I arrive at Tom’s promptly at 7pm. Tom answers the door and I immediately hold out a bottle of wine.
‘Wow you didn’t have to do this!’ Tom lies.
Is there suspicion in his eyes? There should be. I gifted this same bottle of wine to my neighbor for a housewarming potluck she threw last April. It was regifted back to me for a BBQ I hosted in July. The orange zinfandel now finds a temporary home here.
I am the first person to arrive. I’m not embarrassed, in fact this was by design. Tom’s wife has promised smoked-salmon canapes, which I expect will be excellent. To prepare, I have fasted for the last 38 minutes. Thinking of the canapes brings an anticipatory wetness to my mouth. Snacks are the only consistently exciting part of life. Love will die, dreams will fade, friends will come and go. I am just as excited about snacks now as I was when I was five.
‘Well don’t just stand there! Come on in.’
I realize I have been standing silently, mouth-watering, in the doorway for too long. I bare my teeth in what I hope is a smile.
‘Don’t mind if I can!’
Tom’s face undergoes a brief spasm of confusion. I ignore it and follow Tom’s outstretched arm into the living room. The canapes are not ready. Tom presents a bowl of pretzels to me like a proud dog with a dead squirrel in its mouth. I want to kill myself. Tom’s wife of 12 years, Carole (?), follows after with a fused platter/ramakin of chips and salsa. I decide to live. I ask Tom some vague thing about his job. Tom’s eyes light up.
‘Actually I have some great news!’
I nod along in what I hope looks like interest as I nonchalantly reach for a chip and dip it into the salsa. Store brand salsa. My disappointment is a dark cloud. Catherine (?) feels it. I can see it in her oversized honeydew eyes. Why is she looking at me like that? I push the dark feeling down and return my gaze to Tom. I chew and mumble an agreement to whatever meaningless drivel Tom is blathering about. It’s important to look like you’re not considering your next chip while you are still actively eating the previous chip.
The doorbell rings. Tom and Cathy (?) turn and I stuff a handful of tortilla chips into a pants pocket. It’s Collum. Collum is here with his lover/partner Jim. Jim is the worst. I feel him before I see him the way animals know when a tsunami is coming. Jim is like a magnet faced the wrong way. When a mutual person of ours died he made the unforgivable move of drawing attention to how many times I had visited the wake buffet. If I could have packed Jim into the casket along with what’s-his-name I would have. I spent the rest of the funeral eating rolls in the handicapped stall. Jim pulls a pecan pie out of a brown paper bag. Jim’s actually a pretty good guy. I walk over and I give him an enthusiastic hug.
‘Where’s the family tonight?’ asks Jim.
‘What?’ I say.
Jim stares at me while trying to think of another way to word the question. Family… Family… Family! I have a wife and two children. Yes I remember now.
‘Oh sorry Jim. I had a hair in my throat. I do have a family. They are scuba diving.’
I forgot to pick the kids up from school. I was busy hiding all of their Goldfish snacks for myself.
‘Scuba diving?’
Jim is a dead end. I pivot.
‘Can I take that for you?’
I point to the pecan pie.
‘What? Oh. Sure.’
I bring the pie into the kitchen. This is a dessert meant for later in the night. It causes me a physical pain akin to childbirth, but it would be a mistake to have a slice now. I carefully bend back the aluminum and lift the plastic top straight up the way a spaceship might open. I size up the nutty-caramel surface then pull off a loose looking pecan sitting by the crust. It leaves a barely perceptible mark as I remove the nut from the pie and pop it in my mouth. Something is wrong. A walnut?! I will rain black hell on this bakery. I grab the lid and scour the surface for an address.
‘Oh good you’re alone.’
I fumble the lid and it goes flying off into the sink. I turn. It’s Karen (?). She approaches me quickly and kisses me hard and deep. She tastes like strawberry. I didn’t see any of those out. There must be a fruit plate somewhere in the house. I kiss her back. Yeah definitely strawberry and not a daquiri. I don’t detect any booze here. If there’s not a plate out there’s definitely some in the fridge. C…, whatever, Tom’s wife pulls her lips away from mine.
‘I think Tom knows about us.’
Oh yeah. We’ve been having an affair. I see the canapes in the oven. They look a little overdone.
‘Naw we’re fine.’
I begin to sweat. Salmon dries out easily. Normally Tom’s wife is on top of these things. It’s why I started having sex with her.
‘I think he saw your car the other night—’
The other night I came over blah blah blah then we had four cheese ravioli from scratch. It was incredible.
‘Four cheese ravioli from scratch.’
‘What?’
There is a thin veil of smoke rising in the oven. I try to draw her attention back to the present.
‘The canapes should come out soon.’
‘What?’
‘The canapes. They look like they might be overdone.’
Tom’s wife sends a frustrated glance toward the oven. The door opens and Tom walks through, eyes narrowed in suspicion like he’s looking at a pecan pie with a walnut crust.
‘What’s going on in here?’
Tom eyes his wife’s hand on my shoulder.
‘You two doing something you shouldn’t?’
There is a palpable tension in the air as Tom and his wife stare at one another. If tension had a taste this one would be the crystalline top of a crème brulé. The canapes are definitely burning. I open my mouth to mention it again, but then Tom begins to laugh.
‘I’m just messing around!’
Tom and his wife start belching out these weird forced laughs like mechanical clowns.
‘You’re so funny Tom!’ screams Tom’s wife.
‘Canapes.’ I say.
‘Oh yes! The canapes.’
Tom’s wife walks to the oven, makes a tiny yelp, and then pulls them out.
‘I’ve over cooked them!’
The room is silent.
‘I have to use the restroom.’ I say.
I exit the kitchen, pass the bathroom, walk upstairs to the guest bedroom, and scream into a pillow. I shouldn’t have gone into the living room to chat. The second I arrived I should have walked right past Tom’s dumb idiot arm and into the kitchen, but my overwhelming consideration for others has once again betrayed my better judgement. I think somebody must have been eating something in bed because a few crumbs find their way into my screaming mouth. Brioche? The doorbell rings. An unexpected guest? I thought the party was just us three couples (in retrospect it has probably come off as odd that I am not here with my wife). Another couple means hope. Another couple means perhaps… I don’t want to jinx it, but the thought comes anyway… more canapes? I finish the crumbs off the pillow and I head back downstairs.
I’m halfway down the staircase when Tom opens the door. My heart drops. It’s my wife. We stare at one another, both furious. She clearly didn’t bring anything.
‘What the hell?’ she says.
‘I could say the same thing!’ I reply.
‘You left without me and you didn’t pick up the kids from school!’
‘You didn’t bring anything to a potluck!’
She reaches down and pulls a bottle of wine out of her purse. My disappointment only compounds.
‘I already brought wine!’
I stomp my feet. I know I am being petulant. I don’t want to ruin the party. The finger foods have been a disaster, but there is still hope for dinner. I need to calm this storm. I take a breath.
‘I apologize for my outburst Susie—’
‘Susie?’
‘Sarah?’
‘Are you asking me what my name is?’
‘What I’m trying to say is I’ve been under a lot of stress lately and I’ve been forgetting things. I don’t know. It could also be a medical condition.’
Jim comes around the corner like an unwelcome quiche. His eyebrows jump up a level on his forehead.
‘Sarah! I thought you were scuba diving?’
‘Stay out of this Jim!’ I scream.
Everyone is staring at me now. I’ve gone too far. I need to regain some control over the situation. Collum touches me lightly on the arm.
‘Hey pal. Are you alright?’
I begin to respond when I notice something about the hand on my shoulder. There is the faintest trace of chocolate crumb smeared between his index finger and thumb. I look up into Collum’s concerned blue eyes and whisper, deadly serious.
‘Collum. Are there biscottis here?’
He looks behind himself as if there is another Collum in the room. He turns back to me.
‘Beg your pardon?’
I continue, my voice barely above a breath.
‘Biscottis? Crunchy biscuits. Often dipped in chocolate—'
‘What does this have to do with anythin—?' Sarah interjects.
‘Stay out of this Sus… Er… Sarah!’
I point a dagger of a finger at my wife then I continue to question Collum.
‘Collum. Are there biscottis, vanilla-flavored, chocolate-dipped, in this house?’
Collum looks like I just pulled a bra out of my pants and stuffed it in my mouth. I snap my fingers in front of his face.
‘Collum!’
‘No! Yes! I mean to say… yes. There were biscotti here, but only a couple and there aren’t any anymore.’
A dread begins to curdle deep down in my gut.
‘How many biscottis did you have Collum?’
‘I had a… couple and I think ‘biscotti’ is already plural so you don’t have to say ‘biscottis’.’
‘I’LL SAY BISCOTTIS HOWEVER THE HELL I WANT!’
The room falls silent. Nothing has gone according to plan. Life is a nightmare. The canapes are burnt, the biscottis/biscotti are finished, the pillow brioche was stale. This is the rock bottom I hear so much about in the AA meetings I eat cookies at. It doesn’t feel like a rock though. It feels like being stuck in molasses. Less like a rock bottom and more like falling onto a ginger snap.
‘Are you having an affair with my wife?’ threatens Tom in a flat menacing voice.
I pull one of the chips from my pocket and I begin to chew while the dinner party looks on, incredulous. The night is a wash.
‘Which one is your wife?’ I mumble at the floor as I move forlorn toward the door.
Tom begins to rant some nonsense at the back of my head as I take out another chip and chew, depressed. I walk out of the house past a line of immaculately trimmed hedgerows. Angry curses are thrown at my back as I turn the corner and walk out down the sidewalk. Something crashes to the street besides me. It’s the orange zinfandel. A fitting end. I walk past my car, down to the end of the cul-de-sac, and into the woods. I don’t know how long I walk for, but after a while I find myself in a dimly lit park. There’s a bench by a gravel path and I sit on it. There is a soothing crunching sound coming from above. I look up to see a squirrel munching on an old Cheeto.
Munch… munch… munch...
I close my eyelids.
Munch… munch… munch...
I let the music of the eating squirrel whisk me off to sleep.