You have no items in your cart. Want to get some nice things?
Go shopping
Trent Conover couldn’t believe his luck, bad as it was. What next? he asked himself as the dozen or so customers at the tables around him buzzed amicably about this or that—nothing, he assumed, of any importance. How much worse can things get? Really?
And bad, things were. That was for sure. First, there was the matter of the dissolution of his marriage. After three years of living with Willa, followed by two not-so-great, but not-really-all-that-terribly-bad years of marriage, Willa had convinced him that they should forego having children, what with the world being such as it was. And since it would be easier, far less costly, less of a fuss, for Trent to get a vasectomy than for Willa to have her tubes tied, he agreed to undergo the “simple” procedure.
For some reason Willa detested condoms. Why? Trent hadn’t a clue. She just did, and she was more than happy to let her feelings be known. Trent wasn’t all that crazy about rubbers himself. They seemed bothersome, a nuisance. The pill? Well, Willa had told him rather emphatically that they made her queasy.
Second, there was his getting sacked at work.
Then, to top it all off, not more than a month after his appointment with the urologist, of all things, on a Tuesday, before he and Willa turned in for the night after watching Jimmy Kimmel and putting Clyde, their schnauzer, out to take care of his business, Willa announced, calmly, matter-of-factly, as if she was discussing the next day’s itinerary, that she was leaving him—for someone she’d met at Gold’s Gym—and then, holy cow, she had the temerity to suggest that “just for the hell of it” they could make love one last time.
Surprisingly, that final tussle had turned out better than any of their recent episodes, as few and far between as they had been. Trent, of course, had always blamed himself for their failure to perform all that theatrically in bed. She had been his second, preceded by a brief fiasco with a holier-than-thou, generously-endowed blond he’d met at the First Presbyterian Church where his mother attended without fail every Sunday morning. Also, Trent had suspected right from the get-go that Willa was already frightfully experienced and that she therefore found her husband, not merely somewhat of a novice, but, even worse, a bit of a dud.
Before that night, and certainly not since the night when they had been introduced at the home of the Shanks, Tom and Evelyn, a decadently funky couple, mutual friends of both of them, had he and Willa really been all that spectacular in the sack. That initial encounter, on the very night they met, was pretty extraordinary, or so Trent thought at the time. But, after that night, their lovemaking seemed to somehow lack pizzazz, and, sadly, he sensed that Willa had lost interest in him, sexually, if not completely.
Unaccustomed to Starbucks, not much of a coffee drinker, let alone a connoisseur when it came to caffeine, Trent sat, fiddling with a troublesome hangnail, at a table smack dab in the middle of the downtown coffee shop while Willa argued with the young woman behind the counter about the inadequacy of her latte, whatever a latte was. In her purse his soon-to-be ex-wife had papers for Trent to deliver to Bill Gaither, his lawyer, a fraternity brother from fifteen years earlier. It’s bad enough, thought Trent, that I’m getting dumped, but to add insult to my grievous injury I have to go to Bill in the hopes that he can give me a break on his normally exorbitant fees. Layoffs due to Covid hit the Sparks Book Store hard, my job. Whatever happened to last hired, first fired? he wondered as everyone around him guzzled down their expensive drinks and guffawed as if everything was just hunky-dory in the world, which, any fool could plainly see, it wasn’t.
“That nitwit,” said Willa when she plopped down across the table from Trent, “she wouldn’t know a latte from an espresso. I told her to use half-and-half. I don’t think she’s ever heard of half-and-half.”
Trent smiled, then shrugged. What could he say? He didn’t know the difference.
Willa glared at him for the longest moment. Finally, she asked, “What are you drinking? Is that iced tea?”
Trent nodded.
“For God’s sake, we’re in Starbucks. And all you can do is sip a stupid iced tea.” She paused. “I’ll give you the papers, then I’m out of here. I’m meeting Raoul for lunch.”
“How is Mr. Muscles?”
Willa laughed. “Do you really care? I’m sorry, Trent, but Raoul makes me happy. You and I were never quite right together.” She chuckled. “Except for that last night.”
Trent blinked. “That was the only time?”
Willa grinned. “You did your best.”
Trent sighed. Was anyone eavesdropping? “I tried.”
Willa took a sip, then grimaced. “I guess you should hear it from me, before someone else lets the cat out of the bag.” She glanced suspiciously at the couple at the nearest table, young people, obviously content with each other. “Trent, I’m pregnant.” She glared at him, then continued. “It’s a good thing. I think. Raoul’s happy.”
“What about your principles? You didn’t want to bring a child into this screwed-up world.”
Willa nodded. “I know. But we’ve made it, this far. So will the kid.”
His wife gone, Trent thought about it. What are the odds? Just what are my responsibilities in this? Shouldn’t I have told Willa about my low sperm count? About faking it with the bag of frozen peas on my balls to prevent the swelling from the vasectomy that I chickened out of? About Dr. Taylor telling me that the likelihood of my knocking someone up was slight, but not impossible? I guess I can just play it by ear. Who knows? Things have a way of working out. Even in this God-forsaken world.
David Larsen
David Larsen is a writer who lives in El Paso, Texas. His stories and poems have been published in more than thirty literary journals and magazines including Cholla Needles, The Heartland Review, Aethlon, Floyd County Moonshine, Change Seven, Oakwood and El Portal.
