Chapter Nineteen - Louis Berry's Novel - Erstwhile

Chapter Nineteen

Susan was in no mood to eat. She could never remember a time when Richard was so willing to simply walk out on her. It never happened before, although she found herself wishing it had. If he expected her to blindly follow him he had a lot to learn. Men had always doted over her and Richard’s expectation of a relationship was too much for her to give. Maybe not caring was the key to happiness.
 She sat silently watching Emma devour her Captain’s Platter. The grease from the fried seafood coated her friend’s lips. Little pieces of batter were stuck to her chin, and had fallen onto her blouse. Susan drank from her gin-and-tonic while witnessing the annihilation. Emma grabbed a piece of Grouper with her fingers and plunged it into a small silver cup of tartar sauce. Her fingers were not spared the mess. She lifted the fish from the paste and inserted it along with her hand into her mouth. After grinding the greasy mass into a com-pact ball she pushed it with her tongue into her cheek. She then inserted each finger, individually, into her mouth, sucking off the excess pap.

That was enough. Susan could no longer face her friend as she ate. She slid to the inside of the booth, leaned her back against the wall and propped her feet up on the bench. She watched the activity in the restaurant as she continued to sip her drink. Servers in khaki shorts and Hawaiian-styled shirts continually negotiated the maze of tables, chairs and tourists that had been baked by the sun. Susan found herself examining the faces of all the women in the restaurant.
At the table directly across from her was a woman laughing, genuinely and hysterically as she played a game with her kids. The sound of the children laughing was refreshing. The woman had on a vibrant sundress with big yellow sunflowers covering it. Her skin was tan, which contrasted with her sun-bleached white hair. There was a boy and a girl that looked to be ten and twelve years old, Susan guessed. The daughter appeared to be instructing everyone about the rules of the game. Susan could not tell what the contest was. They were using a crayon to write on her paper place mat and she could only assume that it was tick-tack-toe, or hangman. There was also a baby girl in a high chair. Noticeably absent was the father. He must still be out on the boat fishing with all the other men, Susan thought to herself. The tone in her psyche was one of anger.
Her attention shifted to a couple at the table adjacent to the game-playing family. It was a couple that appeared to be in their mid-thirties. There were no children with them. The woman sat perfectly straight in her chair with her left arm lying across her stomach. Her right elbow rested on her wrist. In her hand was a glass of white wine. She held it high, next to her face. The Rolex on her right wrist hung loosely about her arm. They both were dressed in designer clothes that were neatly pressed, looking as though they had stepped from the pages of a catalogue. The man wore an equally expensive watch. It was big, chunky, and silver with a band of gold that wrapped around the middle of the bracelet. He had a solid athletic build. His forearms rested on the edge of the table and his hands were clasped. There was no conversation between them. He avoided his wife by looking around the room. She glared at him. I wonder what this guy’s done?, Susan asked herself. She noticed that the woman had her legs crossed beneath the table with her right one on top. Nervously, she swayed it back-and-forth. The motion was constant and shook her body, rhythmically, along with the wine in her glass. Her lips were pursed tightly and her eyes squinted as she stared across the table at her husband. Having been ignored long enough, the woman adjusted the swing of her leg and kicked her husband squarely on the shin. Startled, he jumped in his seat. He looked questioningly across the table at her. Had she done that on purpose? He said nothing, and neither did she.
“Asshole,” Susan muttered.
“What’s that?” Emma asked, briefly looking up from her plate.
Susan looked toward her friend. All that remained on her plate were some French fries and two hush puppies. Emma reached over and picked up the plastic bottle of ketchup at the end of the table next to the wall. She flipped the lid open, turned the spout downward and squeezed as hard as she could. Flatulently, ketchup poured onto the plate. She waved the bottle above her food, covering almost every fry and both hush puppies. Susan watched incredulously as she ravenously shoved ketchup soaked French fries into her mouth. She could not believe that after eating a plate full of fish, crabs, oysters and shrimp, Emma could still be that hungry. She showed no signs of slowing.
Susan’s attention was drawn away from Emma as Tom approached the table.
“Can I get you another drink?” he asked her.
Susan looked at Emma and asked, “Are you planning on ordering dessert?”
“Damn right,” she replied through a mouthful of fries.
She looked at Tom and tried to be overly polite in her response to make up for the lack of couth shown by her friend. “Yes, thank you, Tom.” She shook her empty glass, listening to the sound the ice made. When there was one fry remaining, Emma picked it up and swabbed it through the last bit of ketchup. Only the hush-puppies had been spared, until she dutifully picked them up and placed them in the middle of the plate, side-by-side.
“I’ve got a cousin in Jacksonville that has a kid, a little boy. They went to a restaurant one night and when he was asked what he wanted to eat, he said, ‘dog balls.’ It took them a while to figure out he was talking about hush puppies.”
Susan laughed sincerely. “That’s cute.”
Without any sign of jest, Emma continued as if her segue was natural. “I saw how you ran your finger along your gums this afternoon. It doesn’t shock me that you’re a user.”
“But I’m not. I haven’t done that since I was twenty-one.”
“Let’s not fool ourselves, Susan. Once a user, always a user.”
Susan looked away trying hard to ignore the fact that she had to always consider herself an addict in order to avoid falling back into behavior that had al-most taken her life. She noticed a handsome man walking across the dining room. He had a slim build and was wearing a green smock. He is obviously a doctor, Susan thought. She allowed her imagination to create the story of his life. He just came from the Emergency Room at the hospital, where he had delivered twins to a poor family of farmers that lived nearby. Or maybe he had just helped the victims of some unfortunate accident. Regard-less, he had just come from doing something worthwhile.
Susan continued to watch as he made his way closer to where she sat with her friend. The fantasy she created advanced. She imagined him walking toward her and sitting down beside her. Instead, he walked directly to the woman in the sunflower dress. Before sit-ting down, he gave his wife a soft, caring kiss. Susan missed that. The two oldest children yelled, in a happy tone and in unison, “Daddy!” The baby excitedly slapped her hands on the tray attached to her chair.
“I think I’ll have some Key Lime pie,” Emma announced as she shoved the empty plate away from her and toward the edge of the table.
At that moment, Tom approached the table. There was a small tray attached to the armrest of his chair, on which Susan’s drink sat. He stopped, removed the drink and placed it in front of her. “Can I get you ladies anything for dessert?”
“Key Lime pie,” Emma said without congeniality.
Tom looked at Susan. “Maybe a cup of coffee,” she said. He wrote the ladies’ order on their check and rolled away without a word. Emma shooed him away with her hand once his back was turned.
When she leaned across the table it shifted underneath, frightening her. She grabbed its edge to se-cure it. After steadying the table, she continued, whispering, “Girl, if you want to feel like a kid again, all you have to do is say the word. I can get you anything you need to lift your spirits.”
She knew what a bump of cocaine could do for her and she craved that experience. Many years had passed since her last flirtation with the drug, but no matter how hard she tried to avoid it she found herself justifying the need to experience a high like that, again. Sobriety had not provided her the life that she wanted. Many friends were lost due to her addiction, as were several when she broke herself from its grip. Forbidden fantasies had always breached her consciousness. They were born of her desires and not influenced by anyone else. Modesty prevented her from acting upon them, but she thought about them frequently. The yearning was to be caressed all over by many men. It was nothing more than the desire to capture the feeling of complete ecstasy; a sensation that she had only been able to acquire through the use of drugs. So many years ago she had rationalized it as the lesser of two evils.
Tom rolled back to the table and jostled her from her fantasy world. On his tray was Emma’s pie. He removed it and came just short of tossing it onto the table in front of her. The plate barely slid to a stop be-fore Emma had a fork in her hand. She plunged it into the pie and took an over-sized bite. “Shit, that’s good!” She said with her mouth full, and without offering any to her friend. Her gluttony was insatiable.
Remorse came over Susan as she regretted all of the negative thoughts she had about her husband. Several times during their marriage she had been overcome with a sense of déjà vu whenever Richard swept her into his arms. The recollection was of a medieval knight who rescued a damsel in the bowels of a dark and dank castle. She remembered it being very cold. His embrace was warm and safe. Susan never told him about the feeling because she feared he would think it was silly. An overwhelming dread rattled her soul as she became anxious at the prospect of not experiencing that feeling for another millennium. She ached to be held like that, again. It was that vision and the certainty it instilled in her that Richard would provide the strength she needed to be true to herself that was the reason she married him. She was no longer sure that he was the right man for her. Courtney, Ralph and a good many others had given Susan experiences that broadened her horizons. She could not distinguish between the carefree thrills of youth and the strength of a committed relationship, be-cause she had never been given the opportunity to grow her self-image as a child. It was unfortunate that she was blessed with great beauty. No one ever looked past it or gave her the opportunity to display the vast intellect that was bestowed upon her. Whenever anyone engaged Susan they quickly found themselves mesmerized by the hypnotic pleasure of gazing at her. Invariably, that inducement was followed by the desire to make one’s self a part of her life, no matter the consequences. Affairs with such superficial underpinnings never lasted. The result was that she found herself lost and looking for direction wherever she could find it. That left her vulnerable to the whims of others.