Half-Baked Schemes

She is fully aware that it is the height of foolishness, talking to herself. And yet it is also a habit she cannot break, being so much alone. So it is her dependence on folly as much as it is her inability to watch for Muncie’s approach that lends such a tone of annoyance to her voice.

“Would you look at that damned frost covering the window glass?” Ellen hated to curse, and seldom did. Only when emotion got the best of her.

From her apron a rag appears, but the kitchen is too warm and the outside too cold for her elbow grease, leaving nothing but circular smears of obscurity for all her trouble.

“When did it get so warm in here?” She rejoins to the silent kitchen, her face as unhappily smeared as the glass. “Maybe if I open the door?”

But the view from the doorway is as veiled as was the window; a fog lying so still, quiet and chilled beyond it as to induce a shudder from her, and so thick that she can not make out the end of the walk, much less see down the lane leading to town. “Both window and the door useless?” She opines. Taking the rag out again she shakes it angrily in her outstretched fist, whipping it at the fog as she would at a cloud of gnats that might be shooed away.

Expecting company Ellen has donned a nice a pant-suit, thus the apron. The not quite high heels she wears with it produce dull thunks up from the pave-stoned walk, their edges muted like everything else under the thick fog as she blindly slow-walks out to the curb, the icy air particles spidering ticklishly across exposed skin left glistening and pink by the kitchen’s warmth. At the walkway’s end she stops, an opened palm shielding her brow in a feeble attempt to see down the lane, as if doing so might help to pierce the gloom.

“Soup. Nothing but foggy soup.” Glancing back she sees only the soft square of light where the window should be, and a larger glow from the left open door. “He will not come in it.” The words are more of a declaration than the emotional lamentation that she feels, as she is beyond expectations… hopeful ones, at least. And had she any expectations they would be wasted on Muncie Woods, wouldn’t they? Muncie is certainly no catch. But he is a man. One who calls on her with some regularity. And Ellen is over thirty now, her prospects dwindled to one, and so she wishes the fog away even if it is only Muncie who is detained by it.

She is welcomed back at the door by a heat wave from within nearly as thick as the fog without, her kitchen padding it’s attack on her senses with a delicious aroma of baking goods; goods that she could never enjoy herself as she is watching her waistline, but that she never-the-less must “taste” from the oven out of necessity, the nibbles enough to satisfy her sweet tooth. Safely inside from the cold and fog she stops to look back once more, but all is gray and indecipherable with not a shadow stirring the gloom.

“The mist is not so much,” she says aloud. “If he is any kind of man he will come if for no other reason than to show that he is capable. And if he desires me, then should he not at least be willing to brave a cold fog for me?”

But an air of doubt is creeping in with the cold, so she pushes the door-to behind her

Doubt? Well, hadn’t she been frosty too, that last time Muncie had come? Worse than cold, really? She’d been downright ugly to him. To be honest, she almost always was ugly with poor Muncie. And she had no idea why she was? She didn’t plan to be mean to him. It was never in her mind to be mean. It just happened! It was as if something came over her whenever he called, some spiteful and mean thing. Her behavior towards him was as much of a problem as this fog was, she supposed, and the two would surely work together against her if he did come to call. Yes, that last time she’d been as cold and gray towards him as this dreary day was towards her, as sometimes a woman can become when a pogonip blankets her fancy.

“If he comes,” she promised herself. “This time I will not be mean, I will not poke fun at his blooming waistline, or his receding hairline. This time I will treat him as the man he is, and with the respect that a man deserves. I will be prim. I will be proper. I will be gracious. I will make it obvious that I do enjoy his visits, which I genuinely do.” Walking back to the window, she produced the rag again and swiped at an eye-level spot, but still… nothing whatsoever to see coming.

Ellen is plenty old enough to know that she doesn’t need a man. She can make do without one. She has up to now. Lonely is not really the word for her plight, but life does get boring, doesn’t it? A girl needs something, doesn’t she? Poor Ellen has not yet concluded that it is a target she wants; a target for her schemes and designs. That what she needed for her journey to matronliness was something to knead and mold like her cookie dough, and a man would do nicely. Better than a cat even, which is why lonely women adore cats. Because their challenge of being impossible to manipulate makes them the perfect little beasts for lonely women who would continue to try and try again anyways, breaking their boredom forever.

Being that she has already given way to her disappointment Ellen is surprised at the knock, turning to look at the unexpected rap upon the door rather than rushing to meet it, until it came again that is, bolting her into action. While she is not exactly eager to see Muncie she is eager to see someone, so she is quickly out of the apron and fast to smooth her slacks, dusting away a wayward fan of flour as she did so. She pauses for a breath at the door before opening it, preparing herself for what she knows will come. Though they are not intimate, Muncie wants to be, and so the dolt uses every opportunity to touch or to hug her, which is probably part of the reason why she always turns mean on him. Ellen is not used to being touched, though she is trying to adapt, sort of.

As is always the case, she is surprised when she sees him at the door. Not that he is there, that is not surprising in the least. Muncie Woods is nothing if not dependable, but by his height, actually by his size in general. He is always a bigger man than she’d remembered. And, as is also always the case, she is taken aback by his beard. Ellen is no fan of facial hair on a man, even if his is always neatly trimmed, and is somewhat distinguished looking in a salt and pepper, professorial sort of way. Muncie is one of those men who is always better looking in person than he is in one’s memory, so her smile is genuinely happy, though that happiness is unfortunate in that this genuine smile leads to the “icky” hug which always follows it. As stated, Muncie is a large man with an equally large hug. And while he is a large man, his appearance is, as Ellen would put it when being nice, kind of doughy; soft enough looking that the strength of his hug never ceases to both surprise and impress her with its power, while at the same time exasperating her as she is mired up against him in reluctant submission.

Once released from his clutches is when it begins… again. She is aware that it is beginning, but is powerless to stop it. “Ugh,” she waves a disgusted hand in front of her face. ”You’ve been smoking again.” Why, she silently wonders, can she not be pleasant around this man? When she has waited all week for him to call, and has baked all morning for his pleasure alone without knowing if he would even show up?

A quick, critical examination reveals what should have been obvious to her all along. It is because she is not in love with him. She is not even attracted to him. They have been shoved together because their community is small, and each of them is all that is left for the other, as both are still single well past the age for choosiness. It strikes her hard, this epiphany, though it is too self-centered, and the same thought should have been projected onto poor Muncie as well, but is not. She does not stop to think that perhaps he is not coming to her out of love either, but perhaps he only comes because he is as lonely and bored in his cabin as Ellen is in her cottage? Perhaps she is only his diversion from a dog, something else for him to pet and to train, just as he is her diversion from a cat? But in her vanity she does not think to consider his motives, naturally assuming that her attractiveness is plenty enough reason for his attentiveness. He only wants her for sex anyways, right? Isn’t that all every man really wants a woman for? Oh, and to do his laundry. She would be a catch for Muncie, everyone would say so, while she would be settling, and would have to spend the rest of her life doing wifely things with, for, and to a man she was not the least bit attracted to. That was reason enough to grow annoyed and mean when he called, wasn’t it?

As always, after her “smoking” condemnation Muncie grew quiet, contributing nothing in the way of conversation, which only added to her annoyance. She would have to put in all the effort again, wouldn’t she? She was the only one who had dressed herself up, and she had spent her morning baking for him, too! Could he not have at least bothered to change into a clean smelling shirt, preferably one that wasn’t flannel, and maybe shave his stupid beard? She had told him before that she didn’t like his smoking, or his beard! Did he not listen? Wouldn’t those be small sacrifices to make if he really and truly liked her? And if he was considering a proposal, as she surmised that he was doing?

Exacerbated, she threw some of the cooler cookies into a Tupperware box and mashed the lid. “Muncie,” she tried to say it nicely, but her angst was showing through. “Do me a favor. Take these cookies and go. I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to do it today, or next week, or ever again. So please don’t argue. Just go.” But of course she did want an argument.

Instead, Muncie stood and graciously accepted the box, his head dutifully bowed with shame, while she felt herself empowered to the point of elation. She had done it! She had ended this uncomfortable thing that she’d suffered week after week just because she was too polite to end it (at least that’s what she told herself, forgetting how she’d watched for him through the window, craving his attention when it was not around, yet finding it insufferable when it was actually upon her).

She held the door for him, apologizing as he walked through. “I’m sorry Muncie. I really am.” And she believed she was, too, although neither the bite to her words nor the actions behind them showed it, her sympathy slowly eroding from the fact that he was leaving without so much as a plea, or an argument, or some sort of fight to keep her as because of anything else. She probably would have relented too, had he showed any kind of fight. And as he disappeared into the fog she could not help but ask the one question that came to mind as he dutifully disappeared into the mist. She was glad she was talking to a fog, and could not see his face as that question came to her mind, and she was even more glad after his response that he couldn’t see hers.

”Muncie? Why did you come today? I was so mean to you last time, and am so mean every time. Why do you keep coming?” She did not know when she asked the question what sort of answer she expected from it, whether he came because he wanted someone, or because he needed someone, or whether he thought he was in love with her?

But the answer she received from out the mist was not at all what she expected… not by a long shot.

“Why… didn’t you know? I thought you knew. I figured that was why you treated me so badly. Your mother pays me to come, Ellen, a hundred bucks a week… but I guess I‘ve blown that easy money now.”

Shocked, and searching her brain for anything that would cut, she found nothing. “You bring me my box back, Muncie Woods! Do you hear me!” She screamed it into the foggy void.

”Sure! Gee thanks! I’ll bring it next week… that’ll be another hundred bucks!”

”Nevermind, You! Just keep the damned box!” She yelled into the fog, somewhat ashamed of her language. Ellen hated to curse, and she seldom did.