His Wedding Ring - Chapter 03

[kaelanti]

His Wedding Ring
by Kaelanti

Chapter 03
"Stood Up"

There was still a slight nip in the March air, that faint tingle that's just cool enough for a jacket while still being beautifully spring. Helga had expected it, and drew the white wrap more firmly around her shoulders as she stood just outside the movie theater, looking down at the two tickets in her hand. She had felt so beautiful as she'd left the house earlier, but now that it was only a few minutes until the start of the show, she was feeling so much less so.

Helga looked up at the theater's facade, her eyes traveling over the false stone. The street lamps and bright outside lights somehow made the cracks darker, as though some deep, splintering crevasse had formed outside of the building. Soon, her writer's imagination suggested, teasing her with mental images, the building would collapse down to rubble, taking with it everyone inside. As that happened, there would be nothing left but a pile of stone and flesh debris, highlighted by the flickering of one last movie.

The unhappy thoughts pulled Helga's lips into a frown, and she sighed, looking back out to the street. Her car was parked, the meter it rested near merrily ticking away the time. But Arnold was nowhere to be seen. "In the movies," she whispered, as she made her way toward the car, "it'd be raining right about now." But it wasn't a movie, and the rain refused to come. The night remained bright and beautiful, the faintest hint of stars shining through city lights and the moon glowing beautiful and full.

Helga opened the car door and set the ticket on the dashboard in the front window, just over the steering wheel. So Arnold was running late, she chided herself, shoulders straightening as she made her way back to the theater and inside. He'd find the ticket when he arrived, and would sneak in to sit down beside her. She could always tell him about the bits he'd missed later, or they could plan another trip to see it.

She kept the wrap tight around her as she handed her ticket over to the teenage collector. When he looked at her, she gave him a solemn glare, brow deepening over unhappy eyes. It was barely a breath before he looked away again, mumbling the number of the screen where the Evil Twin previews were already playing. Somehow, his mousy reaction cheered Helga a bit, and she strode forward toward the designated screen. Her walk was purposeful. Though she couldn't hear it on the carpeting of the hallway, she still imagined a sharp click-clack from her high heels. It was a poised, determined sound, one that cried out ambition and strength.

She reached the screen room and stepped inside, pausing as her eyes adjusted to the darkness and her ears to the noise. Screams and cries echoed from the speakers, and the bright flash of glinting steel fought with the warm ruby of dripping movie-blood from the screen as Helga made her way to a pair of empty seats. She set her wrap atop the one closer to the stairs, then nestled into the plush, her eyes on the last few seconds of a horror preview. There was the song and dance about turning off cellphones and depositing trash in the proper receptacles, and Helga rolled her eyes through those. But as the movie itself finally came on, she lost herself in the story, forgetting everything but the characters on the screen.

***

The ticket on her dashboard hadn't been touched. Helga had come back to herself as the credits began to roll, and turned to see that no one had disturbed her wrap. She'd walked out of the cinema silently, cloth held tight against her body as though it could bind away the ache in her heart. She found the ticket right where she'd left it for him, and angry hands reached to take it and tear it to pieces, tossing it on the ground with little care for the act of littering. Her drive home was blank, and though she was hungry she chose not to stop anywhere.

"Why, Arnold?" she whispered, pain in her voice. But in the empty car, there was no answer for her. She got into her house around ten, abandoning her heels halfway up the stairs, and the wrap over the handrail. She reached for the light as her bedroom door opened, then paused, seeing a dark shape already in bed. It took a moment to keep her hands from curling into fists, but she closed the door, shedding her dress and draping it over a chair, ignoring the way shimmery blue looked atop pink in the dim light from the streetlamp. Her pearls were discarded into the jewelry box, her wedding ring placed beside Arnold's.

As she made her way to the bathroom, she caught sight of a flash of white paper on her bedside table, and took it with her, waiting until the door was closed and the light on to read it. Sorry, it said in black ink, the handwritten words more of a scrawl than anything else. So tired, going to bed. See you tomorrow.

Ol' Betsy made a ball of the paper. There had been no words of love left there, not even a hope that she'd enjoyed the movie. There was no hint at all that this was her beloved Arnold, save for the familiar scrawl he used when he was too tired to do anything else. She wanted to throw the paper against the window and see the glass there shatter. But paper wasn't strong enough to break the mirror, and Helga wasn't quite angry enough to throw something else. So the crumpled note ended up in the trash, nestled amidst discarded tissues adorned with lipstick.

Helga scrubbed her face clean, then stood there, her arms propping her up as she held her dripping face squarely over the sink. Her blonde hair offered a curtain that shielded her from view as she let her tears mix with the water, watching both drip down to land on white porcelain and slide toward the silvery drain. "We'll go next week," she whispered, trying to tell herself that it would be okay. "It's just a movie."

It wasn't just a movie, really, but she kept repeating the words until she could say them without her voice hitching. For a moment, the memory of Arnold's hand resting against the small of Nadine's back returned. He hadn't said anything to her about getting together with Nadine for lunch... had he?

"It was just a last minute thing," Helga finally said to herself, reaching for the hand towel and using it to scrub at her face until her skin was slightly pink from the rough cloth. "She must've gone to see him at his office, and since they were both free, he invited her to lunch. He'd do the same thing for Sid, or Stinky, or even Curly," she reminded herself, and felt a little better for it. Arnold was thoughtful like that, after all. It was what drew her to him, and kept her hovering about even when she didn't understand him.

"That's exactly it," she decided, tossing her undergarments in the hamper before wrapping herself in a satiny robe and making her way back to the dark bedroom. She stood beside the bed for a few minutes, then let the robe pool on the floor. The sheets were cool against her skin as she slipped inside and snuggled up to the bulge that was his sleeping form. Her arm draped over the soft skin of a hip, her face pressed close to his neck. As she closed her eyes, the scent of aftershave, faint and musky, slipped back to her. She fell asleep wondering whether it was the same aftershave he'd put on that morning.

***

Sunlight teased through the white curtains, the warmth of it resting on Helga's cheeks and eyelids for long moments before she slowly woke. There was no hint of Arnold in the room beyond the faint musk of aftershave lingering. Helga sat up slowly, looking around for a solemn moment before sighing. "Past ten," she whispered into the sunshine cheer of a beautiful bright day. "He must've let me sleep." She got up, feet resting flat on the carpet as the chill air bit at her naked body. For a few moments, it was difficult to dredge her memory of what she had planned that day. But as sleep began to fade, she remembered only writing.

Writing called for worn jeans and a loose, overlarge t-shirt, her hair up in a messy ponytail and not a touch of makeup on her face. It called for bare feet, and a coffee pot full to the brim. It called for cream and sugar, and a bagel with cream cheese for breakfast. And, if she was feeling lazy, another bagel for lunch. But it didn't call for dressing up, or bothering about Arnold. When he was ready to talk to her, he would talk to her. In the meantime, she'd slip her wedding ring on, glad of the absence beside it that suggested he'd taken his wedding ring with him that day.

Olga called as Helga was finishing up her breakfast. There was no real reason for the call, but Olga was like that. She still called Helga her 'baby sister', and still tried hard to bond with a sister who made no sense to her. But now that she had matured, Helga was more willing to accept that this was simply another part of Olga. And even though she didn't encourage her sister, she didn't shove her away any longer. They were kin, and there was at least a tiny hint of connection there.

"So how's Arnold?" Olga's bright and sunny voice asked, and Helga started a little at the question. After the upset of the night before, it was hard to know how to answer such a question. But there was silence on the other end of the phone, silence with a waiting quality to it.

"He's... fine," Helga finally said awkwardly, shoving away the plate in front of her to rest her chin on her palm. "He's... been acting a little strange lately."

"Strange how?" Olga asked. Helga could mentally picture the way Olga's head would tilt a little to one side, her short blonde hair teasing at the corner of one eye and her lips curled in a hesitant, 'I-don't-get-it' sort of smile.

"He's been ignoring me," Helga admitted after a second, glad they were talking on the phone. She could never have said anything had they been face to face. And if she had managed such an admission, she would've been grabbed up by strong, skinny arms and hugged tight. "He forgot about our date last night. And... I saw him having lunch with Nadine."

"Oh, Baby Sister," Olga clucked. For a brief moment, Helga's mental image shifted away from a curiosity-tilted head toward an Olga-chicken, and she balled her hand into a fist, pressing it hard against her lips. She felt her teeth digging into the soft inner skin of her mouth, and kept her fist there, knowing that if she pulled her hand away, the laughter would escape her and possibly offend Olga.

"Didn't you tell me that Arnold started a new promotion just last week? He's working different hours now, isn't he?" Helga managed to squawk out a sort-of reply, but it was enough for Olga. "That's all this is, Baby Sister. He's just getting accustomed to working new hours. There's no possible way that it could be anything else. Not when he has someone as beautiful as you to come home to."

Olga was gushy, and girly, and too-perfect, but sometimes even she knew the right thing to say. The laughter faded from Helga, and she relaxed back in her seat. "You think?" she whispered into the phone, and was rewarded with a bright, sunny laugh from Olga.

"I know, Baby Sister. I know..."