KS Culbreth

Executive Decision

She was wearing black suede mules and a vintage Japanese pantsuit and moving gracefully across the grand entry toward the front door making about as much noise as a Persian sleeping on the back of a velvet sofa. The only sound was something like a katana slashing the air that was the silk rubbing between her thighs. She lifted a soft forearm and checked her Tag Heuer Carrera with its carat worth of diamonds surrounding the black dial.

2:55. What was I thinking. Mail won’t be here for another ten minutes. Oh what the hey.

She continued across the foyer and went out onto the front porch, leaned over the rail and looked up and down the sidewalk. No sign of the postman. The next house down Doris was on her front porch. She was wearing khaki capris and an oversized white button down shirt fraying badly at the collar with a smock over top. She was standing at her easel painting in watercolor the flowers that grew in the iris bed in front of her porch. The canvas and the front of her smock were dappled with the pastels of Easter. Beside the easel a small table with a sweating glass of iced tea filled nearly to the top. Bright wheel of lemon perched on the brim.

Doris’s hair was thick with loose curls, a slight haze of gray. The front was pulled back and tied loosely to keep it out of her eyes. Gloria watched until Doris looked up. She waited until Doris raised her hand with a fan brush delicately between her fingertips.

“Hey, Gloria,” she said.

“Afternoon Doris. I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“Oh, you know it’s just for fun. Wondrous day.”

“It certainly is.”

Poor thing. She mourned so terribly. For weeks that kind of uncontrolled weeping that doesn’t even pretend to be attractive because it is so raw. It’s been ages since we’ve visited. I wonder how she’s doing.

They both live in a gated community of 3800 square-foot homes of identical Colonial design. Broad front porches across most of the front, each on half an acre, some with fenced pools. No swingsets. Each homeowner tightly abiding the rules of the home owner’s association by keeping their lawns no greener than a bed of emeralds, trimmed no taller than the ankle, leaving nothing in the yard that would indicate enjoyment outdoors except approved grilles, lawn chairs and tables and their white or gray or tan umbrellas. Not a member – they do not call each other residents, for these have become a sort of private club – would even consider a paint that is not on the approved palette. Indeed their very tastes have evolved collectively to exclude them. And each keeps a keen eye on their neighbors to ensure they abide by the association rules as well.

The phone rang and she shuffled soundlessly back across the entry to the kitchen. It was one of the board of directors for a local charity that had an art auction coming up.

“Hello, Gloria. How are you?”

“Fine, Chuck. You and Emily?”

They chatted for a while, until she tired of it.

“What can I do for you?”

“We’ve had a metal artist offer to donate some of his works.”

“A metal artist?”

“Yes, he does designs in wrought iron.”

“Ha. No, no, and no,” she said. “Not on my watch. This is the Paint and Porcelain auction. That is what it has been for twenty years. That is what it is.”

“We were just thinking—”

“Don’t bother about variety again. The returns get better every year. We’ll be fine without branching off into every little trade and craft that someone wants to peddle.”

“I’ll let him know and see if I can find another charity for him.”

“Thanks, Charles. You have a good weekend.”

Honestly. Metal craft at a paint and porcelain auction.

She checked her Tag and saw it was twenty after.

Missed him.

She breezed across the foyer and lifted a letter from a plant table by the front door. Out on the porch she spotted him on the walk heading toward Doris’s house.

“Roger,” she sang so as not to shout. The postman halted and turned. She waved the envelope. “I need stamps.”

Roger undid a flap on the front of his postal pouch and sorted through it. He glanced up half expecting to see her walking toward him.

“Just one?”

“Do you have a roll?”

She stood at the edge of the porch and waited for Roger to return, bought the stamps, put one on the letter, and handed it to him. He touched the brim of his postal pith helmet and turned away.

“Good day, Gloria.”

“Yes, wondrous day, isn’t it?” she said. If she’d been wearing her bifocals, she’d have noticed his brows drawing together.

“I just meant—” he nodded without missing a step on his way to Doris’s house. “Yes, it’s a wondrous day.”

She went to the corner of the porch and lifted the lid of the mailbox. The day’s mail was cradled in the fold of several catalogs. She pinched shut the folded catalogs and lifted out the day’s bundle.

After she’d snapped the lid closed and turned to the front door flipping through the mail, she stopped and thought for a moment about whether something had caught her eye. She went back and lifted the lid again and saw in the bottom of the mailbox a single pink rose wrapped in clear plastic and tied together with a red ribbon.

My word.

She looked up at Roger, now mounting the two steps to Doris’s porch.

Maybe it’s a holiday of some sort.

Standing in the doorway, she spied carefully to see if he gave Doris a rose. He did not.

My goodness. Could he really be so forward?

She skated back across the foyer in a daze, past the island in the kitchen and into the dining room where it was set with the punctilious and perfect order of a furniture catalog. She sat at the head of the table and drummed her nails on the glossy finish.

Is this even appropriate? Is he allowed to just drop a flower in any woman’s mailbox? Of course I wouldn’t report him. But this could certainly present an awkward situation. Oh, I wish he hadn’t done this.

She went to the kitchen and got a glass of ice water from the dispenser in the door of the refrigerator and returned to the dining room.

What does this mean? He is available, I suppose. I suppose we both are and it’s not exactly unexpected that he make some sort of play. I’m only fifty-eight and he could only have just turned fifty at best. But my goodness, I’m retired. I was the vice president of one of the most powerful telecoms in the industry. They still bring me in a few times a year.

She realized she’d been lightly biting her thumbnail, a habit she’d broken years before and snapped her hands together, one folded over the other on her lap. She looked around the table.

I’ve hosted diplomats, actual diplomats from other countries…at this very table. And congressmen several times a year and even a few senators. And CEOs and entrepreneurs. Renowned artists. Authors. The most popular critics that write for the New York magazines. I served them all myself…right here at this very table. Well, Juanita may have done the actual serving, but I arranged it all. I hosted.

She sat back and spread her hands out on the table.

Could you imagine Roger sitting here among them?

Laughter burst out in chirps.

In his mail uniform… She howled. …and pith helmet? Oh, the nerve.

In an instant she regretted the ridicule, the condescension.

He does seem like a good man. A true gentleman. Even after that bitch ran off with the contractor and took him for all he had. Making him raise those two children by himself. He’d be able to retire in just a couple of years if it weren’t for her. But not now, not with two kids in college.

Several of the overhead cabinets in the kitchen housed her collection of Cartier vases. At first she put the rose in a tall vase of cut glass, but it wasn’t right. After looking through the cabinets, she found a shorter, more delicate vase with a smaller foot and a flared rim. She put water in the vase, trimmed the bottom of the rose with an angle cut and dropped the rose into the vase.

It was in the center of the kitchen island and she’d been looking at it for some minutes.

No. This won’t do. I’ll have to resolve this tomorrow.

She put the vase on the plant table near the front door.

—–

It was a restless night. Even with the sleeping mask and mood music she had trouble getting to sleep. She woke up suddenly, lifted the mask and checked the clock on the bedside table. The blue display indicated just after three.

This is just silly. I’m as nervous as a schoolgirl. But what would be so wrong about going out with him once in a while, to dinner or a show. It may actually be fun.

She took the mask off and put it next to the clock.

What harm could it do? No one needs to know.

An hour passed as she lay looking through the bedroom door, noting the play of light and shadow slanting in from the hallway.

But why me? Doris would appreciate this type of attention, even if it is just playfulness, so much more than I would. It could even help to snap her out of her mourning. And she’s the type who likes to have a man in her life. I’ve been without my whole life and I’ve done fine. I could have married Ayles after college. He wanted to. But I decided to travel. To put off settling down and all that until my late thirties.

A small gallery of faces drifted through her vision in her half-sleep.

Not that I didn’t have my passionate affairs. But as soon as they started to get too close, that’s when I broke them off. I can’t indulge in loneliness and regret. The only indulgence I allow is pride in my many successes, and loneliness or regret would only tarnish those successes.

—–

Next morning she had her oatmeal in the breakfast nook at the back of the kitchen. She watched the bluebirds in the backyard leaving and returning to the bird house she had built just for them. She looked across the table and imagined Roger sitting there, sipping coffee, hair tousled from sleep.

What would we talk about? Maybe he has some interests that he knows well and that I may find fascinating. He’d certainly have a different outlook, experiences that he could share that I would find interesting, plans and adventures that we could look forward to and enjoy together.

Despite a busy schedule, she had to confess a degree of blandness overshadowed most of what she did.

It may even be rejuvenating. Each day could take on a new perspective, new adventures that I’ve never considered. A drive to the market and the observations and conversations that would lead to.

The morning was passing into noon and she was still sitting at the breakfast nook. The phone had rung several times but she let it go to voicemail.

All right, then. It’s settled. I’ll dance a bit as long as it doesn’t get too serious. I’ll let him down but in such a way that he’ll know he needs to try a bit harder, to add a bit more to the risk of rejection so that he approaches with a deeper sincerity.

She sat a moment in silence with her hands cradling the teacup, looking about the kitchen, especially vast in its silence and emptiness.

Yes, if we’re going to dance, it won’t be a waltz but a tango. I want that nakedness of heart, that raw passion that is almost desperate and that so few know throughout their lives. Definitely. If we’re going to do this, it won’t be merely cordial like 99% of the romance out there.

She got her stationery and a pen and an envelope. She wrote a letter to a friend who lives in Tribeca, folded it, slipped it into the envelope and addressed it. She went out and put it in the mailbox and lifted the flag.

He’ll notice there’s no stamp and he’ll knock. After all, he is the postman.

Her quick laughter was as close to a giggle as a woman of her maturity could muster.

—–

Later in the afternoon the doorbell rang. Her heart pounded a single, forceful blast of adrenaline through her veins. She walked across the grand entry anticipating and looking forward to that romantic nervousness that is the better part of the thrill of youth.

Roger was standing on the porch holding the letter.

“Good afternoon, Gloria,” he said. After a night of thinking about their potential romance, of drawing herself closer to him, he seemed oddly formal to her. “Forgot a stamp.”

He looked inside and saw the rose on the plant table and felt himself either pale or blush. She reached in her clutch, tore a stamp off the roll and handed it to him, then went out onto the porch and sat against the railing.

“Roger, I must say, thank you. It was such a lovely surprise.”

“But I—”

“It really was very thoughtful of you and I am flattered. I’ve just been on my own for so very long that I’m not sure about getting involved with someone. Anyone.”

Next door Doris carried her easel out onto the porch and started setting up her watercolors. She was wearing faded jeans, a loose, untucked linen shirt. She was bare foot.

“This is awkward,” Roger said.

“I know. I feel like a kid again.”

“Not that,” Roger took off his pith helmet and palmed the sweat from his gray hairline. “Geez, you’d think after twenty years I’d know each house. But I can’t tell these McMansions apart.”

“I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”

“I thought I dropped that off the other day when no one was home.”

“I’ve been home every day this week.”

“Right. I meant next door.”

Gloria looked next door and saw that there were two glasses of iced tea on the little table, both with big lemon wheels, both glistening with sweat in the summer heat.

“Oh, of course,” Gloria said. “How foolish of me. That makes much more sense.”

She went back inside and was about to hand both the vase and the rose to Roger but returned the vase to the plant table and handed Roger only the rose.

“Here,” she said. “It still has a lot of life left in it.”

Roger took the rose.

“I’m really sorry for the confusion.”

Gloria stood behind the closed door. She looked down at the plant table and the beautiful vase with nothing but water in it.

I have two dozen vases stored in my cabinets. Not a one of them looks quite so empty.

[This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance or similarity to actual persons or events is purely coincidental. The author bears no responsibility for any damages that may occur to actual persons based upon this writing.]