The Ongoing Adventures of Stupendous Girl!

In the Cold Light of Dawn (Part 1 of 9) 22 Apr 2009

Gwen taps the outside of her glass nervously, trying to fill the awkward silence. She certainly couldn’t consider herself sandbagged, not when she’d had misgivings from the start about this unusual meeting, not when she’d suspected that Arthur’s friends might well suspect her. Still, she’d never expected them to come out with it so baldly.

“The way I see it, Gwen, you have two choices. You can stop fooling around with Lance, or you can tell Arthur and let the chips fall where they will. Your choice.”

After the usual pleasantries, the greetings, sitting down, ordering drinks, they’d gone straight to that. That was the first thing Ophelia had said to her, and Don just sat there solemnly, clearly approving of the message. When she does figure out how to answer, it is with the carefully constructed indignation that only a truly guilty person who does not want to admit their own guilt to themselves can summon.

“I know you two are Arthur’s work friends…”

(She placed extra emphasis on the work, creating a mental separation between his work life, to which they implicitly belonged, and his private life, which she felt they did not.)

“…but I really don’t see what business of yours our marriage is. So, if you’ll excuse me…”

With that, Gwen moves to stand, making a dramatic flourish of grabbing her coat from the back of the booth’s bench seat. She is cut off in mid-rise, however, by Ophelia’s firm rejoinder.

“If you don’t end it, and you don’t tell him, we will.”

Shocked only for a moment, Gwen replies sneeringly.

“He won’t believe you.”

Don then interrupts, his hands spread wide in a gesture of conciliation, clearly trying to be the good cop to Ophelia’s heavy.

“Look, we just want our friend to be treated fairly. No one’s trying to start a fight here.”

Gwen decides to keep pressing her perceived advantage, thinking to herself that if she stays bold, she may just call their bluff and not have to give up anything. Not Arthur who, in some way, she still did love as she always had. (He was comfortable, familiar. He was part of a reassuring pattern. He had been around so long that he seemed to belong, regardless of what he was or wasn’t doing at any given moment.) Not Lance, who stirred in her things she hadn’t felt in a long time. (He was exciting, sure, but it was more than that. He was almost prescient in the way he could anticipate what she wanted and give it to her before she had to ask. He was a missing puzzle piece that filled a gap she had long since given up on ever addressing before she met him. He was what she hadn’t known she’d wanted until she started wanting it, and now couldn’t imagine wanting anything else.)

She didn’t want to give up either, or hurt either, and if she could cow these two into not tattling on her, into doubts about whether they would be believed and it was worth the hassle, she wouldn’t have to.

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