I’ll be honest. I do not remember writing this story at all. I don’t remember what inspired it. I don’t remember what I was thinking about when I wrote. I know that I didn’t write it for a class or anything, because by 1994, I wasn’t taking creative writing classes anymore. At least I think I wasn’t. My memory isn’t what it used to be.
Reading it now, it’s lovely. And quiet. Which feels like good things for this time. I wish I had more to say about it. Some insight to offer. But I don’t. It happens that way sometimes. You just write something.
So, without further ado, here’s EVERYTHING WAS JUST SO.
EVERYTHING WAS JUST SO
by J. Holtham
The dinner party was long over, but Mrs. Chenesky was still there, sitting on the couch, drinking her fourth cup of Irish coffee. Annie wanted her to leave. She glanced over her shoulder at the clock on the wall. It was almost eleven o'clock.
"Won't you leave?" she thought at Mrs. Chenesky, "Won't you please leave?"
Mrs. Chenesky looked up from her cup at Annie, as if she'd heard Annie's thoughts.
"Did you say something, dear?" Mrs. Chenesky asked.
Annie smiled and shook her head, "No." She turned around, exaggerating her movements to be sure that Mrs. Chenesky noticed, and looked at the clock again. "Well," she said, "It's gett-" she started, but Mrs. Chenesky was already talking again.
"She's such a dear," she seemed to say to no one at all, then she turned to Mark, Annie's husband, and said, "Where did you find such a dear, Marky?"
Annie looked pleadingly at Mark, but he was enjoying himself. He had known Mrs. Chenesky most of his life; she was like his grandmother. Plus he didn't have to wake up in the morning. The next day was Saturday, and the school where he worked was closed, but Annie's travel agency did a lot of work on Saturdays. Mark caught her glance and smiled at her. "I just woke up one morning and she was there," he said, gently rubbing the side of her head. Annie sighed angrily at him and turned away. Now he'd have to tell her the story.
Mrs. Chenesky said, "Really? She didn't fall out of a dream or anything, did she?"
Mark laughed, "No, nothing like that. I just woke up one morning and got out of bed and nearly stepped on her. She was sleeping on my floor, in my dorm room, you see."
Mrs. Chenesky moved forward a little, "How did she get there? Did you know her?"
"Nope," Mark loved telling this story; it showed all over his face, "I had no idea who she was. So I asked. Turned out she was the roommate of the girl my roommate had picked up the night before. My roommate had gone out just when I went to bed, and he met this girl at this party. They'd…hit it off, so to speak, and he wanted to spend the night in her room, but her roommate was there. So my roommate gave her roommate his keys and asked her to stay in our room. She let herself in and slept on the floor. So I woke up and nearly stepped on her head. But when I moved my foot and looked at her, I fell in love." Mark put his arm around Annie and squeezed her shoulder with pride.
Annie had never told him the other part though. She'd never planned to stay the night. His roommate had just offered his sleeping bag, so she could sleep in a friend's room. But when Annie saw Mark, sleeping, she'd fallen in love and stayed to meet him. Mark didn't know that part. Annie was embarrassed by it, by the fairy-taleness of it, falling for a sleeping beauty at a glance, so she kept it to herself.
Mrs. Chenesky was enchanted, absolutely enchanted, "Oh, that's lovely. Love at first sight. That's really sweet. Sometimes I feel so old, so silly for believing in things like that. I feel like no one believes in real love anymore. All people believe in now is alimony and easy sex. Love is a useless thing, an antique, like gas lamps. It's a shame. All those hippies ruined everything. Before them…" Annie could see it coming. Another forty-five minute monologue. She couldn't deal with it. She wanted this woman in her cheap, polyester, flower print dress to leave, to go back across the street to her own home, and bore herself with her stories. Annie stood suddenly and walked out of the roam, taking the saucers and cups into the kitchen. She knew she was being rude, but she really didn't care. She wanted this woman out of her house.
The kitchen was clean, despite the piles of dirty dishes and towers of dirty glasses on every counter. Annie figured that the kitchen would always look clean. It was too new to be dirty. She set the saucers down and started washing things off and putting them in the dishwasher as noisily as possible. After a couple of minutes, Mark came in from the living roam. "What are you doing?" he asked, annoyed and embarrassed.
"Cleaning up. It's nearly midnight. I have to get some sleep," Annie didn't turn to look at him; she just went on rinsing dishes.
"You're being really rude, Annie. Mrs. Chenesky is our guest," Mark was condescendingly reasonable.
"No, Mark, our guests left nearly two hours ago. That woman is no longer a guest. She's trying to be some kind of roommate," Annie knew she was exaggerating, but she was angry, angry at Mark for being so nice and reasonable and disgusting, angry at herself for being unconscionably rude, and most of all, angry at Mrs. Chenesky for not leaving at 9:30, like everybody else.
"Look," Mark put his arms around her, "Mrs. Chenesky is lonely. Her husband died a couple of years ago. She never had any kids. She lives in that big, old house, alone for the first time in her life, really. She won't stay much longer, I promise. Come on. Be nice." He smiled at her and kissed her lightly on the cheek, "You'll win some brownie points with your old man."
Annie laughed in spite of her anger, and swatted at him with a dishtowel, "You're not that old." She moved away from him and headed back into the living roam. She turned and whispered back at him, "Soon, she leaves soon. Promise?"
Mark passed his hand over his chest in a childish gesture, "Cross my heart."
They went back into the living room. Mrs. Chenesky was still there, drinking her coffee. She didn't seem to notice when they came in.
"Sorry," Mark said, "Family crisis." He smiled at her. She smiled back, but it was mechanical, simply a reflex. She hadn't really heard him.
"I was in love once. His name was Michael Chenesky. I met him on the most perfect day of my life," she said in a strange, faraway voice.
Annie looked at Mark. He shrugged at her. He was confused as well. Annie looked at Mrs. Chenesky. "Are you okay, Mrs. Chenesky?" she asked.
Mrs. Chenesky smiled at something Annie couldn't see, "My family never really liked him, because he was a Polish immigrant. Immigrant. Ha. His family had been here longer than mine. Anyway, I met him when I was just a girl, barely sixteen and finally old enough to go to a dance on my own. I was so nervous. I was tall, you see, too tall. Most boys were afraid of me, afraid of looking silly with the beanpole. That's what they
called me. Beanpole. Brenda the Beanpole.
"But Michael didn't care. He asked me to dance with him. No one else ever did. He walked across the American Legion and asked me to dance with him. We danced to ‘Come Rain, Come Shine.’ We looked beautiful, really beautiful. What a perfect night. Everything was just so. Just so. The moonlight, and the stars, and the perfect clouds, the kind that look like lost shadows across the sky. It was so wonderful. Michael was going to go into the army and get money for college and a house and come back to me. We only danced that once, that one night, but we knew that that was it, that we couldn't have anything else. Not with everthing just so, the way it was that night.
"He gave me a carnation as a memento and I kept it, pressed in my diary, and waited for him to come back from the army. But he didn't. He never did."
Annie and Mark were stunned into silence by her story. They sat without saying a word. Mrs. Chenesky sat stock still, like a statue. Finally Mark said, "Was he killed in battle?"
Mrs. Chenesky laughed, a tiny, bitter laugh, "No, nothing as interesting as that. During training drills, the boy behind him tripped and fell and his weapon went off and hit Michael in the back."
Annie exclaimed, "Oh, God. I'm so sorry."
Mrs. Chenesky laughed again, "No, he wasn't killed. He went to the infirmary and met a lovely nurse from California and moved there. He and his second wife live there still. I get Christmas cards from them."
Annie relaxed, but was still a little lost, "How did you get his last name?"
"It's not his. It's his brother's, Paul's. He was so nice, so gentle, comforting me after Michael left. And one day, he asked me to marry him. See, he didn't mind that I was tall, either. So I did. For forty good years," Mrs. Chenesky smiled again, then shook her head, "Oh, my, I'm sorry. It's just you two. I love to see people in love. It's just so…" She smiled at them, then rose, "I'd better get home now. Let you two sleep." She kissed Mark on the cheek, "I'm so glad that you moved back to this old town. I missed you." She turned to Annie and said, "Lovely to meet you. He's a great man, and you're a lucky woman. Oh, don't get up; I can show myself out." She walked to the front door, but stopped and looked around. She sighed to herself and said, "Ah, everything here is just so." She smiled to herself, more than to Mark or Annie, then left.
Mark got up to clean, but Annie pulled him down and held him tightly, glad to be here, at their home, with him.
1/28/94