I Mean Asparagus
Richard Thieme
“Don’t forget the spaghetti,” Mary said.
Harry was on his way to the front door. He stopped and turned.
“Spaghetti?”
Mary laughed. “I did it again—no, not spaghetti. You know what I mean. I mean asparagus.”
“No, I won’t. Jeez,” he said. “Spaghetti. Where did that come from?”
“Now, don’t start,” she said. “You do it too.”
He was caught between admitting it and irritation with her slips.
“I guess I do, some,” he said, choosing a middle ground. “But it’s getting more.”
“It’s nothing,” she said. “Don’t make it more than it is. It happens to everybody.”
“Everything happens to everybody. Sooner or later.”
She was standing at the far side of the entrance hall, her toes on the edge of the cold slate. It was chillier near the door where the weather stripping was loose. “Is something wrong?”
Harry didn’t answer, feeling in his overcoat pockets for the prescription.
“Harry?”
“I’m looking for the physician, just a minute,” he said, moving his gloves inside his pockets and feeling beneath them.
“The physician?”
“Oh, jeez,” he said, “I was focused on what I was doing. I mean the prescription. I could swear I took it from the dresser.”
He took his gloves out of his pockets so he could feel deeper.
“The prescription? No, I told you last night, it’s already at the pharmacy, remember? ”
“Oh, that’s right,” he said, putting on his gloves. “Then what did I take off the dresser?”
She shared his faraway look for a moment. “Last night?”
“Yes.”
They joined in a force field of collective effort.
“Oh, I remember,” she said. “You wrote down a phone number, put it on the dresser, then picked it up—“
“And put it in my wallet!” He took off his gloves again, holding them in one hand while he fished out his wallet with the other and opened it to the slits. The folded paper with Julie Anne’s new telephone number at the bank was in the first slot. “That’s it. Julie Anne’s new work number.”
“That’s right,” Mary said. “She called from her new job.”
“We should call to see how the week went. I want to talk to her anyway, see how Doug likes that new whatever it is, that way station or—“
“Play Station,” she said.
He put the wallet back in his pocket, put on his gloves again and said, “Well, give me a hug.”
“Come here, then” she said. “That floor is cold.”
He crossed the hallway and took her in her nightgown and robe in his overcoat arms. Her head just fit the cleft next to his neck.
“We’ll be OK,” he said, holding her a little too tight. “Really.”
“Of course we will,” she said, talking into his muffler.
She held him as best she could through the thick coat. She felt his gloved hands move up and down her back then pull her to him and hold her close.
It was nine o’clock on a Saturday morning in March, the temperature ten degrees colder than normal. Sunny out but very cold.
“Now, don’t forget to stop at the bank.”
“I won’t.” Harry said.
He knew where he was going. That was everything, now. That, and remembering to pick up the asparagus, stop at the pharmacy, oh and don’t forget to look around at the snow on the fir trees all around the frozen pond when you come home, remember to stand there a minute, stomping off the snow before opening the door with the yellow key.
