March 6th, 2024

Orphan prose: sandwich edition

So much text gets cut in the course of writing a novel or story–the work I’ve published is probably a tiny fraction of the total word count that was drafted for the project. If I like the bit I’m cutting, I often stick it in a file of off-cuts, intending to revisit and use them for something else but realistically I never do–it’s like planning to rewear a bridesmaid dress–it’s really only good for the thing it was intended for. So here’s some drunk people in a kitchen late at night, chatting and making a sandwich. It doesn’t suit anything other than the chapter it was intended for, and really, as it turns out, it doesn’t suit that either. But I still quite like it.

Up the stairs in the quiet kitchen by the grey light of the stove hood, Bella is making a sandwich. Jody is fairly certain he is too drunken and tired for this, plus that fucking Greyhound in the morning, filled with the burps and farts of other hungover idiots. And Marcy’s pointed chin tucked into her chest, nose scrunched in dismay to realize he is among the idiots, farting along with them all. It’s such a sad drag of a weekend he is staring into, despite the hug from Colleen, the small arms and neck, the sticky face and handful of rocks and gum she often offers him—it’s worth it but…still, a hard sell.

Bella clanks her knife into the peanut butter jar and turns, jumping when she sees him draped in the cellar doorway. ”Oh! Oh sorry. Hey Jody. Hello. Do you want a sandwich?”

Jody is filled to the jawline with beer and party mix but it seems very awkward to reject the offering and if the kitchen becomes awkward he will have to remember where the busstop is and how often the bus comes, and where he gets off to transfer, all things he doesn’t want to do, if he’s even qualified when he’s this drunk, which he doubts.

“Sure. Thank you.” She is still looking at him in the grey light, so he nods a little bit, trying to think of something else to say. “I appreciate it.”

Finally, Bella looks down and starts to pull more bread from the bag, dunk the knife back into the jar. “Banana?” There’s one cut neatly in half on the counter. “Or there’s blueberry jam in the fridge.”

Jody says banana because that seems like the least trouble. What Sabrina always put in a peanut butter sandwich and what he now feels belongs there is honey, but that’s not on offer so he says nothing further. He hasn’t seen Sabrina in more than two years, or heard anything from her, or from Trevor. Once, in the art listings in Now, he saw that some her paintings were in a gallery way east on Queen—the reviewer even called them sepulchral in a way that seemed kind of positive—and Jody felt happy but he didn’t go. He was just glad she hadn’t killed herself. She often said she might. He supposed the existence of the paintings in a show wasn’t airtight proof that the artist was still alive but, again, it seemed positive.

“Here,” says Bella, as if she might have said it a few times already, and thrusts the plate at his chest.

He takes it and the sandwich, in neat diagonal halves. Bella picks up her own plate, then slides her tiny ass up onto the counter. Jody is much taller but it seems much harder for him to get up onto the counter. He tries the slide and then a hop and then decides to eat leaning. After the first bite, they are still silent so he ventures through banana, slightly muffled, “I’m sorry about Nic.”

Bella looks puzzled. She chews, swallows. “Nic, my boyfriend, Nic?”

Jody nods. He doesn’t know where he is going with this. Bella is truly very pretty, her cheekbones making her face all shadows until she smiles, wide pink. Still, it seems unlikely. “Yeah. Ex-boyfriend, I guess. Sorry.” How is he still chewing?

“Oh—we’re still together, we didn’t break up.” Bella isn’t…laughing, quite, but she isn’t not laughing, either. “What gave you that idea?” She jams most of a sandwich half into her mouth, still sort-of laughing.

Jody can feel it in his face, the colour of cherry Kool-aid, the temperature of a hot bath—embarrassment. Not for an honest mistake but for what he might have done: asked her out, kissed her? Who knows?

“Sorry, sorry, I must have misunderstood, or something. Something.”

Still chewing, truly laughing now, Bella tips back on the counter and clonks into the cupboard door and abruptly shushes herself. Is she high? It’s hard to tell—Jody doesn’t know her that well.

“Theo? He said something to you?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Oh my god, he heard us fight last night, gave me a hug when I was upset but he didn’t, like, ask me any questions.”

Jody nods. He is such an asshole but maybe this is fine, good? He will finish the sandwich, and then leave, and no one wants or needs anything from him? Fine?

“What did he say to you?’

Jody swallows and a chunk of unchewed banana slithers down his throat.

“Not that much, just that you—” he’s already admitted he thought they broke up, he can say that “—you two split, you were sad.”

“Oh, poor non-existent-listening-skills Theo. A fight is not the end. He and Roxy fight all the time and they’re fine, he should know. It’s how you get to know each other better.”

Jody leans back against the counter, eating, wondering. He and Marce have almost never fought, and they know each other well—or at least, have known each long, which almost amounts to the same thing. Pretty nearly. And he actually does not think Theo and Rox are fine, it always seems tense when he joins them at a table in a bar, gets into the back seat of the car when they’re up front. But they are both so great as individuals and what does Jody know about relationships? He has never asked anything about Roxy except about her singing—he cannot get enough of her voice.

“So you’re not…so you’re still together.” His mouth is sticky, craving milk. Bella would get him some if he asked—the Addisons probably have some, they are so pure and good, even though Bella is likely high as they chat here in her kitchen, high or rolling, on something.

“Have you ever actually dated anybody, Jody?” Bella isn’t laughing at him, but she isn’t entirely straight-faced either.

“Oh, well, in high school, I had a girlfriend.”
            “Yeah, yeah, Marce, of course. Marce.” Her tone—he can’t quite place it. As if Marcy isn’t real, or isn’t really his. Or—something. Some part of this is made up. Somehow.

“And…I’ve dated other people. A bit.”

It’s more like a smirk this time.

“There’s a bus at 10:27 if you’re getting it, and then not until 10:57. She points at the wall clock—10:20.

“Oh, so I should.” The sandwich has disappeared—his belly feels bloated and huge from all the beers, party mix, and now this stupid and unnecessary sandwich that he doesn’t even remember eating. “Go.”

“Have a good weekend, Jody.” Bella follows him to the door and when he turns, anticipating a hug, she takes the peanut-butter smeared plate.