Unsaid battles
Shit! Jenny is looking out the window, at a dark, barren street. Clearly, she heard me. Of course, she heard me. She hasn’t possibly been watching The groom’s bridesmaid. Her phone is not in her hands. She’s probably been listening to me all the while. Shit. Though, all I actually told Ted was he is lucky he doesn’t have to have sandwiches for breakfast and lunch everyday. I can argue I was referring to food in US in general, not her cooking.
“Thanks for coming over,” says Sofia. “See you tomorrow, man,” says Ted, and off we go, Jenny and I out the main door. “I wish it were Saturday,” I say and look at her as she follows me into the lift. She is scrolling down the insta feed on her phone. No nods. No murmurs. And now I can’t even see her face because she has decided to stand right in between me and the lift door, facing away from me. This isn’t normal, not even for strangers. I need to break the awkwardness. “How slow is this lift? I would have reached the 30th floor in my…” And the lift door opens, as if mocking me. And she walks out as if she were alone.
It’s been five minutes in the car and the silence is deafening. I should put on Spotify. May be an Adele playlist. I hit play and she moves a tad bit towards the window and turns her head further away from me. Adele is decent. Jenny doesn’t really have a taste in music, but there are these few mass singers that she claims she likes that I can stand as well. Just spare me the Taylor Swifts and Katy Perrys. And it’s not like she doesn’t know it or I am saying something about her behind her back. I tell her that all the time and she admits that she is not crazy about music. Like I tell her how much I hate sandwiches and she admits she hates cooking. Why does she have to be so insecure about these things in front of other people? Like I know I don’t love doing pushups as much as she does. In fact, I hate doing pushups and I don’t mind admitting that in public.
As soon as I turn off the ignition, she gets off and leaves, again as if I were invisible. How am I going to fix this? I’ll do a bit of laundry and ironing, may be. And then put on that stupid Afghanistan war movie, may be. She will be fine. I never named names, anyway. And I never intended to insult her, if that’s what is bothering her.
I put a load of laundry on hand wash mode, her thermal wear and stockings, together with bras in a mesh bag. She takes off her foundation, as I put on the vacuum cleaner & suck her golden strands off the bathroom floor. I clean off the dining area and kitchen and hall as well. Then the washing machine rings a bell and I rush back to the laundry room, to bring the washed clothes to the balcony. I pin each piece to the clothesline, careful not to pinch them too lightly or too tightly.
I put on a boring war documentary on full volume but there is no sign of Jenny. I go in and put my phone on charge on the bedside table and notice that she is already in bed, pretending to be asleep. It’s 8:46 PM on a Sunday. Seriously? I go turn off the TV and the lights and return. She is lying on her side, facing her end of the bed. I slip in from behind her and stroke her arms gently, just the way she likes it. She doesn’t moan. It’s going to be a hell of a task to sleep at this hour and now that I have started stroking her, I can’t simply turn around and browse my phone. At least not until her breathing becomes heavier, which it won’t because she is a fucking night owl herself.
I get up from my alarm. She is off to the gym already. I make myself tea while listening to the news on Turkey politics. Honestly, I don’t care about the elections, it is just good to hear some Istanbul Turkish in the morning.
As I take the last sip off my cup, I faintly hear her taking out the keychain, unlocking the main door and walking straight in to the living area where I am. She sweats and gasps as she says, “Why don’t you make falafel wraps for breakfast and lunch? I’ll help you.”
Fuck.
