A Note on Smell
The check had long since come, and he had paid it. And the restaurant now was empty but for the two of them and the last remaining waiters eyeing them angrily from the darkened far end of the room, all the other tables cleaned, the chairs upside down on the tables, and the floor mopped, except for the area sticky with spilled wine under their table where they sat in silence, two empty bottles in front of her, her glass empty, only a dried spot of red at the bottom of it, though she still held the stem and tilted it this way and that as if to swirl the phantom drink all around the inside of the glass. “Let’s go, let’s get out of here,” he said, for the umpteenth time, glancing at the waiters. “This isn’t fair.” She looked up at him. He glanced away. What did she see there in his face? Embarrassment, of course, and of course exasperation—how he hated scenes in public, poor boy, her drink-induced outbursts, whether of affection or rage, it didn’t matter, he hated both, he feared both equally. She was almost sorry for him: she knew he wanted out, had wanted out for some time now, but she also knew how weak he was, how much he needed her to call it quits, which was why, despite everything she’d put him through, he played along, pretending that he loved her, trumping her every insult with forgiveness to ensure he’d be the one who was left behind, not the one who did the leaving; the one done to, not the one who did. His boyish face, so cleverly baffled and long suffering, waiting her out. The coward. No, she wouldn’t give him what he wouldn’t say. She’d let him go on not saying it and suffering. Which is why, when he said, sighing, “Come on, honey, let’s go,” she told him, “I’m not leaving till my drink is finished.” “But your glass is empty,” he said, smiling, as if he'd proven something, which she disproved, holding the glass up to her nose and breathing in. “I can still smell it.”
