Pumps

 

Mindy Friddle

She pulled the receipt out of his favorite pair of jeans, would have tossed it in the empty Tide box with the spare change, but something made her look. Made ya look, Made ya look. What her boys said to torment each other in the back of their minivan, or out back on the tire swing. And she did, she looked.

 She uncrumpled the slip of paper. Silk camisole, black fishnet hose, strapless bra, one pair of shoes. One hundred thirteen dollars and fifty-one cents and thank you for shopping at Minerva’s Closet. Blurry purple numbers. Paid in cash. August 23 at 8:42 p.m. That was yesterday, a Monday. His church bowling league night.

 Her cheeks felt so hot, like they were sunburned. She was a blusher, even when she was alone. In school, they used to tease her, call her Miss Scarlett. But she wasn’t a crier.

 She would not cry.

 She ran to the bathroom, threw up. Then she called him. Told him she needed ice, could he bring it? But something in her voice betrayed her. And he knew. “Baby, what’s wrong?”

 She hung up.

 She took out the celery. Good Lord she still had to cut it into stalks, and  chop the carrots and peel the cucumbers in those flower shapes for the fancy platter with dip—cruddy somethings. What Martha Stewart called them. Crudités. The milkmaid clock over the stove had her little buckets pointing to twelve and six. Her book club would be here in thirty minutes. Too late to cancel. Why why why did she have to join that awful book club when all they did was argue? Half of them wanted decent Christian books and the others wanted romance. Last month, they’d read that book with “Pray” in the title, but it was all about food and sex in Italy, and now Martha and Tina were threatening to drop out—

 Maybe leave a note on the door? Book club cancelled today. But they’d know something was wrong, something terrible—

 One hundred and thirteen dollars. Their cable bill was two weeks late. She hadn’t bought a decent bra in a year, and wore the cheap panty hose from the drug store, the kind in plastic eggs, scrimping, always scrimping. The knife shook in her hands as she wacked away at the carrots and women’s faces flashed by in her mind, one by one, like mug shots. Gloria, the receptionist?  Sharon the church secretary? Tammy, his old flame? Divorced Tammy who worked at Piggly Wiggly, wearing a hair net, giving out food samples, telling everyone she was “back on the market” and she liked dating on the computer, it was real technical now.

 Her mother’s advice, after J.D. proposed. 0. But it hadn’t. Bills came in, yeah, but they had relations every Saturday. He was the kind of husband who didn’t mind shopping with her. They’d go to the Gaffney outlet mall, and he was a happy man. J.D. was crazy about her, going on fifteen years now, with two kids. Everyone was always saying so. Weren’t they?

 But—what if they knew? Her book club. What if they knew J.D. was stepping out on her. What if everyone knew?

 His truck rumbled in the driveway, he must have run every redlight to get home so fast.

 “Did you remember the ice?” she asked this when he came into the kitchen, her head in the oven like a wicked old witch in a fairy tale. She fished out a spinach puff that fell off the cookie sheet, and took her time. From the corner of her eye, she could see his work boots, muddy on her clean floor.

 At the power company, J.D. climbed poles. They just hired on a girl because the government said they had to, and J.D. said the men gave her a hard time. Jokes about girls on the pole. Like she worked at a tittie bar. But he said she was a tomboy. Probably a lez.

 She knew he was looking at it. The receipt on the counter.

  “Darla?”

 Her head still in the oven. She could hardly breathe.

 “Look here. I can explain.”

 Her face hurt. When a man wanted to talk, there was only one reason why.

 She’d have to find work, waitressing again. Put the boys in daycare. Live in some crappy apartment. They said Tammy was on food stamps. Back on the market.

 “Who is she?” She closed the oven door, but didn’t look at him.

 “Nobody. I didn’t buy that stuff for no one else.”

 Oh, now he was going to say it was for her. No birthday or anniversary for months.

 “Do you think I’m stupid?” Her voice cracked.

 He went to the bedroom. Was he packing a suitcase? He came back into the kitchen, sobbing. Him!

 “You don’t get to cry, okay? I do.”

 “I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

  He emptied his bowling bag on the counter. A red camisole, lace garters, fishnet hose, a shoebox. Red sequined pumps. Giant ones. The mugshots in her mind started up. Becky in the church choir! A huge, sleepy girl, her doughy plump face always fixing on J.D.

 “The man I married would never buy outfits for some floozy.”

 “I didn’t. I ain’t cheating.”

 He sat down and took off his steel-toed boots.

 The doorbell rang.

 He slipped into the pumps, graceful as a pageant winner, rolled up his muddy pantlegs above those glittery pumps.

 “Maybe I’m not the man you thought I was,” he said in a choked voice. “But, Darla, I’m still your husband. And I love you.”

 Silence, like a held breath. The refrigerator hummed.

 There was no other woman. There would be no crappy apartment, no food stamps, no computer dating. There was…this. Just this.

 The doorbell rang again.

 “Put your things away, J.D. and go get us some ice. I got guests.”

 

Originally published in Steel Toe Review