Tangerines
Megan Peralta
When Shula woke, she instantly felt regret. At four in the morning, her room was as dark as her memory. She tried to cling to the dream. Lately, she had been waking up with wisps of scent, like tart fruit and rose buds. But the last of the dream was replaced by an image of her husband’s face. Saul truly spoiled everything.
The sprinklers clicked away in the neighbor’s yard, washing away the dream. Instead, Shula remembered the night before. After her solitary dinner, she had been at the kitchen sink washing her own dishes—she didn’t clean up after that man anymore—feeling the pain in her aching back. All day she had pruned trees and hauled tangerines to the curb because her lazy husband refused to care for the orchard they had planted in their youth. Then she had heard laughter. She had peered out the window and seen Saul helping the Widow Naomi picking up grapefruits in her yard next door.
When Saul had come back inside, he was whistling softly. Shula met him with a suspicious scowl.
“Shula, my love, couldn’t you wait until bedtime to scrub off your makeup?”
“You have time for another woman’s fruit now? With such a bad back?” She held up the black back brace his doctor had ordered him to wear for any strenuous activity.
Saul’s eyes narrowed. “She just lost her husband. Besides, it’s a shame to let good fruit go to waste.”
“I know. You’ve been doing it for years.” Saul’s eyes flicked over Shula’s chest. “Just picking fruit before it rots.”
Now, sitting on the edge of her bed in the cool morning, Shula felt her shoulders sag. Her breasts hung off her, no longer grapefruits but tangerines in tube socks. Remembering the way Saul’s eyes used to fasten on her just made things worse. She couldn’t believe she and Saul could once have been lovers with a fire so passionate they needed nothing but each other as fuel. Alone in the guest room, she realized with a pang that she still loved the man.
The Widow’s sprinklers sputtered, drenching the thought. Shula stared at her bedroom window, but all she could see was the reflection of an old woman. She touched her damp pillowcase, wishing she could remember one of those titillating dreams. Sleep was her only solace. Each night she lay down in search of them. Each morning she woke with regret. Some mornings, she prayed for senility just so she could forget the wretched man she’d stitched her soul to.
She dressed, ignoring her rows of elegant shoes. Instead, she pulled on canvas pants and work boots that shook the house.
***
Saul squeezed his eyes shut against the bright morning and tried to hold onto the dream. It must have been a steamy dream about the Widow Naomi. He tried to envision it, but a heavy step rattled the floor and the mist of pleasure evaporated. Goddamn Shula. At least the Widow Naomi was still capable of a genuine smile. But something of the dream lingered. To his surprise, Saul felt a flicker inside himself. He suddenly wanted to get out of bed, sneak up behind Shula, and sweep her off her feet. She would curse at him—but then she might laugh. He wished, in one stroke, they could go back to how it used to be. He wished she would come back to their wedding bed, which he had kept even when she moved to the guest bedroom, and whisper in his ear, “I am my Beloved’s, and he is mine.”
The floor shuddered again. The back door slammed. Saul stroked his sweat-dampened pillowcase and tried to get up. His back spasmed.
When he entered the kitchen, his eyes stung in the cloud of citrus lingering in the air. Tangerines covered the counters and stove top. They were piled in his chair, overflowing from the sink, crammed into the toaster. They rolled across the floor as he shuffled toward the coffee maker. He smelled something rotten and looked for the source. When he pulled out his chair at the kitchen table, his back brace was spread over the seat, slashed to pieces and drenched in sticky juice. Saul’s nose and mouth puckered.
***
Shula came back from the market, feet sweating in her work boots. She parked and immediately saw Saul in the front garden. He held a pair of loppers and stood in the midst of chopped rose buds and stems around her prize rosebush. She rushed at him. He tried to get inside, but his knee had stiffened with arthritis and he could only hobble. Shula raised her bare hand and smacked him across the balding pate of his head. He cursed her and tried to slam the front door on her fingers. Shula turned away, the bitter taste of copper in her mouth.
Instead, she knelt beside her rosebush, pink and white petals brilliant against the rich, dark earth. She heard footsteps. It was the Widow Naomi coming down her driveway for the morning paper. She was in a bathrobe, dyed hair perfectly in place. Hatred rose in Shula. She pushed her sweaty bangs out of her face. The Widow had seen her.
“Shula, are you alright?” In the sunlight, her face was lined, bags under her eyes.
Shula forced herself to smile. “Naomi, you look so fresh.” The Widow’s eyes moved from Shula’s sweaty face to her mud-encrusted work boots.
“Your day must start early, Shula. How do you do it?”
Shula gestured at the house. “Saul’s back went out.”
A look of worry crossed Naomi’s face. “I hope it wasn’t from helping me last night.”
Shula smiled a real smile this time. “You know how men age. First, it’s the back, then everything goes . . . ”
***
Saul saw Shula and the Widow talking. His stomach dropped. He locked Shula outside and cleaned tangerines out of the oven. If she loved her work boots so much … He fit as many of her shoes into the oven as he could. When he came to the slippers she had danced in at their wedding, he paused. He brushed the satin with his thumb. He almost put them aside.
When Saul had to go to the pharmacy for his blood pressure medication, Shula broke into his library and fed the wood stove with his most recent manuscript. Really, the only gold of these so-called golden years was the tangerine-colored urine he left in Shula’s pristine toilet. By nine o’clock that night, both would be desperate to fall asleep and forget.
That night, Saul finally laid down, filling just a portion of the huge bed. There was a lump under his pillow. He fished around and felt the slime of sticky tangerine pulp. In her room, Shula tried to open her hope chest, only to find the keyhole jammed with gluey tangerine pith. And when she pulled her quilt to her chin, she found herself drowning in wilted rose heads.
“Fucker,” they both murmured as they fell into slumber.
***
Once asleep, they met in the dream, in the grove they had planted in their youth. Each night, Shula left her memory locked in her hope chest. Saul left his eyes, which had been locked on the voluptuous widow. They walked arm-in-arm to the bower, the scent of tangerines and roses beckoning them in. With hunger, they laid each other down, plied each other with fruit and wine. They were the smiles in each other’s mouths. Keyholes no longer jammed with tangerine pith, grapefruits firm. They were not just in each other’s arms, but a seamless One.
“I am my Beloved’s,” Shula breathed in Saul’s ear.
“And she is mine.”
They delighted in their midnight tryst. But as dawn approached, they clung to one another, afraid.
***
In the morning, Shula opened her eyes. The dream eluded her again, but for a few moments, she was happy.
When Saul greeted the Widow Naomi on their mutual stroll to pick up their newspapers, he commented on how comfortable her robe looked. His curvaceous neighbor came right up to the low wall between them.
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t know about your back. If you need help with your property, I think there’s a handyman who helps the older gentleman on the corner.”
Saul turned back to the house and left the paper on the driveway. His back ached with each step. The whoosh of blood pulsed behind his eardrums.
He touched the back of his head and winced. If only he could remember the dream. He inhaled, hoping for the scent of roses. But it was the smell of rotten fruit.
He longed for sleep.
Megan Peralta is a former newspaper reporter, published poet, and writing coach. She and her wife live in the mountains of Northern California with their menagerie of pets.