Work in progress - ROUGH DRAFT - Dead Birds and Mulch

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        Dido put down her coffee cup and stared at the computer screen with

more interest and wonder than it deserved. It was winter time and she felt cold and insecure. She distracted herself for a moment with a trinket – a small cat keychain her daughter had bought for her at the Christmas Fair back in ’92. She wondered if somewhere out there, in the foggy night, if her daughter ever thought of her and her

suburban Philadelphia life or remember all the times she drove her to soccer practice and spelling bees and all those other American perfect pleasantries.

        She scrolled through her aol account. Bills, bills, the bold herald of an email. Nothing from Michael just yet.

        She placed the coffee cup on the coaster and adjusted it accordingly. Everything in its place. Waste not, want not. All the axioms of a truly American woman – albeit one alone with her thoughts and an AOL Instant Messenger account.

        Dido looked at the numbers on the microwave. They blinked 7:00. This

was the time she usually spet washing dishes after cooking a fresh salmon and mustard meal , listening to her carefree kids on the couch, watching cartoons. Her husband napped on the sofa, a blanket covering his eyes from the light as she scrubbed away at the pots and pans, adjusting the heart chain around her neck.

        The pile of envelopes on the table caught her blue eye. She put her

chin in her palm. A bill from Dr. Mulligan. A notice from the Philadelphia Electric Company and the Department of Health. It was just all too much to address at once.

        She wondered if he would get online tonight. If he would type to her that everything was going to be alright and that she wasn’t alone. Sometimes he used adjectives she didn’t understand so she bookmarked Dictionary.com as a reference.

        There was something odd about waiting for him every night at the same time. When they chatted it was like all was forgotten. Her world of Kohl’s and working part time book keeping at Carpet World. None of it mattered. She felt like one of those princesses in the stories her

goddaughter at Harvard used to write about.

        Princess. That wasn’t something she could have ever related to. She wore denim and cotton every day. She owned nothing with lace.

        She remembered the day he asked her for a topless photo. She had been

caught up and distracted at work. The day was full of clouds and Carly

Simon kept coming on the radio and her morning coffee wasn’t doing

what it was supposed to. They had been chatting online all morning and

she just got lost in the moment.

        She felt like she was 16 again – like she did in the days of jean cut offs, aluminum beer cans and brown rusted Pintos by the lake. The days when she had long hair to her waist and used to kiss boys in the thickets of upstate Pennsylvania forests. Those summers felt like they would never end  - fireflies, Led Zeppelin on the radio and shirtless boys with mustaches.

        But now Dido  was in the bathroom, hiking up her shirt to reveal a

pastel waist, fraught with Caesarian scars and marks from eating chocolates and drinking wine late nights alone in bed. This was the body she was coming to know and for some reason, this inviting stranger took an interest in it. More than her husband ever had.

        She was wearing a red lace bra – brand new from JcPenney’s. She had

smiled to herself when she bought it.

        Dido  used her Nokia and snapped a quick picture of herself in the mirror and rushed back to the beige office where she worked. She immediately asked him he received the picture. When he replied “NO” her heart sank deep into her stomach. She looked at her phone.

        Had she accidentally sent it to her husband? Had it become lost in the Cyber Universe? Did her BOSS see it?!

        The seconds felt like an eternity. Anticipation was becoming the

underlying feeling of her life.

]       “GOT IT! WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!@!!!!!!”

        He typed back. Textual tension.

        Her heart readjusted itself. She pulled out a Marlboro from her 1988 brown cigarette case. She lit up right in the office, knowing full well it was forbidden. But nowadays the forbidden was all she was about.

        As the weeks went by, she kept taking pictures for him, each time in

some not-so-secluded location. At work, in the Target restroom. She thought she had mastered the side angle of herself that showcased her best features. She now went to Boscov’s once a week for a  new pair of underwear. Her red cell phone rang. It was her daughter phoning it in from a quick jaunt to Italy. Dido ignored the call and kept on shopping.

        Her life was changing – finally. After all these years, the suburban nightmare was ending  and someone was finally loving her for who she was. She WAS beautiful, dammit, and thinner than anyone else in the neighborhood. Why wouldn’t a hygienist married with his own family want her?!

        One November afternoon, she realized they had gone an entire day without chatting.  It was 4 o’clock and she lingered in the office waiting for him. She attempted to distract herself but it was impossible.

        What am I doing with myself?! she demanded and cried gobs of mascara

down her cheeks.

        It was hard to drive home that day – with the tears in her eyes blurring the way. She went home and turned on Oprah, mindlessly devouring a bag of Hertz potato chips. She had started LIVING for these chats. It

wasn’t about Jillian and Nathaniel anymore or Lionel or Sylvia or Alan. It was for these stolen sentences on the screen on her Dell that made her want to wake up in the morning.

        It crossed her mind to toss the computer across the room. That $500 machine only brought her misery.

        But she left her Instant Messenger open – hoping she might hear the twinkling spritely noise that heralded his return to their little world. Sure enough…

        It was February now.

            The waiting room at Dr. West’s office smelled like apple juice. That’s what Yankee Candle had intended. Dido  looked to her left to a stack of Entertainment Weekly. She nervously adjusted herself in the seat- straightening her posture and tucking a weft of Clairol colored hair behind her shoulder. In her head she had practiced answers to questions she thought the doctor might ask.

            Had she ever smoked marijuana?

            No.

            Ever contemplated suicide?

            No.

            What is your favorite color?

            Red.

            Dr. West entered the room with squared white teeth as Dido  was muttering something to herself. Dido  immediately noticed the doctor’s bronzed knees peaking out from underneath her dirndl skirt. The  white teeth shook her hand.

            “So nice to meet you! Come upstairs.” This doctor cooed like a pigeon.

            “So tell me,” looking her in the blue eye as she crossed her denim legs, “What brings you here?”

            A question Dido  had not anticipated. She had thought the session would begin with something like a Rorschach test.

            Dido  scanned the room and noted how much she loved the cat print quilt draped over the spare chair.

            Dr. West smiled.
            “I am not sure if I am having what may or may not be considered an affair.”

            The doctor did not stir.

            “Tell me about that.”

            It felt strange to say that sentence out loud. All of the months she had quietly kept this to herself – not mentioning it to her neighbor Denise or coworker Angie, her pals and confidants. As she annunciated each word, her internet tragedy became more than just html and binary code. It felt as though she somehow was being drowned in a digital bath. She wasn’t sure how but it did. In her mind, she envisioned her husband, his bloated bell over her in the lavender scented bubbles of chat pop ups and memes wrapping his palms around her throat and plunging her face beneath the water made up of 0’s and 1’s.

            Marilyn asked her a lot of questions and Dido coolly supplied her with many answers in return. But the whole time she was fixated on thoughts of that technological bath tub and maybe, just maybe, visions of her family’s finch lying belly up in sawdust at the bottom of his cage.

           

            “I’m going to Prague, Mom, and may never ever come back,” the telephone receiver said. “But I may come home for a few days to see you because I don’t know if and when I’ll afford to do that again.”

            “Ok,” Dido  said flatly, staring at the mirror. “You should do that.

            “Thanks, Moooooom,” Jillian purred and hung up.

            “Mom,” Nathaniel  shouted from the foyer through all American orthodontia. “I’m going to Alex’s house. See you Monday!”

            “Ok,” Dido  replied feebly. “You should do that…” Voice trailed off into the air.

            The phone rang again. It was Lionel on the line telling her her was going to be late at the shop again.

            “Ok. You should do that.”

            By the time Dido  put the receiver back in its cradle, smoke was bellowing from the kitchen.

            Today she had chipped her best Revlon nail polish and burnt the meatloaf.

            Dido  was wearing grey sweatpants and maroon Keds the evening the cops took her away. As the cameras flashed in her face, she noticed she had forgotten to water the azaleas and that the mulch was distributed evenly. How embarrassing. Her outdoor cat, Mimsy, cradled a dead sparrow in its paws and looked up at her with dishsaucers.

            “You monster!” Denise next door screamed in her bathroom. Mimsy, at the sound of her shrieking, dashed off, leaving the sparrow behind.

            The soles of the Keds sneakers were stained with dark dried blood and they pressed into the soft earth beneath them.

            In the crowd, she caught the gaze of her dentist – the second time she had seen him face to face since their romance had commenced. His arms were folded and he shook his head.

            Last week they had met at the studio Dido ’s father in law had maintained. They kissed and caressed on the concrete floor of the garage as a dust covered stereo played Journey.

            Dido ’s eyes were shut as she thought of summer and jean cut off shorts and brown Chevrolets and feathered hair.

            When she opened her eyes, she saw the round figure of her disapproving husband looming above the kissing couple – about to spew profanity of the most depraved kind.

            She had decided to do it when the divorce papers arrived promptly on her desk. Dido took her keys and cell phone and an abnormally large box cutter the owner of Carpet World had left behind.

            At home her children lie selfishly asleep in the haze of a Wednesday afternoon. Jillian had swallowed a Melatonin pill in preparation for the jet lag before her and Nathaniel had smoked his father’s marijuana to himself on the terrace.

            No one had bothered to take out the trash or clean the unwashed dishes or put the wet towels in the dryer. Lionel, too, lie peacefully asleep upstairs taking a break from doing absolutely nothing.           

            Dido wasn’t sure of what she was being asked by the reporter as she said, “No comment.”

            All she could think about was getting a new gmail account and picking a new favorite color.

Note: This is a really, really rough draft. I know there are at least 2 parts that are repeated and I am just trying to decide where in the story I would like to keep them. Just thought I'd share with everyone this work in progress. 

While I appreciate constructive criticism, if you are one of those individuals who has nothing to say but that my writing is "cliche," I don't really care to have your input since I'm pretty sure you don't attempt anything anyway.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

PEACE!