Cold Tea (Redux)

"Shit. All I have left is Earl Grey. Is that okay?"

"I really don’t care," Angela replied curtly. She curled up into an even tighter ball on the apartment's only couch.

The frigid grip of December made the open design and original hardwood of the 100-year shotgun house uncomfortably cold. Compounding the problem, the fireplace didn't work, so Marcus had decorated both hearth and mantle with a menagerie of candles.

Last night, the pale wax of those candles melted down while Marcus and Angela spent hours sipping wine, and re-living college days from over twenty years ago.

Now, Angela stared at the waxy lumps, which lay cold and hardened on the bricks. Like the candles, last night had morphed from something solid and warm to an unrecognizable conglomeration of pain and remorse. She wore one of his flannel shirts and wondered if she had been the first girl to be wooed here with those candles and a damn fine Nobilo Sauvignon blanc. Probably not. Feeling a chill and an even deeper regret, she covered her bare legs with his grandmother's quilt. She watched him from the living room. He was in the kitchen on the other end of the house staring into the cabinet over the sink. She started crying again, pulling a Kleenex from the shirt pocket and wiping tears from her reddened eyes. Last night had been almost perfect until he woke her up. Why did he have to dredge all that shit up? The one topic they almost managed to avoid; she tried to dodge the subject altogether. Disaster.

Embarrassed, Marcus needed to distract himself from their argument. Tea. Was Earl Grey that bad? It just seemed extremely--ordinary, given the immediate circumstances. He stood there, gawking into the cabinet. Inadequate. Like he was just your regular Tetley served with your average beans and toast. Tetley. Not even Earl Grey. He desired to be anything more in this moment, but he could never be, not after last night. His attempts at distraction failed. Again, he screwed up a nearly perfect situation. Everything he had ever wanted years ago.

This morning was the first time that he had even thought of drinking tea in years. The Earl Grey was the only holdover from a three-week fling with Sherri, a woman he met six months ago when he first moved here, just outside of Cincinnati. Sherri loved tea. Marcus did not love Sherri, thus only the Earl Grey remained. In fact, every time he had thought about having a cup, it brought back too many memories of Angela. Marcus never dreamed Angela would have shown up here; yet, here she was, now, and all those memories kept flooding his mind.

Red Zinger had been Angela's favorite. When he could not sleep, which was most nights that sophomore year, Angela made him chamomile. His family from Clay County, Kentucky, would have laughed if he ever asked for a cup of tea. Strong, black coffee had been the staple of his household growing up. He hated coffee.

Angela graduated a year before he did, and he lost track of her. None of his college friend circle had heard anything about her either. She seemed to have simply disappeared from his world until she called him yesterday. Marcus was overjoyed when Angela walked into the snowy beams of his pickup's headlights when he met her at a nearby gas station.

"Now is the Winter of our discontent made glorious by this daughter of Ohio," he thought. The Shakespeare paraphrase briefly took him back to Dr. Schneider’s lectures. Maybe he could use the clever line to break the icy tension between them this morning.

Last night, after making love on his living room floor, they stared into each other's eyes for a long time. He gently brushed his nose against hers.

"Like old times," Marcus finally broke the silence. "Remember? You wouldn't even let me kiss you for the first month we were together. Just rubbed noses."

"You said you were saving yourself for marriage, Baptist Boy. Besides, we had horrible high school relationships. I wanted to take it slowly, and you respected that."

It took every ounce of his reserve not to ruin the moment. He almost brought up those relationships again but thought better of it. Instead, he focused on the coolness of her green eyes that he had not seen in such a long time. Candlelight flickered in her pupils. He had forgotten how much he missed seeing her up close. A few wrinkles had developed at the corners of her eyes. A few grey hairs blended well into her natural red hair, but he could see them now, subtly, here and there.

"What?" She flashed him a familiar sly glance that drove him over the edge with desire.

"Nothing."

"What?" She moved tentatively beneath him.

"Those damned 'eskimo-kisses.’ They drove me bat-shit crazy!"

She giggled.

"Language, young man! Your mama would have mashed your mouth," she imitated his Appalachian drawl. "And here we are making love under granny's quilts. Your mama would definitely kill us both if she knew."

"Okay, Miss Ohio, that's enough. She didn't like you because you Catholics worship saints. She wouldn't want to kill you, just save your sinful soul and baptize you the right way."

He laughed and kissed her softly on the forehead.

She huffed, slightly offended, but was used to similar jibes from years ago. She recovered quickly and tried a different tactic.

"Well, tomorrow is Sunday. I intend to go to Mass. Lord knows I'm going to need a confessional after all of this. Covington Cathedral is so gorgeous. You should go with me."

"You know Father Bob tried to convert me in college. You ought to know how I feel about religion. God and I are still friends."

"Still reading your Buddhist monk stuff, huh? Well, I'm going to Mass with or without you."

She slid from beneath him and turned away from him. He rolled onto his back. She eventually curled up to him, keeping her back to him and pulled one of the quilts tightly around her. She liked feeling his warmth. They were bound together in the two quilts Marcus had kept from his grandmother's funeral earlier that year.

"Do you have tea? I would really love a cuppa." She mimicked a British accent.

"Now?"

"In the morning, love," staying with the British theme.

"I honestly don't know. I can check."

"Don't. It can wait--too damn cold to get up."

He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. The snow had ended and cold stars winked from behind breaking clouds. The moon rose, vaguely converting everything outside into a blue-white world and bathing the living room in pale light. Branches, moved by frigid winds, caused shadows to dance above him, reminding him of Greek shadow puppet theatre. A friend from college made a living doing that now in San Francisco.

Angela thought about what brought her to this moment: a fluke. The snowstorm had stranded her. Needing to get off the interstate, she left her car at a service station not too far away. She knew he lived in the area from the new social media platform, Facebook, and had managed to find him. A mutual friend had given her his phone number. Technology was sometimes useful for some things. He picked her up in his truck and brought her to his apartment. She closed her eyes hoping she would not regret this.

Angela’s breathing became heavier. Soon, she was snoring softly. Marcus smiled to himself. Why had this not happened years ago? They had never slept together in college. In fact, because she was a “good little Catholic girl” and he was a “self-righteous little Baptist boy,” they didn't even kiss for several weeks. They just rubbed noses like two elementary kids.

He remembered the first time they actually spoke. Marcus watched her walk into the campus library. Her red hair and the purple frames of her glasses were unmistakable. He had asked a girl from her dorm about her and got basic facts: sophomore. From Ohio. Catholic. Feisty. Psych major. She even worked in the psych lab with the rats. Cool.

She had been working on a research paper at a table toward the back of the library. She wore a blue-jean jacket with buttons pinned all over it. One of them read: ‘Come along quietly.’ He quickly grabbed an index card and pen from her table when her back was turned. She had moved to a counter where she perused through books she stacked there. He leaned on the counter and slid the index card into her field of vision. Glancing back and forth from him to the card, she lowered her glasses onto her nose and peered over the purple frames. She gave him that glorious smirk he learned to love. The card read: ‘Where do you want to go?’

She laughed. “So?”

“So, what?”

“Where are we going?” Her grin broadened; her green eyes lit up.

“How about the snack bar? I usually play there on Friday nights. It’s Friday.” He was nervous and his palms were sweaty.

“Sure. I’ll see you there in about an hour. Let me finish up.”

Marcus wanted everything to be perfect. After that first night, she seemed to have fallen for him even more once she knew he could serenade her with his guitar. She went every week they were together. Front row. The 'Eskimo kisses' started after two weeks, but their tea rituals began the day after they met.

“I’ve never had tea. Where I come from, that's a big city or European thing.”

“What? Are you kidding? You know, Xenia is not exactly a metropolis, nor all that cosmopolitan.”

“This reminds me of that Neil Diamond song, ‘Suzanne.’” He started singing acapella, emphasizing the line: ‘And she brings you tea and oranges that come all the way from China . . . .’

“Well, I don’t have oranges, and most tea does come from China or India.” She laughed. Her laugh was an unforgettable melody in and of itself. “I know the song. I prefer the Leonard Cohen version.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Shows what you know.”

She opened whole new repertoires of music for him. Cohen being the first of many new musical experiences. He never knew his worldview had been so small.

The relationship blossomed for about seven weeks until one day, while having tea, she crashed his world.

“We need to talk.”

“Oh no. Nothing positive ever happens after people say that.”

“I got a letter from Dan today. He graduated and will be deployed to Europe soon. I’m sorry, Marcus, I’m still in love with him. This isn’t fair to you.”

“How long have you known this?”

“Always.”

He had buried those particular moments deep, wanting to believe he had moved on from her at least ten years ago. His pain needed to remain buried. Tonight felt like turning a corner. She was here. Now. Reality. He forced himself into an unsettled sleep.

He jolted awake just before dawn. The oppressive weight of all the pain, guilt, and fear of rejection welled up from the deep, suddenly hitting him in a massive wave, washing over him, tumbling him over and over. Down and down and down. An old, familiar feeling. He realized they had danced around the most bitter moment that ended everything between them.

Damn Dan. Angie's high school sweetheart. Mr. All-American football guy who turned down a football scholarship for ROTC. Top of his class. Marcus lost track of him after that. However, he unfortunately remembered their last conversation. He could not help himself now; it was his fatal flaw.

"So, whatever happened with Dan?" He spoke into the semi-darkness. One candle flickered on the mantle.

She didn’t reply; she hadn't heard him. Her breathing declared a decent sleep. Good. He would leave it alone, except, he couldn't. A burning knot stuck in the pit of his stomach, occasionally rose into his throat, and eventually burned the back of his tongue. He kept forcing it back down. It wouldn't stay down.

He rocked her, finally able to tell that she was slowly waking.

"Whatever happened with Dan?"

"What?" She was groggy; she attempted to remember the nice dream he interrupted. Not quite able to focus, Marcus' voice gradually pulled her to the surface of awareness.

He repeated it a third time. She heard him clearly. She stopped breathing and held it as long as she could. The room seemed even colder now. A clock ticked somewhere in the gloaming. She burst from beneath the quilts and punched him in the chest.

"What the hell---?" Tears warmed her cheeks. "You just had to go there didn't you, asshole!"

"Dammit, Angie! I loved you. You left me. You knew what kind of guy he was: high school sweetheart one day, abusive manipulator the next."

"I am not having this conversation with you right now," her voice just above a whisper. She stifled a scream.

"Yes, you are. I want answers. You never talked to me again. Campus was not that big. And I'm pretty sure you sabotaged my relationship with Sandy. She was how I got over you! She never talked to me again either."

"That's because you are the worst kind of human being, Marcus! Dan? An abusive manipulator? You're always projecting! You should know all about manipulation and destroying people. Lord knows you've destroyed enough. Sandy was never safe with you either."

"Why are you even here then? I was perfectly happy once I managed to erase you, mostly, from conscious thought. Yet, hells bells, here you are walking out of the night and back into my life!"

"Mikey said you changed. He said the meds worked well for you."

"So, what finally happened? Was it because I confessed about dropping out of the Navy after basic? Because they had to give me a Section 8? I was lucky to get into college after that. Is it because I could never live up to your beloved Captain? What is he now? A hero in this shitty war in Afghanistan?"

Distraught, she released a primal scream and sprinted to the bathroom. The door slammed.

He sat up, sweating despite the room's temperature. Pulling on jeans and a t-shirt, he stomped to the bathroom door. He only heard sobs from the other side. He slumped against the opposite wall and sank slowly to sit on the floor.

About an hour later Angela emerged wearing a shirt he had left in the bathroom. Her face was wracked with grief, but she was eerily calm. "My husband, Major Dan Strauss, is dead---asshole. Roadside bomb two years ago." She stared at the floor, her breathing finally under control.

He glared into space for a minute or so, then stood up to make his way unsteadily to the kitchen. She cautiously made her way to the living room.

Marcus prepared the Earl Grey. He slammed the tea kettle in the sink and flipped on the water; then, he slammed the kettle onto the stove. He grabbed two mugs from another cabinet then had second thoughts about breaking them. He didn’t want broken ceramics everywhere, so he placed them on the counter, then decided to slam the door of the cabinet with enough force to rattle everything in it.

Angela flinched at every loud noise. She wept, quietly.

“Only two damned teabags. Well, hell, that’s convenient!”

She answered with silence, tears streaming down her face.

By the time the kettle boiled, Marcus began to calm down. He placed the tea bags in the cups and poured the hot water, then carefully carried them to the living room. He placed hers, a bright yellow smiley-face mug, on the end table, turning the smiley-face toward her. She pulled the quilt over her head. Stepping to the window, he drank from a large, brown mug. It had been his dad’s favorite when his dad, a Navy man and proud WWII vet, had been alive. Marcus stared out the large picture window. The snow made street traffic almost nonexistent. Sunrise peeked between buildings. He didn’t say a word but rolled around a description of the sunrise in his head. Maybe he could use it as a segue to an apology.

He didn’t.

Marcus held back tears. He didn't want to cry in front of her. The next hour passed excruciatingly slowly. His tea was now down to cold dregs. He glanced at Angela. She remained hidden under the quilt. Her tea untouched.

“Tea’s cold,” he remarked flatly, turning back to look outside.

She poked her head out.

“Yeah, I'm going to shower and get dressed. I'm going to Mass. I'll walk to the cathedral from here.”

“I'll drive you. We can see about your car later if you want.”

“That's okay. I've got this. I'll walk. It’s not far, just a few blocks. The service station isn't far from the cathedral. I’ll walk to my car after Mass.”

Wrapped in the quilt, she collected her clothes from the floor then padded off to the bathroom.

His tea was cold. He swallowed the bitter dregs anyway and took his cup to the kitchen sink. He left hers on the living room table. He went back to the couch, exhausted, thinking about having to make conversation when she returned but fell asleep listening to the rhythm of the water from the shower. He didn't hear her crying again.

Angela was more than grateful that Marcus was asleep when she opened the bathroom door. She had prayed he would be gone or asleep when she finished in the bathroom. She tiptoed to the front door, retrieved her coat from a nearby hook, and gingerly opened the door. A sharp breeze swept through the opening. She stepped out as swiftly as possible so he would not wake up. She quietly closed the door behind her, leaving her cold tea on the table, still untouched.