Brian had never known Jackie to be a sore loser, but tonight she was in a bit of a huff. They’d lost two rounds of Catan at their monthly game Friday with friends. Jackie sat moodily in the Uber with her arms crossed, looking out the window.
“I don’t want to go anymore,” she said finally.
Brian suggested they play Hearts or Poker next time. Jackie got pretty lucky at regular cards. “I don’t care about that!” she said. “I’m just tired of Brad and Nina. Nattering on all night about the bloody elections. It’s always the same crap.”
Jackie had wanted to go to a series of plays put on by a local church group, then a couple’s cooking class. She had suggested a late summer blues festival down by the wharf. There was a burlesque event where the audience was supposed to dress up, too, and a gem and jewelry expo at the convention centre. There was a bourbon-tasting thing. And a haunted hayride. But she was always out-voted, and Catan night became a thing some years back.
At home, when she got out of the shower, Brian was half asleep. She clicked the remote to her current show, House of Flowers, an over-the-top dramedy about a Mexican family who owned a flower shop and a drag queen cabaret. Jackie had a big crush on the Diego character, the family’s financial adviser and the brother’s older boyfriend. He was so debonair in his tailored suits and had a yummy smattering of soft freckles and gorgeous silver hair and beard.
After awhile, Jackie got out of bed and started digging around in the pantry for pretzels. She saw a dusty bottle of merlot, then located a corkscrew. What the hell, she thought. They had beautiful fishbowl glasses that had never been used. She poured half the bottle in, and went back to bed.
Just as the first gulps of wine coursed through her bloodstream, the actor Juan Pablo as Diego entered the frame, leaping passionately on his beau. He kissed with desperation, and with his whole body. She wondered if Brian would ever kiss her like that again.
“Brian,” she said, poking him conspiratorially. “Share this with me.” He woke just long enough to register surprise because wine was usually for special occasions. But he’d never been bothered by her crushes on TV detectives or old movie sirens. “Is it Dr. House tonight?” he asked, and then he was asleep again.
Jackie turned back to Juan Pablo and Julian embracing. She Googled the actor and found incredible photos of him wearing a wasabi-coloured suit, then an apricot one. It was the same colour as the roses and bridesmaid dresses at her wedding. Juan Pablo’s megawatt toothy smile gave her full body tingles. She swooned over a photo of him in his library, shelf after shelf of artist monographs, Giacometti, Marcel Duchamp, Rufino Tamayo. She couldn’t believe it when she found out that Juan Pablo was straight in real life. He threw himself into his gay romantic role without restraint, holding nothing back.
But most shocking was learning the actor had recently lost a leg.
Jackie read an interview where he talked about living fully after a dark depression and an amputation. He’d suffered a sudden silent heart attack in his early 40s, his body riddled with blood clots. She kept thinking about Juan Pablo’s brush with death and his deliberate embrace of life.
Brian didn’t understand whatever it was Jackie was going through. When he confided later to his brother that she was more amorous and adventurous than she’d ever been, that she was taking bubble baths and wearing perfume and ordering Champagne, Paul asked if it could be an affair. Brian panicked. He’d read an article once that suggested unexpected surges of lust in a long marriage could signify infidelity. It couldn’t be, could it?
Things were definitely strange. Jackie had pulled out an old set of crutches from the storage room, relics of a college skiing mishap. She had a skimpy little nurse-style getup on. “I want you to be brave,” she had whispered, then tethered Brian’s hands to the bedposts with a tensor bandage.
Brian searched through their shared computer for clues. He wouldn’t breach her privacy by snooping her mobile. He found nothing amiss, but was puzzled by a long stream of Spanish films and a desktop folder full of pictures of a gay Mexican actor with very white teeth.
When game night rolled around again, Jackie reminded him that she wasn’t going to Brad and Nina’s. She had other plans. There was a modern art talk at the museum she had signed up for.
“Are you going with someone?” he asked then, and she was taken aback by the trembling in his voice. “Oh, no, Brian, no, of course not!” She put her arms around him. She smelled like mango and vanilla and roses. It was intoxicating. “Of course there’s no one else. I’m happy to go by myself since no one else is ever interested in anything.”
Brian asked why she hadn’t said anything. “I did,” she said, “over and over.” And she turned to the foyer mirror to put on her lipstick.
In that moment, he realized it was true. Then he thought about the pictures of the Mexican actor, sparkling beside a pool and some sculptural furniture in his pale yellow knits, lounging in flowing bathrobes with stacks of art books and old Aztec statues everywhere.
“Will this silver fox do for your date tonight?” he asked, pulling Jackie close. She broke into smiles. “Of course! I already chose you, you know. Long time ago.”
Brian asked for a few minutes to change his shirt and to text the first ever cancellation to Brad and Nina.
On a whim, he also Googled for flowers, looking for her favourite, butterscotch roses. A dozen of them, so they’d be waiting for her when they came home.
Bio: Lorette C. Luzajic
