The Cohabitants 14

Bits of ash from the Holiday Farm forest fire floated in the air, speckled their cars, and greyed the blacktop driveway. Inside the view was hidden by a blanket of smoke against the windows and the air conditioner couldn’t filter air fast enough. She draped damp bath towels over the kitchen chairs and used an electric fan to push air through them in faint hope of removing particulates. Then she sat down and pondered the situation she had gotten herself into. It was her first time alone in the cabin on the hill. She would be there all day while the man was at work. Just her and Moon sitting on the futon couch where her feet didn’t touch the floor. 

Today was the day she had planned to drive home to Portland to begin packing up her cute little apartment to move into this new place because the man was a good kisser. That wasn’t the only reason she was going to live with him. But it was the one reason that made everything else so much less important. She had spent the last quarter century living in style, surrounded by cool stuff, traveling and eating dinner with three forks. She knew the high life and it was very nice to look at. But she slept alone and her snootiness kept her on a low kiss diet. Now she had slept with the same person for the past four nights in a row, and her whole body was rewired for skin-to-skin contact. She couldn’t just walk away because his interior design skills were subpar. 

So, her kingdom for a kiss. That was the deal. Extreme, for sure. But she wasn’t going to wait until she was eighty for the immaculate conception of a man who was tidy AND kissed well. This man’s biochemistry was mixed up with hers now and there was no escape from the desire that made whitewater with her pulse. Plot twist! Her life story, the cranky feminist manifesto was morphing into a ripped bodice romance. Her religious commitment to style was being abandoned for utilitarian heresy. Or maybe she was just becoming more human.

The air quality warning on her phone squawked and she started a shopping list of Armageddon supplies. No way was she going to sit at his old girlfriend’s oak desk today and pretend to be a writer. Today was for action. She needed to get up off the couch and do something physical, burn off some energy, perform something with a happy ending. Cleaning the refrigerator was an obvious choice.

He’ll probably never even notice.

I’m not doing it for him; I’m doing it for me.

Right. Just don’t touch his Ranch Dressing collection.

She got a big trash bag from the garage and set it up beside the open fridge door. Then one item at a time, his food was inspected. She squinted for mold, sniffed for sour, tossed out artificial ingredients, and ditched the snowy frozen meat in the freezer. Items with an obvious date were lined up in chronological order, the oldest banished, along with the peanut butter with palm oil and added sugar. Then she wiped down the shelves and drawers and established a military formation of the few items allowed to remain. It was a psychic cleanse. Order had been restored one rancid bottle of cooking oil a time. She would need to buy more trash bags. 

Her eyes scanned the room for her next project. She still had energy to burn. In a gush of self-determination, she snatched his Teflon pans and put them in the trash. Then his black plastic utensils. Then all the plastic yogurt containers and orphaned plastic lids. There was no automatic dishwasher, so what came next would be heroic. She took everything out of his kitchen cabinets and sorted his dishes on the floor, washed the keepers, wiped the shelves and put it all back inside in a completely different arrangement, an arrangement that made sense to a cook. The trash bag bulged.

That night they hugged and kissed and pressed their bodies together like they were the last two people alive. This was the most time they had spent together. But no amount of rapture could diminish the scent of doom wafting in the smoke. The house tap water came from a well at the bottom of the hill that was pumped to a holding tank at the top. She had learned that the water in the irrigation system came from the retention ponds and was not potable. “Don’t drink out of the hose,” he had warned her. Now, after so many months without a soaking rain, the level of groundwater in the well was low, and the water in the holding tank was sandy. She hadn’t realized it, but her cleaning used a lot of water. The well hit bottom. The faucets trickled. They would be taking three-minute showers until it rained again. 

In the morning, after he left for work, she filled a salad bowl with water for washing her hands and squeezed out a soapy sponge, preparing for another purge. His bathroom. She had all day, rubber gloves and a lot of curiosity. The first thing to go in the trash bag was a bar of brown soap that looked like a frog died in an ashtray. Then the shower curtain coated with pink bacteria. Each of his body care products was inspected for healthful ingredients, pleasing scents and attractive packaging. Most items didn’t make the cut. The discount brand shampoo and bodywash were sure to kill his microbiome. His moisturizer had unacceptable skin cloggers. His toothpaste had foaming agents. His deodorant was scented to nullify his olfactory nerve. She was taking ownership now and she didn’t want him smelling like a TV commercial. All the antibacterial soaps, salves, sprays and lotions were eliminated. Also, the sunscreen from three years ago and a black toothbrush that could have belonged to Darth Vader. Then she wiped down the room from ceiling to floor. It was glorious. The Holiday Farm Fire was raging for the third day, but in an uncertain world, she was certain the bathroom was clean. Finally, she felt in control.