Accidental friends, part 1

Kyle knew she’d be there. She always was. Of course  her fiery red head would be virtually impossible to miss anywhere even from the top of the skyscraper whose construction he was currently supervising.  But now that the trees were all leafed out spotting her from this vantage point was not so easy. He, however, was certain she would be there, although he wasn’t positive she would want to talk to him today. Their last conversation had been a heated one.

 So it was with some trepidation he crossed the street to the park, leaving his hectic work day behind for a precious hour, his favorite Tim Horton’s coffee  in one hand and his lunch in the other. He made a bee-line to the usual place, the picnic table just under a Pink Horse chestnut tree. Not that he knew a chestnut tree from a maple. Lucky for him Lisa did and explained to him with obvious adoration how her husband always sneezed his head off when they were in bloom.

“Good thing he’s not here then, huh?” Kyle had said looking up at the huge and highly fragrant flowers hanging off the pretty tree. He had to admit he never noticed them before. That was three months ago. He couldn’t believe it only had been that long since they’d met. It felt as if they’d known each other for decades.

Lisa always spoke of her husband Jason. That was why Kyle felt utterly safe spending his lunch time talking to her. She was married and completely off limits just as she should be if he were to be spending all this time with a woman not his wife. It rid him of useless guilt. He had even told Peggy about her just to make sure nothing got back to her that could make trouble for him. Not that it would, not even if there was something to it. The guys on his crew kept their thoughts to themselves  for their own sakes. Honor among thieves is what they called it. Good thing because those guys were usually up to no good.

Kyle had just passed between the swings and the elaborate multi-level jungle gym when he saw Lisa’s curly carrot-top just visible from behind a book. Her nose was usually stuck in a book. It was one a many things they had in common and the one that particularly resounded with him. Of course he usually had a problem with her choice of authors.

“D.H. Lawrence? What am I gonna do with her?” he muttered to himself. He made a mental note to bring Hemingway’s “Snows Of Kilimanjaro” from his collection for her. Then she’d know what a true masterful storyteller was.

“Hello, Lisa,” he said, settling himself across from her.

He noticed she didn’t even lower the book when she said a noncommital, “Hmm.” He suppressed a grin. She was obviously still a bit ticked off.

“How was your weekend?” he said casually as he opened his cooler, pulled out a bag of chips and ripped open the package.

“Wonderful,” she mumbled still not deeming him worthy of a glance.

He wanted to laugh but kept it in. Girls were just so funny. They ask you a question and then when you answer truthfully they get all pissed off at you. In his estimation if you don’t want to be told your butt is too big in those jeans then you shouldn’t ask. Not that it was even remotely that sort of thing they had quarreled about. He was pretty darn sure her butt was perfect in her jeans. Not that he had looked! Not on purpose anyway. He was a guy though and guys look no matter what. Jason would understand, he was certain.

Perhaps quarrel was not the right word. They had been talking about polygamy of all things, how no man in his right mind wouldn’t want more than one wife if given the chance and if he could get away with it. It started out easy enough, the conversation, but after a bit it was more of a shouting match. At least on her part.

He had been very courteous, he thought, honest and logical, too and hadn’t raised his voice at all. She on the other hand had been all emotion, very loud emotion. He was pretty sure the guys eating their own lunch across the street had heard most of it. But who can get girls to listen when they get all emotional?

“So, what’s your point?” she asked, annoyed.

“My point is any man that tells you otherwise is lying to you,” Kyle insisted. “It’s in our genetic makeup to want and seek out multiple partners,  to go forth and multiply. It’s the best way to ensure a good robust gene pool. It’s all nature.”

“Right, because what the world of genetics really needs is stupid, horny, drunk college boys at spring break and middle aged men trying to bring back an ill spent youth and  who should know better multiplying.”

He laughed. “Listen, you asked and I told you. It’s just the way we’re made.”

“So, what you’re saying is one woman is just never enough for any of you?” Lisa asked her blue eyes mere slits in her face.

“Enough for what?” Kyle countered carelessly. “Men always want more sex than women so...”

“Right, cuz that’s all you guys ever think about. Sex. Forgive me. I wasn’t thinking.”  She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. “You’re worse than Jason. At least he said he would only want another wife if she didn’t want any more kids.”

“He only said that because you already have four kids. It would be different if each wife only got one kid. It would be fair.”

“Fair?” Lisa shrieked making a face as if she were tasting mud pies made with real Mississippi River mud. “For whom I wonder? Oh wait, let me answer that. You men are allowed as many children as you have wives to produce them while women are only allowed one each. Hmm.... sounds real fair.”

“Well, if you really wanted more you could. Some women don’t want any kids so it evens out. You could negotiate,” he said with a careless shrug.

“Oh, I’ll negotiate all right. For the beheading of all men and I won’t say which head I mean,” she said through clenched teeth.

He winced and involuntarily pressed his knees together as if fearful she would really do as she said. He gulped then tried to sooth things over by being funny. “You know it would be okay if you gals just learned to share. I mean, you do know that there are more women than men in the world, don’t you? And  if I had 3 or 4 wives I would treat them all the same. I would love them all equally. They should all be the same age, too, so there won’t be any jealousy between them like happens in real life.”

She stared at him aghast. “Please, do tell, oh Wise One. How would you handle your harem?” she muttered her voice dripping sarcasm.

“Look, a guy gets some young hottie younger than his wife because it’s nature calling him to reproduce regardless of whether he really wants to. He can’t help it. It’s instinct. But the wife she gets all bent out of shape about it because she feels it’s all because of her own age when it isn’t that at all. There are plenty of women in their forties and fifties that are great, beautiful and....”

“And you want to bop the ugly ones too. Yeah, Billy Crystal explained all that to Meg Ryan once. I don’t need to hear it from you,” she said waving a dismissive hand at him.

He could almost hear her teeth grinding as he stared at her in confusion. In truth he had not a clue what she was talking about but as she was so good with the nonsequiturs he would have to let her explain it.

She rolled her eyes to the sky. “The movie?”

He frowned in concentration thinking of any and all films in which  he saw Meg Ryan. “Sleepless in Seattle?”

“That was Tom Hanks, idiot,” Lisa growled.

“You got mail?”

“Tom Hanks again. When Harry Met Sally,” she said exasperated. “He was telling her that men want to screw anybody, even the ugly ones.”

He frowned a little then shook his head. He still didn’t get her point. “Anyway. Seeking younger women is simply the pull of nature to keep reproducing when your wife’s....”

“Washed up, dried up, useless, barren and too old,” Lisa interjected scornfully.

His mouth fell open. “Not exactly as I would put it. Out of her child-bearing years,”he replied in a gentle, dignified voice.

 “Nature is wonderful until men get a hold of it. Well, that explains one thing perfectly,” she said getting up, putting her garbage into the can behind her, gathering her book and purse with undo force and readying to leave.

“What’s that?” he asked frowning.

“Why women turn to lesbianism in their later years. I’m seriously considering joining them,” she said stalking off, her nose up in the air. She didn’t even look back though she must have heard him laughing his head off.

Now it was a good long four day weekend later and surely she had calmed down ever-so-slightly, he thought as he stared at the top of her gleaming head. Silence ensued unbearably, however, and not being one to take the cold shoulder too well, he gave in first.

“I went camping with my boys. Went Kayaking for the first time. Great fun. Thanks for asking,” he said trying to sound bright and cheery before taking a long swig from his coffee.

“I told Jason I want a divorce,”she said in a totally bored voice. But no sooner had the words left her month than she shrieked. “Eewww!”

He had spit out his coffee all over her book. “You did what?”he shouted.

“Yuck! How the heck am I gonna get this off here? I hate the smell of coffee.”  She made a hideous face as she grabbed a napkin from beside her water bottle and started to mop up the mess. “Guess that’s what a dust jacket is for, in case some idiot spews coffee at you for no good reason. Why can’t you drink water like the rest of the civilized world?”

“I’ll buy you a new book,” he said tersely, a crease between his brows as he stared at her. Divorce? He never saw that coming and she certainly didn’t look like someone who looked at all upset about an upcoming divorce.

“Don’t bother. This guy is highly over rated as far as I’m concerned,” she said pulling off the ruined dust jacket and throwing it into the garbage can behind her. “I should stick with Jane Austen and Henry Fielding. I have no problem with their run-on sentences but this guy? What the hell is his point anyway?”

“What happened?” Kyle asked, his lunch totally forgotten.

“Well, that’s just it I don’t really know. “Rainbow” is about a family that....”

“Not the book!” Kyle shouted angrily. “ Jason, what happened with Jason?”

“Jason never reads anything other than the sports page. I told you that,” she explained with no concern whatsoever.

He would have laughed if she weren’t so infuriating. “Lisa, why did you ask Jason for a divorce?”

“I didn’t ask for one. I told him I wanted one. There’s a difference you know,” she replied with a lofty tilt of her head.

This went right over his head. He could not make heads nor tails out of that sort of “logic” so he thought it best to ignore it. He stared at her as she took a bite from her bagel, honey wheat with strawberry cream cheese. She always got the exact same thing for lunch. He stared at her as she licked the cream off her fingers while pushing her hair out of her eyes with her other hand. At that moment with her neon bright hair blowing about wild and unrestrained she looked like a cross between a grown up Shirley Temple and a defiant little kid who looked intent on sticking her fork into a light socket just to see what would happen. He had the simultaneous urge to spank her and pat her head telling her what a cutie she is.

“Does this have anything to do with our discussion of last week?” he asked with evident caution in his voice.

“Of course,” she replied.

He groaned. That was not what he wanted to hear. 

Continued next week...