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So I’d gone a little overboard. So I had three more crayons than I would ever need and might end up dying of a riboflavin overdose. What did I care? I was safe and I was worth loving. The love and protection of a good woman were all I had ever wanted in life, and at the moment, I felt like I had both. Not even twenty-four ounces of rubber cement could hurt me now.
Through the uninsulated log walls, I heard the faucet of the outdoor shower being turned off. Right now, Clara was standing naked under the setting sun in a roofless bathroom, wringing out her long blond hair and drying off her beautiful body with a brand-new four-dollar Walmart towel. I’d taken my shower just before she took hers, and I admit that I’d spent a little longer in there than I had to, hoping I’d hear the stall door creak open and turn around to find Clara standing there naked and beautiful and waiting for me. My physical attraction to her was so intense it was almost unbearable. But it wasn’t just because she had a pretty face and a gorgeous, curvaceous body. What I was feeling for Clara was way, way more than lust. It was that magnetic pull you feel when you connect with someone so deeply that—
Crap. I was getting excited again. At this point Clara had seen me in the aroused state multiple times, so it wasn’t like I had anything to hide. I just didn’t want her to think that I’d spent the last twenty minutes in the kitchen imagining us naked in a shower together even though that was exactly what I had spent the last twenty minutes doing.
I had to focus my mind on something unsexy. I’d spotted a lake in the distance when we were unloading the groceries from the car. I imagined myself paddling out in a rowboat with a fishing rod, sticking a hook through a living fish’s eyeball, and then gutting and cleaning it with my bare hands only to find a sack of eggs in its stomach and realize I’d just murdered the mother of two thousand babies for my own gluttonous pleasure.
Wow, that worked fast. It turned out a hard-on was no match for a dead pregnant fish. And just in time, too. As my latest erection subsided, Clara walked through the front door wearing the one-size-fits-all bathrobe I myself had been wearing just twenty minutes ago. It looked better on her than it had on me. Probably because I knew she was naked underneath. Technically, she’d been naked under her clothes all day, but this was different. This time there was a bed less than twenty feet away.
Hooks. Fish eyeballs. Two thousand units of substandard caviar.
Ah, crisis averted. Downward dog achieved.
“Hey,” Clara said.
“Hey,” I said. “Nice shower?”
“Very nice.”
“Felt good to wash off the prison vibes, didn’t it?” I said.
“That it did,” she said. But her voice lacked enthusiasm.
“Why don’t you go ahead and get dressed?” I said. “I’ll heat up our dinner.”
“Thanks,” she said without looking at me. “Just give me a few extra minutes to dry my hair.”
Without another word, she walked into the bedroom and closed the door behind her.
Something was wrong. I wasn’t imagining it. She was growing distant again. She’d been a little standoffish after she talked to her mother in the police station parking lot, but by the time we were in Walmart debating whether to buy a four-pack of canned spaghetti or sixty-four ounces of garbanzo beans for dinner, she’d warmed up again. I’d awoken in the car an hour later to the feel of her fingers in my hair, and right up until twenty minutes ago, when she’d stepped outside for her shower, she was all smiles. What had changed?
Tyler. That had to be it. He was still on her mind. And why wouldn’t he be? The nonstop action of our day had served to keep her distracted from thoughts of the wedding, but now her world was quiet again. There was nothing to keep her mind occupied, so it had returned to thoughts of the man who, until two weeks ago, she had thought she was going to be spending the rest of her life with. This time tomorrow, she was supposed to be dancing at her wedding. At this very moment, she was probably supposed to be at her rehearsal dinner practicing her‘til death do us part. But instead, she was hiding out in a cabin in the middle of the woods wearing a cardboard bathrobe and getting ready to eat a bowl of canned pasta with a spork.
What I wanted more than anything in the world was to climb into a bed with her and never leave. At the same time, I was beginning to feel a little guilty about the pack of condoms I’d bought while she was in the ladies’ room at Walmart. True, we’d been on each other like rabbits earlier in the day, but just because sex was on our minds didn’t mean doing it was a good idea. Clara was still recovering from a trauma, and I didn’t want to push her.
As the timer on the microwave went off, Clara walked into the living-dining-kitchen wearing a pair of pink and white pajamas. Her long hair was dry and hanging over her shoulders in soft waves. I could tell she was wearing neither a bra nor makeup. She was all natural, and she was positively lovely. And round and soft and desirable.
Time to think of a certain dead fish again. By this point I’d named her Mara. She was a friend and her death was personal. What decent man would think of sex at a time like this?
“Sit down,” I said, nodding toward the tiny dining table. “Dinner will be ready in a sec.”
I poured the ravioli into two bowls and brought them to the table.
“Bon appétit,” I said.
“Cheers,” she said, raising her spork.
I took my first sporkful of dinner. And literally gagged. “Oh my God,” I said, taking a swig of my milk-related product. “I used to beg my mom to buy this stuff. I thought canned pasta was the best thing in the world, right up there with Oreos. What was wrong with me?”
“If you really can’t stand the pasta,” she said, “there are some Oreos in the pantry.”
“We bought Oreos?” I said.
“No,” she said. “They’re from last October.”
“Maybe I’ll just stick to bread. And water. I don’t know if I can finish the powdered milk.”
“Your first meal after your release from prison is going to be bread and water? Nostalgic for the joint already?”
