• Embed Doc
  • Copy Link
  • Readcast
  • Collections
  • CommentGo Back
Download
 
Sunshine and Bougainvillea
My wife had never learned how to properly relax, so I decided to strangle her insunshine and bougainvillea.Tess worked madwoman hours (sometimes over sixty a week). I’d stay up latewaiting for her to come home, watching Letterman and laughing at his smart-ass shtick while my dog, in turn, watched me from the front corridor with a look of profoundmelancholy on his mug. I was only fifty, but I had been retired for three years already,having sold my successful chain of barbecue restaurants at a handsome profit. Tess stillworked at an investment firm although it was quite clear that neither of us had to work anymore. She said she couldn’t think of doing anything else.Yet I felt no overwhelming urge to rejoin the world of commerce and as agentleman of leisure I spent most of my days plodding around our garden. Our garden,which was as big as a football field, had grown much larger than I had ever thought itwould. It had both flowers (roses, tulips, daisies, pansies, carnations, sunflowers, and
 
David OppegaardSunshine & Bougainvillea
violets) and food (asparagus, basil, pumpkins, green beans, carrots, tomatoes, two longrows of sweet corn). There was a weeping willow in the center of the garden and beneaththe willow was the most comfortable bench I could find. Whenever I got tired of weeding or planting bulbs I liked to sit beneath the willow, knead the grass with my baretoes, and read stories by P.G. Woodhouse.Tess rarely made an appearance in our garden. When we were first married shelike to visit it when the weather was mild and there was enough wind to keep the bugs at bay. I would be watching the mysterious night sky, maybe eyeing the summer triangle,and suddenly her arms would snake around my waist, hugging me to her warmth. Her hips would begin to sway with the wind and soon we would be dancing, floating off toour own terrestrial groove.It was now twenty years into our marriage and we had not danced in our gardenfor a very long time. If I wanted to gaze at something strange and mysterious I no longer needed the night sky, but had only to look at my wife as she slept beside me. I wouldwatch her breathe and think that, though we still loved each other, the
nature
of our lovehad changed. I would think about how passion and an almost needy hunger had beenreplaced by a fluid co-appreciation that reminded me of the purr of an expensive, well-tuned engine. We simply worked well together, and I thought this was enough.*One day I got sick of plodding around my garden and feeling lonely so I calledour travel agency. It had been so long since we had contacted them that our usual agenthad passed away. “I’m sorry to hear about your loss,” I replied upon hearing the news,“but who do I have to kill around here to get a good travel deal?”
2
 
David OppegaardSunshine & Bougainvillea
Maybe that insensitive joke/question was the reason we ended up going to astrange, out of-the-way place like Trinidad. I looked Trinidad up on a map and wassurprised to see it just off the top of South America, just a dozen or so miles away fromthe coast of Venezuela. The sucker was barely in the Caribbean at all! But, hey, theCaribbean was the Caribbean, so I got us two airplane tickets and a hotel reservation. Ithought it would be necessary to almost violently tear Tess away from work, but shesurprised me when I surprised her and said, “Great, Ralph. I could use a little downtime.”*Tess wasn’t too awed by Port of Spain as we drove into town via taxi. I had toassure her that not all cities had to have buildings over four stories high and that we reallywere in the downtown area. Our hotel had TV, but it was foreign TV with no Letterman.I had to settle for the lousy John Grisham book I had mistakenly purchased for the planeride. It was another yarn about drunken Southern lawyers fighting against bad odds witheloquent orations, as if the South were filled with a bunch of hard-drinking, Cicero types.I found it strange that my wife was with me when I fell asleep. I was used tocurling up on my side of the bed so that when Tess finally came in at night she would beable to slip into bed easily without disturbing my sleep (when awakened in the middle of my sleep cycle I often leap to my feet before I reach consciousness, though I have never  been in either the armed forces or prison).It was even stranger to find Tess around when I woke up in the morning.Admittedly, it wasn’t very romantic; Tess was already dressed and vigorously pacing our room. Her blonde hair was swished as she paced and her gray eyes made repeated
3
of 00

Leave a Comment

You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...
You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...