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Stirring the Gravy, If not the Pot |
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By Margo Perry
“Don’t you even miss dancing, Mrs. Stepford?”
Libby ignored Gracie, concentrating instead on the horseradish gravy that would crown the prime rib feast she was preparing for her husband’s homecoming. She stirred, tasted and added a bit more red wine, her smile more determined than serene.
“Gracie, I’m preparing a Valentine feast for my husband. Stop it. I’m happy.”
“Not happy enough,” Gracie grumbled under her breath.
Libby and Gracie had fallen in love with dance and each other as childhood friends. They studied together, joined a ballet company together and quit together to travel to New York to immerse themselves in Modern and Jazz classes, before returning to the island to open Dance 249. It fast became a home for professional dancers and where the pros went hopeful dancers followed. It was an immediate success.
When Libby married Dick, she agreed to give up the ‘gypsy life’, as he called it, leaving the entire enterprise in Gracie’s hands.
“You’re denying too big a part of yourself,” Gracie insisted. “There’s no reason why you can’t be a wife and a choreographer. Dick is your husband. He’s also Special Counsel to Senator Wright. Jonathan is my husband and star reporter for the Pageant Times. I’m his wife and Artistic Director, Managing Director, mediocre choreographer and Budget Chief of our studio and company. That’s too many hats. We need you.”
“I keep telling you to hire someone. You can afford it.”
“I want you. It’s our dream.”
Gracie was perched on a swivel stool in front of Libby’s state of the art prep station. She sipped a glass of wine and then twirled, scanning the space like a realty agent.
“At least you’ve got this fabulous space to live in. The city view is spectacular and the beach is right outside your door. I remember how hard you had to fight Dick to get those walls down. Thank God the architect was on your side. This open concept really works.”
“Enough, Gracie Grouch,” Libby laughed, punching buttons to lower the heat. “Taste?” She spooned some gravy and rushed it to Gracie’s already puckered lips. “Blow.”
“So good. It’s been ages since I enjoyed a good prime roast.”
“Why don’t you stay for supper?” Libby asked. “Call Jonathan and ask him to join us.”
“Nah! Dick’s been away at that Think Tankey thing, for a whole week. I’m sure he’s dying to do what he can only do when you’re alone.”
Gracie laughed, but Libby’s chuckle had a sharp edge.
“I hope so. His goodbye kiss missed my lips completely, and I’m not even sure he noticed.”
“Oops!”
“Feels like we’ve been drifting for a while now, but I intend to fix that. This marriage means everything to me.”
“Okay, but remember that it takes two to fix whatever’s wrong in a marriage; only one to fix what’s wrong in oneself. Anyway, whatever’s on your mind, remember that he’s twenty-five years your senior, so go easy on him.”
The best friends giggled and Libby gave her gravy one last stir.
“I have an hour before Dick walks through that door. Let me change into something less comfortable and I’ll have a glass of wine with you.”
“Sounds like a plan and then I’ll get out of your hair. I love you, Libby.”
“I love you, Gracie.”
Libby had wanted Dick and the marriage more than she wanted her career. She enjoyed going to the gym, travelling with Dick, taking her chef classes, entertaining, being one of the ladies of Parliament Hill. She studied all sides of her walk-in closet before pulling an emerald green summer gown over her head. She stood in front of her mirror, admiring the way the bodice accentuated her cleavage, her biggest asset as far as Dick was concerned. She’d gotten implants just before their second anniversary and Dick became the lover she’d always dreamed of. When had things fizzled? Libby wasn’t sure of anything except that she wanted them crazy about each other again and she’d do whatever it took to get them back there.
She was adjusting her tits to best advantage, checking their profile, when an urgent knock on the door startled her. Gracie flew in, announcing in a torrent of broken sentences that she’d just heard on breaking news that a plane had gone down in a farmer’s field, not too far from there. The only name leaked from the passenger list was Senator Jay Wright, Dick’s boss and host of the Think Tank. Gracie had already called Jonathan at the newspaper to confirm. It was true! Something about an engine failing and a pylon breaking off its wing … fuel igniting … the scorching, bloody crash leaving no survivors.
Libby gazed into Gracie’s tortured face. She heard a scream that was too high pitched to be her own; too primitive and incomprehensible to be human. Gracie was weeping, and babbling consolations that were incomprehensible, but Libby clung to them anyway. Gracie’s arms around her kept her from exploding, until they suddenly felt too tight.
Libby jumped up and turned on the bedroom television. Images of fire and bodies and talking heads all melded into one. She turned off the set.
“I want to be alone. I need to be alone.”
Gracie kissed her forehead. “Take all the time you need. Passengers’ families will be informed officially, probably sooner than later. I’ll come get you, when . . .”
Her voice trailed off as she crossed the bedroom and quietly shut the door.
Dick was a creature of habit. After a five hour flight, he would have wanted a shower. Libby stared down at the fresh towels and thick terry robe waiting on the bed. The room was full of plans that would never be realized. She sobbed as anger and frustration grabbed her by the throat and tossed her onto the bed like a flimsy leaf in the wind. She collapsed, her face buried in Dick’s robe. She wept and wept.
Eventually spent, she got to her feet. The room was too small. She needed space. Open air.
She left the bedroom and stepped onto the balcony. The ocean was calm. Boats sailed on the breeze and spruce trees danced along the shore. Children laughed and gambolled on the beach below, racing toward hot dog and ice cream trucks. Two lovers stopped their stroll to kiss, their impatient bodies straining to be closer than public exposure allowed.
When had she and Dick lost that?
Dick is dead.
But he couldn’t be. Supper would be ready soon.
Dick is dead.
Libby collapsed onto a lounge chair. Her hands grabbed the arms too tight and her head threw itself back against the cushioned rest. New wails mixed with the screech of seagulls flying overhead.
She closed her eyes. The image of the lovers was imprinted on her brain. Their passion mocked the abyss of death she’d been plunged into. She felt overwhelmed. She floated between her conscious and subconscious selves, all cried out and exhausted, needing blessed oblivion that wouldn’t come.
There was a sudden chill. She opened her eyes to a sky clouding over, to the panic of the Sunday sunbathers gathering their things before rushing for cover. The skies opened and raged. She closed the sliding door against the storm, but stayed outside, exposed. She opened her dry mouth and heart to the deluge. Water drenched her. She shivered, looking down at the beach that was empty except for the lovers who were still locked in their embrace, despite the squall. Their excitement reached deep inside Libby. She needed what they were sharing. She wanted life not death. She wanted Dick. She felt her own heat rising, tried to ignore it, but couldn’t. She watched the lovers struggle to the ground, still holding each other, still bound by a passionate kiss, and she couldn’t look away. She was as bound to them as she was to life itself.
Libby pulled up her dress as she watched the girl struggle out of her jeans. She drew up her legs, feet together, thighs wide open. She needed to feel their life. Her fingers opened damp petals, long ignored. She invited nature’s tears to cool her raging heat. She could smell her own needs mounting. The boy’s jeans were off. She could hear the girl’s groans. Or were they her own? Her fingers wandered through sparse fronds and found their mark. She could smell her sex rising, mixing with the fresh smell of the rain. She felt as naked and vulnerable as the girl on the beach.
Some part of her was trying to re-establish her state of desperate grief and loss, but something else was seducing her in this down-pouring of excitement and passion. As electric currents of sexuality spread through her body, she knew that ‘that something else’ was hope, love of life.
Libby watched the laughing lovers struggle into wet clothing. She smelled her fingers before climbing back into her panties. The sun shone bright in the aftermath of the sudden storm and people were returning to the wet beach.
She waited for the guilt that refused to come. Instead, her life passed before her, the past, the present and the future. The condo was paid for. She was financially sound. Maybe she would go back to the studio. She wasn't sure. But for now, Dick was dead and there was much to be done.
She passed quickly through the bedroom to the bath, showered and dressed. She felt exhausted, challenged by all that was to come: funeral plans, so many files to be gone through and returned to the Senate offices. There was one file in particular that Dick had left in her care, cautioning her to keep it apart, to destroy it if anything were to happen to him. She’d had it tucked at the bottom of her lingerie drawer for six months, but that could wait.
Or, not ...
The fact that he’d left something in her care, something he’d trust no one but her to handle, made her feel closer to him and she needed to feel close to him.
She caught sight of herself in the mirror that topped her dresser. Her eyes reflected devastation and loss. She stared deep into her own eyes, as Anais Nin spoke to her clearly:
"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."
For Libby, that day had to be today, or she’d remain closed forever. She glanced at the special Valentine’s Day card she’d selected for Dick, a mixture of humour and sex. It was a mockery.
She opened her drawer, extracted the file and tossed it onto the bed. There were pictures and computer files describing the Government’s misuse of rendition. Videos of two people being abducted from their home, evidence of their torture, evidence of their innocence. In some ways, she felt as though she were experiencing death all over again, not the death of a body - Dick’s body, never to be seen or touched or shared ever again. This death was of innocence and trust in those she’d voted into service, those whom she’d dined with, those devoid of a moral compass by which to guide their citizens. Evidence of over-ambition, bad faith, treachery and betrayal were spread all over her lovely Italian Duvet. She couldn’t take it. She and Dick had watched Rendition together. She’d found it a great horror film. Uncharacteristically, Dick had said nothing.
She understood now. He’d been thinking about the dossier he was building, about protecting himself and she couldn’t blame him. People capable of such acts were scary. It took Libby an hour of creative processing to destroy every vestige of that evidence. Afterwards, she coughed, as if to dislodge the bitter vetch of disappointment she’d just swallowed, but it was still there.
Suddenly exhausted beyond measure, she lay down on the bed and closed her eyes. She breathed deeply to allay the headache that was threatening and soon fell asleep, feeling more alone than she’d ever been.
Libby awoke to Gracie’s trembling hands prodding her awake.
“Just come, Libby. Just come.”
Libby prepared herself. She expected to see a policeman, as tall and grave as the occasion demanded. She remembered a film she’d seen about the military and its protocol for informing families that the waiting and the hope were over; that their loved ones were dead.
She followed Gracie, not to the front door, but to the living room, where Dick stood, smiling his charming smile. He was drinking a glass of water and he wasn’t alone. Seated on their living room couch was his perfectly styled secretary, her usual smugness more pronounced than Libby remembered, her devotion to Dick less camouflaged. Libby was in shock, feeling nothing, thinking nothing.
“Hello, dear,” Dick said, kissing Libby’s cheek, not noticing that her lips had not been offered. “We had a productive week. I just wanted to check in before I ran Melanie home and tied up a few things at the office. I missed you, babe.”
Libby and Gracie stared at each other. Neither spoke, their faces kaleidoscopes of shifting emotions as they absorbed the weight of Dick’s duplicity. He’d been far enough away from the Think Tank and civilization to know nothing about the crash or his boss’ death. She’d long had her suspicions about Dick’s relationship with Melanie but, at this point, it was something to be dealt with, not worried about.
“Gracie, would you pour Melanie a glass of wine? Dick, come with me to the kitchen.”
Libby gestured Dick onto the same stool Gracie had occupied earlier.
“Senator Wright’s plane crashed. Of course, I thought you were on it.” Libby picked a wooden spatula from the array of utensils hanging in front of her and began to stir, ignoring Dick’s gasp and the heavy silence that followed. “I have also read the file you gave me in confidence. What a mess. You have enough on them, and yourself, to ruin all your lives.”
“Where is it? We have to destroy it.” Dick jumped up and rushed to Libby’s side.
Libby continued to stir. “You’ll never know where those files or their copies are. By tomorrow, they’ll either be on Jonathan’s desk, at The Pageant Times, or you’ll do what I want and they’ll be safe in my care forever.”
Libby tasted, added a little salt and continued to stir. She felt powerful. Dick was alive and her marriage would be stronger than ever. She was betting on cards she’d burned, leaving none in her deck. But she knew it would work.
Dick paced the kitchen.
“What do you want?”
“The Senator is dead and our marriage is not much better. You need to take care of business on the Hill and bring life back to this marriage. I have no intention of helping you. You’re an unsatisfactory and devious husband. You need to be the best, or be gone. Secondly, I’m going back to the studio that I should never have left.”
Libby removed her beautiful roast from the oven and left it to rest.
“I’ll take Melanie home and tell her . . .”
Libby spooned some gravy and moved toward Dick. “Taste?”
She looked into his eyes and moved between his legs. “Bad, bad boy,” she whispered.
His eyes were glued to her breasts and he looked so grateful that she allowed him to hug her. He was largely appreciative, reminding her that he enjoyed being handled.
“I accept your terms. I’ll be a new man, I promise. I love you, Libby.”
Libby looked at Dick. She believed him, but it no longer mattered.
“I’ll be back in ten minutes,” he said.
Libby turned down the stove. Her husband was back where she wanted him. Next week would find her back in the studio. She grabbed herself a wine glass, a fresh bottle, and went in search of Gracie. She couldn’t wait to give her the good news. She’d insist she call Jonathan and stay for dinner.
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