Company

Althea Tait

 

Conrad made it home early that night. It was cold and snowy. The air was so cold his nose dripped, forming icicles in his mustache. When he stepped inside, his glasses fogged up. He had run from the train on Beacon to Berkshire Hills. He loved Boston, but winters here could be brutally cold. His fingers were like frozen sausage links. He had left his wet gloves on the old rusted, steam-spitting radiator, just inside the doorway of his apartment. Mr. Abernathy, the building’s handyman, had been promising to repair it for the last two weeks. As he climbed the steps to his building, he thought about the night before. He hadn’t been able to resist the urge to make snowballs. He had to bombard the boys on the street. Not just boys but enemies. They were enemies on the battlefront afflicting heavy losses with solid, wet hand grenades. It was war. Before reinforcements could inflict further damage, Conrad had retreated to the warm hallway to his apartment. He could still hear the boys through the screen door.

 

“Aw, Mr. Conrad, can’t you play some more?” asked little Henry. “You can’t hit us all and then leave. We didn’t have a chance to get you!”

 

“Yeah!” cried the other boys.

 

Conrad saw the enemy squad lined up behind the old blue Chevy that hadn’t moved in the past six months. They were anxious to retaliate. So he stayed behind the screen door with a huge grin on his face. “Later, guys. Don’t be such sad losers.”

 

He couldn’t help but laugh to himself about the night before as he made his way up the stairs to 57G. He was starting into his daily ritual as he headed toward the fridge. He popped a cold one and let the brassy liquid coat the walls of his chest, sending chills throughout his body. Precisely at this moment, every day, he would wonder why he didn’t drink something warm when he came in from the cold. He came to the conclusion that in some instances, taste overrides common sense. “Nothing beats having a cold German beer other than having a cold German beer in Germany.” He had found a website recently that advertised wholesale foreign beer so he stocked up for the winter just as he did when he was stationed in Frankfurt. Casually, he threw down the junk mail and listened to his messages.

 

“Darling, I called you at the office and you had left. I’ll be over soon.” Conrad bit his lip, muffling something or other.

 

This was Miranda, the “love of his life.” She was perfect, too perfect. She was a perfect size 8, with a size 7 ½ foot. Dainty. She wore her hair in controlled bouncy curls all over her head that framed her flawless face. Her eyes were blue, hence was the reason her entire wardrobe consisted of blue hues: light blue, dark blue, purple, lilac, green-blue, just blues. He loved her, but he didn’t see himself spending an eternity, forty or more years depending on life expectancy, with this woman. He wanted many times to tell her to move on without him, but he couldn’t be alone. His old frat brothers always said, “Con will never be without a woman. He can’t piss without knowing he’s got a woman in his life.” He would never forget the embarrassing moment when he saw Vanessa, an old girlfriend, at the Greek Festival last fall. She greeted Amanda and him civilly, but she gave him this piercing look. It was the look that said, “Stop! Don’t you see what you’re doing to yourself and the others?” His mother sat him down once and said he “ought to change because life is too short. You want your best friend by your side in bad times, not a cover girl who doesn’t know how to bake rump roast.” Rump roast to Mrs. Riley was the economic end-all of home cooking that provided leftovers for days. She felt “all women should know how to make a rump roast or at least be able to cook meatloaf.” He knew his mother’s advice was the truth but he also knew he had no clue of how to live without someone just being there, even if it was the wrong person. Even when he didn’t want to make love to her, he would ask Miranda to spend the night. He just didn’t want to be alone some nights. Her breathing was enough to remove him from sirens, families arguing, lovers loving, couples fighting, children crying. All the evidence he needed to remind him that he was alone. Reruns of The Honeymooners or Miranda’s company could drown them out, sometimes. He felt bad often because he wasn’t honest with her. His usual feat would take place soon. She was bringing up the subject of marriage lately and he knew what was going to take place. Dong’s Wok had perfect dim lighting and was usually sparsely populated for dinner. He would sit her down in the booth to the far right of the Buda-statue-populated room and break it to her gently . . .

 

“I am scum, yes scum! Miranda, I’m not the man you think I am, and you must rid yourself of me because I’m never going to be ready for marriage. I could never be the man you want—need.”

 

She MUST rid herself of him! She would throw a crying fit in which the neutral Chinese waitresses would pretend they didn’t understand the dilemma. Conrad always thought, in the back of his mind, that they pretended to not understand what was going on, but just as soon as the kitchen door flipped open, giving customers a view of white-smocked Chinese chefs lifting MSG soaked vegetables between the surface of an oily wok and the air, they would commentate on his breakups. “American boy got another victim at table eight and going for kill with his favorite line—”

 

“I’m not the one for you. I can’t give you what you need.”

 

“Now he’s leaning his head to side and his eyes’re getting heavy.”

 

She would look at him intently through misty blue eyes, and shaking, she would grab his hand in hers and say she was sorry for even bringing up the subject of marriage. “We don’t have to discuss this until you’re ready, darling.” He would say it’s no use and promise to have her belongings couriered to her. He learned this lesson from Vanessa about breaking this sort of news at his own place. Three thousand dollars in damage that his insurance company refused to pay because of the “nature of the involvement in which the properties were damaged while the policy holder was present and . . .”

 

He was sure that he didn’t want to see Miranda just yet so he left his place, knowing she had a key. He would make the excuse of leaving the office and immediately going to Oscar’s for retreat without checking his messages. What was German beer without the right atmosphere? Oscar’s featured good German beer and jazz on most nights, except for Thursdays. A Greek harpsichord player entertained on Thursday nights because of Oscar’s Grecian wife, Zoe. She had fierce crystal blue eyes, dark hair that fell past her shoulders, and wistful movements that grabbed every man’s attention when Oscar wasn’t watching. The guys always hassled Oscar, who was a brawny man of 6’6’’, on this one. “Who ever knew a black man to feature Greek harpsichord playing in his place, man,” some drunk or another would say with slurred “ha ha’s” but they all knew if they had anyone as beautiful as Zoe, they would do the same.

 

Conrad was in his usual spot, the stool positioned in front of the tap with a view of the entire place through the mirrored wall behind the bar, when Trudy walked through Oscar’s creaking door. He saw her out of the corner of his eye as she slid onto a stool next to a guy who lit her Virginia Slim. “Thank you,” she said as she winked at him. “Bartender, can I get a beer, German, with a chilled glass?”

 

She inhaled her Virginia and commented on the cold weather they had been having lately with astonishment. Conrad knew she must be new to the area because weather was not an astonishing subject for conversation in the winter. Everyone knew that Boston + winter = cold . . . very cold. Not much of an element of surprise or astonishment. There was the one instance a few years back when they received twice the normal snowfall. The storm caught everyone off guard. People were without heat and water for days, unlike him. He only lost cable for the time being. It was terrible. The firemen had to rescue families from their homes to bring them to civic buildings for heat and food.

 

She crossed one of her long legs housed in cream leather pants over the other. Her hair was a coarse crop of curls that accented her face perfectly. But her lips were what caught Conrad’s attention. The fact that they were sipping German beer had little to do with it. It was more than that; they were pink with perfect lining. They were cracked in the center; “Probably hadn’t anticipated Boston’s cold wear on the body,” Conrad thought. She quickly cured this, as if she could read Conrad’s mind, by putting on some shiny substance, “probably ChapStick,” he thought. He immediately noticed her lips’ mechanical ability to curl up in a cute way when she explained things, like the fact that Boston had received thirteen inches less snowfall at this time than it had last winter. He listened as her hearty voice explicated Boston weather, marriage, finances, and books, all in the course of an hour with the bartender.

 

“Marriage is about friendship. What’s your name? Okay, Monty. Marriage is about friendship, Monty. Take Hollywood, for instance. People marry there as if it is a commodity that they can use and return whenever it gets old. That’s not the way it should be. People treat their friends better than that. You should want to go home straight from work and anticipate an argument about who fed the dog, who last balanced the check book, who called for reservations, who ordered met tickets, who forgot to pay the water bill, or stuff like who spends more time watching The Honeymooners.”

 

Conrad sat three stools down from her with a fixed smile on his face as he stared at the mirrored wall behind the bar. He didn’t want to be obvious about eavesdropping so he glanced around Oscar’s Place from the heavy mahogany door to the creaking stairs leading down to the bar. Then he found himself staring at the dark walls that were covered with pictures of Oscar’s old boxing matches. Occasionally he took a sip from his beer. There was one picture that caught his attention, one with Oscar in mid-motion, throwing his right jab inches from his opponent’s face. Sweat dripped from every pore of his body, it seemed, and his opponent looked as if he was barely standing like a pussy willow in the wind. Oscar’s face was etched with determination and anguish, all in one. Conrad snapped out of his daze, focusing on Trudy’s form in the mirror just as she was moving her conversation onto the latest book she had read. Giving her his full attention, Monty paused from his glass wiping, with his bar towel swung over his shoulder. Monty never really conversed with a customer, but he was a sincere listener. For what seemed hours, he would listen to stories of divorce, pending divorces, break-ups, stock market crashes, gambling debts, anything you could imagine. A number of times he was subpoenaed as a witness in civil suits.

 

She tipped her Virginia that had an inch of waiting ashes. Her glass was half empty, and she had begun to relax her elbows on the bar. Trudy pretended she hadn’t noticed Conrad yet, but she was aware he had been watching her since she had changed the conversation from marriage to books.

 

Conrad turned towards the two, knowing he couldn’t resist being a spectator of their conversation any longer. So he did what Trudy had been waiting for him to do the last twenty minutes.

 

“Umm, I didn’t want it to appear as if I was eavesdropping—”

 

“You were.”

 

Her smile let Conrad know that she wasn’t offended, so he didn’t make any apologies for his behavior.

 

“What’s your name?”

 

“Conrad, and yours?”

 

“Trudy.”

“Nice to meet you, Trudy.”

 

“Same here.”

 

Conrad noticed how smooth her hand was when he shook hands with her. He also noticed, in particular, that there was no ring on her ring finger.

 

Before the two of them noticed, an hour had passed in conversation. Conrad thought he had met someone who could possibly cook rump roast. Usually his first thought about a girl was whether he should suggest his place or hers for the night, but with Trudy he was contemplating her cooking abilities. She was so easy for him to talk with, and she was beautiful by any man’s standards. Trudy was impressed with Conrad as well, except for his primal opinion of women being in the military.

 

“So you think women can’t handle themselves in war, Mr. Conrad?”

 

“That’s not what I said. I said I didn’t agree with women fighting in conditions that were never meant for them to be in.” Conrad knew she was quizzing him, but her crooked smile let him know it was not as serious as her tone seemed to be.

 

“And who defines what conditions women should be in, because, in my history books, women have always had some part in war. What about the female POW in the Gulf War? Was she not as dignified and honorable as the men?”

 

“Those are all wonderful examples—but I personally don’t believe in women being subjected to violent duties if it can be helped. That’s all.”

 

Conrad knew he had lost points on that topic, so he tried to think of how he could change the subject.

 

While Conrad was in mid-thought, Trudy got up, giving him full view of her long cream leathered legs, and her curving . . . that was all to be seen of her with her oversized wool coat she had slid into a moment earlier while still sitting. Final touches were to put on her scarf, the mittens, and the hat with dangling ball. They were all a part of a brown familial color scheme. He knew that from Miranda.

 

“I’ve gotta get going. It’s getting late, and no one’s fed my cat.”

 

“You’ve got a cat?” He didn’t want her to leave just yet. So he started fiddling with a napkin with Oscar’s Place written on it to help alleviate his sweaty palms. Trudy swung her bag over her shoulder in a rapid motion that caused her scarf to flap in her face. Conrad watched all of her movements from the time she stood up until the moment her short, black boots clicked walking up the stairs. She turned at the top of the stairs.

 

“Well, nice talking to you Conrad.”

 

“Nice talking to you, um—”

 

“Hope to see you around some time.”

 

“Um, Trudy, will you be coming here on occasion?”

 

Trudy was distracted from what he said as she bent down to pick up her mitten that had fallen on the floor.

 

“What was that?”

 

Conrad momentarily lost his nerve. So he mumbled, “Never mind.”

 

“You said something, Conrad?”

 

Conrad paused for a second, sliding his fingers around the rim of his glass, and with a crooked smile he asked, “I’m just wondering if you cook rump roast?”

 

“Rump roast?”

 

“Yes, rump roast.”

 

She thought he must have been joking, so she laughed as she walked out of Oscar’s door. “See you around, Conrad.”

 

Later that evening with a slight hangover, Conrad went home to Miranda.