Mustard I don't know if I should even bother trying to write about what happened between us. There have been so many novels, so many songs and poems, written about the loss of love that one more self-indulgent tragedy seems superfluous. We all know how these things go. I also feel that perhaps I'm not ready yet, that some real time must pass before I can sit down and write about what happened with any clarity. But, at the risk of sounding dramatic, my thoughts are so heavy and confused right now that I feel as if that time may not come. I don't exactly have a large stable of confidants to choose from, either. So I must write, or continue to let the whole episode rot, poisonous, inside of me. She held me together, brought feeling back into my life, and then left me without warning. We met last September in the least romantic place imaginable - the condiment section of Kwik-Rite. I was wandering down the aisle looking for a jar of mayonnaise, thinking of nothing grander than egg salad. I was almost at the Hellman's when I saw her from the corner of my eye. I glanced back, and she was sitting there, looking into me. I stopped and immediately forgot the mayonnaise. She received my stare so unflinchingly that I could not speak. I'm not sure how long I stood there like that; such moments of raw attraction render memory hazy and inexact. It's what happens when you make real, flustering eye contact, the kind that makes your neck constrict and your stomach loosen. I must have introduced myself to her, but I cannot say for sure. I do know that I stepped closer, and, without saying a word, took her in my hands. It was a bold, cinematic move for a balding line cook, but the force of feeling in my gut cast all propriety aside, and her acquiescence told me that I was doing the right thing. After years filled with unfocused unhappiness, ugly dates and emotionless, drunken humps, I had found "her," and I knew it completely within seconds. I had found what I had assumed would never be mine, and it had happened so quickly, in such an unlikely place. The fact that she was a bottle of mustard only made my conviction that much stronger. She was clearly different, and wanting her seemed so dangerous and exciting. I had never thought of turning to the popular condiments for love, but there in the supermarket, my previous notions of traditional attraction were obscured, becoming part of a vague, unreachable past. She was radiant under the glare of the fluorescent light, wearing a jaunty red hat that set off the deep yellow of her skin, with a matching paper miniskirt that hid just enough. "Let's get out of here," I whispered, and, happily, she did not object. I held her to me and made my way to the ¯express2 checkout, nearly knocking over a pyramid of cans in my haste, irrationally furious that there was a woman already in line. The thought of just running, of hiding her in my shirt and getting the hell out of there passed through me as a daring, romantic way to start things, but I could feel that that was not what she wanted. So I stood there for an agonizing minute as my excitement built, a minor erection already mounting in my orange sweatpants. Finally the woman was finished and I laid her down gently, only to have the lazy cashier move the conveyor belt the extra inch or two so as not to strain himself. Of course she tumbled over, and I shrieked, ¯BE CAREFUL,2 setting her upright. I didnêt care about the surprised giggles from the little kid in the cart behind me, or the clerk's dull, menacing glare. I just wanted to be alone with her, to get her home and talk, to find out who she was, what she wanted, and what I could give her. I snatched the change and receipt from his hand and got the hell out of there. As it turns out, the only tangible evidence that she was ever in my life is the receipt that I jammed in my pocket that day. I have it here next to me now, wrinkled and torn. GenDijMust.....$1.79. With the tax, she cost one dollar and ninety-two cents. Luckily I had just cleaned, and the apartment was presentable, aside from a stick of butter moldering in the sink and a regrettable copy of Penthouse Letters in the bathroom (she didn't seem to mind). I sat her down on the couch next to me and we began to tell each other about ourselves in the uneasy way that new lovers have. As the words poured out of me, I realized that it had been years since I had had such a relaxed conversation. She let me do almost all of the talking, and I readily told her about my "wacky" southern relatives, my rapidly-changing hometown, my irrational love of pugs. I focused on easy topics, leaving out all of the bad stuff--my mother's death, the "incident," the hospital. Despite the way she looked at me in the supermarket, while we sat together that first night, I felt a distance in her that I couldn't quite place. She paid attention to my stories, and I felt that she wanted to know about me, but when it came time for her story to be told, she remained strangely quiet. I remember thinking that she must have endured a terrible adolescence, because she said almost nothing. I now know that her silence was due less to an unwillingness to tell me about herself, than to the realization that she had been taken from her shelf by a mediocre bore. She must have felt something for me, though, because she stayed that night, and ended up living with me for the next six months. Perhaps my optimistic enthusiasm made her forget that I had no promise, that I was progressing towards nothing in my life. Maybe she simply had nothing better to do. I can say for sure that she did not stay because she was a bottle of mustard and could not physically leave; that obviously didn't get in her way two weeks ago. Despite how I currently feel, I still smile when I think of our first weeks together. They were everything that I had incredulously experienced from a lifetime of pop songs and Hollywood romances. All of the glossy, unquestioning love that I had seen and heard sung about so many times had actually enveloped me, of all people. As soon as I got home from the restaurant each night, I would embrace and kiss her, and, after Iêd taken a shower, Iêd decide what to do with the evening. She was generally up for anything, but we usually ended up doing the tender things that I had always associated with serious relationships. As the leaves began to change, I would put her in my jacket pocket and we'd take long, slow walks down to the waterfront, or around city hall, or sometimes just sit together, watching the squirrels chase each other in the park near my building. Many nights found us curled up on the couch, watching Hitchcock or Woody Allen, or working crossword puzzles from an old book I had received as a gift. We would sit in my apartment at night and listen to the cars pass on the street below, their headlights tracing thick angles on my ceiling. Hours would pass without a word spoken between us, but it was a confident silence, full of warmth and patience. The uneasiness that I had sensed in her that first night had seemed to vanish. I thought that she was as content as I was, although I must have been wrong. At the time, though, I couldnêt imagine a happier couple. If the allure of her gaze in the store was a revelation to me, the first time we had sex was an all-out epiphany. It was a couple of weeks after she moved in, and we both knew from the sweet awkwardness between us that the moment had arrived. That night, after take-out Chinese food and three glasses of wine, I finally told her about my past relationships, really letting her know that I was no prize. I told her about all of the inebriated sex and the desperate gropings, in back alleys, on strange beds, with homely women whose names I had never learned. ¯If you want to get out of this, honestly, do it now before I fall for you any more than I already have,2 I said, without a trace of self-consciousness. Just thinking about that goddamn line right now makes me wince. Despite my horror stories, she stayed, which I took as a crucial affirmation of the honesty we shared, and as an invitation to consummate. I undressed somewhat nervously as she sat on the counter and watched, not saying a word. Her silence was maddening, ratcheting up the tension as I struggled with my pants, and we were soon on the kitchen linoleum, her on top of me, the red hat now somewhere behind us on the floor. Finally. It was glorious. And then, much too quickly, it was over. I was happy, and more than a little ashamed of my performance, but she didn't seem disappointed. We smiled sadly at each other as we gathered ourselves, and I gently screwed her hat back on. After the sex, I felt that the bond between us had been strengthened; at the very least, my rapidly deepening devotion should have been obvious to her. Within two months of our first meeting, I was supporting us both-- doing all of our shopping (once, in January, I brought her to Kwik-Rite to relive that first day), cleaning and fixing up the apartment regularly (I even surprised her with a potted tree one evening), and sewing her tiny outfits from scraps of old fabric. It wasn't long before I was unconsciously speaking in the long-term; if we missed a movie in the theater, I'd casually say that we'd "just catch it on video." When, in mid-October, I realized that we had failed to get to a single Phillies game, I shrugged and said, "we'll get down there next year." I now think that my innocent planning may have scared her a bit; I can't say for sure. Either way, had she not left, I would have soon been discussing far loftier plans-- our marriage, a home, and, if possible, children of our own. As the months wore on, though, she became more aloof, a fact that I can see clearly now. I must admit that even in the beginning, she almost never spoke to me, and rarely seemed to care about anything I had to say, but I assumed that she was bound to be reserved, since she was a plastic bottle of mustard. But the problem did not lie in her basic mustardness; the problem was her simple lack of interest in me. Her "shyness" was actually boredom; I now know that she was plotting her escape, not our future. She could not have cared less about seeing the Phillies opener, or "catching it on video," because she knew that she would be out of my life by then. The end came on a day that I had been planning for weeks-- our six-month anniversary. I had recognized the unwelcome sense of malaise that had crept into the apartment, but I brushed it aside with blithe aphorisms such as "all couples go through down periods," and "in relationships, these things are inevitable." Besides, I had been planning the evening for weeks, making sure that I worked the early shift, that I had the right candles and the right jazz and the right food for when I got home. I was in a cheery mood the whole day at work, and I called her every couple of hours, even though I knew she couldn't pick up the telephone. Finally five-thirty came, and I raced home, insulated from the honking drivers and chilly March air. I hoped that this night would bring us back to where we were in October, with the long walks and the cozy nights and the squirrels in the park. I unlocked the door, put down my bags, and flipped on the kitchen light. I looked to her normal spot on the couch where I had left her that morning, but she wasn't there. She wasn't in the bedroom, either. "Honey?" I called, opening the closet. She wasn't in the cupboard, or the refrigerator, or under the couch. I tore apart the cushions, looked behind the bookcase. I sat down on the cushionless couch and stared at the floor. There was no note, no hint of how she could have gotten out. But she was surely gone. I looked again behind the bookcase, sat back down, crouched over, and began to cry. That is where I am sitting right now, three weeks later. I have never felt anything that I can even approximate to this, and I have lived through the deaths of two dogs, three grandparents, and my mother. My job is an embarrassment, and my apartment is a musty hole. Like everyone else, my big plans fell through and I ended up mired in inferiority. But one day I went to the store for a jar of mayonnaise, and suddenly, everything became brighter, softer. I had someone to talk to, to walk with, to lend some meaning to my shit-ass existence. My cook's job was no longer an embarrassment, because I had something else in my life; my apartment became a place that I was excited to return to at night. Six months is no time at all, really-- I've gone that long without changing my sheets-- but it was enough to fool me into thinking that things were looking up. The little tree that I bought for her is, symbolically enough, dying in front of me. The withered leaves lay on the floor around the pot, accusing me of failure. The leaves are right. I could not keep her here with me, even though she had no legs. I have been many things in my life-- a child, a student, a patient, a goddamn line cook-- and the only real constant throughout has been the stale odor of failure that clings to me so resolutely. For a brief time, though, that odor was replaced with the glorious smell of mustard, and I became the sort of man that I had always desperately wanted to be. I can still picture her sitting on the windowsill, her red hat twisted high and her skin rich and brown. The sill is bare now. I don't know if I can beat this. I saw someone eating a soft pretzel yesterday, and all I could think of was love and madness.
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