Peg Hinkle’s day started with an unsolicited reality check. Her latest beau, a razorblade salesman who reeked of aftershave and bullshit, unceremoniously punted her to the curb after they spent their first and last rendezvous together. She should’ve suspected that a man with a tan line on his left ring finger had no long-term commitments on his resume. As the fellow’s scorned wife rebuked Peg as she chased her out the backdoor, “They don’t call it a ‘fling’ for nothing, tramp! After he’s done with you, he flings you away.”
Peg barely managed to throw her dress back on, and when she finally did she discovered it was on wrong side out. Her hair and makeup had known better days too. Blotchy mascara blossomed beneath her eyes, giving her the look of a dejected panda bear. If she had any pride left on her plate at this juncture, she swallowed the last hunk of it on her walk of shame toward the doorstep she once called home.
Kip waited for the doorbell, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to open the door. Maybe she didn’t see me, he thought. Peg may have had egg on her face, but the yoke hadn’t obscured the obvious.
“Open the door, Kip. It’s me. I know you’re home,” Peg said, rapping on the windowed panel with her knuckles.
“What should I do?” Kip Bruce asked, almost reflexively.
“Do you owe her money?” Bruce asked.
“No. Our divorce is final. I don’t owe her anything.”
“So then why are you shivering like Henry Fonda after he got lost on Golden Pond?”
Kip checked his posture and straightened his shoulders like a sentinel. “You know something,” he remarked. “You’re right. It’s time I tell her exactly how I feel.”
“Atta boy. Go Cujo on her cheating bleep.”
“I’m not that extreme, Bruce.”
“So I’m learning. Answer the door. Give her your patented Pomeranian stare-down.”
Even before Kip yanked the door open, Peg dusted off her pouty-girl phiz; she had manipulated her husband throughout the course of their marriage with this identical expression. It comforted Kip to know that her theatrics only triggered his gag reflex nowadays.
“What are you doing here?”
“I heard you talking to someone,” Peg murmured. She attempted to dab globules of makeup from her cheeks with her fingertips. “You got a woman in there?”
Kip almost responded earnestly, but instead puffed out his chest like a cocksure rooster and impeded her view into his house. “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
“Who is she? Do I know her?”
“No better than I knew that UPS guy you were porkin’, or any of the others you’ve molested on a whim.”
Peg ignored his comment. She was too busy trying to peer beyond his frame. “I bet it’s that tiny Philippine slut in the end unit, right?”
“I’m sure you know all about units in the end, Peg,” Kip said.
In a bid to appear emotional, Peg wiped a crocodile tear from her eyelash. Much to her chagrin, she didn’t arrive with a stockpile of ammo to launch a counterattack. “Just so you know, that UPS dude was a fluke.”
“Evidently you’ve fluked the whole neighborhood.”
“You’re a real pisser, Kip. Do you think I wanted it to end up like this? Give me a break. I’ve just had the worst freakin’ night of my life.”
Perhaps the alchemists of justice were finally mixing up some karma, after all, thought Kip. He tried to conceal his gratification with this bit of news, but spiteful grins could often be devious and divine simultaneously. “You still haven’t told me why you’re here,” he reminded her.
“Let me come in.” She sounded as pathetic as a jilted lover, which of course she was. “I never really apologized for what happened. I think we should talk.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore. As far as I’m concerned, you and me are past tense.”
Peg’s bottom lip straightened as she espied a dash of sureness rustling Kip’s brow. She resorted to an unconventional approach. “Wow,” she said, wittingly glancing at his groin for emphasis. “When did you finally grow a pair? The last thing that dangled between your legs was a piece of toilet paper.”
Kip broadened his torso a bit further and his voice became deeper than a chasm when he declared, “They were right here the whole time. You were just always like a rogue squirrel—gathering nuts from all the trees but the one growing in your own yard.”
Peg pretended to find Kip’s wit amusing, but this was only a ploy for him to relinquish his preparedness for her next action. She pivoted away from the doorstep as if to leave, but then swung back in a beeline toward the door. Kip stumbled backwards into the foyer as his wife collided with him; her objective was accomplished.
“Where’s the little hussy?” Peg fumed. Her stiletto heels clacked against the tiled foyer like Ginger Rogers’ tap shoes. She scanned the living room, but found nothing in the semblance of womanhood. Instead, she stared perplexedly at the beagle on the couch. “Is that a dog?” she cringed.
Bruce’s ears popped up as if hinged on springs, but he merely wagged his tail and shrewdly kept his muzzle zipped. Kip composed himself and sauntered into the room next to the couch. “No, it’s a turtle. What does it look like?” he replied.
“You don’t even like dogs.”
“Ah, they’re like moss in a root cellar; they grow on you after awhile.”
“You don’t like moss or root cellars either. What gives?”
Kip maneuvered to the side of the couch and reached out and patted Bruce on his head. The dog leaned into his hand as if they had a bond tighter than conjoined twins. “I’m not the same man I was six months ago,” he said.
“Is that why you were talking to that dog a minute ago?” Peg questioned warily.
“People talk to pets everyday. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“But I heard another voice. A conversation.”
“Divorced men babble to themselves all the time.”
“Maybe so, but in different voices?”
Peg inched closer to the beagle. Bruce made a sporting show of his temperament by getting up and treading across the couch’s cushion to sniff both her hands. She refrained from touching the animal. “He looks like a mutt,” she said. “Where did you find him—in the gutter next to your trampy girlfriend?”
“He belongs to a friend of mine. What’s the difference?”
“You wouldn’t even let me get a fish tank,” she complained. “And suddenly you’ve got a mangy dog camping out on the couch. I guess you have changed.”
No amount of finagling on Peg’s behalf was going to derail Kip’s mood now. He crossed his arms in front of his body, waiting standoffishly for her to leave. Since she didn’t take hints as readily as she took bedfellows, Kip opted to push her along.
“I have to get ready for work,” he said. “So you’re gonna have to make this quick. But I’m sure you’re a regular pro at quickies, aren’t you?”
Peg might’ve vented, but she withheld her steam because Kip’s barbs had merit. She then paced in front of the lone mirror hanging in the living room to check her reflection. Her coiffure was wiry than the springs on a motel room’s mattress. “Look,” she said. “The real reason I came over here is that I heard you were living with someone—besides a dog, I mean.”
“Occasionally the rumor mill grinds true,” Kip said. “I’m renting a room to someone.”
“To a man? So that’s why I’ve seen a yellow Jeep in your driveway lately.”
“Yeah, he’s a younger guy. But he seems pretty responsible.”
“Oh, a younger man? Hmmm…sounds very uplifting.”
“He’s off limits to you, Mrs. Robinson. Koo-koo-ka-choo.”
“Don’t be to sure. He may enjoy an older woman with experience.”
“Forget it. He’s much too old for you. He’s post-pubescent.”
Peg sneered at the jibe, but it ricocheted off her brow like a super ball on blacktop. “You’re never going to stop with the insults, are you?”
“As
soon as you leave, I promise to change my ways.”
“Living with another man is so unlike you, Kip,” she continued. A hint of dicing sarcasm altered her tone. “Unless you really have changed.”
“I see where you’re going with this, Peg,” he said, unaffected by her snide implication. “Just for the record, I’m not switching teams. But, to tell you the truth, if you were the only player left in my dugout, I might take the bat and balls as a consolation.”
“Was I such a terrible wife? So I cheated a few times. Doesn’t everyone?”
“I hope you’re not the new spokeswoman for matrimonial bliss. Maybe you should do some marketing for contracting STDs instead.”
Peg circled the room like a shark in blood-laced surf. She zeroed in on the beagle several times, but didn’t target him with words again. Bruce watched the drama from the couch; all that he lacked was a bag of popcorn and soft drink, but he would’ve settled for a soup bone. “I assume that was his Jeep parked out front the other night. What do you even know about this guy? He could be a pervert or a thief for all you know.”
“I know that he’s not fornicating in my bed with service workers.”
“You’re a bitter man. You really need to let things go, Kip.”
“Didn’t I do that already?”
“So you don’t even want to try and work out our problems? We were married for fifteen years. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
Kip paused to align his next thought, and it was one that he had only uttered while eyeballing his own reflection—until now. “I can’t go back and pretend you’re an honest woman, Peg. I regret that it took me fifteen years to find out the truth. I also regret that people like you appear to be calm and alluring on the surface, but the bulk of your hurtful nature lurks beneath. You’re an iceberg, and I’m just a tugboat trying to haul my own weight through the flotsam and jetsam of our marriage.”
“Well-scripted answer, douchebag. How many times did you grunt out that crock of shit before wiping it in my face?”
“A few times,” he replied. “I guess this is the sad part where the drama queen exits stage left, huh?”
“I won’t make you this offer again, Kip. Once I walk out that door, I’m gone forever. You can bet your new set of hairless balls on it.”
“Then I won’t have to get a restraining order after all.”
Peg started toward the open door in silence. She accepted his rejection as resentfully as a woman only such as herself could. After she departed, Kip had no qualms that she’d ever return. The tugboat had sailed clear into the open sea.
Chapter 9