Taco Tuesday
by Molly Giles
Carney was one of those strawberry blondes with blue eyes and pink faces so to me he looked like a sunset and I told him that one night when we’d been drinking and were sitting on the edge of the esplanade, watching the waves crash beneath our feet. Carney laughed and led me back to the bar where my husband and Carney’s wife Barb were waiting. Barb patted the stool beside her. “I hate him,” she confided, once Carney and Will had gone to the far end of the bar to play pool.
“I hate Will too,” I agreed, but then, curious, “Why?”
“Look at him,” she said.
I looked. I was too drunk to focus but in the darkness Carney still shimmered. He was chalking a cue with a cigarette between his lips, and he made Will, beside him, look young and colorless.
“He looks okay,” I said.
Barb snorted. Then she told me that Carney had taken an entire jar of Miracle Whip and poured it over the tacos she’d made for their dinner that night. “That’s how he eats,” she hissed. “He pours Miracle Whip on everything I make. Meatloaf. Spaghetti. Oatmeal. He ruins everything.” She spun on her stool. “I’m thinking of hiring a hitman.”
I believed her. Barb and Carney stole money from each other’s wallets. They let the air out of each other’s tires. Barb said Carney’s penis was the size of a pencil eraser; Carney said you could bake a turkey in Barb’s vagina. I could visualize the plate of ruined tacos on their kitchen table, with its scrubbed oilcloth and plastic flowers, and I knew their life was one I would never want. Will came up behind me then and punched my shoulder. “Time,” he said.
We drove home in silence. I didn’t know what Will was thinking about; I’d never known, never would. What I was thinking about was Carney, his hand on my wrist as he drew me back from the edge of the esplanade, his voice as he said, “Everyone’s sad. It’s not just you.”
Molly Giles' latest novel, THE HOME FOR UNWED HUSBANDS has just been published by Leapfrog Press. She is the author of a previous novel, IRON SHOES, and five award-winning collections of short stories.