Weekend of My Discontent, Part 3
Please visit the intro or Part 1 to read from the top. Today's edition will cover the Second Quarter and Halftime sections of the story.
Second Quarter
There were four scheduled games that weekend, and Seahawks/Redskins was the lowest on my priority of games to see. The Redskins were the lowest ranked team in the playoffs, and they had to beat Tampa Bay on the road last week just to get the right to meet the Seattle Seahawks, the top team in the National Football Conference. In winning the Redskins registered the lowest offensive output for a playoff winner in history. I didn’t expect them to put up much of a fight in Seattle, even though the Seahawks hadn’t won a playoff game since 1984. I was five years old.
I had a choice. I could turn on the bedroom television and watch some of the game while pretending to unpack. I could also go upstairs and spend time with my “fiancé’”. My third option was to think ahead to the romantic prospects for the evening. A blazing fireplace along with a lovely meal cooked by myself seemed like a good idea. A little tequila mixed in wouldn’t hurt.
I changed into my hiking boots, determined to find the firewood pile. Before I got there I checked out the Jacuzzi out back. There was a convenient wall around the spa on two sides, just in case the urge to skinny-dip presented itself. I doubted that would happen. Nicole always found a way to remained at least partially clothed during out encounters. I thought it strange that she generally refused to take her top off during intimate moments because it was a little too obvious when she didn’t wear a bra.
The snow flying into my face was somewhat welcome as I climbed up the incline on the right side of the cabin. The wood pile was there. Most of the logs were coated in snow and all of them were wet in some way. I grabbed the driest four pieces from the middle of the pile and headed around to the front door.
Nicole seemed surprised at my return through the front door. She turned around to acknowledge my presence and then returned to watching her movie. I saw Kevin Costner slow dancing with a woman I couldn’t recognize. I quickly moved across Nicole’s line of sight and dumped the firewood on the floor. My hands and sweatshirt were a mess. I knew that I’d have to get one or two more loads of wood to keep the fire going into the night, if we chose to do so.
Nicole seemed attached to her chick flick, and I hadn’t reached the point in the relationship when I could just grab the remote, which is my male prerogative. I had another idea. It was two in the afternoon and neither of us had eaten lunch nor stocked up on provisions for our two-night stay in the woods. The snow was coming down pretty hard but I figured that the roads would be OK for a while.
“Do you want to go somewhere and get lunch?”
She grunted in return. Nicole’s either starving or looks at food like it were roadkill. With my limited data set I could not anticipate her moods.
“OK then. I’ll figure out where the grocery store is and get some food-like substance. If you have any special needs, speak now.”
She turned and looked at me for the first time in 30 minutes. It wasn’t the kind of look you’d expect from someone whose panties were still on the floor.
“Coffee and cinnamon rolls. Dark roast.”
“Gotcha,” I said, moving to grab my jacket. This is the part in the movie when the girl says something meaningful to the boy as he pauses at the door to go. The room was silent save for the strains of late 80s Whitney Houston.
When I dropped the groceries on the kitchen counter I saw that Nicole was already ahead of me. The Patron that I thought was hidden in my cooler was on the kitchen table. Nicole had about an inch of it in a glass tumbler. A quick gaze at the bottle told me that she was on round two. I tore through half a package of heat-and-serve rolls on the ride back, along with two brownies, so I wasn’t diving in without something in my ample stomach.
Nicole lazily flipped through an issue of People magazine.
“Sounds like you got a lot of stuff,” she said, not turning around.
“How does fish for dinner sound?”
“Sure,” she replied. Her ponytail twitched, which was acknowledgement enough.
“I didn’t think that you read People.”
“The more I drink, the more interesting it becomes.”
“Do you mind if I join you?”
“I only brought one.”
“I was talking about the tequila.”
“Go right ahead.”
People say that Patron is the sipping tequila. I poured myself a healthy dose, clinked Nicole’s glass and had a sip. My lips burned and my will to live temporarily plummeted, but ten seconds later the glow was nice.
I put my hand on hers. Nicole had long, slender fingers. There was a grace to her features. She looked at me, a gaze that only a slightly buzzed man could return. Her dark eyes were generally too intense for extended viewing. I needed to say something, something real. If there was a point to this weekend, I had to condense it into a single sentence, and fast. My audience was ready to change the channel.
“Thanks for coming with me,” I said. There must have been ten dozen more interesting things to say. Instead I went with the audible. At least I didn’t gesture my hands like a moron in the style of Peyton Manning. What I had done was suggest actual feeling between us. If such a thing existed, we were way too cool to acknowledge it.
“Thanks for asking me,” she said with a soft smile. She withdrew her hand.
I took another sip and immediately regretted it. A tumbler full of margarita mix would have been useful.
“Does it bother you that we don’t know anything about each other?” she asked. I saw pictures of Britney Spears and Kevin Federline.
Not really, I almost said. “Is there anything you’d like to know?”
“What’s with the hair?”
I immediately started talking without thinking. “When I turned 15, I discovered my first grey hair. Most boys of that age are discovering something else. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal because there was just one of them. By the time I was 17 it was about fifty-fifty and at 19 the brown was all but gone.”
“So it turned that way over time?”
“You’ve never had a grey hair?”
“To be honest, no.”
“Your hair is fantastic.”
“It’s almost white.”
“It’s natural.”
She blushed. “You’ve had grey hair so long that it’s no longer a big deal.”
“It never was a big deal.”
“What is a big deal to you?”
Football was my instant mental answer. “You being here is a nice start.”
“You always know what to say,” she replied, seeing me clearly for a moment. It passed.
We made no further physical contact until a couple of hours later, when I convinced her to join me in the Jacuzzi at sunset. That was all well and good, except that the Jacuzzi and entire backyard faced East. Besides, it was still snowing. Nicole put on a one-piece suit. I thought she could pull off a bikini, but that was my misogynistic side coming out. I had already taken the cover off and turned on the jets, so she went in as I quickly checked the TV for an update. The Redskins just missed a field goal and the Seahawks led 17-10. It was closer than I thought. I reluctantly turned off the television.
My mood shifted when Nicole offered me a shot. We drank like college students, played footsie and giggled until we were two prunes. I kissed her instead of trying to talk again and she proved that was a good idea by going along with it. Time passed without either of us knowing, and that was a rare blessing.
When we got out I had a moment of panic when I realized that the back door might be locked. They’d find us in the morning, looking like extras from Cocoon, with an empty bottle of Patron smashed against the wall.
I was nice enough to get her a towel. Once she was safe and warm I went back outside to put the top back on the Jacuzzi. Going from 105 degrees to 30 in ten seconds can be refreshing for a couple of moments, but the fun is over very soon.
Halftime Show
I finished wrestling the wet cover over the steaming tub when I heard what sounded like coughing. When I paused for a moment to grab a towel and remove my swim trunks, I heard the shower turn on. The sudden desire to be dry overrode my curiosity about the noise. The bathroom door was closed. When I opened the door I saw Nicole crouching over the toilet. She turned on the shower to muffle the sound.
“Let me take your swimsuit,” I said as I helped her up and into the shower.
“No,” she mumbled.
“You want to shower with your suit on?”
“Go away,” she said. Five seconds later she added “Please.”
I cleaned up the bathroom as best I could. Deciding that she needed privacy, I closed the bathroom door. I thought better. Why wouldn’t she want some company in the shower? If I could help get her cleaned up, then I would be her hero. I would be her Tom Brady in shining armor. Tom Brady is the quarterback of the New England Patriots, and he’s 9-0 in playoff games. Who wouldn’t want to be more like Tom?
I opened the door and saw her drop her suit on the floor. When I quickly opened the curtain she turned around like a pet caught rooting through the trash and pressed her back against the shower wall. The suddenness of her movements startled me.
“What the fuck!”
“Sorry,” I replied. “I thought you might need some help in cleaning up.”
“What part of fuck off don’t you understand,” she slurred loudly. She looked down, giggled, and mumbled “shrinkage.” Before curling into a fetal position, she threw up on me.
Between the two smallish bath towels I got her dry, into a t-shirt and into the bed. It was almost seven and I had doubts that she was going to wake up for a while. I put socks on her feet, wrapped her up in covers, made sure that she slept on her stomach and went upstairs to make my dinner.
I was still a bit drunk myself. When I turned on the TV I saw that the Denver/New England game was due to start in an hour. The evening had turned.
Second Quarter
There were four scheduled games that weekend, and Seahawks/Redskins was the lowest on my priority of games to see. The Redskins were the lowest ranked team in the playoffs, and they had to beat Tampa Bay on the road last week just to get the right to meet the Seattle Seahawks, the top team in the National Football Conference. In winning the Redskins registered the lowest offensive output for a playoff winner in history. I didn’t expect them to put up much of a fight in Seattle, even though the Seahawks hadn’t won a playoff game since 1984. I was five years old.
I had a choice. I could turn on the bedroom television and watch some of the game while pretending to unpack. I could also go upstairs and spend time with my “fiancé’”. My third option was to think ahead to the romantic prospects for the evening. A blazing fireplace along with a lovely meal cooked by myself seemed like a good idea. A little tequila mixed in wouldn’t hurt.
I changed into my hiking boots, determined to find the firewood pile. Before I got there I checked out the Jacuzzi out back. There was a convenient wall around the spa on two sides, just in case the urge to skinny-dip presented itself. I doubted that would happen. Nicole always found a way to remained at least partially clothed during out encounters. I thought it strange that she generally refused to take her top off during intimate moments because it was a little too obvious when she didn’t wear a bra.
The snow flying into my face was somewhat welcome as I climbed up the incline on the right side of the cabin. The wood pile was there. Most of the logs were coated in snow and all of them were wet in some way. I grabbed the driest four pieces from the middle of the pile and headed around to the front door.
Nicole seemed surprised at my return through the front door. She turned around to acknowledge my presence and then returned to watching her movie. I saw Kevin Costner slow dancing with a woman I couldn’t recognize. I quickly moved across Nicole’s line of sight and dumped the firewood on the floor. My hands and sweatshirt were a mess. I knew that I’d have to get one or two more loads of wood to keep the fire going into the night, if we chose to do so.
Nicole seemed attached to her chick flick, and I hadn’t reached the point in the relationship when I could just grab the remote, which is my male prerogative. I had another idea. It was two in the afternoon and neither of us had eaten lunch nor stocked up on provisions for our two-night stay in the woods. The snow was coming down pretty hard but I figured that the roads would be OK for a while.
“Do you want to go somewhere and get lunch?”
She grunted in return. Nicole’s either starving or looks at food like it were roadkill. With my limited data set I could not anticipate her moods.
“OK then. I’ll figure out where the grocery store is and get some food-like substance. If you have any special needs, speak now.”
She turned and looked at me for the first time in 30 minutes. It wasn’t the kind of look you’d expect from someone whose panties were still on the floor.
“Coffee and cinnamon rolls. Dark roast.”
“Gotcha,” I said, moving to grab my jacket. This is the part in the movie when the girl says something meaningful to the boy as he pauses at the door to go. The room was silent save for the strains of late 80s Whitney Houston.
When I dropped the groceries on the kitchen counter I saw that Nicole was already ahead of me. The Patron that I thought was hidden in my cooler was on the kitchen table. Nicole had about an inch of it in a glass tumbler. A quick gaze at the bottle told me that she was on round two. I tore through half a package of heat-and-serve rolls on the ride back, along with two brownies, so I wasn’t diving in without something in my ample stomach.
Nicole lazily flipped through an issue of People magazine.
“Sounds like you got a lot of stuff,” she said, not turning around.
“How does fish for dinner sound?”
“Sure,” she replied. Her ponytail twitched, which was acknowledgement enough.
“I didn’t think that you read People.”
“The more I drink, the more interesting it becomes.”
“Do you mind if I join you?”
“I only brought one.”
“I was talking about the tequila.”
“Go right ahead.”
People say that Patron is the sipping tequila. I poured myself a healthy dose, clinked Nicole’s glass and had a sip. My lips burned and my will to live temporarily plummeted, but ten seconds later the glow was nice.
I put my hand on hers. Nicole had long, slender fingers. There was a grace to her features. She looked at me, a gaze that only a slightly buzzed man could return. Her dark eyes were generally too intense for extended viewing. I needed to say something, something real. If there was a point to this weekend, I had to condense it into a single sentence, and fast. My audience was ready to change the channel.
“Thanks for coming with me,” I said. There must have been ten dozen more interesting things to say. Instead I went with the audible. At least I didn’t gesture my hands like a moron in the style of Peyton Manning. What I had done was suggest actual feeling between us. If such a thing existed, we were way too cool to acknowledge it.
“Thanks for asking me,” she said with a soft smile. She withdrew her hand.
I took another sip and immediately regretted it. A tumbler full of margarita mix would have been useful.
“Does it bother you that we don’t know anything about each other?” she asked. I saw pictures of Britney Spears and Kevin Federline.
Not really, I almost said. “Is there anything you’d like to know?”
“What’s with the hair?”
I immediately started talking without thinking. “When I turned 15, I discovered my first grey hair. Most boys of that age are discovering something else. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal because there was just one of them. By the time I was 17 it was about fifty-fifty and at 19 the brown was all but gone.”
“So it turned that way over time?”
“You’ve never had a grey hair?”
“To be honest, no.”
“Your hair is fantastic.”
“It’s almost white.”
“It’s natural.”
She blushed. “You’ve had grey hair so long that it’s no longer a big deal.”
“It never was a big deal.”
“What is a big deal to you?”
Football was my instant mental answer. “You being here is a nice start.”
“You always know what to say,” she replied, seeing me clearly for a moment. It passed.
We made no further physical contact until a couple of hours later, when I convinced her to join me in the Jacuzzi at sunset. That was all well and good, except that the Jacuzzi and entire backyard faced East. Besides, it was still snowing. Nicole put on a one-piece suit. I thought she could pull off a bikini, but that was my misogynistic side coming out. I had already taken the cover off and turned on the jets, so she went in as I quickly checked the TV for an update. The Redskins just missed a field goal and the Seahawks led 17-10. It was closer than I thought. I reluctantly turned off the television.
My mood shifted when Nicole offered me a shot. We drank like college students, played footsie and giggled until we were two prunes. I kissed her instead of trying to talk again and she proved that was a good idea by going along with it. Time passed without either of us knowing, and that was a rare blessing.
When we got out I had a moment of panic when I realized that the back door might be locked. They’d find us in the morning, looking like extras from Cocoon, with an empty bottle of Patron smashed against the wall.
I was nice enough to get her a towel. Once she was safe and warm I went back outside to put the top back on the Jacuzzi. Going from 105 degrees to 30 in ten seconds can be refreshing for a couple of moments, but the fun is over very soon.
Halftime Show
I finished wrestling the wet cover over the steaming tub when I heard what sounded like coughing. When I paused for a moment to grab a towel and remove my swim trunks, I heard the shower turn on. The sudden desire to be dry overrode my curiosity about the noise. The bathroom door was closed. When I opened the door I saw Nicole crouching over the toilet. She turned on the shower to muffle the sound.
“Let me take your swimsuit,” I said as I helped her up and into the shower.
“No,” she mumbled.
“You want to shower with your suit on?”
“Go away,” she said. Five seconds later she added “Please.”
I cleaned up the bathroom as best I could. Deciding that she needed privacy, I closed the bathroom door. I thought better. Why wouldn’t she want some company in the shower? If I could help get her cleaned up, then I would be her hero. I would be her Tom Brady in shining armor. Tom Brady is the quarterback of the New England Patriots, and he’s 9-0 in playoff games. Who wouldn’t want to be more like Tom?
I opened the door and saw her drop her suit on the floor. When I quickly opened the curtain she turned around like a pet caught rooting through the trash and pressed her back against the shower wall. The suddenness of her movements startled me.
“What the fuck!”
“Sorry,” I replied. “I thought you might need some help in cleaning up.”
“What part of fuck off don’t you understand,” she slurred loudly. She looked down, giggled, and mumbled “shrinkage.” Before curling into a fetal position, she threw up on me.
Between the two smallish bath towels I got her dry, into a t-shirt and into the bed. It was almost seven and I had doubts that she was going to wake up for a while. I put socks on her feet, wrapped her up in covers, made sure that she slept on her stomach and went upstairs to make my dinner.
I was still a bit drunk myself. When I turned on the TV I saw that the Denver/New England game was due to start in an hour. The evening had turned.
posted by Zach Law | 9:41 AM
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