Uh-Oh

To be honest, I kind of felt it coming. Not that I wanted it to happen but I knew it would eventually. We had an expiration date and it was quickly approaching, so I knew any day he was going to do it. Like I said, I didn't want it to happen, so I played dumb. It was pretty easy to ignore the little hints from him. The cosmic hints weren't as easy; our lease on the apartment was over in a couple of months, the front porch light had gone out, our fish, Lulu, had died. All the signs were there. Like I said, it was pretty much inevitable.

Using my laundry basket, I pushed open the screen door to my downstairs neighbor's apartment. Our apartment, the boyfriend's and mine, lived in one of those brownstone buildings with a renovated basement that had the only washer and dryer. The downstairs neighbor, for all things considered, was a pretty nice guy named Jason-something. No doubt, we've had our share of awkward moments (if I had a nickel for all the times I've accidently seen him in his underwear, yuck) but we had an agreement that I could come down and do laundry once a week, without being disturbed, and this time I'd reminded him with a note on his door.

Not bothering to see if I had surprised Jason-something, I marched to the washer and dryer. Upstairs, I hadn't separated my colors and didn't want to take the time to now. So I shoveled clothes into the washer, poured in the soap, and smacked the START button with vigor. Slamming the lid closed I stood back and looked at the low hung clock on the wall. Well, crap, now I had nothing to do for an hour.

This was usually the time I took to get ready for the day but somebody had woke me up by singing in the shower like a cat choking on a goldfish. After I'd gotten up the boyfriend acted like I wasn't living in the same house. That was until I pulled out my flat iron. Somehow, he'd convinced me not to straighten the tight, dark, ringlets I inherited from my Greek family. He had said something corny about the way it curled around his fingers and I burst out laughing. To my surprise, he started laughing along with me. He'd been doing that a lot lately, things I wouldn't think he would do. Like last Saturday when he had the day off.

All morning they boyfriend had been ignoring me and I was getting seriously tired of this new habit. After he got dressed he grabbed his cell phone and sat down at the kitchen table. And he stared. Whether it was his phone, or the table cloth, or the air in front of his face I had no idea. After four years together I knew better than to straight up ask him what was wrong (even though I had a pretty solid idea, the guilty jerk). Eventually he would tell me all about it while we were watching TV. So I just kept my mouth shut and continued on with my day. Having already done the laundry it was time to go to the grocery store and pick up the odds and ends. You know, milk, eggs, candy bars, coffee, a new plunger to get Lulu down the drain, the little things.

"Do you want anything from the grocery store?" I asked for the third time, my keys in one hand and my purse slung over my shoulder.

His fingers nails were clipped short and lacked the normal clear coat of nail polish he let me put on as he drummed his fingers on the table. Instead of answering, he kept staring at the kitchen table cloth. Oh, I saw how it was. With a roll of my eyes I waved my hand in front of his face and finally got his attention.

I spoke slowly, knowing it would annoy him, "Do you want anything from the grocery store?"

"Dill pickles," he said and turned his attention back to the table cloth. Well, that was the end of that conversation.

I stared at him for a minute, wondering what could be going on in that pretty little head of his, before I slipped out the front door and peeked in the window. The boyfriend had picked up his phone as it vibrated on the table. Before he answered, he made a gun with his fingers, and after a second looked at them, put the gun to his head, and blew his brains out. Unfortunately, he survived, and he got up and walked out of my line of vision while he answered his phone. Rolling my eyes, I walked down the steps of our apartment and to the convenience store down the street. If I thought the pretend suicide was weird, when I got home and found the house spotless, I nearly fainted from shock.

"We've been robbed!" I shouted when I saw the boyfriend come out of the bathroom, "Those bastards stole all our clutter and dirty dishes! My God! They even vacuumed the floor and mopped the kitchen!" I dropped the two bags of groceries on the kitchen counter, "Hurry, call the police!"

Instead of laughing, he sank down on the sofa, like him cleaning the house was a normal thing, and turned on ESPN.

Above my head, I could hear the boyfriend walking towards the front door before I heard it open and shut. Was he seriously going to do it now? Granted I knew he was going to do it but not in the middle of our neighbor's house. No, he wouldn't, maybe he was just taking the trash out? Yeah, that's it he's taking the trash out, nothing more. The sound of the washing machine drowned out as the thud of my heart beat took over my hearing. Despite the fact that I knew he was coming, I still yelped when he suddenly was taking up the doorway. He was clean shaven but had changed back into his pajamas after he got out of the shower. For scaring me I punched him in the shoulder while he laughed.

"Hello to you too," he said, a smirk playing on his lips. I glared at him. "I just wanted to tell you that my boss called me in. I was wondering, could you make me a quick lunch while I get dressed?"

I motioned to the rattling washing machine as it started its spin cycle, "I have to watch the clothes."

"I'm sure they'll be alright." He said, "Pretty please?" Then he pulled the one move I couldn't resists, his eyes got huge and his lower lip pouted. Desperately, I tried to ignore the pleading look in his chocolate brown eyes. I lost.

The damn bastard tricked me, again. Rifling through the fridge, I found all the things I needed for the ham sandwich while the boyfriend sat on his ass with his feet up on the coffee table. Yeah, I got stuck with one of those types. The kind that throw their disgusting man feet up on a new coffee table because they know you're going to clean it later. We'd been dating about two months when he had done it the first time. He placed his never-seen-a-pedicure, stubby, freakishly small toe nailed, stubs of feet up on my new Swedish coffee table I built myself. At first it bothered me to no end. Then I let it go. Now I know I should have nipped that little habit in the butt at my old place.

Looking down at the jar of sliced pickles in my hand (which used to be a jar of whole pickles) I knew the same went with his other gross habit of putting them back in the jar. Jesus, that gets under my skin. I mean, if he doesn't plan on using the whole pickle, grab a smaller pickle. But no, the ratio of pickle size to bread surface area has to be just right. What. Ever. Stealing a glance at him I noticed he was thoroughly involved with whoever he was talking to on the phone. Quietly, I put the ham sandwich ingredients away and made him a PB&J. While I was throwing his lunch into a brown paper bag (I added his favorite candy bar and an apple to go with his sandwich) he wrapped his arms around my waist, quickly spinning me around and kissed me square on the lips before he snatched up his lunch and left with a wink.

Finally back in my fortress of semi-solitude, I pressed the START button again and added fabric softener, remembering it was a load of the boyfriend's work shirts. I had to admit, our relationship had been kind of doomed from the start. When we met he already had a girlfriend, K-something, but they were on/off again. The boyfriend and I just happened to meet during one of their few 'on' periods. I slammed the lid of the washer closed and felt kind of bad for stealing him away from K-something. In the back of my mind, I always felt guilty about that, like I should try to find her and apologize. Then again, it's not like I ever met the woman. It was never my fault she came back a week later begging for him to come back and the cops ended up being called. That fun little incident happened back when I had a job. Just like the boyfriend detested housework, I can't stand work-work. So, when we moved in together he stayed at his job and I stayed home and cleaned. It seemed like a good idea at the time, a little old fashioned maybe, but it worked for us.

Pushing myself off the wall I looked at the clock and realized it was almost 12:30. Oh, boy, Mom would be calling soon. Nervously, I brushed the wrinkles out of my shorts even though Mom would be thousands of miles away, visiting some friends in Cuba. Just as the second hand reach 12:30, the shrill ringtone of my cell filled up the small space.

"Hello, Mom," I said, flipping my phone open. Something hallow in the washing machine banged against the side, mimicking the way I felt as I remembered the last conversation I had with my mother.

"Hello baby, when are you moving in?" Mom asked right out of the gate. Growing up, my mom had been a woman of many words. Fortunately, I had learned at a young age how to get passed the words and to what she really meant.

"I told you, Mom," I said for the hundredth time that week, "I'm not moving in until he breaks up with me."

"You I don't want to pressure you," she said.

I waited. The hang time in her sentence was almost visible.

She continued, "But I don't see why you don't break up with him. I can tell you're unhappy, Brenda," I wrapped my finger up in a ringlet of my hair like I had done when I was little and in trouble. "I know what you're going to say, I'm in Cuba and don't know what you're feeling. But you're my only daughter and I love you. And that little girl I'm sponsoring in Africa doesn't count, although I am thinking about adopting her, little Consuela and I have grown quite close, but only through letter of course. Her English isn't very good, but then again yours wasn't very good when you were 7 either." My mother's voice lowered as if she was going to tell me government information, "Do you remember that little boy who used to pick on you back in the old neighborhood? He moved back in with his mother, can you believe that, a grown man living with his mother? Apparently, he recently got a divorce, his wife got their house." She sighed. "Sometimes I wonder where the woman David is cheating on you with lives. That way we could do down there and give her a piece of my, I mean, our minds."

"I have no proof he's cheating on me, Mom." It was true, I didn't, at least anything new. All I had was that stupid credit card bill from months ago for some red lingerie. Sometimes I wished I had never found it. Other times, like when I wasn't on the phone with my mother, I wished I had grabbed it off the table and slapped him across the face with it. Yeah, slapped him with a credit card bill from Prada, that would have hurt.

"Oh, please Brenda. You know as well I do that the bill you told me about is proof enough. And another thing-"

"Mom, please don't start," I interrupted her even though I knew she had already started. "I've had a really tough day and," I had nothing to say after 'and' but the washer buzzing acted as my saving bell, "My laundry is done I got to go."

"You know, sweetie, if you moved into the condo, you'd only have to share the washing machine with me." I could hear the cheesy smile in her voice.

"You don't have a dryer," I reminded her.

"Alright," she drew out the word, "but we're going to finish this conversation next time we speak."

"Okay, Mom, love you. Good-bye." I didn't bother waiting for her response and just hung up. Opening the washer lid, I started pulling clothes into the dryer.

So what if the boyfriend was cheating on me, it's not like that's a new thing for him. What was that saying, once a cheater always a cheater? Maybe that just applies to math tests. Okay, so when we started dating he wasn't actually cheating, K-something had put them on 'pause' until she found herself or some hippy crap like that. I always thought it was funny how finding yourself could only take a week, but I've never tired it. Okay, so I'm no saint; occasionally I flirt with the hot bartender at the bar down the street from my mom's house, but that doesn't count.

Maybe I would be alright on my own. Just because I don't like work doesn't mean I can't do it. Finding a job would actually be pretty easy for me. Mom is constantly asking for more help at the travel agency. Right, because that wouldn't be a stereotype, a Greek girl working at her mother's travel agency. After a couple of months I could go back to school. When the boyfriend and I moved in together it had taken a long time and I fell behind in my studies. My mother always blamed my procrastination for the reason I dropped out. If I was living with Mom it would just make me want to get out of school and into a job and my own place even faster. Talk about motivation. Yeah, after the boyfriend breaks up with me, I'll take Mom up on her offer. Sighing, I added two dyer sheets (he liked the lavender smell). We hadn't always been on the brink. Just two weeks ago I would never have considered moving in with my mom.

There I was, in a pair of trash can ready sweat pants and a bleach stained t-shirt, trying to scrub a black spot out of the tile when the boyfriend came bounding through the door.

"Hey baby," he said, dropping his laptop bag on the table.

"Hey," I said standing and wiping sweat off my forehead. It had been particularly hot that day, "You're home early." He stood by the coffee table with a silly smile on his face. "What did you do?" I put my yellow gloved hands on my hips.

He mocked hurt. "I didn't do anything." With a few quick steps he swept me up in his arms and produced a bouquet of flowers. "Just make your day. By the way, baby, that stain is part of the tile." Just before my face flushed with anger, he kissed me.

Touching my lips, I smiled a little, and then the dryer came to clanging stop. The dryer was always faster than the washing machine. One by one I took the boyfriend's work shirts out of the dryer, folded them, and placed them in the laundry basket. Why couldn't I break up with the boyfriend before he dumps me? I'm a strong, Greek woman, I could do it. A little lump formed in my throat that was difficult to swallow. Through the little window above the washer and dryer I heard the boyfriend pull into his parking spot. Seriously, he put of a fake reserved sign and everything. Stealing a peek at the clock, I realized it was only 1:05; he'd only been at work for two hours. So this was it. Today was the day. Somebody at work must have convinced him to just get it over with. After today I would officially be a single woman for the first time in four years.

Picking up the laundry basket, now filled with shirts, I recalled the reason I didn't want a basement apartment. I could hear the boyfriend stomping around looking for me. When I walked out the laundry room, Jason-something was on his couch with forkful of leftover Chinese halfway to his mouth.

At first I paused, it always jarred me when I saw Jason-something in his drawers, before I remembered it was his house. Averting my eyes to the ceiling I sped out of the house with a passing, "See you next week Jason."

Just before the door closed behind me, I heard him say, "For the 100th time, my name is Justin…" The last of his sentence was lost as the door closed and I cringed at how terrible I was with names.

The downstairs apartment building had been relatively cold with my hair up so the blazing July sun hit me like a hot iron and made my stomach turn. Just walking up the shorts steps to street level I could smell the hot pavement and didn't dare touch the wrought iron hand rail to help me balance. The boyfriend was sitting on the stoop of our apartment and jumped up as soon as he saw me. Smiling, I played dumb; it would be better if he thought he was taking me by surprise. Even with the waves of heat drifting up off the cement like smoke I could tell something was eating at him. His nerves didn't ebb as I got closer. When I was right next to him, waiting for him to open the door for me, he grabbed the basket from me and set it on the ground.

"Brenda, we need to talk," he said.

"About what, David?"

With no outward warning, the boyfriend dropped down to one knee and held out a small black box for me. Uh-oh…

"Brenda," he asked, "will you marry me?"