Chapter Four - Louis Berry's Novel - Erstwhile

Chapter Four

It was the third day Richard and Susan spent preparing the store for its Grand Re-Opening. Susan stopped cleaning and began setting up the lunch she made that morning. She spread a quilt on the floor in front of the counter and removed the items from a picnic basket and placed them neatly on the comforter; bread, turkey, lettuce, tomato, onion, mustard and mayonnaise. The accompaniment was potato salad. Doing this for her husband gave her joy and he appreciated the effort she made.
Richard was in the back room. Earlier he found rotten wood on the shelving and spent the morning at the hardware store. Just as he raised his hammer to strike the first blow onto the head of a nail, he heard his wife’s voice.
“Richard, lunch is ready!” she called.
When he came into the store Susan saw that he was covered in dust from head to toe. He stopped and slapped his jeans, knocking away the debris. His wife motioned to remove the sawdust he couldn’t see by waving her hand just above her head. He quickly ran his hands through his hair. Decades of dry residue created a cloud in front of his face. Richard made the mistake of inhaling through his mouth. “Yuck!” he exclaimed, spit-ting out the rubble.
Susan laughed as she waved her husband over to the blanket. Richard walked to the quilt and knelt down. While resting in the kneeling position, he allowed his body to fall flat onto the ground beneath him. Rolling onto his back he stared into space. “I’m beat.”
“We’ve got a lot more work to do.”
“I know,” he responded, as he pulled himself up and rested on his elbow.
She picked up the plastic plate that contained his sandwich and potato salad and handed it to him. “So when do you think we’ll be ready to open for business?” Susan asked.
He thought momentarily. “I think we’ve got an-other two days of work here. If we can finish by Friday, we can take the weekend off and open on Monday.”
“I don’t think so. We’ve got a lot of work to do around the house, too!”
“Slave-driver,” Richard said, as he took a bite of his sandwich.
“We could take a break from the store tomorrow and spend the day working on the house.”
“That’s not a bad idea. There are a few deliveries due Friday. We could spend Saturday stocking the shelves.” Richard paused. “I say we do it.”
The couple sat silently eating their lunch. Susan looked around; trying to estimate how much work there was left to do. Richard stared through the plate glass window at the front of the store. He watched the occasional person walk past. Some made eye contact; others did not notice the couple picnicking on the floor.
Richard’s gaze shifted to a store across the street. Above it was a sign that read, Erstwhile Bar. He thought about how nicely a bottle of wine would go with their picnic. The last time he had wine with lunch was on their honeymoon. He chuckled under his breath.
“What’s so funny?” Susan asked.
“Do you remember the picnic we had at the Sacre Coeur?”
Susan smiled as she remembered sitting on the giant hillside just below the French war memorial in Paris. The vantage-point offered a remarkable view of the city. The Eiffel Tower could barely be seen in the distance. Paris appeared to the naïve couple as a sea of buildings, the roof tops its undulating waves. It was vibrant and alive. No matter how large and overwhelming it seemed, nothing could make them feel less than on-top-of-the-world that day. “How could I forget?”
“Do you remember when the Gendarme came walking up the stairs, clearing everyone off the hillside?”
Susan laughed. “Of course! We were scared that he was going to arrest us for having an open bottle of wine.”
“Yes!”
“There we were, filled with our Victorian ideals, feeling as though we were doing something wrong in-stead of embracing the culture of the city.”
Richard did not respond to his wife’s statement, but offered a memory of his own. “I remember standing at the foot of the Eiffel Tower and looking up at the massive structure and saying in amazement, ‘Wow! It’s hard to believe it’s over one hundred and fifty years old.’ And then when we got to the top, my legs began shaking as I said to myself, ‘Oh my God, this thing is over one hundred and fifty years old!’”
Susan’s laughter trailed away as she said in a serious tone. “Let’s not forget about the most important thing we did while in Paris.”
“What’s that?” Richard asked dryly.
She smiled. “Getting married, silly.”
“Oh yeah, that’s right, we did get hitched in Paris, didn’t we?”
They were married at the American Cathedral on Avenue de Georges. Several members of the congregation stayed after the Sunday service to witness the un-ion.
“I’ll never forget Madame Dorothy Vlocott, my Matron of Honor.”
“Yes. What a wonderful woman! I remember the large hat she wore with big, bright flowers all over the brim.”
“And she wanted to invite us back to her home for tea, but was self-conscious about living in an old-folks home.”
Richard’s mood became melancholy. “The offer, in itself, was a wonderful gesture.”
Susan smiled. “Yes it was.”
“Remember Tom, the ex-patriot from North Carolina? When we were in front of the church and he was taking our picture, several people came by on roller-blades and shouted, ‘Vive La Marie!’ and Tom told us that meant, Long Live The Bride.” He paused. “And then he took us back to our hotel in his tiny little car that looked like the Inspector’s car from the Pink Panther.”
Susan laughed, again. “That’s right. We had taken the bus to the church because we forgot to exchange our money into Francs. We didn’t have enough for a taxi.”
Richard shook his head and smiled. “I don’t think anyone on that bus gave us a second look. I guess they truly have a c’est la vie attitude. Can you imagine the stares we would have gotten, you in your wedding dress and me in my suit, if we had gotten on a bus in Manhattan?”
“We probably would have gotten mugged.”
The couple laughed together at the memories. Inevitably, Ralph’s image became as vivid as the attendees at their wedding. Richard was never certain whether or not he was a member of the congregation that day. He could only hope that Susan would have shown some restraint. Suddenly, his mood sank as the power that her ex-lover wielded over his psyche triggered a bout with depression. Without saying a word to his wife he stood and walked into the back room. His preference for the sweet dryness of red wine had been replaced by the craving for the smoky taste of bourbon. It was a libation that had gotten him through a lot of uncomfortable situations in his life, but not without cost. He had nearly allowed it to take over. Susan’s love was the only thing that had broken its spell. The night they met in a bar was the last time he drank the concoction that possessed the ability to peel away the lifetime of calluses that was his protective shield, allowing him to feel and attempt to decipher what his life truly meant. Susan was the only woman he allowed to breach that vault. He had grown by knowing her, and tried mightily to forgive her indiscretions. She was too special to lose.