Take Me Always by Ryan Field

schoolteacher. Isn’t that nice?”
     
He’d tilted his head and his eyebrows had gone up for a second, leaving Kadin to
     
wonder if he’d recognized her. But then he turned toward the window again and said,
     
“There’s one landscaper outside who looks so familiar to me. He’s the tall one, with dark
     
hair and hairy legs.”
     
Kadin looked at Betsy and shrugged. “It’s actually a very good day.” He didn’t
     
tell Betsy or Clem this, but the landscaper Gregory was talking about looked just like
     
Kadin had looked when he was younger. From a distance, they could have been long-lost
     
brothers.
     
Betsy tried to appear animated, but her lips clenched tight into a thin horizontal
     
line above her chin rather than a smile. Clem wasn’t much of a talker under normal
     
circumstances. She stood there with a blank smile, hands in her pockets, leaning forward
     
and staring to the far end of the sunroom as if waiting for a train to arrive.
     
They didn’t stay long. They sat down at the table for a half hour and made small
     
talk with Kadin. Betsy clutched the arms of the chair. Her fingers twitched and tapped the
     
black vinyl surface. She couldn’t seem to find a comfortable place to keep her feet still.
     
She’d cross them at the ankle, re-adjust herself in the seat, and tap her toes on the floor.
     
Then she’d repeat this five minutes later, crossing her feet in the opposite way. Clem
     
nodded and smiled a lot, but she kept picking at the leather strap of her wristwatch. Gregory listened to them with a polite expression on his face, but he stared at the
     
shirtless landscapers the entire time. When an older woman on the other side of the
     
sunroom moaned out loud, Betsy jerked forward and pressed her palm to her throat.
     
Gregory looked at the woman and frowned, then lifted his hand and said, “I’ll take care
     
of this. You just have to let them know who is boss, is all.” He turned toward the old
     
woman on the other side of the room with a pleasant expression, and shouted, “Shut the
     
fuck up!” His voice was loud, with a deep, horrific bellow that almost sounded artificial.
     
Then he faced the window again and smiled down at the landscapers.
     
Betsy’s eyebrows went up and she gave Clem a look. Gregory had never been a
     
loud, obnoxious man. And he’d never been profane.
     
Kadin laughed and said, “It’s nothing. He doesn’t like when they moan.” This was
     
nothing new to Kadin. But poor Betsy looked as if she were about to fall off her chair.
     
When both women finally stood to leave, they shook Gregory’s hand and said
     
goodbye. He never turned from the window. He just extended his arm to them and went
     
through the polite motions. In the lobby, when Clem went out to bring the car around,
     
Betsy hugged Kadin and asked, “How are you ? This can’t be easy.”
     
He smiled. “I’m fine. I’m where I’m supposed to be right now. I have no doubts
     
about that.”
     
“I’ll call you,” she said, “and we’ll be back in a few months. Maybe we can go
     
out for dinner next time. I think it would be good for you to get out.” She didn’t say, “get
     
out of here,” but he knew that was what she meant.
     
He shrugged and said, “We’ll see.” When they were gone and Kadin returned to the sunroom to read more of the
     
story to Gregory, he smiled at Kadin and said, “Your friends are very nice women. But
     
some lipstick certainly wouldn’t hurt.”
     
“They are a bit plain,” Kadin said, laughing. “But they are very nice people.”
     
“Plain isn’t the word,” Gregory said, “The tall one looks like she goes to a
     
barbershop to have her hair done.”
     
Kadin laughed again and opened his laptop. Gregory never would have said
     
something like this about Betsy or Clem five years earlier, even if that’s exactly what
     
he’d been thinking.
     
* * * *
     
After they had sex, Gregory spent the