First Fight
It's five thirty in the afternoon when the large front door bursts open to an empty living room. Enter Matt, the young, tall, and handsome newlywed who takes front and center stage in our story. He'd half expected his bride, a dashing, petite beauty named Julia, to be standing in the room with an apron and duster, hair all done up in traditinal 50's housewife style. Seeing this wonderful entourage of silence and shadows come to greet him, the smile quickly left his lips, leaving the blank expression of a man with important news, but no nearby ears to give it to.
He took off his jacket and threw it down upon the couch to his left. It lazily rolled off onto the floor, but he had no time for trifles such as these; besides, with his bored trophy wife at home all day, the carpet would no doubt be clean. She'd probably already cleaned the whole of their small house in Rolling Meadows, Illinois, twice or three times over. She'd have enough time, being home all day, to keep it looking and smelling like the brand new house it was to them, despite the fact that it's previous owner had been a slob.
It was their first time owning a home, and with the help of a kind realitor named Kevin, and advice at every step from Julia's family (of which Kevin is a member, by the way), they'd successfully made the transition from the bustling city and its everyday extremities, to this peaceful and pocket-sized suburb, all the better to start a family in. Matt had been able to keep his job in the city, with little more cost than a fourty-five minute commute every morning.
He made a bee-line to the kitchen, and as he passed the table swung his body so that the briefcase dangling from his right arm lurched with the momentum and landed with an exaggerated noise upon the surface. The small blonde woman across the room, busy at the coffee machine, jumped at the sound. Coffee splattered on the counter.
"Matt, could you be a little more subtle?!" she shouted, wiping the dark stuff from her hands before it began burning.
He picked up on the slight air of playfulness he thought he heard in her voice, and decided not to apologize. Instead, he continued with this playful mood by teasing her. "Sorry, honey. It's been a long day for you, I'm sure." He had a mock frown on his face, and as he moved closer to "comfort," his wife, he was greeted with a look that stopped him dead in his tracks.
"Don't patronize me, Matt. You have no idea how hard it is to keep this house up and running! First, the vaccuum won't start. Then the washing machine starts BOUNCING. Literally! Bouncing in the air! Since when do washing machine's do that? Then this stupid coffee maker that Linda and Tim gave us for our wedding finally gets unpacked, and it start malfunctioning before I've even got the damn CLOCK set up!"
A moment of shock and silence hovers between the two newlyweds, as Matt realizes he's mistaken his wife's sour mood for playfulness. Suddenly, her disposition shifts from anger to disappointment and sadness.
"I'm just so stressed out," she tells him, letting her head hang forward, and her shoulders drop. He recovers from his momentary paralysis and moves in to hug her. She takes a long moment to exhale. "I've been working so hard, and I'd come up with this wonderful line...."
"Line?" Matt asks. "What do you mean?"
She backs away from him and moves to the side, revealing two cups in front of the coffee machine. One was full of tea, and the other half-full of coffee.
"I'd had it all planned out. I would be ready when you walked in the door, a cup in each hand, and I would've asked, 'What would you like? Coffee, tea, or...me?' And I would've smiled at you...it could have been so cute."
"Awww...baby. You are cute," he said and squeezed her tight once more. "Hey, listen. I've got something that'll cheer you up! You know how this weekend is our one year anniversary? Well think about this...Dodge City on a Saturday night." The smile from the beginning of the story returns, and quickly leaves again as this news is greeted by another look.
"Oh great! I'll ride shotgun!" she yells sarcastically. "You-you can't just come up with ideas like this a week in advance! Things like this need to be planned out! Where would we stay? What would we do? And there's gonna be bad weather this weekend. I've seen it on the forcast. So how're we gonna git the hell outta Dodge?"
Now they were both angry and yelling. "Hold your horses, Julia! You don't think I've thought it through? Give me some credit! Listen--"
"No, Matt, I don't want to listen! I don't want to go to Dodge City, and that's that!!" She storms out of the kitchen. After another moment of shock, he hears the bedroom door slam in another part of the house.
"Great. Back to the drawing board I guess."