“Oh, sure man, any time. Just bring over your stuff and leave it in my garage.” Once Pete found out that Oscar left his girlfriend and needed a place to crash, a surge of collaboration spread his lips. The smirk, shone by the midday sun, stayed there like an invading army, suppressing his usual expressions of friendly indifference.
“What was the problem anyway?” Pete’s normally flabby curiosity jolted. “Just got tired, as usual, huh?”
Oscar pondered trying to find an answer that appeared correct and wouldn’t reveal too much.
“Mmmm…We just didn’t get along. You know how it goes.”
“I am with you, buddy.” Pete’s smirk now became contemplative while his mind was making the trip to the memory lanes. “How long do you need to crash anyhow?”
“Oh, couple of days, until I can find myself a roof. You see I didn’t want her to know ahead of time. I can’t stand all those tears and reproaches. You know what I mean.”
“I am with you, buddy. A clean break is always better. Do you have somebody else in mind?”
“No. You just said it, a clean break.”
“Don’t you think it’s kinda risky? Are you sure, you want to part just like this - without a spare? What if you’d feel like … you know…?” Pete raised his eyebrows hinting intemperance.
“I don’t know man.” Oscar made a deep breath. ”Someone else would probably come along. For now I just want out. And thanks a lot for everything!” Oscar clenched his fist for a bump.
“Ok, man.” Pete reciprocated with his fist, “Here’s the second key. I’ve got to run.”
Oscar looked at the clock. It was 10:30 A.M. He still had an hour and a half before Sandy would arrive. All his clothes, documents, tools and a computer were in the car. He took a look around. An entire year he spent in this place and yet now there was nothing to remember, well…nothing worth remembering anyhow. With effort he could reconstruct in his memory all the events of the past year, but nothing left a bright emotional trace.
Yes, she knew how to get the best bargain, insurance rates, even how to sweet talk a policeman into not giving her a ticket; a perfect survival machine. Like a sophisticated vacuum cleaner she plowed through life’s predicaments sucking up whatever was available. And, yes, he was on the receiving end of it.
Beyond this, though, there was nothing; no enchantment, no parlance, no point. The survival machine was locked up on its own survival.
‘She isn’t so bad’, a thought oscillated in Oscar’s mind like a losing energy teetotum. ‘It just didn’t work. She could have been perfect for someone else, buuuuut….’
They sat in Sandy’s car on the hill overlooking the ocean. She picked him up at TJ Friday. Oscar insisted on meeting there rather than revealing her his whereabouts. He decided to meet because he didn’t want her to come to his work and make a scene there.
All the way until they arrive at the ocean Sandy was silent.
“…who is she?” she finally queried.
“Who is who?” Oscar selected bewilderment as the most appropriate expression to respond.
“Don’t act like an idiot! This won’t work with me. You know perfectly well who I am talking about!”
“Seriously, I don’t have anybody. Things just don’t work.”
“What don’t work?”
“Us.”
“Us? What do you know about working out? What do you know? What do you understand?“
She talked looking forward through the windshield, to where the sky and ocean blended in one blurry line and then turned to Oscar with the contemptuous mistrust, the expression she held on to, not to reveal her true feelings that boiled within her like a wave. She braced herself to accept the existence of another woman, but her mind refused to host an idea of Oscar leaving her without any external pressure.
“You think you are something special? Wipe this stupid grin off your face. You ain’t. Do you seriously think I am not going to find someone? I can get a man just like this.” She snapped her fingers. “And You, You would never find another woman like me.”
‘I hope so’ Oscar thought. “No,” he said out loud.
“No what?”
“No, I don’t think you’ll have a problem finding a man.”
“You bet I won’t.” Sandy got silent for a moment. She looked at Oscar as if expecting him to rebuff her arguments. He felt though that his responses, however suitable, would be useless. Seemingly a response to his comments, her recitative was a continuation of her own speech.
“You think you left me, huh? You think because you left first, you are the one who ended up breaking up?”
Oscar was silent. Direct positive or negative answer seemed inappropriate.
“The fact of the matter is that it's I who left you!” she stuck her index finger in his face.
“Ok,” Oscar said peacefully and thought. ‘Whatever.’
“Don’t you ok me, buster! This is after all I’ve done for you.” She rolled her eyes and shook her head in disbelief.
“Well, now you don’t have to sacrifice anymore.” He tried to guide her into finding a little bit of positive in the huge pile of negative.
This seemingly innocent statement, however, became a turning point in her conduct. His desire to help her to cope with her condition, that very fact that he wasn’t bargaining, but just tried to accelerate the end, was so insulting and bitter that tears, stored inside, sprayed out. Unable held her tears back her face quickly became a mess.
“You left me like a dog! Like a dog!”
“No….I didn’t,” Oscar responded giving her a handkerchief. There was a grain of truth in that. Oscar wouldn’t leave a dog, or for that matter any domesticated animal, in a situation like this.
“We can’t part like this,” she said, calming down. “Come tomorrow, we will talk, OK?”
“OK, but I don’t think this would be fair toward you.” Oscar lowered the window down because it was getting stuffy.
“Oh, shut up, just shut up,” she said already in the calm voice. “You of all people shouldn’t talk about fairness.”
She drove him back to the TJ Friday and left. For a moment, Oscar looked after her ascending car giving her memory the last farewell. He thought he should feel guilty, sad and frustrated. But he didn’t.
Oscar closed his eyes, lifted his head toward the sun and gave it an ambivalent smile, letting a gentle wind to rinse his face. Beautiful and charming women packed in his imagination as a bouquet of flowers, lulled him with mysterious smiles. The anticipation of forthcoming events appeared in his mind like a subtle trace of tango movements left on a parquet floor.
He was on the road again - the road of both uncertainty and certainty. Certainty of not going through the same experience again and uncertainty in what was about to come. He visualized himself as a tree that sees how its seeds are blown away by the gust wind.