ontessa dove onto Debbie’s mocha sofa, burying her face in the cushions, kicking with the fury of an Olympic swimmer.

“It was so nasty,” she said.

“Tell me what happened.” Debbie’s high heels clicked on the tiles as she scuttled from the kitchen to the living room. The clicks softened to thumps when Debbie stepped onto the rug, the cue for Contessa to sit up.

“Okay.” Contessa pushed her palms out, motioning for Debbie to sit. She did, on the edge of the matching mocha loveseat. “I was in Newport earlier this morning and when I pulled into to the Stop & Shop on Bellevue I saw him walking through the parking lot. I waited and then followed him into the store, you know, to surprise him.”

“You’re sure it was him?”

“Pretty sure. I didn’t get a good look at his face ‘cause he was wearing sunglasses and a baseball hat and he had one of those high-collar fleece jackets on. But it looked like him.”

“And he didn’t see you?”

“I know he didn’t see me. Anyway, he was at the counter where all the meats are, standing over the chickens. I left my cart by the eggs and snuck up behind him. And just when I was about to scream ‘BOO’ I saw it. Oh my god. I still can’t believe it.”

“Saw what?”

“He had peeled the plastic wrap off a whole chicken and he was fingering it.”

“You’re kidding.” Debbie laughed, and would’ve slipped off the loveseat if she hadn’t dug her heals into the rug. “He was fingering it? You mean like sexually?”

“What else?”

“How do you know he wasn’t, I don’t know, checking to see how fresh it was?”

“No, Deb. He was fingering the fucking thing. Its little bent legs were jiggling back and forth.”

This time Debbie fell off the loveseat, her blond curls bouncing.

“Wait.” Contessa joined Debbie’s laughter. “There’s more.”

Debbie stayed where she landed, bracing her back against the loveseat.

“Go ahead,” she said.

“He had a big sausage in his other hand—”

“While he was fingering the chicken?”

“Yeah. It was one of those flesh-colored kielbasas that Groot & Fugel make. Know which ones I’m talking about?”

“No.”

“Well, they’re pink. That’s all you need to know.”

“A pink kielbasa?”

“Yeah. And he was squeezing it.”

“That’s so gross.”

“Tell me about it. I got away from him as fast as I could. But I stopped just as I was heading out the door and went back. I had to be sure it was Tommy.”

“Was it?”

“I don’t know. He wasn’t there. But the chicken still was, with its legs spread out, and he had shoved the kielbasa in it for everyone to see.”

“Oh that’s nasty.”

Contessa shivered, expressing her disgust, too. The two women stared at the rug, shaking their heads, a tense calm quieting them. Debbie, still giddy, knew it wouldn’t last.

“And then,” Contessa continued, looking up, “and then this old lady came by. She grabbed onto the display case and stood there staring. She looked over at me all pissy, like I was the one who sausage-fucked the chicken.”

Debbie rolled onto her stomach, laughing, and kicked as Contessa had earlier. One of her high heels flew off and landed somewhere in the kitchen, smashing glass.

“You wanna hear the worst part?” Contessa asked.

“No,” Debbie said.

“Well I’ll tell you anyway. I’m supposed to go on another date with Tommy tonight.”

 

hat afternoon Contessa paced her apartment scheming ways to get out of her date with Chicken Fingers, which is what she and Debbie were calling Tommy. But Contessa had the chicken fingers now, her hand recoiling every time she reached for the phone. What if Tommy was fatally attracted to her? What if he was like Jeffery Dahmer, who, fearing loss, devoured anyone who rejected him? She could end up on Tommy’s dinner plate tonight. But reason calmed Contessa. She wasn’t certain that that was actually Tommy in the Stop & Shop.

She was supposed to call Debbie after she dumped Tommy. But she decided her best action was inaction—to just blow Tommy off, to not call him, and not answer the phone. Contessa didn’t call Debbie, either, since Debbie would nag her about contacting Tommy.

Contessa uncorked a bottle of Smoking Loon merlot, pouring the wine into her favorite blue goblet. She sauntered into her bedroom, dimming the light and closing the curtains. She stripped to her panties and lit lilac-scented candles, positioning them on her night stand, and turned on the stereo. The sounds of Sade accompanied her to bed, her naked back sinking into the pillows. She fired up a cigarette.

A few minutes later the bed-side phone rang and she blew smoke rings at it. Some of these smoke rings drifted and twisted through the still air, where they glowed in the low light. One smoke ring spread out and hovered over her head resembling a halo, while another drifted toward her neck like a ghostly noose.

As Contessa poured her second goblet of wine, her doorbell rang. She took her time wrapping herself in her robe and walked to the front door. She peeked through the peep hole, but no one was on the other side. Turning, she spotted Tommy through the living room glass slider. He had walked around her apartment building and stepped onto her patio, his boots shuffling through the windswept October leaves. Contessa had slept with Tommy, once, on this very rug. He pressed his face to the glass, cupping his hands around his eyes. He smiled and waved both forearms.

“Shit,” Contessa said, stepping toward the slider. She stopped once she confirmed the door was locked. “What do you want?”

“What?”

She inched closer.

“I said what are you doing here?”

“It’s Friday. We have a date, remember? I tried calling but you didn’t answer.”

Contessa didn’t answer him now, either. Tommy’s breath fogged the glass, obscuring his face. He moved to the left, steaming up that section, too. Contessa wanted to take advantage of this impromptu smokescreen and bolt into her bedroom, but Tommy wiped a section of glass with his chicken fingers.

“Let me in,” he said.

Contessa tugged on the ends of her bathrobe belt, squeezing her narrow waist.

“I’m not dressed,” she said.

“Oh,” he said, glancing at her robe. He arched his black eyebrows. “I thought maybe we would go to The Windjammer tonight. You know, over by the marina?”

“I was taking a shower,” Contessa said.

“What?”

She needed to say something stronger, something that would make him want to go away.

“I said I was taking a shit.”

“Oh wow. I’m sorry. You want me to come back after?”

Tommy raised his eyebrows again, his blue eyes appealing to Contessa. He was wearing a black jacket—not the blue fleece pullover that the sex fiend at the Stop & Shop had worn this morning. Tommy wasn’t wearing a baseball cap or sunglasses, either. It couldn’t have been Tommy in the grocery store. He was too handsome to be a pervert.

“Yeah,” Contessa said. “Come back in an hour, k?”

“Okay. See you at 6:30.”

Tommy backed away. Most of the glass slider was steamed up but in the middle of the haze Contessa spotted the finger-drawn outline of a Valentine heart. How sweet, she thought. She peered through its center, watching Tommy blur as he walked away. His dark jacket distorted into an orb that wobbled and flexed, animating the Valentine heart with a black palpitation.

Contessa finally called Debbie, who couldn’t believe Contessa was going through with the date, but in the end she had to admit, as well, that the evidence didn’t finger Tommy as the chicken molester.

“He’s supposed to pick me up,” Contessa said, “but I’m gonna take off early and drive my car instead. I’ll leave him a note saying I had to go to the drugstore, which is true. That way if he does anything nasty at dinner I can just take off.”

“I gotcha,” Debbie said. “Like if he orders chicken fingers for an appetizer, you’ll get the fuck out of there.”

“Exactly.”

Around 7:30 Contessa strolled into The Windjammer. Tommy was sitting alone at a corner table.

“Sorry I’m late.” Contessa scrunched her nose as she slipped into the chair opposite him. She had bound her black hair into a bow leaving a few strains falling along her cheeks, framing her thin face. Her red lipstick brightened her white smile.

“I’m so happy you made it,” Tommy said. He stabbed the ice in his drink with the little red straw and tilted his head back to drain the glass, bending the straw over the rim after it nearly lanced his eyeball. “I got your note. I could’ve given you a ride, you know.”

“That’s ok. Whatcha drinking?”

“I call it a Cream Soda. Want one?”

Tommy waved to the waiter. A deaf couple sat at the table next to them, signing and clinking glasses. They looked 30 years older than her, in their mid 50’s. They couldn’t hear it, but happy Bossa Nova music shuffled through the air, resounding off the dark mahogany wood and the smoked glass mirrors that dressed the restaurant’s interior. The mirrors reflected the dim ceiling lights, casting just enough illumination to show how gloomy their corner was. Tommy admitted that he had doused the table candle because the wicker wiggled with the same lonely shudder that was running through him.

“I’m just kidding about that,” he said. “But I did think you stood me up and I didn’t want that candle showing everyone I was alone, so I blew it out.”

Contessa relit the candle with her cigarette lighter.

“The couple next to us,” Tommy whispered, shielding the profile of his lips with his left hand, “has been sitting there since ten of seven and hasn’t said a word.”

“Really?” she whispered back, amazed he hadn’t realized they were deaf.

“Really. Check them out.”

Contessa didn’t look.

“Let’s hope we never end up like them,” Tommy said.

Contessa didn’t like talking about the deaf couple, and she didn’t want people at the surrounding tables to think that they were. She snagged a pen from her purse and wrote Tommy another note. He read it and spoke out loud, “Oh, then why are we whispering?”

Contessa silenced him with her own sign language, pressing her index finger to her lips. The slick-haired waiter, Ernesto, arrived. Tommy ordered another Cream Soda, which was his nickname for a Captain Morgan and Coke. The spiced rum made the cola taste like cream soda, he told Contessa, which was his favorite drink as a kid. Contessa ordered a glass of burgundy. She read her menu and when Ernesto returned she was ready to order. So was Tommy.

“I’ll have the braised rabbit,” he said.

Contessa didn’t recognize that dish from the menu—not that she’d order rabbit, ever. Essentially, it was a giant rat.

“Where do you see rabbit?”

Tommy just blinked.

“It’s one of the chef’s specials,” Ernesto said, pointing to the inside of her menu. But the chef’s specials menu wasn’t posted inside her menu, as it should have been. Ernesto opened Tommy’s menu, which was in front of him, and withdrew two sheets of pink paper.

“He has your specials menu,” Ernesto said, handing Contessa the page.

At first she thought it was a mistake. The restaurant staff had perhaps slipped two copies into his menu while overlooking hers. After all, they had to insert the page in over 100 menus. But when she read the specials, she suspected foul play: The third entrée was Country Cornish Hen stuffed with an Andouille Sausage Cornbread.

Had Tommy removed the specials from her menu so she couldn’t order the sausage-stuffed hen? Perhaps watching her eat that meal would torture his depraved mind. Tommy was staring at the ceiling, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he guzzled his Cream Soda. Could he really be the sicko? He looked nervous enough. No, this was a coincidence. If he really was the pervert, if he had a fixation for chickens and sausages, why hadn’t he ordered it?

She decided to find out.

“I’ll have the Cornish Hen stuffed with the Andouille Sausage,” she told Ernesto, darting a sly eye at Tommy.

Tommy didn’t look at her. He winked at Ernesto and ordered another drink. As Ernesto turned away, Tommy tapped his arm.

“Can I make a request of the chef?”

“Always.”

“Can I have some of those baby carrots with the long green stems still on them? Like the ones that guy over there’s having?”

“Of course.”

Contessa put her wine glass down. “Wait a sec.” She dabbed her lips with her napkin. “You’re ordering baby carrots with your rabbit?”

Tommy nodded.

“That’s sick.”

“But they look delicious.”

“They are,” Ernesto said. “They’re served with a Grand Marnier orange-blossom-honey glaze.”

“See?” Tommy boyishly rubbed his hands together.

Contessa drained her burgundy and ordered another.

The rabbit arrived on a pink plate, cut into sections and arranged around a mound of Basmati rice. The baby carrots, with their leafy green stems branching into the air, were planted into the rice at random intervals and tiers, as trees would grow on a hillside, with the orange glaze pooled atop the rice dripping like the spillage of a volcano. Tommy turned his plate round and round, pretending to marvel its presentation when, Contessa noticed, his eyes were actually fixed on her plate.

The Cornish hen rested at an angle on a bed of garlic-sautéed Swiss chards, its tiny legs pointing upward, while the Andouille sausage cornbread stuffing spilled out of its body cavity into a pile in the center of the barn-red colored plate. Contessa stroked the hen’s small breast with the heel of her fork.

“This looks luscious,” she said. Her silverware chimed as she drew her knife across the fork’s tines, slicing into the breast meat, which she chewed with a hum. “So what did you do today?”

Tommy glanced up from her plate. “I went grocery shopping.”

“Oh my god, so did I.” She slid a spoonful of stuffing into her mouth. Her red lips tightened into a juicy sphincter as she exaggerated her chew. “What’d you buy?”

“I just picked up some stuff I needed.”

“I like the Stop & Shop.” Contessa plucked a little leg, rolling it between her greasy finger tips, and raised it to her lips. “Where do you go?”

“All over the place.”

“This is so delicious,” she said, sucking the meat off the tiny leg bone.

Tommy’s face was crimson, like he was angry or embarrassed—or jealous. His eyes dropped onto her plate again and she glided the spoon into the hen and left it there, cantilevering, while she licked her fingers. Then she eased the spoon out and rotated her plate, offering Tommy full view of her hen’s hole.

Tommy’s hands curled into fists.

Oh my god, she thought, he really is the pervert.

“Aren’t you going to eat your rabbit?” she asked, realizing she needed a plan that would end this date quickly. Tommy hacked his knife through the rabbit meat, but didn’t eat any. Clasping a leafy stem, he nibbled on a baby carrot pretending to look in the direction of the deaf couple, who were flapping their wrists, but Tommy’s coy gaze was, once again, moored to her hen.

Contessa sipped her wine. A sudden urge to laugh caused her to choke. Had she not swallowed that very moment, she would have sprayed Tommy. The way Tommy was staring at her plate reminded her of a punk rock song. She didn’t remember the title or the band, but the lyrics concerned a couple’s dinner date.

Baby, when you look at me with those Marty Feldman eyes
I can’t tell if you want my fish or my fries

“Wanna bite?” She pointed her fork of breast meat at Tommy’s mouth.

“Oh, no, no, no,” he said, sliding his chair back. “I can hardly finish my rabbit.”

He had hardly touched his rabbit. He stood.

“I’ve got to go to the rest room,” he said.

Contessa clawed through her purse, snagging her cell phone. She smiled at the deaf couple, but they looked at her like she’d just strapped on a Swastika armband. Apparently deaf people didn’t like cell phones, a curious phenomenon Contessa didn’t have time to consider. She called Debbie, announcing that Tommy was in fact Chicken Fingers, that she didn’t have time to talk now but she’d explain everything later.

“Just call me back in five minutes, Deb. Five minutes. That’s when I’ll make up an excuse to leave, alone. I just don’t want this Son of Sam pissed off at me. Understand? Good. And thanks.”

She smiled at the deaf couple. They didn’t smile back. Tommy returned with another Cream Soda.

“Where were we?” he said, sitting.

“You were going to tell me what you got at the grocery store.”

“I was?”

The deaf man slapped the tabletop, rattling silverware. The deaf woman exhaled, sounding a phlegmy gurgle. Tommy frowned at them, shaking his head. Contessa’s phone rang, adding to the cacophony. Only a minute, maybe two, had passed—not five; obviously, Debbie wanted her out of that restaurant.

“Excuse me.” Contessa flipped open her cell phone. “Hello?”

“Tell Chicken Fingers I’m the fire chief and your apartment building is on fire,” Debbie said.

“No!” Contessa said. “Oh my god, no. I’ll be right there, Mom. I’m hanging up now. Don’t move a muscle till I get there.”

“What’s wrong?” Tommy asked.

“It’s my mother,” Contessa said. “She’s fallen and she can’t get up.”

The deaf man slapped the table again. The deaf woman gargled and jingled her bracelets. Tommy sneered at them.

“You’re leaving?” Tommy panted. “But we just got started.”

His face was reddening. The deaf woman clapped while her mate drummed the table with his fingers.

“Stop doing that,” Tommy said to them. “Really. Knock it off!”

“Tommy, they’re deaf, remember?”

“Do you really have to go?”

“Yes, she’s my mother.”

“I wish my mother would fall and not get up.” Tommy stabbed the rabbit. “Did you know my parents took my bedroom door off its hinges when I turned 14?”

“Okay, I’ve heard enough.” Contessa stood. “I’m outa here.”

“Can I call you tomorrow?”

“No.”

Tommy turned and frisked his coat, which was draped over the back of his chair. Contessa worried he was groping for a gun or hunting knife. Instead he tugged on the bill of a baseball cap, plucking it from his coat pocket. A pair of sunglasses fell and scuffled across the wooden floor. Tommy draped the hat over his head, pointing the visor foolishly off the side of his head. He crossed his eyes and stuck his tongue out at her.

 

ontessa was still talking with Debbie on her phone when she drove into Debbie’s driveway. Debbie was standing at her front door, her phone in one hand and a martini in the other.

“I’ve got to use your bathroom,” Contessa said, scooting by her friend.

Debbie shut and locked the front door. Several minutes later, Debbie rapped on the bathroom door.

“Are you alright in there?”

“I’m fine—so far.”

“What you need is a martini,” Debbie said and trotted into the kitchen.

Contessa came out of the bathroom clutching her purse and headed for the couch, where, for the second time that day, she collapsed.

“He actually stuck his tongue out at you?” Debbie asked. She whacked an ice tray repeatedly against the steel sink.

“It was sick,” Contessa said, joining Debbie in the kitchen so she didn’t have to shout over the din. Debbie was stirring up a big picture of martinis. “It’s like he had an inner child—a really fucked up inner child.”

“That’s no child,” Debbie said. “He’s into bestiality, necrophilia and, and, well, I don’t know what you’d call sex with a sausage.”

“It’s called fucking gross, okay?”

“It’s way too sick for words, really. Want one olive or two?”

“Just the booze, thank you.”

Debbie handed her the martini.

“I mean, here he was pretending he’s a normal guy,” Contessa said, “coming over my house, drawing hearts on my slider, fucking me—”

“You fucked him?”

“I was overdue. I haven’t been with a man in six months. You know that.”

“I can’t believe you fucked him.”

“Neither can I.”

“Oh, honey, it’s not your fault. How can we ever tell upfront that a man’s psycho?” Debbie drained her glass and poured another. “Why don’t guys like him just move to Vermont and start a chicken farm?”

“I know.” Contessa looked at her martini. “Wanna hear the worst part?”

“Oh, I hate it when you do this.” Debbie squeezed her eyes shut. “Go ahead.”

“I went to the drugstore today and got one of those home pregnancy tests. That’s what I was doing in your bathroom.”

Debbie’s right eye popped open. She squished the rest of her face as if she were embracing for a smack. She waited for the bad news.

“But the little box had a red minus sign in it,” Contessa said, smiling and slapping the countertop. “A negative. I’m not pregnant.”

“Thank God,” Debbie said, relaxing her face.

The women clinked glasses.

“And there’s a positive side to all this,” Contessa said.

“What’s that?”

“You remember Ryan? Ryan Johnson? He left a message on my cell phone. He wants to take me out.”

“Is this the guy with the poodle? The poodle that he lets lick his face and French kiss him?”

“It doesn’t actually French kiss him.”

“Oh, honey, not him. No no no no…”

 

[END]

© 2006 Adam Smith - Contributor's Bio

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