Life Unbothered Read online

  Pamela stuffed smaller items into her Toyota with assistance from her friend, Tammy, who arrived shortly after I had finished all of my ironing. Tammy always struck me as cute, but immature. She was a twenty-four-year-old non-prescription medicine salesperson whose unwavering bubbly personality was stuck in high school cheerleader mode. The two pecked around the house nervously in search of things to snatch. I tried to remain casual as I stalked after them, as if I weren’t watching what they were taking, but they were keenly aware I was.

  Emotions sparked when Pamela took one last romp through the wedding presents. Though all the gifts we received were from people invited by my side of the family, practically every gift she had registered for arrived magically at our doorstep. Pamela eyed the partially opened box of Lenox Grand Affair china stacked among the other gifts. The box contained twelve complete place settings. It was an artfully understated, classy set accented in platinum. She grabbed one of the plates and hugged the inanimate object like a beloved kitten.

  “It’s so pretty, I want to keep it,” Pamela cried.

  She also wanted the eight Baccarat vases that arrived a few weeks earlier. They were apparently expensive, but I had questioned what the hell we were going to do with eight crystal vases.

  “I want these too,” she said as saliva shot out of her mouth and landed on one of the vases.

  “No, I’m going to have to return all the gifts,” I said.

  Tammy watched Pamela snivel over the gifts and threw dirty looks my way, bolstering my belief that in her eyes I could qualify as a finalist in the Biggest Asshole of the Universe competition.

  A few minutes before noon, two men arrived in an unmarked white cube van to lug the stuff away. It took the complimentary movers just under an hour to load all the larger items before vanishing down the road.

  Tammy scurried through the front door to flee the scene as Pamela performed her last walkthrough around the house, idly snatching a few remaining knick-knacks for her new abode. The last item she grabbed was a square red ceramic dish signed by a purportedly famous hippie artist from Sedona. It was actually my dish, but in the moment it was her right to relinquish it from my possessions.

  “I just wanted to tell you,” she turned to me while still clutching the hippie dish and said as if rehearsed, “this is the shittiest thing anyone has ever done to me.”

  Pamela’s thickly applied mascara began sponging up some of the tears falling from her brown eyes. I extended my arm to attempt a gentle shoulder rub. The gesture was more of a reflex than an act of tenderness.

  “You’re better off without me,” I said.

  “Oh, screw you, Wade. Screw you!” she shouted, and then pulled a step away from me. “I have to go now.”

  She exited the house with my signed red dish in her hand. The departure should have been a somber occasion, but the burden of cohabitation and impending matrimony lifted off me immediately after she slammed the front door. I wanted to go and refold my clothes she threw on the floor while whirling about the house, but hesitated for a minute to let some internal relief seep into my skin. My conscious struggled with the contrasting feelings of remorse coupled with elation. It was sad that my relief came at the painful expense of someone else. But relief won out, it was my survival mechanism.

  3. The Neighbor

  With Pamela gone and the wedding off, I knew I should make some calls and alert people about the change of plans—especially my parents. Instead, I opted to procrastinate. So I went outside and mowed the small patch of Bermuda lawn in the backyard, then took the wet/dry shop vacuum to the rock garden that covered the entire front yard.

  Due to the desert climate, many homes in the Phoenix area had a layer of small rocks covering their yards instead of a lush lawn. Rocks did not require watering or mowing, nor did they turn brown in the winter, freeze, or dry up. They were just there—consistent all the time, never changing. I liked the rock front yard; it was efficient and low maintenance. The yard mirrored my ideal relationship—though humans were much more complicated than decorative pebbles.

  After attempting to rake the leaves deposited mainly from an olive and a eucalyptus tree in the front yard, the inch-long white craggy rocks would also rake up into a big pile. I had yet to discover a leaf and rock-straining device, so using the six-horsepower vacuum to suck the leaves off the top of the rocks made sense. The vacuum used to clean the interiors of fine European cars at my auto detailing shop. Since the closing of the business a couple of months before, its demoted function consisted of outdoor leaf duty.

  As I was stretching the extension cord far enough for the vacuum to reach the rocks by the driveway, a sensual throaty voice came from behind me.

  “You’re not only the sexiest man I know, you’re also the smartest.”

  I smiled and turned around. “Hi Colleen.”

  “You know, that yard-vacuuming process is ingenious. Why doesn’t anyone else do that?”

  “I don’t know. It could be some people don’t have one of these vacuums sitting around the house—and a thousand feet worth of extension cords.”

  Colleen was a forty-nine-year-old divorcee who moved next door about two months after I engaged Pamela. Besides having a figure that put many younger women to shame, she was a very attractive brunette with large natural breasts that were surprisingly unshakeable.

  Colleen had a habit of inviting me over on nights when coincidently, Pamela would be out for “girls’ night,” an event that occurred about twice a month. I never figured out how Colleen knew Pamela’s social schedule, but she would ceremoniously ring my doorbell shortly after Pamela’s departure.

  Colleen would grace my doorstep with some problem she thought I could fix—dripping faucet, toilet leak, or a chore that required standing on a ladder. When free of handyman tasks, she would simply ask me to share a home-cooked meal. Colleen was intelligent, educated, and had traveled extensively with her pediatrician ex-husband who she caught one afternoon with a nurse two decades younger than her.

  As Colleen tiptoed over the freshly vacuumed rocks to move closer, I admired her curvaceous body. The white sundress she wore complemented her dark brown hair and lightly tanned skin.

  “I saw Pamela skid out of the driveway earlier,” she said.

  “Yeah, I know. I broke off the wedding. She found an apartment and moved out.”

  Colleen lifted her eyebrows. “Oh really? And here I thought she was just being her usual cheerful self.”

  I laughed. “Probably so.”

  With delicate care, she brushed the left side of my face with two fingers. “Your cheek looks a little red.”

  “Pamela threw a phone at me.”

  “Ouch. I take it she’s not pleased with you.”

  “You could say that.”

  “Don’t get me wrong. I’m sorry about the wedding, but I don’t see how you could’ve been happy with her.”

  “I know, but it still doesn’t make it any easier.”

  Colleen glanced in the direction of my zipper and then gradually lifted her eyes to meet mine.

  “Come on over for some lemonade,” she said. “You can finish your vacuuming later.”

  I lifted my arm to wipe my brow. “I’m kind of sweaty from all the yard work.”

  “That’s okay. You never minded my sweat.” She turned around and started walking slowly, giving me a view of her shapely backside as a dry, gentle breeze ruffled her dress.

  “Yeah, you always taste good,” I mumbled as I dropped the vacuum hose and obediently followed her next door.

  I perched myself on a wrought iron barstool in Colleen’s kitchen. She stood opposite me on the other side of the counter and poured two glasses of fresh-squeezed lemonade.

  “Wade, don’t knock yourself down about this. Everything will work out for the better.”

  I took a sip of lemonade. The tart taste surprised my pa
late and awakened me from the drone of merely doing yard work to sitting in the house of a very desirable woman discussing my botched relationship that happened right next door in our quiet, unassuming neighborhood.

  “Not getting married to Pamela is a big relief. Just my parents and friends… everyone went through a lot of work for me to back out of the wedding—not to mention the money. That’s what really gets me.”

  Colleen mustered a cute little grin. “I remember you saying something about the costs. I thought tradition, not that it means much anymore, calls for the bride’s family to cover the costs. Why exactly were your parents paying for the whole wedding?”

  “Well…” I struggled to find the most accurate wording as my thumb rubbed against the chilled glass. “When Pamela and I became engaged, she said she wanted a fairytale wedding. You know, all the stuff that girls dream about on their ‘most important day’. The problem was Pamela’s dad got laid off about a month before our engagement.”

  “Where did he work?”

  “He was vice president of passenger side seatbelt clasps at one of the automakers.”

  “Vice president for passenger seatbelt… clasps,” Colleen said with a suppressed laugh. “They have an actual VP for that?”

  “Auto companies have thousands of vice presidents, even for that. Those guys are mainly just functionaries. But I feel for him. A downward tick in revenue resulted in huge layoffs. After thirty years there, he got the boot.”

  “Her dad probably became worried when you got engaged.”

  “Oh, he did. Her parents got into immediate financial trouble after the layoff. Pamela’s wedding wishes freaked them out. I told my dad about it one night and he said it would be no problem to give Pamela a wedding fit for a queen. The only stipulation was we would get married in Los Angeles instead of her hometown of Detroit.”

  “How did she take that?”

  “Are you kidding? When I told her, she was ecstatic. Pamela didn’t care where the wedding was, just so it was the most extravagant event she could imagine.”

  Colleen leaned over the counter. “You know, she’s not the brightest tube in a row of fluorescent lights.”

  I sighed and drank another sip of lemonade. “Yeah, I realize that. But I just thought at age twenty-seven it was time for me to get married.”

  I put my elbows on the counter and leaned forward. Colleen lowered her head and pecked me on the lips.

  “Age doesn’t matter. You’re still a young pup.” She paused for a moment and slowly ran her finger around the top of her glass. “Anyway, if Pamela is such a great catch, why do we fool around?”

  A wry grin plastered across my face. “Because you’re an alluring older woman taking advantage of a young impressionable pup.”

  “And you’re one of the biggest charmers I’ve ever met,” she said. We leaned closer again and enjoyed an extended kiss.

  After pulling away, Colleen walked around the counter and stood in front of me. “God, I bet Pamela is going to miss the sex.”

  “Pamela doesn’t even like sex.”

  “That’s too bad. Your notable talents shouldn’t go to waste.”

  “My so-called talents get me in trouble sometimes.”

  “No, your trouble probably intensified when you let that girl move in.” Colleen bit her lower lip playfully and clasped her hands on both sides of her sundress, gradually lifting it to just beneath her breasts. “No more wedding talk for now.”

  I gazed at her bare bottom half while a sultry comfort flowed within me. Colleen lowered herself to the carpeted floor and I stretched my neck as I flopped down to join her. My lips kissed her right knee before traveling up to the top of her opening legs. When my tongue parted her, wedding blues dissipated as I became absorbed in Colleen’s welcoming femininity.

  4. The Shortest Distance Between Two Points

  There’s an inherent flaw with thinking the world is one big joke. Through my somewhat charmed youth, I believed life was set in place and there was no urgent reason to sweat any of the little details—with scant effort it was all supposed to work out in grand fashion. As my age kept going up the scale, the world had somehow shifted its orbit, and the joke was now on me. With canceled nuptials, as with most planned events that suddenly don’t exist, some loose ends needed attending to. I contemplated going back over to Colleen’s house for another glass of lemonade, but I found calling off a wedding one of those anti-joke worldly events that couldn’t afford any further time to linger. I wrote a letter to all invited guests from my side informing them there had been an unfortunate turn in my impending wedding to Pamela and we had decided to call off the ceremony indefinitely. The letter was short, about a half page, typewritten on my laptop. It had the tone of a corporate memo and lacked any discernible emotion. It fit my state of mind. Sending them by old-fashioned postal mail conveyed formality of finality, plus it gave me a couple of days of cushion to brace for the questions that would undoubtedly follow from the receivers. I emailed Richard, my best man, to let him know the wedding was off but not to tell anyone until I informed my parents.

  After taking a quick inventory to verify none of the gratuities had disappeared when Pamela moved, I repacked all the wedding presents. It took five separate trips to the local shipping store to return the boxes back to their donors. I could just picture the hassle I had created by not getting married and the dismay of my guests having to return their gifts to an array department stores, boutiques, or online merchants.

  When I finished shipping the gifts, I went to the kitchen counter and looked at the next task on my to-do list: Move the remaining furniture around. From the third bedroom, I carried the BarcaLounger recliner into the living room. To complement the new living room décor, I also moved an old computer printer stand and the forty-inch flat screen TV from the rarely used bedroom and set them up against the bare white wall. I then walked into the other small guest bedroom and lifted the queen-sized mattress off its box springs. Propping the mattress on its side, I dragged it through the narrow hallway to replace the now absent king in the master bedroom.

  Pamela and her movers managed to take all the master bedroom furniture, most of the portable kitchen appliances, the living room and dining room sets, the larger of the two televisions, and the narrow front entry table. None of the furniture was actually hers, but I let it all go, sparing an argument over replaceable material possessions. I was relieved she didn’t find my iron, which I had tucked away in the garage while her attention was focused on other household items. Luckily, she also passed on the ironing board, but she did regard it for a moment before a framed lithograph on the laundry room wall caught her eye.

  I scanned the open living area and saw how stark it was now that Pamela had removed most of the visible items. The house, though the same on the outside, was transformed into a minimalist’s dream on the inside. It was a three bedroom, one story light brown brick and cinder block house in a middle-class section located in the north end of Scottsdale. Its sixteen-hundred square-foot bare interior lacked any sense of a functional family home; the dwelling now resembled that of a misled bachelor who refused to grow up.

  The emptiness intensified the fact that it was time to start a new chapter in my life. With no healing process in mind, I decided to do as I had in the past—disappear from my current surroundings. I finished setting up the bed in the master bedroom and walked into my closet. The built-in shelves now accommodated my boxers, t-shirts and shorts Pamela had hurled from the dresser before the movers arrived. After I had re-ironed all the clothes, I stowed them in the closet. Without any deep effort to conforming color schemes or matching outfits, I placed a few days’ worth of clothing into a travel bag. Then I went into the bathroom to fetch some essential toiletries and my compact travel iron.

  The destination would be my hometown of Palos Verdes, a well-heeled suburb on the southern coast of Los Angeles, to tell my parents in
person that the wedding they were paying for wasn’t going to be.

  The four hundred mile journey began at half past five. After winding through the expansive Phoenix area for twenty minutes, my car merged on to Interstate 10. I was a bit ahead of the setting sun, knowing the bright orange ball would eventually greet my face for about an hour before outracing my car and disappearing into the westward horizon.

  Ten miles outside the furthest stretches of Phoenix, the population abated and exposed land folded out in front of me. I knew what was coming. The openness of the land and sky was a problem. Being in an enclosed space was a problem. The combination would automatically trigger the emotion center in my brain to make sure I knew that danger was present. And if the initial rippling wasn’t enough to evoke a response, my mind would overcompensate to ensure I got the message. The city was gone, the access to doctors was gone, my house was becoming farther away. All factors were testing my sanity.

  In the middle of nowhere.

  The sinister sentence popped into my head repeatedly. There was no interesting scenery to gaze at to help diffuse the anxiety, just thin green mile marker signs whizzing by every forty-five seconds. Attempting to shrug off the chant, I continued to speed into the vast unpopulated desert, creeping away from the security of the Phoenix metropolitan area.

  In the middle of nowhere. In the middle of nowhere.

  I passed Tonopah, a little town forty miles west of downtown Phoenix. My mind revved into overdrive as helpless seclusion made me feel a thousand miles away from any trace of civilization. I had drifted far enough away from my “safe area,” leaving behind the security blanket of my shrinking prison.

  Soon after passing the town of Tonopah, I started feeling detached and out of touch with my surroundings. My pulse was leaping in my throat. I struggled to recall where the nearest hospital was. Surely I was still close enough to a Phoenix hospital in case I needed medical help.