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June 17, 2008
Batesville Installment Six
Frank decides that it needs a little more blue. The mixture’s close, but it needs to darken up a little, so he squirts a little primary blue onto his palette and mixes it into the rest of the paint with his knife. Then he adds a little white to it, but not much. A little bit goes a long way with white. Perfect. He daubs the blade into the paint and begins to apply it to the surface of the painting.
“I asked you a question, Frank.”
“You ask a lot of questions, honey. Do I really need to answer all of them?”
“This one you do, yeah,” she replies adamantly and with a little too much emotion.
Frank and Marilyn Saffo have been married for about eighteen years. If you were to get either of them alone they’d tell you that they hadn’t been truly happy together since before they got hitched. Back then Frank did ‘the right thing’ after Marilyn got pregnant and took her hand in marriage, but they’ve both wondered since what their lives would be like if they hadn’t got pregnant, or if they hadn’t married and just went their separate ways.
“I don’t know, Marilyn,” he says into the phone nuzzled between his ear and shoulder.
“What do you mean, you don’t know?” her voice implores over the line.
“It’s ten in the morning. I don’t know what I fucking want for fucking dinner, alright?”
“Don’t take that tone with me,” she whispers back. Good ol’ Marilyn, never wanting to make a scene. Never wanting to do anything that might get her noticed.
“Call me on your way home, maybe I’ll have an idea then. You know, when I’m hungry and it’s time for dinner.” The painting’s starting to come out the way he wants it. It’s got that right energy going on that makes Frank feel truly alive.
“You should go help that new lady move in. I saw Jaquie Folsom out there helping. You should too, since you’re home all day.”
“I’m home all day working, Marilyn. I’m not just sitting around with my thumb up my ass. If the lady needed help she should have hired some.”
“Yeah, who was I kidding, thinking you’d be help.”
“Fuck you.” Frank hangs up the phone and gets back to something he actually cares about.
Posted by Schamberger at June 17, 2008 06:03 AM