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Filling the Void
- University of Nevada Press
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: : 184 : : I needed someone. After all, I’d lived with three sons and a husband for thirty years. My nest wasn’t just empty. It had been obliterated. I met him in July of 1994. After a separation of nine months, David had picked me up from the airport after I’d taught for a semester at the University of Missouri as a visiting writer and after I’d finished my two-week stint in Vermont. He’d volunteered to drop me off at my place in Denver—an old mansion converted to five condos in Park Hill—and I sensed he was hoping I’d be happy to see him. But I was determined not to need him anymore. We hadn’t gained any ground. I was still angry over the losses, the betrayals, and his insistence that he couldn’t change. Besides, something in me wanted a bold stroke. “Boldness has a stroke of genius in it,” Nietzsche said. A rebel part of me still felt like riding a Harley in a blizzard in a leather jacket and chaps, no helmet, wind blowing my hair every which way, me not caring how fast I drove or whether I crashed. With David standing behind me, my bags in his hands, I unlocked the door to my condo. Startled, I saw canvas drops covering the living room floor and a house painter standing on a ladder. The contractor had promised to be finished with the job before I returned from Vermont. “Hi. I’m Spinner. I work for Jack,” he added as if reading my mind. “I was supposed to be finished before you came back, but the job’s bigger than we expected. Sorry.” :: Filling the Void :: Filling the Void : : 185 “I’m glad it’s getting done,” I said, most of my attention on the unspoken dynamics between David and me. “Do you want to go out for an early dinner?” David asked. We stood next to each other in the doorway of the room that smelled of turpentine and paint. “I think I’m too exhausted. Maybe another time. But thanks for picking me up. I appreciate it. A lot.” Being valiant, he carried my bags to my bedroom . I gave him a good-bye peck-on-the-cheek kiss—casual enough to get my message of unavailability across. “Catch you soon,” he said. Then I heard my door close, his footsteps descending the hall stairs, and the sound of the heavy, bulky front door snapping to a close. When I became aware of Spinner again, I saw an attractive, somewhat bashful man in his midthirties dressed in painter’s whites, paintbrush in hand, and hair streaked with paint. My immediate impression: a simple man, organic somehow. A man who could be happy driving a long-haul tractor-trailer. I’d grown weary of paralysis by analysis. Of intellectualizing relationships. Of battling with David over his repressed needs. I felt a pull toward Spinner immediately—some animal kind of magnetism. That he would be part of my life felt like a done deal the minute David closed the downstairs door, our thirty-plus years together neatly summarized in the click of the latch. Spinner painted my condo for a week, though I think his boss, the contractor, kept him on the job to make me think he was providing more service than he was. This justified the outrageous price he’d quoted and which I’d agreed to pay. As far as the contractor was concerned, I was a single woman with three Persian rugs and a concert grand piano who reeked of naiveté and unconsciousness about matters of the world—that is to say, a sitting duck. I fixed lunch for Spinner every day. We sat down and ate at the dining table—me fixing food for my absent family. We had heartfelt, intimate chats. “I have a lot to make up,” he told me. “I screwed up my marriage, my chance to be with my daughter.” This was something I could relate to. People often told me their troubles. [3.85.63.190] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 06:39 GMT) 186 : : r a w e d g e s Two weeks after the painting was finished, Spinner telephoned to ask me out to dinner. I was in a reckless mood. I said yes. But as we ate dinner at the nearly deserted Italian restaurant I’d recommended, too early in the evening, nothing seemed...