What Lies Beneath

Valentine’s Day this year lands on a Sunday. Normally, Sunday is our cleaning day. What are we doing to celebrate Valentine’s Day this year? Clean.

My mind awakes this morning with my eyes still closed as I reach over to my cellphone, mechanically turning off the alarm. I feel the cool breeze of the ceiling fan press our comforter down on top of me. My body heat circulating inside our blanket snuggles me and I indulge in the coziness.

While I begin to doze off, I realize Lori’s absent from beside me. Odd; Usually I’m up before her. I begin to hear instrumental saxophone begin at a whisper then slowly get louder, along with pots and pans banging and clanging as they meet with the stovetop. Is she actually going to put some effort into V-day this year? Breakfast in bed, maybe? A woman could only hope.

The stereotypes of a Sapphic relationship for the most part stand true. Both fall in love deeply after the first date; after first sight, if I’m being honest. Then, within weeks we move in together as if there’s no tomorrow. Then five years go by, you begin to think you’re more like best friends, then it reduces to roommates who sometimes cuddle and you’re constantly convincing yourself that all other healthy relationships are comparable to yours. Oh, and the Cat! How can I Forget the cat?

I could feel Sushi’s yellow eyes piercing through my soul as she sits on the carpet by my bedside, her tail swaying ever so slowly left and right. I open my eyes and we make eye contact for a few seconds before she slithers like a shadow under the bed.

I sit up, tossing the blanket towards the foot of the bed. As I stretch my arms above my head and contort my body side to side, I yawn a big yawn and mentally acknowledge my body aching and cracking like the sounds burning wood makes in an open fire.

“Sushi, what are you doing under there?” I reminisce about the days I wouldn’t think twice about how I’m going to maneuver myself down to the floor to get a better view of the peculiar cat I’m talking to.

I make way down to my hands and knees and I bend my upper body forward. In this yoga, child’s pose position, I feel my spine stretch and I breathe into it, slightly bending my face closer to the carpet as I take the skirt of the bed and raise it upwards.

Sushi, mirroring my position, stares at my face. Her marble eyes, dilating in the dark look like the blackness of the universe. As we look at one another, the melancholy look she’s giving me drowns the sounds of the music playing and the sizzling of what I’d guess to be bacon on Lori’s pan.

I look at Sushi’s black, short-haired paws resting on top of something inside of a potato-sack bag. I peruse my eyes from the head to the foot of the bed. "Gosh, as much as we clean this home every Sunday, there is a number of forgotten treasures underneath this bed," I thought.

“What ya got there, Sushi?” I reach my arm into the abyss and grab what Sushi is dying for me to see. As I pull the sack towards me, I drag a long missing sock along with it. So that’s where that went!

I muster myself up into a seated position, back up against the metal bar of the bed, legs crossed into a pretzel, and I hold the sack up in front of me. I open the sack and inside, a little, black book. I take it out and observe it; Just a plain, black book; smooth to the touch. Nearly pristine in care except when I turn it to the side, the pages aren’t aligned as when the book is brand new. I flip through the pages and smell the nostalgic scent paper gives. The book is definitely serving its purpose as random words from page to page jump out at me. “She’s… That day… Makes me laugh… love…” Books are so interesting. An item so small yet holds a ton of information. This one happens to hold memories. Me being a writer, you’d think I’d be the one to keep a diary.

The aroma of french toast and berries hit my nose in conjunction with my stomach grumbling. Something about this mysterious book keeps me from getting up to greet Lori in the kitchen. I open the book to a random page and begin reading word for word:

“I never thought I’d find a hobby and I’m so thankful

I met the love of my life. Tiffany just makes everything

so easy; so simple. I wouldn’t have known I had such

a talent for making bird houses if it wasn’t for her. The

day I saw her at the park for the first time,

I watched her watching birds. My heart

fluttered as if the bird’s wings brushed up against it.”

My heart raced as I analyzed her words. I didn’t know Lori could be so romantic. She always struggles communicating her feelings yet here they are, written right in front of me:

“I love birds,” I shakily whisper softly to myself as I turn to another page. What else is in this book?

“My heart was racing. It literally felt like it was in my

throat and that I’d vomit it right out and hand it

over to her. By the middle of this night, I practically did.

I knew this woman is going to be a big part of my life.

Tiffany is hilarious! Probably the funniest person I know.

I love how she can just easily do that. Make me laugh

so effortlessly. Her smile is incredible too. She’s just

walking perfection.”

As tears begin to well into my eyes, I recall the night Lori and I met. Although we both seemed so cool, I had to fake-it-til-I-make-it so to speak in order to calm my nerves. Lori was beautiful. She came off shy but confident in herself and I envied that. I didn’t think she was into me but years later we still laugh about how we both felt the same way that night.

I hesitate to reveal more of Lori’s secrets yet I can’t stop now. I flip a few more pages:

“I know I’m going to ask Tiffany to marry me one day.

I’m going to give this woman the dream wedding

she loves to rant on about. How she wants it to be

on the beach and the dress she’ll wear and how she wants

lots of birds present. It’s kind of cheesy to me but she deserves

the world and I’m so lucky she’d want anything to do

with me at all. Mark my words, someday,

she’ll get the wedding she deserves.”

Suddenly, I’ve lost my appetite. I struggle for air and my vision blurs through tears overflowing down my cheeks; snot running down my upper-lip. How beautiful a relationship this all seems presented to me from a book. It’s almost how we perceive other’s lives on social media with all the white-teeth smiles, family vacations, and somehow everyone comes off with a means of financial freedom. This love story doesn’t sound like the stereotypes. This relationship written on paper seems ideal. Nothing could ruin something so perfect. Two lovers who fit one another like the missing puzzle piece that completes the puzzle; Even if that piece is lost, it’s still the only piece that finishes the puzzle.

“Hey babe, I have a surprise…” Lori carelessly swings the bedroom door open and instantly her smile melts to a frown, her skin losing color at the same time as her eyes widen. She sees me, a mess on the floor. She looks like she wants to pick up a beautiful vase she dropped and shattered contemplating how she’ll put the pieces back together although she knows it’s not possible. I’m the vase.

She clears her throat, her hands shaking causing the coffee mug on the tray she’s holding to slightly tip over and splash coffee onto the french toast. She finds the courage, no not the courage, the nerve to speak to me.

“Brianna,” is all she can say. Although the apology is heard in her trembling voice, this is unforgivable.

As I sit there wallowing in the wetness of my tears dripping on my pajama top, I feel what seems to be all the emotions ever to exist. My body is on the floor, feeling like an abandoned, limp, lifeless rag doll but my mind is in a daze. How could I have been so blind?

I come-to from my mindless stupor. I look down and slowly close the little, black book. I slowly get up and walk towards the door. I walk up to her now looking her straight in her sad, sorry face. Her lips tremble and her eyes gloss as she could barely look back at me. I shove the book up against her chest. She briefly palms the back of my hand as she takes hold of the book against her. Her touch used to be home to me and now all I feel is disgust. I pass by her and I aimlessly walk to what was once our backyard.

It’s nearly 10 in the morning now, and the world seems so happy. The birds are chirping and the sun rays seep into the windows of the shed where she does her carpentry. My feet feel glued to the ground until I hear Lori in the front yard. She opens her car door, gets in and slams the door shut. Having control of my feet again, I look straight ahead of me and head into the shed. I close the door behind me.

I look around at all the things she’s built with her bare hands. I think of all the things we built together. Another woman? Where could she even find the time? Suddenly I feel it. The burning fire that begins to boil in my stomach and make its way up my throat. I’m enraged with anger.

Without thinking, my hands robotically grab one of her birdhouses. I raise it over my head and along with a shrieking scream I smash it as hard as I can to the ground. I stumble a few steps backwards and hover my hands over my mouth. Shards of wood spread all over the cement. Something else burst from the shatter of the birdhouse. Inside, now splayed out between chips of wood like tossed salad, is money! Thousands of dollars!

Without thinking, I get on my hands and knees scooping and sweeping money and splinters towards me. Some bills still in their respective bundles, made it somewhat easier to gather. The pain from the splinters of the wood piercing my hands don't compare to the pain Lori has caused.

I got up in front of her work station table and began laying the bills down counting. “Nineteen thousand, twenty-thousand dollars!” My eyes peruse the bills up and down. “The wedding she deserves, ha!” I chuckle to myself.

I empty the garden-tool bag and toss the bills inside. I head for the bedroom and grab a few things. Sushi caresses and wraps herself around my legs as she purrs and looks up at me. “It’s just you and me now, Sushi,” I say to her, followed by a sniffle. I hear her car screeching out the driveway and I’m actually relieved she’s left. “Breakfast at Tiffany’s?” I thought to myself. See, I can be funny too.

They say money can’t buy you happiness, but, let me tell you, I’m about to try anyway.