.

Stephanie hesitantly squirted a flower of whip cream onto one of the cups of brown liquid. But she couldn't force herself to do it twice, to cover Steve up and bury him again.

"Are you waiting for someone?" she said.
"Yep!" The little kid grinned.
"How about... I pour the second cup for your guest when they arrive so it's nice and hot for them?"
"Oh, um, okay. But they'll be here super soon so what if you're like too busy?"
Stephanie looked around at the near empty shop. "I'll be okay."
"I don't want her to wait."
"Oh. A her."
"Yep!"
"Listen, if I'm busy, grab me and I'll stop whatever I'm doing to pour a new cup, okay?"
"'Kay!"

The little boy turned back toward the door, propped his shoulders on the counter, and cupped his chin in his hands. He stared at the open doorway, waiting.

Stephanie leaned against the wall and clutched her mug of cocoa to her chest. She stared down at the beautiful reflection of her deceased husband. She could see the flop of his messy hair, his chiseled chin, his big happy smile. It was definitely him, not that it would have been anyone else. He waved gleefully up at her. She smiled and waved with one hand back down at him. For hours, she stayed like this, clutching the cup, ignoring cleaning and baking duties, selling items to customers without giving them her full attention or taking her hands off the mug.

All the while the little boy in the red jersey sat waiting and staring at the door. Tourists passed in and out of it but none a singular little girl.

When night came, the little boy wordlessly got up and left the shop. Stephanie closed up, without bothering to count the till or do anything administrative. She headed upstairs, cradling the mug of chocolate, singing to it Steve's favorite songs. She cooed and hummed and stroked the wight rim, sipping her dead husband into her lips and then kissing the cup.

After hours of pacing around her apartment murmuring into the mug, Stephanie set it down on the nightstand and grabbed her pajama pants. As soon as the bottom of the cup touched the wood, the reflection flickered and then disappeared. Stephanie leaped up and swirled the cup around, shone different lamps into it, gulped more of the cold chocolate down, but Steve didn't come back.

She knocked her cup to the floor and it shattered, spilling watery sludge into the carpet. Stephanie ran downstairs in her pajamas, barefoot. She threw open the door to her kitchen and scrambled to grasp her cooking supplies. She brewed cup after cup of cocoa, then stared deep into the brown puddle, devoid of life. She poured each cup out and frantically made more, letting out sharp throat screams as she worked.

Birds chirped outside her window and the darkness dulled to a grey. She heard the garbage trucks driving by and the thud of newspaper landing against her front door. Her eyes stung from lack of sleep. Exasperated she brewed one last cup and this time her happy reflection of a husband smirked at her as if to remind her that he'd never really go, that he'd never leave her alone here.

She opened up the shop and let customers come in, but stayed in her pajamas all day, and kept the mug close to her. The little boy came in again, this time in a black sweatshirt. He again claimed to be waiting for someone, and sat at the counter politely.

Stephanie nursed her mug the whole day, singing and humming quietly to her waving reflection of a husband. He was so cheerful, so sweet, happy and lovely in the warm milky chocolate.

At the end of the day, she closed up, letting the little boy out last. He walked off into the empty evening to nowhere at all.

Stephanie stayed up most of the night, sitting up in her bed and mumbling, whispering to Steve. Steve didn't say anything back but he laughed, which was still something from a dead guy. When she woke up, she couldn't remember falling asleep, but her lap was wet and brown from spilled cocoa.

Letting out a wail, she stormed downstairs and baked feverishly, without opening the shop all day. A few tourists peered in. The little boy knocked, and then sat outside, leaning against the shop on the sidewalk.

After an hour Stephanie let the little boy in. He sat at the counter and read a magazine while she worked.

No matter what she made, Steve wouldn't reappear. Stephanie sobbed and created chocolate delicacy after delicacy. Her trembling hands molded truffles. Her shaking arms kneaded dough. Finally, she found him again. He was in a puddle on the counter. She laughed and cried and kissed the chocolate sludge. He winked up at her and whispered something inaudible. Stephanie brought her hear close to the fudge, but she couldn't make it out.

The little boy got up to leave. Stephanie stayed awake all night talking to her chocolate husband.

The next morning she opened the shop and let in the customers. It was all tourists that day, no little boy. Her hands were shaking as she took their money. Her ears rang with sharp pain as they spoke. Everything was too bright, too much. Her heart beat faster. Her breath shortened. Her shoulders caved inwards in pain. Everything was so shrill and intense. She just wanted to be alone with him in the darkness.

"Stephanie," said a rich deep voice, smooth and soft midst the high pitched natter of tourists.
"Hmm?" She asked, turning to the chocolate puddle on the counter. It rippled with joy at her recognition.
"Can you hear me?" the soft, nurturing, gentle voice cooed.
"Yes, Steve."
"Kill them."
"What?" She moved her ear closer to the puddle.
"Kill them all."

Stephanie stood quietly in the shop. She was so still that the customers sometimes didn't notice her and just shoplifted in front of her. The tourists screeched loudly about riding on the duck shaped buses. It was so loud. Tears fell from her eyes. The room darkened as if a cloud passed over the shop.

The bell on the top of the door dinged as it swung open and a brunette girl about 12 years old walked in. She was wearing a pink t-shirt and jeans with her hair piled up in a messy bun. She looked around for a second, gently letting her fingers brush past boxes of candy. She approached the counter and leaned against it's glass case, careful not to touch the puddle of chocolate. She smiled at Stephanie, "I'm here to meet someone."

Stephanie closed her tear streaked eyes and giggled.



1 comment:

  1. This is one of my favorite of your short stories.

    ReplyDelete