Novelty

The titular story from my collection

Novelty and other stories

Francis met Miranda on a dating app. When she showed up at the bar she was prettier than her pictures. That had never happened to him. He figured she’d flake, so he brought a notebook and sketched an outline of a philosophical novel he intended to write. Some vague intuitions about the effect of technology on human nature.

Their first date was beers and laughs and talking with their hands, the gestures of silent movie actors. Eye contact that popped like grease in a pan. They ended the night kissing in a deserted parking garage. November air chilly and wet. Glowing lamps. The aura of an underwater dream.

They spent the next five nights together. A month later they agreed to be exclusive. For Miranda this meant making her instagram private, no longer sending sexy pictures to bored married men dabbling in the destruction of their families. She grew disgusted at the thought of touching another man.

But Francis looked at other women like a cat that has heard birds chirping in the bushes. His head cranked out images of what lay beneath tight shirts and jeans. He stared with a slackened jaw at yoga pants fighting a rearguard battle against relentlessly advancing butt cheeks.

He would enjoy a smoldering glance from a cashier or a flirtatious exchange with a coworker, and he would worry about missing out on the carnal variety of life. But he let his relationship envelop him, he endured it like the weather.

After six months of dating, Miranda moved in with Francis. Her dog got the spare bedroom. Francis acted the part of a loyal boyfriend while his soul was on pornographic holiday. Over time they fucked less. He’d say he was tired after a long day at work. But if a new woman had offered to suck his dick at the top of Mount Everest, he would've set off with boundless energy.

Their life crept along, Miranda silently planning their marriage, Francis plotting his escape. On a rainy day after three years together he tried to end the relationship. They both had the day off and they sat in a haze of frustration. The rain on the roof sounded like futility. He talked about the discomfort of being tied down. When he saw her eyes swelling and reddening he said everything would be fine. He needed to work out more, eat better and make new friends.

Two months later they were in the living room on the couch. The sun had set. A dark and realistic sex drama played on tv. He said this isn’t working, we should see other people.

This time he held his ground. Miranda cried with the resonance of ancient Greeks lamenting a tragedy. Through her sobs she spoke of all that had been lost. Francis offered to help her move out and find a new place to live.

That night Miranda went to stay with a friend on the other side of the city. The next day Francis rented her a moving truck. A week later most of her things were gone.

He wanted to date. Nothing serious, just a night out here and there. He redownloaded the apps and asked out a woman from work. The date was dull. He told her outside her apartment that he’d had a good time but he was still getting over his last relationship. She said see you tomorrow and never thought of it again.

Now that he was single, women seemed less available. It had only been three years but the apps were a different game. He lost whole evenings to fruitless swiping. Beating off to pictures of women less than a mile away. Simulated women selling porn subscriptions. Bathroom mirror pics, one ass cheek plumped up from half-sitting on their sinks. Women who sent the first message looked like burn victims and elephant seals. They were over 40. The peripheries of their pictures shrouded in black sludge, grainy and ominous like unearthed documentation of a horrendous crime.

Miranda found an apartment and tuned out all romantic overtures. Coworkers and acquaintances feasted upon the news of her single status like rabid jackals in a famine. Men who called her a friend for years said we need to talk, I’m in love with you.

The only man she wanted had rejected her, while every other man in the world drooled and lunged for her like a cretin prematurely released from a mental hospital. Francis denied the one woman who wanted him, while every other woman seemed to treat him like wet shit on the sidewalk.

Miranda worked and took care of her dog. She read large-print books about loving herself and signed up for sculpting classes. Francis worked out six days a week at the gym. He lifted with bad form, on the verge of pulling muscles, yelling at the end of his sets as if he were spearheading a suicidal charge.

Finally he matched with an attractive woman on an app. He sent the first message. Her name was Kate and she suggested drinks at the bar where he’d met Miranda.

Francis was almost seeing her for the first time when he sat in the booth. She looked like Miranda. But Kate had a bigger nose and her eyes were darker. After they parted with a kiss on a bridge, Francis went home and got in bed and gazed at the shadowed ceiling. Thinking not so much about this one new woman, but about the other women sure to come.

He saw Kate a few days later. They walked in the park, laughing with arms intermingled. The early autumn sun shone with nostalgia for a lost summer. They sat on a bench and watched a couple toss a frisbee to a golden retriever. Listened to birds softly singing. They talked about episodes from their lives.

Afternoon passed into evening. Kate said she was hungry. Francis mentioned a taco and tequila stand a few blocks down the street. They walked quietly triumphant, holding hands, secure in the ever crumbling and rebuilt present. That night they went to Francis’s house and fucked without discussion, as if carrying out a wordless destiny.

After a few hours of sleep they woke together in the late morning light. They got out of bed and sat on the porch. A cloudless sky permeated all things with vanity. They looked onto the street at couples walking dogs and the occasional shambling vagrant and they talked about where they might go for breakfast.

--

She came over five or six nights a week. Francis stopped trying to date other women. He kept dreaming about it. One night after dinner, in front of a gritty television crime drama, Francis glanced at Kate and thought her nose seemed smaller. He looked again and again until she asked him what he was doing.

“You look a little different.”

“Haven’t changed anything,” she said.

But after several looks Francis had convinced himself. She looked more like Miranda.

“What?” Kate asked with annoyance.

He said nothing and watched tv.

--

Francis sat on the couch waiting for Kate to come back from the bathroom. It was movie night.

She walked into the living room and asked if Francis wanted to watch A Weekend in Cairo, a spy thriller romance. She said it was her favorite movie. Francis throbbed with nausea.

“Hmm, I’ve seen that one,” he said.

A Weekend in Cairo was Miranda’s favorite movie. Early in their relationship they had watched it several times. Francis coughed and swallowed hard. His Adam’s apple rocketed up his throat and back down again like a piston in a high striker game at a carnival.

“Oh, well, we can watch something else,” Kate said.

She wandered through the living room with a pensive air.

“Do you want snacks? Should we run out and get anything?” Francis said.

“I think we’re good,” Kate said.

She walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge.

“We have goat cheese and crackers,” she said.

“Okay. Sounds good. Let’s just watch A Weekend in Cairo. I don’t wanna think too much about it.”

He found the movie on a streaming service and hit play and turned off the lamp on the end table.

Kate was engrossed in the movie. She ate the cheese and crackers without taking her eyes off the screen. Francis barely watched.

His body slumped rightward, his mouth hanging open, his arms at his sides and his palms turned up. He didn’t have the angelic appearance of innocence in repose, but instead looked like a bloated aristocrat passed out at a banquet, his body stuffed with smoked game birds.

--

After seven months together she brought up marriage. Francis said maybe in a year. Inside he squirmed. He still saw himself with women who served him coffee and passed him on the street. It was natural for him to want different body types, different looks, he thought. A man gets sick of the same woman day after day.

Each day Kate’s eyes seemed to lighten until they had Miranda’s hazel coloring.

--

On the day Kate had finished moving in, Francis looked through his phone for pictures from the beginning of their relationship.

He found a few from the second month. They were under a mural of a hip-hop bear wearing gold chains. Kate looked the same as Miranda.

He went through older pictures. Six years ago he was with Miranda in front of a fountain. She looked exactly like Kate.

Later that evening, Kate said she wanted a chocolate eclair, a treat Miranda loved. As Francis remembered it, Kate raved about cheesecake. He would surprise her with a slice and her eyes would beam with joy.

“I’ll run out and get us some snacks. You want any cheesecake?”

“No, I don’t really like cheesecake.”

“Hmm, I didn’t know that.”

--

Late fall. The air was thin and cold and the colors never came. Brown leaves fell like dead bugs. Francis worked longer hours and avoided talk of marriage. Kate seemed unbothered. They watched movies and television shows and went to work and talked about the shows.

Most of the time everyone had seen the show but when they didn’t, they pretended and laughed and said oh yeah that was crazy or interesting and they hoped that would be the end of it. Sometimes they would say I’ve only seen part of it, or it was so long ago I don’t remember much about it.

No one wanted to admit they’d never heard of a certain show or actor or director because then someone would mention another show or actor and say oh it’s by the guy who did ___ and then they would get irritated if the other person still didn’t know who or what they were talking about.

There were so many shows with so many seasons. So many movies and sequels. These tired and overstimulated people watched television like it was a job, their true purpose in life.

Francis got a raise and told himself that at some point he would have to get married and maybe even have kids. There would be less time for watching shows but nothing else would change. One cold dry day Kate came over in a sour mood and spoke of ice cream and other treats. She needed something to cheer her up.

“We could go to the corner mart, pick up some gooshers or those fudge knobs or sugar punches. There’s that new pastry shop on 44th, they probably have some nice eclairs.”

Kate said she didn’t want eclairs but maybe some cheesecake would be nice. Francis noticed Kate’s earrings. Small silver triangles. She had never worn them before. He remembered that Miranda had worn earrings just like them.

“Oh, are those earrings new?” he said.

“No, I wear these all the time.”

They went to the pastry shop and Kate got cheesecake. All the while Francis felt like half of him had been injected with an anesthetic and the other half injected with adrenaline. He was slow and cold and yet his heart pounded and his face flushed. From what he could tell, Kate sensed nothing. She talked and then perked up when she got her cheesecake, ate loudly and made guttural sounds of gratification.

On the phone at work his voice warbled. He lapsed into improper sales techniques, uttered definitive statements, forgot all his training and experience. His supervisor, a fat man in extra-large slacks and big black orthopedic shoes and flaky reddish folds in the back of his neck, sat Francis down and warned him about his productivity.

Francis apologized and blamed his home life. The supervisor offered to get him an appointment with a therapist. A range of services were recommended. The company cared. The man asked if there was anything else he could do. Francis said he would figure it out and everything would be okay. He would get back to selling driveways, appliance upgrades and bathroom renovations.

Shortly after, Kate had an idea. A fun night out. She went to Francis and asked if he would like to see her favorite band, The Filthy Radiators, an eclectic indie rock group with layered vocals.

Francis couldn’t remember Kate ever mentioning The Filthy Radiators, and he told himself he would’ve remembered because that was Miranda’s favorite band.

On the night of the show the weather was cold and windy. Bald trees were bunched in austere and disapproving committees. Francis sat on the couch and looked through his phone.

When Kate finished with her hair and makeup she floated through the hall and into the living room. She said she was ready and they left.

Francis drove through traffic. He gripped the wheel and grit his teeth. Kate watched videos of funny dogs and glanced up on occasion and asked Francis if he was okay. Of course, he said, everything was okay.

He cursed at someone who cut him off. He stomped on the brake as if he were crushing a cockroach on his kitchen floor. Cars ahead and behind erupted in piercing honks like irate geese funneled through a loudspeaker.

When Francis rolled into the parking lot he saw a line of people stretched around the club. Kate clapped her hands twice and turned to Francis. She smoothed his hair and then they got out of the car and walked across the lot and got in line. They could hear a band warming up.

“I hope they play a few songs from Mister Listerine,” Kate said as they entered the club.

Everyone stood close, breathing on each other. They stayed glued to their groups and made flagrantly vacuous conversation so as not to get dragged into uncomfortable interactions with strangers.

The opening band straggled onto the stage with an air of practiced nonchalance. Another indie rock band, a local favorite, with a female lead vocalist who alternated between sassy shouting and tender crooning while skinny men behind her stiffly swayed.

Francis watched Kate nod her head in and out of time. He leaned and yelled into her ear that he needed to use the bathroom. His real aim was finding Miranda.

He looked through the crowd, squeezing between people, pressing up against sweaty bodies. The atmosphere of the club was like an unwashed giant’s armpit.

As the band played its last song, Francis set his eyes on a woman that electrified him as no musical performance could. It was Miranda, looking as she did years ago when they were together. He shoved his way to her.

“Miranda!”

She turned to him.

“Huh?”

“Miranda!”

He shouted into her face and she shook her head. Francis shouted once more and the woman waved her hands and shooed him away. Francis stepped back; he yelled sorry while continuing to stare. The woman had turned to the stage as the band played their final chord and the song faded out. Everyone cheered and clapped but Francis.

Then he stepped forward and grabbed her arm.

“Hey it’s me, I’ve been trying to get a…”

Before he could finish his sentence, she ripped her arm back and a man stepped between them.

“Hey, back off,” he said.

Francis walked away in a daze and stood next to a stinking trashcan. Roadies moved equipment on and off the stage. His thoughts sputtered like a car struggling to start. He was about to pass out when Kate found him.

“Where did you go? You missed the whole set.”

“I’ve been in the bathroom. Must have been something I ate. Wasn’t sitting well,” he said.

The Filthy Radiators walked on stage and plugged in and the guitarist strummed a chord that rang louder than a jet plane taking off. The crowd cheered.

--

At the turn of Spring Francis went to a psychiatrist. He was diagnosed with several disorders, given worksheets and manuals and put on experimental medication. At coffee shops and bars women blended into the background. His fantasies had been replaced with cotton and white noise. One day he came home to find Kate standing in the living room, rigid and cold. She spoke with a mechanical tone. It was over. She’d decided after much thought, after talking with her friends and her therapist. He’d wasted her time, she wanted to feel like a woman again, desired.

The news hit him like a report on distant events. She’d moved in and out like a woman on a long business trip.

Kate was gone, Miranda was gone. What remained of them: a shirt or a pair of sunglasses, a bottle of shampoo, ticket stubs, receipts and a crumpled bag from an afternoon of absent-minded shopping.

He threw it all away, piecemeal, without reverence, as if he were his own foreign housekeeper. His performance at work was unaffected. Novelty and other stories