Hilda believed she couldn’t marry Rick, even though she loved him. She believed this because she stood married to Herbert, her first love. Her mother, Audrey Ann, told her, the morning of the twenty-pew church wedding at Lovely Lane Methodist. “Hildie, marriage makes us whole, in the eyes of our Lord, in the eyes of friends and family—love, honor, and obey. Herbert has moved up to second teller at the bank. He’s clean cut and never drinks on Sundays. When you brought him home, first time, that chicken dinner after church, he ate three helpings of mashed potatoes and gravy.” Hilda reflected on this recalled fact, and the paunch that now held sway over his belt. “But that’s not the point,” Audrey went on. “You confessed to me that you loved Herbert, the only man you ever loved. Your first love. You vowed ‘for better or worse,’ before Reverend Habgood.”
For seven years, Hilda had wrestled with this sacred vow. Now the wrestling match has ended, the marital bond broken, the divorce from Herbert final. Her son, Todd, spends the day at Lincoln elementary, she just got tenure on the Iowa Law Faculty, and their house in Manville Heights has been sold. She lives in a handsome condo at Mullet Towers—the center of town— with a view to the river. As she watches out the north window, the rowing team races by, giving stiff competition to their Wisconsin rivals. She ponders love, and her chances. She may have once loved Herbert, or at least needed him, but she doesn’t anymore. She wants, needs—burns for—Rick. Love lurks, and it feels like the first time, finally, for real.
But since Hilda told Rick she wanted him as a friend, only a friend, the love light had gone out. She now obsessed on him. He had taken the fatal hint, and then some. She remembered the hint. Under a night moon, lying on the Old Capitol grass, watching the stars and listening to Iris DeMent sing, they were holding hands, fingers tapping to the music. Rick reached up and tapped her neck with his pinky, then kissed its nape. She said he shouldn’t. He laughed and said that’s why they called it ‘necking.’ Hilda told him he ought not do that, stood up, and declared: “I’m not in this for that. Can’t we just be friends. Please take me home.”
After three months of radio silence from Rick, in her head Hilda heard herself repeat that chaste declaration, as she called him on her cell. “Rick?” she said.
“Got it in one, Hilda. Those cabinets still working?” he asked.
She ignored the pleasantry. “Did you have fun last May, when we went morel hunting in my bit of woods outside Solon?”
“I made a pasta sauce with the ones we didn’t devour.”
“Mushroom season’s long over. I could use your hands on some cherry tree pruning. Bring a saw Saturday afternoon. I have shears.”
“But you said…” Rick paused, recalling their lost moonlight. “OK.”
Rick parked his rustbucket Toyota pickup off the grave road, downwind from the dust, next to the gate. He noticed she’d added a hand-carved sign, staked next to the entry way mulberry tree. It read: Folie Farms. On the other side of the gate, to the east, stretched pasture ground converted to orchard, about 150 cherry trees in all, not counting a few pear and peach. Hilda, turned out in bib overalls, occupied herself thinning the treetops in the near row, to let in more sun. “What you want me to tackle?” flashing his saw. “Cut off the limbs I notched, up to the trunk.” They worked steadily row by row, pruning and jawing.
Hilda stopped, stood up, and mopped her brow with a blue bandana. “The separation’s over. Herbert and I divorced, 50-50 no fault.”
“Like Wanda and me.”
“Sorry I dropped you at the concert. I was still married. I married for love. I believed I should not be with another man. Love is forever.”
“Is it?”
“Not with Herbert.”
They labored until 6, then rambled through the grass, over to the cabin, in deep timber. Rick had seen the cabin before, but never inside. His fellow carpenter, Juan, had built it—a simple wooden rectangle 10’ by 15’, with a bed, nightstand, stove, table and two chairs. He remarked, “It’s Zen. Why you need two chairs?”
“Thoreau gave me the idea: ‘one for solitude, two for friendship’.”
“You read too much. Where’s the pond?” quipped Rick.
“No pond, but there’s a tiny creek, where my neighbor’s Guernseys go.”
“I can smell the cow pies. What’s on the stove? “
“That’s my Vermont Intrepid. Keeps this place toasty at 10 below. I have a cassoulet stew simmering. It’ll cover the cow smell.” She yanked a bottle of red wine from the oak table, pulled the cork, and poured him a glass. Then she poured herself a glass and drained it in a gulp. “Cheers,” she said. He sipped his, while she dished out the stew, into white porcelain bowls, ribbed in blue. In the middle of the table rested a green tin of Vermont common crackers. She opened the tin and passed it to Rick. He wiped a hand on his denim shirt, took a fistful of crackers, broke them into the stew, stirred with a wooden spoon. They munched, slurped, and drank. The sun fell, as did silence, heralded by a hoot owl. They pushed away the bowls, and each stepped outside, separate ways, for a pee. Back in, they dressed down, to their underwear, got in the bed—cot really—and managed to take each other’s underwear off, before they fell upon each other like barn cats.
Rick woke before the sun and had to pee. He jerked on his levis, stumbled to the porch, and fell off. The groaning sent Hilda hustling, with a flashlight. “No railing,” he said. “Can’t stand. Ankle hurts like the bejesus.”
Hilda hopped from the porch, knelt by Rick and said, “Get on your hands and knees.” As
he struggled, she went down on her hands and knees in front of him.
“I’m not in the mood right now,” said Rick.
“Shut up. Climb up my back.” Her amber curls fell forward over her face.
“More Zen…?”
“Do it, like we were kids playing piggyback.” With the expected grunts and moans, he did, hanging on her back, a carcass of meat. Righting herself, Hilda rose up, almost straight, then reached back and grabbed under his legs. “Put your arms around my neck!” she shouted. “I’m taking this little piggy to market.” Off she trotted to her VW wagon, carrying this human load. The car wasn’t far. Plus, she’d won that deadlift trophy at her gym last week. Rick didn’t weigh 200 pounds, but he was harder to handle. At the car, she put a wrap on his ankle and tucked him in the shotgun seat, covered in a quilt. She pulled a pony of Hennessy out of a bib pocket and made him take a swig. He nodded off, mumbling, on their way to the ER.
“Surviving?” asked Hilda from her car speaker phone, on the way to teach torts, since it was fall semester.
“I can hobble to the bathroom.”
“Don’t fall off the stool.”
“You’re a bad jokester. A good weightlifter. Thanks.” Hilde blushed, glad that he couldn’t see her.
“I parked next to your house, with blueberry scones and lattes, from The Empty Cup. Where’s your front door key?”
“It’s not locked. Mount the side stairs. First room at the top. I’ll be the clown in the red flannel nightshirt. I wish you’d brought me an espresso.”
Hilda hesitated outside his bedroom. She’d never seen it. Overcoming her doubts, she hammered the door with her free fist. It swung open. She glanced left and saw Rick upright in bed, holding a shepherd’s crook he’d used to lever the door. “See the breakfast tray I built? French hotel style. It’s made for two. Unload the rolls and coffee.”
“I ate my scone. I have a 9:10 class.”
“You can share my scone and finish your latte. It’s not a waterbed. Don’t be afraid.” Hilda tossed her arms in the air, in a faux sign of surrender, and removed her shoes. Then her skirt. The rest Rick helped her with, while she unbuttoned his nightshirt. “Pardon me. Can’t move my ankle. Have to stay on my back,” said Rick.
“We can work that out,” said Hilda, as she saddled him. They were both excited, so it didn’t take very long. Still, she didn’t want to be late for class. She rolled off him and said, “I’ve got to make like bubble gum, and blow.”
“Another bad joke. What’s today’s topic?” asked Rick, grabbing a legal pad and a pencil.
“Torts,” said Hilda, throwing on her clothes, before smoothing them out and adjusting her belt.
“Like that guy robbed the Kum and Go last weekend, with a ball bat?” As he spoke, he imitated a baseball bat swing.
“No. That’s criminal law.” She made a thumb and index finger like a Derringer.
“Oh. Then, can you explain…”
“Rick. This has been a lovely, if unexpected, moment. But I must review my notes.” She gave him her best wet kiss and left.
At Muscle Bound, pumping iron, Hilda felt gleeful. She had added another ten pounds to her deadlift record, making it 210. Quickly, she finished her cool down—cross-toe bends, waist twists, bellow breaths—in sets of three, 15 reps each. The sweat beaded on her biceps. As the musky smell reached her nostrils, she tried to decipher its good-bad attraction. Such musing came to a halt when her law colleague Beatrice, came up, slapped her on the backside, inhaled, and said, “Your reek, dude!”
Hilda absorbed the jibe. Beat, as she liked to be called, was blunt— and a ‘pill’, as Hilda’s mother Audrey might say. They were about the same age, and had bonded over departmental gossip, and over their quest for love, although Hilda’s quest focused on men, while Beat’s focused on women. The fact they pursued a different sex strengthened their friendship, because they could confide with no rivalry. They could exchange their hopes, fears, and failures freely, so receive good advice, even understanding. Moreover, as scholarly confidents, they fretted over complicated cases or complained about the current reading in their Victorian lit group. In sum, they were soul mates in the ivory tower, with all its entertainments. “Beat!” blurted out Hilda, “I’m in love!”
“Jesus and Joseph,” said Beat. “Let’s chew on it at George’s. Your turn to buy.”
“You’ve punched the jukebox for that Beatles tune, ‘I’m in Love for the First Time’—let’s see— five times. I’ve shared this magic moment while I drained my PBR which, by the way, tastes like cat piss. Now I want the skinny,” demanded Beat.
“Excuse me,” said Hilda, “I’m ga-ga. Out of words.”
“That’s not good for your next court case. Start with the sex.”
“Well, he’s…”
“Wait. I know he’s ‘the best ever’ and ‘so evolved’ and ‘a good listener.’”
Hilda gave out a startled look. “How’d you know?”
“Hildie, men pretend—to get in your pants.”
“Beat, sometimes you’re a buzz kill. I told you not to call me Hildie, that’s what my mom calls me.”
On the heels of these indictments, Sadie arrived at their booth with two cheeseburgers—one ‘with everything’ for Beat and one with everything ‘but onion’ for Hilda. “Another round?’ asked Sadie.
“How about a couple of Red Hooks?” asked Hilda, to butter up Beat, since its her favorite IPA, although Hilda herself hates IPAs.
“Now you’re talkin’, girl,” said Beat. “Tell me something funny about the sex.” Hilda went quiet. She dredged up funny high school moments, like August heat in the back seat of an Impala sedan, or some other desperate venue. It had never occurred to her to make this a dating hallmark. “I’’ll spill one of my goofs,” said Beat.” Last summer, camping at Lake McBride with my Daisy-Do. S’mores by the fire, plaid blankets on the ground—the earth moved, to quote Ernie. Woke in the morning with poison ivy on our butts. Another …”
Hilda smothered a chuckle and choked on a pretzel. She had to chug half her Red Hook to recover. “I get your drift,” she said. “Cross your fingers and promise not to tell.” Beat crossed her index-and-middle fingers and flipped them at her. Hilda took a deep breath. “We decided to have sex in a different room, every day.”
“Huh?” asked Beat.
“You know,’ said Hilda, “Rick’s got that big old Iowa four-square on Brown street. A fixer-upper. He’s good with a hammer.”
“His hammer?”
“Quit it!” responded Hilda. “Listen. We rotated around the upstairs—on iron springs in the main bedroom, futon in the guest bedroom, the grungy bathroom carpet. We skipped his office since the yellow pine floor was too hard. Downstairs, the yellow pine floor in the kitchen had splinters, but in the plastic-coated parlor the shag rug was soft enough. In the dining room the big cherry wood table took up all the space. The attic had bats and the basement had mice. We considered the den, where Rick plays his drums. But he didn’t want to because of risk to the cymbals.”
“Musical accompaniment! I’m exhausted.”
“We got bored last weekend and booked a holiday suite at The Chauncey. Bottle of Veuve Cliquot, bouquet of daisies, a cheese board, plus a heart-shaped bed. We actually broke it. Crack! Thud. I skinned my knee…”
Beat put the brakes on. “What did the hotel do?”
“They made us pay to repair the bed.”
Beat stifled her guffaws. “Hildie, I’m not worried for you. Party hardy.” She checked her Apple watch. “I got office hours.” She tossed down a 20 and sprinted off.
Saturday morning in October, the last farmer’s market of the year. Hilda hugged her Hudson Bay coat—red, yellow and green, a match for the foliage. In her straw basket nested half a pumpkin pie, just bought, and a thermos of hot coffee. She tiptoed onto Rick’s front porch, put the basket on the swing, and lifted up the gnome that hid the secret key. She stepped toward the door, then paused, before the cat curtains waving in the parlor window. Through the lace, you could make out the rise and fall of a bare bottom. Below the bottom Hilda glimpsed Rick’s ankle, immobile in its brace. She sprang off the porch, like a pretend invisible mouse. Once by her car, she recognized another, with a ‘baby on board’ sticker stuck to the bumper—Karen Sighsworth’s pink Miata. Karen had recently joined the babysitting coop where Rick and Hilda first met. Hilda, from behind an oak tree, texted to Beat: “You at the office?”
“Oui, mi amigo. Doing Civil Procedure preps. Suppose Jane Doe sued Rick for crappy work on a counter top, then…”
“Not Jane Doe. Karen Sighsworth. Come to the Ped Mall. I’ll bring pie.”
At the Ped Mall Hilda found Beat on a bench by the Pickle Ball Court. “Take some pie,” she said, shoving a wedge at her, along with a Kleenex. “I drank all the coffee,” she explained.
Beat took a big bite out of the pie, ground it around her mouth, and swallowed. “Real pumpkin,” she said. “What’s with Karen what’s-her-face?”
“She’s banging Rick. In his parlor!”
“On that shag rug?”
“Beat, sometimes you say the wrong thing.”
“What did you expect? Monogamy?”
“Such a clinical word. But, yes. That’s what love means. You only do it with the one you love.”
“Guess he doesn’t love you.” Beat signaled a thumbs down and smacked the metal bench arm with her checkered cap.
“How can you say that? We’ve been like rabbits for months. Hoping from one pea patch to another. We’re only apart at work or a kids’ birthday party. Or at the coop board meetings.”
“Maybe that’s where he met this Karen.”
“Doesn’t matter. It’s over. Why did he cheat?”
“I’ll tell you why. You were on him like Velveeta on toast. You melted. Gave him everything he wanted on the first date.”
“But I dropped him first, last spring.”
“Then you cold called him in August and gave away the ranch. Excuse me—cabin.”
“I waited. I got what I wanted. When I wanted it.”
“Wrong. Rick got what he wanted. His desire grew boundless over the summer, after your enticing rejection. A firecracker, ready for the match. You lighted the match— under the luscious cassoulet. Love sprang up, like morels in May. You both went from nothing to everything. Bim-bam-boom. Morning, noon, and night. On the kitchen floor, no less.”
“We didn’t do it there.”
“You tried. You tried it everywhere. There was nowhere left. His desire for you was gone, too.”
“I wanted the sex.”
“Is that all?”
“No. I wanted commitment, I wanted love.”
“You should have played hard-to-get. That’s what’s attractive,” Beat declared. “Remember the Trollope novel we finished in our book group, the line I read out? ‘The fruit that falls easily from the tree, though it is ever the best, is never valued by the gardener.’ “
Hilda mouthed the line to herself, not to Beat. She found her folly almost impossible to admit. She did want sex, but she wanted more as—in his way, did Rick. As she thought about it, she became lost in the pathologies of desire and love.
“What’s behind those forlorn eyes, stranger?” Beat interrupted. “You look like your cat died.”
“I’ve been so dumb. I wanted love. I got sex. It’s a start. But it’s not the same.”
“Duh. You didn’t need to earn a doctorate of jurisprudence to figure that out. All relationships fail, except the one that, by a miracle, doesn’t. It’s a coin toss. Keep a song in your heart and a smile on your face, and you will stumble on Mr. Right—or maybe Ms. Right. Speaking of that, me and my lady friends at Rainbow Fields are having a Halloween party tonight. Want to come?”
“Where?”
“We’re going on a hayride. A soybean farmer out by Kalona has a team of Belgians and a wagon. We ride around on back roads, sit atop haybales and howl at the moon. It ends with a Zydeco band and dance party, in a round barn over by Downey.
“Can I bring Todd?”
“Sure. He’d love it. Tell him to wear his ghost costume. There’ll be other kids there.”
*For more in Mike’s series of linked stories check out “Wanting”!*
—About the Author—
Mike Lewis-Beck writes from Iowa City. He has pieces in American Journal of Poetry, Alexandria Quarterly, Apalachee Review, Aromatica Poetica, Big Windows Review, Birdseed, Black Bough, Black Coffee Review, Bluebird’s Scribe Review, Blue Collar Review, Bluestem, Cider Press Review, Columba, Cortland Review, Chariton Review, Eastern Iowa Review, Ekphrastic Review, Frogmore Papers, Guesthouse, Heavy Feather Review, I-70 Review, The Inquisitive Eater, MockingHeart Review, Pennine Platform, Pilgrimage, Pure Slush, Rootstalk, Seminary Ridge Review, Southword, the tiny journal, Turtle Island Review, Trollopiana and Wapsipinicon Almanac, among other venues. He has two books of poetry, Rural Routes, and Shorter and Sweeter, by Alexandria Quarterly Press.
—AI Image Description—
A group of people sitting together on a hay-covered wagon pulled by a horse on a Halloween night. The atmosphere is joyful and celebratory, with one person holding a large, brightly colored rainbow pride flag up high. The people on the hayride are waving and smiling, dressed in various colorful clothes. Warm, glowing autumn trees surround the path, and the dark sky is dotted with a few stars. The whole scene is painted with a soft, dreamy quality, giving it a festive and inclusive feeling.
Described by Be My AI. Generated with ChatGPT. Inspired by “Hard to Get” by Mike Lewis-Beck.