Sonya Larson

The empty hour—the glorious hour—was six-oh-five to seven-oh-nine. Foon would sink into the velvet wingback, his stiff suit removed and blown open on the floor, as he raised his damp feet to air out atop the coffee table. Faint whiffs of Windex cooled the hairs inside his nose, from where the housecleaner had clarified the glass. He called Mah. He  parked his car. Outside the garage door was sealed and—like Foon—finished for the night. Nothing more was required of him.

To this idea Foon filled a teacup of whiskey. He swiveled his head toward the sunset and saluted the dozing eyes of the garage. “Aye aye,” he said, and then, pondering, “Is that what they say? Eye? Yaye? Aye-aye-aye?” Foon watched the silk curtains, imagining the fat coils of his brain bunching up in concentration, and then gave up the thought entirely. Giving up the thought entirely: that was the pleasure of six-oh-five.

Through the doorway leaned his wife leaned in the doorway, a dishtowel hanging from her shoulder. *Nine years later and still so pretty*, Foon thought, admiring her strong arms, flexed and dotted with freckles.

“These fucking potatoes,” said Marcy said. “I can’t chop them anymore. That’s all I ever do. Chop, chop, chop.” She pointed her chef’s knife at Foon, beckoning him to join her in the kitchen. “Your turn. I’m begging you.”

“Cupcake, I would love to,” he said, his hand falling to his chest. “But I’m afraid I’m much too high.”

“Are you crazy?” she said, eyes wide. “Have you actually gone insane?”

“Don’t talk about insane people like that,” said Foon, gesturing toward the window.” He imagined himself a character in Masterpiece Theater, a show his boss had told him to download. Foon chuckled into this chin. On the coffee table he crossed one ankle of his pajama pants over the other.

“Don’t tell me you smoked in the car,” said Marcy, squinting. “Please.”

“I did,” said Foon. “I enjoy a head start these days.” He wagged an assured finger in front of his face, as if instructing a child on the ways of the world. “Same with Mah. Call on the drive home? Done. Say hello, I love you, gotta go? Done.”

“What if you have to pick up a client or something? Or if I go have lunch with Flora?” Red, blotchy territories were traveling up her face. “The smell, Foon. You never think about the smell.”

Foon shook his head and closed his eyes, leaning deeper into the wingback. From here Marcy’s voice sounded far away and light. Like delicate Styrofoam, he thought. Yes. Like a sprinkling of bright white packing peanuts.

“Look at you,” she said. “You are always, always high.”

Foon pondered this statement with a finger to his lip. “That’s true.”

Her high voice rattled, like an alarm straining to sound. “We said that we would alternate, but here you are,” said Marcy. “We have to eat, you know. Come chop for just five minutes.”

But five minutes lost in the empty hour were five minutes lost to hell.

“If they’re potatoes,” he said, “they why not use the food professor?” He paused, listening to his voice, and giggled. “The food…the food….” In his stomach an air bubble of laughter rose uncontrollably through his chest. Foon grinned, trying to hold his breath, but then gave up and bent forward, giggling into his knees. He couldn’t help himself. It was funny.

“Food pro-*cess*or,” said Foon. “Pro-*cess*or. Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.”

“I can’t believe I’m watching this.”

“Food professor. Oh my god.”

“You’re an asshole,” said Marcy.

Foon rested his face in his fleecy pajama pants, listening to the quiet made by his own not speaking. His wife was breathing angrily through her nose, and the sound of it crawled into this ears. His father, in moments like this with Mah, would have bowed his head in patience. He would have closed his eyes, composed himself, and waited for the cloud to pass. It was, theoretically, the correct thing to do. But Foon had always known that he was not quite his father. He was powered by a different battery—newer, more American. Foon had come farther, had reached higher, and he would go farther still. And when his wife called him an asshole he almost relished the moment that followed. To hurt her back, exactly the way he knew; it was a target revealed for which he alone had the arrow.

“But I’m your asshole, Cupcake,” he said. “I’m all you’ve got.”

Marcy fumed into the kitchen. Foon heaved up and stumbled after her around the large leather couch set. Only recently he’d encountered this sensation of being both angry and baked. Marcy threw her dishrag on the tiled floor, then lifted a pot from the stove and poured its brothy contents down the sink. She took the metal lid and let it clatter in there too. Steam rose up from the drain and collected toward the ceiling in a flat, expanding cloud.

Foon kept his gaze sighted on her swinging yellow ponytail, which thrashed like a caught fish as she pointed at each accusation.

“The dishwasher,” she said, staring him down like a bull. “You said you’d fix it. It’s not fixed.”

Foon crossed his arms. “Did I say that? I don’t remember saying that.”

“The washing machine, the leak upstairs. Why live in a house like this if you let it fall apart?” She picked the rag off the floor and started wiping the splashes of broth on the counter.

“What do you imagine I do all day?” said Foon. “Go to the office and twiddle my thumbs?”

“It’s been three months, Foon. Three months, and no dishwasher.”

“And what, you can’t call them yourself?” he said, talking to her back. “Are you physically handicapped? Do you not speak English? Do you have a clinical phobia of phones?”

“Don’t you talk to me that way,” she said, yelling now, but he’d learned long ago to yell over her yelling. Reliably his voice was larger, full of force, and it would cancel hers neatly like a soprano leading a choir.

Foon said Marcy was uptight. Marcy said Foon was an addict. Foon said that she had no spine. Marcy said that he would die alone.

“Die alone?” said Foon. “Me? So I’m the one who will die alone.” He lifted his arms and swung them around the wide expanse of their marble kitchen. “Where do you think all this came from, Marcy? This is what you get when you have a thing called a *job*.”