Jenny walks into the kitchen and opens the refrigerator to get a bottle of wine, but she notices that it's still on the counter from the previous night. She takes the open bottle and puts it to her lips and lets the warm wine slowly find its way down her throat. It quenches and it satisfies and after a moment her headache begins to fade. She sets her purse down on the table and rifles through the mail. There's nothing she's interested in, although the Victoria's Secret catalogue looks all right, so she sets it down to read it later, maybe in bed before she turns out the light. The bottle gets tipped completely vertical and the last drops fall on her tongue. She goes back to the fridge to get the other bottle, but then she sees that there is no other bottle, and that this bottle is the other bottle from when she had another bottle last night. She checks the cupboard, she checks her bedroom, she checks the closet in her bedroom and the closet in the hallway. She checks the garage, but she finds nothing. And even though she just drove stop and start for over an hour she gets back in her car.
Autumn is finally here and the leaves have split themselves into two groups. There are the leaves that cover the grass and the roads, brown and dead and crispy and cracked. And there are the leaves on the trees, and as Jenny drives she notices how green they are. They are, in fact, all green in their various shades and stages of green. She is startled by this and she stares up and around at the trees in awe. There is no red, no orange, no yellow and no purple; there is brown, and there is green. They are alive, or they are dead. They are alive, or they are dead, she thinks, and she gets her first glimpse of yellow and red and stops at the light, jolting her car more than she likes because she finds it hard to pay attention.
A woman pushes a stroller slowly across the intersection, slowly and nearly methodically, Jenny thinks, and she imagines she's done this a million or two million times before. It's routine, it's built in, it's a part of her, almost as much as her own child. Her face is bored, it's routine, and her mind is either moving a hundred miles an hour or not at all. She stares ahead, blankly. The woman stops the stroller in the middle of the intersection right in front of Jenny's car and reaches into her pocket. She pulls out a cell phone and smiles instantly as she opens it. Jenny wonders if the call is from a lover or friend, relative or spouse, and for a moment she contemplates what would happen if she ran the woman down. This woman and her child, the mother on her phone, the little baby asleep in the stroller, or maybe it's not asleep. But the woman pushes the stroller again, talking on her cell phone, smiling and talking, smiling with her baby. Maybe Jenny could steal it and she wouldn't even mind. Maybe she could get out of her car and take the baby and run the woman down and nobody would mind. She could name the child Catherine, or William, she thinks. The light turns green and Jenny is about to press down on the gas but a car comes racing on her right and runs the red light. She is just slightly out of breath, and her headache is just beginning to reappear.
The time is 6:18 in Minneapolis. Jenny knows that where her sister lives in 7:18. People forget about Mountain Time, she thinks. Television advertises every show with the Eastern and Central Times, and everyone knows about Pacific Time. But she feels as though people forget about Mountain Time, and how it just sits there unacknowledged, how it sits there while everyone talks about the time in every other part of the country. Maybe I should move to Colorado, she thinks, or Montana or Idaho. I could go skiing and I could wake up every morning and look out at the mountains, or I could move to Arizona and look out at the desert. The vast, open wasteland with nothing but sand and the only water you can find is in a manmade lake or inside a cactus, or the rain that falls not that often.
She pulls into the parking lot of the store and turns off the radio, but the radio was already off so she presses the dial again. Her feet hit the pavement, covered by a crunchy blanket of fallen leaves, and she kicks a few in a hesitant spurt of a playful mood.
The store is virtually empty and close to closing, the last few making their purchases or on the way to do so. Jenny walks up and down the aisles, although she knows that she will inevitably head straight for whatever happens to be on sale. She looks for the cheapest bottle of white wine and grabs three and doesn't bother to look at the name. She goes and sets the bottles on the counter and opens up her purse and takes out her wallet. She heads the amount and looks for cash or a card. She looks in her purse and her pockets.
"Christ."
She walks back to return the bottles to their place in the aisle. When she sets them down she looks over at the counter again, and the cashier is busy with the last customer. Jenny walks next to a nearby display of vodka and puts two of the smaller bottles in her purse, smoothly and easily, and with a final nod to the cashier she's out the door and in her car, and as she turns back onto the street she thinks she hears someone, faintly, screaming for money.
A kid on a bike darts out in front of her car just blocks from her house and she slams on the breaks just in time. The belt catches her and she jolts against the seat. She starts crying, softly, slowly, and watches the child pedal away. She reaches for her purse to pull out a tissue and notices a flattened cigarette pack on the ground of the passenger's side. He must have thrown it there, she thinks, it must have slid underneath the seat. But she doesn't touch it, and she wipes her eyes and blows her nose and checks around her for any more children, and when she is certain that it's safe she drives away.
Jenny thinks about packing up and leaving. She wonders what it would be like to live in a place like Montana, Arizona, or Colorado. She wonders what it would be like to be the one who leaves. She wonders if she might like to live overseas. She could pack up everything and just leave, she could leave and go and never come back. Jenny could move somewhere where they don't speak English, somewhere where she doesn't know a word of what anyone is speaking. She could go to Switzerland or China. She could move to Iceland, and live where it's cold up in the mountains and never come down unless she absolutely had to. And she would never come down unless she absolutely had to. Where she could sit and think and drink during the night and day and be alone. And the more Jenny thinks about it the more she thinks it would be a good idea, to get a fresh start, to cleanse, to walk away without looking back. That might work, she thinks. But the more she thinks about it the more she thinks she couldn't go anywhere, not even if the plane were leaving and someone handed her a ticket.
Jenny sometimes wonders if there's a god. Some people believe in nothing. Others believe that God causes everything. She thinks, what's the difference?
She tries to think of other things, she tries, but she can't help herself. She pulls into the garage and wastes no time getting out and into the house, she's sick of being in the car today. The house is dark and sullen and abandoned, and even though she's lived there for years she fumbles for the light switch. She opens the closet to hang her coat and she does and when she closes the door it gets caught on a hanger. She pulls the door a few times before she forces it shut but it catches a coat and knocks it to the ground. It is a familiar, worn, brown leather jacket and she is hesitant to pick it up, but she does, and she runs her hand over it and could swear, she could almost swear, that it was still warm. But she knows it isn't. She goes back into the kitchen and gets a glass and fills it with ice. Jenny takes the two bottles out of her purse and throws the catalogue away. She walks down the dark hallway to the room at the end, but she doesn't bother to turn on the light. There is a rocking chair in the corner, and she sits in it. She opens one of the bottles and empties it into the glass. There is a box on the other side of the room that contains a baby's crib that was never put together. And she sits, and rocks, and stares across the room, and as she brings the glass up to her lips she can smell the faint aroma of cigarettes on her fingertips.
Autumn is finally here and the leaves have split themselves into two groups. There are the leaves that cover the grass and the roads, brown and dead and crispy and cracked. And there are the leaves on the trees, and as Jenny drives she notices how green they are. They are, in fact, all green in their various shades and stages of green. She is startled by this and she stares up and around at the trees in awe. There is no red, no orange, no yellow and no purple; there is brown, and there is green. They are alive, or they are dead. They are alive, or they are dead, she thinks, and she gets her first glimpse of yellow and red and stops at the light, jolting her car more than she likes because she finds it hard to pay attention.
A woman pushes a stroller slowly across the intersection, slowly and nearly methodically, Jenny thinks, and she imagines she's done this a million or two million times before. It's routine, it's built in, it's a part of her, almost as much as her own child. Her face is bored, it's routine, and her mind is either moving a hundred miles an hour or not at all. She stares ahead, blankly. The woman stops the stroller in the middle of the intersection right in front of Jenny's car and reaches into her pocket. She pulls out a cell phone and smiles instantly as she opens it. Jenny wonders if the call is from a lover or friend, relative or spouse, and for a moment she contemplates what would happen if she ran the woman down. This woman and her child, the mother on her phone, the little baby asleep in the stroller, or maybe it's not asleep. But the woman pushes the stroller again, talking on her cell phone, smiling and talking, smiling with her baby. Maybe Jenny could steal it and she wouldn't even mind. Maybe she could get out of her car and take the baby and run the woman down and nobody would mind. She could name the child Catherine, or William, she thinks. The light turns green and Jenny is about to press down on the gas but a car comes racing on her right and runs the red light. She is just slightly out of breath, and her headache is just beginning to reappear.
The time is 6:18 in Minneapolis. Jenny knows that where her sister lives in 7:18. People forget about Mountain Time, she thinks. Television advertises every show with the Eastern and Central Times, and everyone knows about Pacific Time. But she feels as though people forget about Mountain Time, and how it just sits there unacknowledged, how it sits there while everyone talks about the time in every other part of the country. Maybe I should move to Colorado, she thinks, or Montana or Idaho. I could go skiing and I could wake up every morning and look out at the mountains, or I could move to Arizona and look out at the desert. The vast, open wasteland with nothing but sand and the only water you can find is in a manmade lake or inside a cactus, or the rain that falls not that often.
She pulls into the parking lot of the store and turns off the radio, but the radio was already off so she presses the dial again. Her feet hit the pavement, covered by a crunchy blanket of fallen leaves, and she kicks a few in a hesitant spurt of a playful mood.
The store is virtually empty and close to closing, the last few making their purchases or on the way to do so. Jenny walks up and down the aisles, although she knows that she will inevitably head straight for whatever happens to be on sale. She looks for the cheapest bottle of white wine and grabs three and doesn't bother to look at the name. She goes and sets the bottles on the counter and opens up her purse and takes out her wallet. She heads the amount and looks for cash or a card. She looks in her purse and her pockets.
"Christ."
She walks back to return the bottles to their place in the aisle. When she sets them down she looks over at the counter again, and the cashier is busy with the last customer. Jenny walks next to a nearby display of vodka and puts two of the smaller bottles in her purse, smoothly and easily, and with a final nod to the cashier she's out the door and in her car, and as she turns back onto the street she thinks she hears someone, faintly, screaming for money.
A kid on a bike darts out in front of her car just blocks from her house and she slams on the breaks just in time. The belt catches her and she jolts against the seat. She starts crying, softly, slowly, and watches the child pedal away. She reaches for her purse to pull out a tissue and notices a flattened cigarette pack on the ground of the passenger's side. He must have thrown it there, she thinks, it must have slid underneath the seat. But she doesn't touch it, and she wipes her eyes and blows her nose and checks around her for any more children, and when she is certain that it's safe she drives away.
Jenny thinks about packing up and leaving. She wonders what it would be like to live in a place like Montana, Arizona, or Colorado. She wonders what it would be like to be the one who leaves. She wonders if she might like to live overseas. She could pack up everything and just leave, she could leave and go and never come back. Jenny could move somewhere where they don't speak English, somewhere where she doesn't know a word of what anyone is speaking. She could go to Switzerland or China. She could move to Iceland, and live where it's cold up in the mountains and never come down unless she absolutely had to. And she would never come down unless she absolutely had to. Where she could sit and think and drink during the night and day and be alone. And the more Jenny thinks about it the more she thinks it would be a good idea, to get a fresh start, to cleanse, to walk away without looking back. That might work, she thinks. But the more she thinks about it the more she thinks she couldn't go anywhere, not even if the plane were leaving and someone handed her a ticket.
Jenny sometimes wonders if there's a god. Some people believe in nothing. Others believe that God causes everything. She thinks, what's the difference?
She tries to think of other things, she tries, but she can't help herself. She pulls into the garage and wastes no time getting out and into the house, she's sick of being in the car today. The house is dark and sullen and abandoned, and even though she's lived there for years she fumbles for the light switch. She opens the closet to hang her coat and she does and when she closes the door it gets caught on a hanger. She pulls the door a few times before she forces it shut but it catches a coat and knocks it to the ground. It is a familiar, worn, brown leather jacket and she is hesitant to pick it up, but she does, and she runs her hand over it and could swear, she could almost swear, that it was still warm. But she knows it isn't. She goes back into the kitchen and gets a glass and fills it with ice. Jenny takes the two bottles out of her purse and throws the catalogue away. She walks down the dark hallway to the room at the end, but she doesn't bother to turn on the light. There is a rocking chair in the corner, and she sits in it. She opens one of the bottles and empties it into the glass. There is a box on the other side of the room that contains a baby's crib that was never put together. And she sits, and rocks, and stares across the room, and as she brings the glass up to her lips she can smell the faint aroma of cigarettes on her fingertips.
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