The Cohabitants 9

Standing on his deck, looking out at the magnificent view, she erased the inside of his house from her mind and decided to make a fresh start with getting to know him. “You feed the birds in summer?” She was vamping, not thinking about birds. She was thinking about how conniving he was. The view from the deck was like a bribe. He was smarter than he was letting on. She had never been with a man who played dumb. What else was he hiding?

“The birds are my entertainment,” he said. “Thistle seed attracts the finches. Grosbeaks like the sunflower seeds. Jays eat everything and the woodpeckers wait for the suet. The deer eat whatever hits the ground.” 

At the sound of his voice, the dogs came bounding out of the house. He was dog-sitting for a yellow Labrador, a sweet old girl named Birdie. Moon was delighted to be with another dog and Birdie was quietly tolerant as he bounced around her like a frisky puppy. 

The man gave each of the beasts a brisk snuggle, then “Let’s take these guys for a walk.”

Under a cathedral of Douglas firs they followed the path around the perimeter of the estate and he launched into a history of all the dogs that had lived at this place. He took care of the owner’s dogs and often took care of friends’ dogs. That explained why his home was hopelessly doggy. Inside the scent of damp dog was inescapable, the dark paths on the carpeting, amoeba blobs of dried fluid, greasy swipes of dog body oil against the walls and the armchair, puddles around water bowls, collars and leashes on hooks by the door. He lived in a dog kennel without the pretense of it being anything else. When he showed her the dog cemetery and talked about his past dogs, he got tears in his eyes. 

Manicured shrubs lined the driveway and wrapped the big house. He was the manager of it all, alone on the hill most of the time while the owners traveled. The park-like setting required land care, tree care, water systems, irrigation, fences and gates, security, repairs and maintenance. Something was always wearing out and breaking, getting clogged, or running dry. As he talked about the work of managing the property, coping with the seasons, the rain, and the sun, he had her complete attention. These were her interests when she had lived on the farm. They spoke the same language when it came to the land. 

As they strolled, there was space for another person between them. This was only their second time being together physically, and it still felt like a job interview. After all her gushy fantasies about two person sex, she decided to wait for him to make the first move. It appeared he had decided the same thing, because they were alone in the woods together as far apart as kids who didn’t want to get cooties. 

The air between them crackled with magnetic energy, yet they were not young lovers driven by hormones into a frenzy of physical contact. They were former spouses contemplating a new arrangement, a limited liability agreement. On a day like this, sex would be so easy to fall into; a look in the eye, a slip of the hand, and they would be vulnerable to a cascade of emotions beyond their control. They knew that from experience. Intimacy left marks. What came afterward had the potential for discomfort they wanted to avoid. Being intimate with a person was complicated. Falling apart after intimacy was even more complicated. 

So, they were close enough to smell each other, but their conversation was perfunctory, dry as the breeze. By the time they got to the ponds at the bottom of the hill, they had moved on to their employment history. After a childhood of being encouraged to pursue music, for very different reasons, neither of their parents were willing to support them through college to study music. They were turned loose without a plan. When their goals fell off the table, it took years for them to find their footing as young adults. They had both worked odd jobs. They each made an attempt to go to college on their own dime and then dropped out. Neither of them found financial stability until they were almost forty.

This sort of conversation isn’t written in romance novels because it’s dull, like filling out forms for an insurance policy. But they were comfortable being dull together. They were both old enough to know that every adult has been through phases. Some phases were just recovery from the phase that came before. There were adjustments to be made. Midlife is about maintenance. They were rotating their tires. Not as ambitious or materialistic as they were in their thirties and forties. Not as concerned about getting old and going grey as they were in their fifties. Their interest in each other wasn’t mysterious. They were on the clock, purposeful and specific, completely sublimating their mojo until the universe gave them permission to release it. 

When they got back to his house for dinner, the disorder didn’t fry her nervous system as it had hours earlier. She felt like he was her friend. 

“Is it okay if I do dishes?”

“Sure.”

Just getting her hands soapy settled her. For dinner he had planned to grill a piece of sturgeon he caught on the Columbia River. But when he took the frozen package out of his snowy freezer, it was encrusted with an inch of ice.

“How old is it?” She sniffed and recalled having had food poisoning.

“I don’t know. Maybe a couple years.”

She winced. Still she was curious about how he would cook such a thing. 

He fired up the grill on his deck and disappeared into the backyard. A few minutes later he returned and said, “I thought we had some rosemary out in the garden, but I can’t find it.”

She sat at the kitchen table watching him struggle valiantly to pull together another meal. He seemed lost. “Didn’t your mother teach you how to cook?”

“My mother’s idea of cooking was to put something in the oven and read a book until the oven timer went off. Then whatever it was, we ate it.”

“So, you don’t know how to cook.”

“Not really.”

“What do you eat?”

“I usually grab something from the market at the bottom of the hill.”

“Oh.” The market at the bottom of the hill was a convenience store. 

She didn’t have the energy to admonish him for his food choices. After a day of feeling they had so much in common, the reality of their lifestyle differences hit her again. Meanwhile the craving for cold beer crawled her flesh like an army of bugs. While they were eating, their legs touched under the kitchen table and she had such a rush of desire it felt like tears, like she could howl and pounce on him, like she was the bear and he was the bird. Instead she tasted his Gatorade. 

Then it was time for her to drive a hundred miles back to Portland, but she was too tired to get behind the wheel. Her eyes wanted to close. She told herself she just needed a quick nap and squeezed in next to Moon where he was curled up on the futon couch. As she rested her head on an icky brown pillow the sound of the man clattering in the kitchen became like waves on the beach and she drifted into slumber, finally relaxed.