“No. Nothing you do is boring to me.”
“But that’s not what you just said, dearest.”
“What can I say? I think what I think, but sometimes...”
“Sometimes you think I’m boring?”
“Sometimes shit just comes out all fucking weird when I try to say it.”
Thomas drops his empty glass. It shatters on the Brazilian walnut floor.
And he stares at me, wordlessly.
“That’s…that’s my favorite thing you’ve ever said.”
“Really? That?”
“I’m in love with you.”
“I should hope so.”
“And I’m tired of being a bore, so...”
“Okay…wait. Do you mean?”
“I mean, I’m ready to try some new ways of expressing it. You’ve still got that leather overnight bag, right? What were you keeping in there, again?”
“Let’s go to the other fucking room already.”
Four
Thomas
So that’s what I was fucking afraid of this whole time?
“That’s from Bloomingdale’s, right?”
Margarita’s walking out of the walk-in closet, smiling in a way I never see her smile. Her pale, hazel eyes are focused on mine even more penetratingly than they were in the wood flooring in the living room earlier.
“It’s the only place you can get a Pan Am bag these days.”
Yes, that’s what my wife is carrying, and the thing I was afraid of. A blue leather bag.
With the logo of the defunct airline on it. From a fucking department store.
Of course, I’m not sure what’s inside the bag.
Margarita’s tried to tell me once or twice, but…
“I’m ready,” I announce aloud.
“You fucking better be. I didn’t reach up and grab this shit from the top shelf for nothing.”
Sitting on the edge of the bed, my heart rate feels like it’s starting to get a bit…swifter than usual. And my ol’ ticker really shoots up towards the stars when Margarita drops the bag on the floor with a weighty thump.
It’s a thump that means something, and I’m about to find out what.
“Seriously, Thomas, that cardigan’s getting frizzy. Take it off.”