Paula Bomer - Nine Months

“True, true, it takes two to tango,” Larissa says.

Larry bursts past them, six-pack in hand. “Well, let’s celebrate! This is awesome. Sonia here, I’m off work, life is good!” He sits down at a built-in kitchen table with a bench and a couple of chairs that Sonia remembers sitting at years and years ago. She plops down in the chair next to him and looks around. Two small boys, maybe three and five, sit on the far side of the trailer on a dark green plaid couch, watching a Disney movie on an enormous TV, a TV that takes up so much room the children’s feet almost touch it from where they sit on the couch. Sonia wonders if they have to turn their heads from side to side while watching.

“Your sons?”

“Yup. My boys. Eric Junior and Bobby.”

“I have two boys.” Sonia says and tries immediately to get their faces out of her head. “Hey, Larry, can you pass me a beer?” She pulls the tab on the can and it makes that wonderful cracking noise as it exposes its imperfect circle of access and beery foam fizzles over.

“Man, I feel like we should play quarters or something!” Larry says. There had been many nights of epic games of bouncing quarters into glasses. “Hey, Larissa, get your bong out. Holy crap, Sonia, it’s the same bong from high school! How classic is that?”

“That’s pretty classic,” Sonia says, knowing there is no way she could do a bong hit if her life depended on it. A hit off a joint, sure. But she quit bong-hitting in college or shortly thereafter. In fact she can’t remember her last bong hit. “But let’s roll a joint instead. I’m sort of not up for bong hits.” Sonia looks toward the little boys. They’re wearing matching pajamas with cars all over them. They look clean.

Larissa sits across from Sonia, drinking a beer. It seems not to be her first of the evening. “I had my boys with Eric Wilder, you remember him?”

“Sure,” Sonia says. She had a huge crush on him, with his chipped tooth and penchant for carrying a sawed-off baseball bat around in his car.

“We never married. But we were together for five years. He’s dead, you know.”

“What?”

“He got really coked up at a party and they played Russian Roulette and he shot himself in the head.”

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry Larissa.”

“Thanks. It’s been a few years, so I’m, well, not over it but I’ve learned to accept it.”

The two women stare at each other. At last, Larissa says, “Russian Roulette is a stupid game.”

And Sonia finds herself nodding almost dreamily in agreement, yes, yes it is , while Larry sits there, working on a beautiful joint.

Larissa sighs. “He was sort of a shitty boyfriend. I just had a weakness for him. Are you married?”

“Yeah, I’m married.” Sonia stops and looks away. The kitchen area is tidy and reminds Sonia of a dollhouse. “He’s a good guy. But it can be hard anyway.”

“No shit,” says Larry. “That’s why everyone gets divorced.”

Sonia looks from Larry to Larissa. “Are you guys …”

“Hell no!” Larry says, “I’m gay as can be!”

“We’re just friends. We’re the only ones left from the old crowd. Dan is in Chicago. Eric is dead. You’re in New York,” says Larissa, crushing the beer can into the table with impressive force and accuracy, making it into a little accordion beer can. She stands and gets another. “Do you want one?”

“Not yet, thanks,” says Sonia. “So Larry, you’re ‘out.’ That’s great, right?”

“I’m out here tonight with you guys but it depends where I am, how out I can be,” he says. “I’ve gotten my ass beat more than once. In fact, I’ve gotten my ass beat twice very badly, once by a bunch of Notre Dame jocks and once by a bunch of redneck bikers.”

“That sucks,” Sonia says.

“I learned my lesson. I’m more careful now.” Larry lit the joint. “So are you some famous painter in New York? I think the last time I saw you that was your plan.”

“Yeah,” says Larissa, folding her hands over her fat breasts, “You were going to be famous, an important artist . I think you were living in Boston at the time and you were dressing like a slut and spouting feminist theory and art talk.”

“I was twenty. Don’t even pretend you weren’t an idiot when you were twenty, Larissa.” Sonia stands and gets another beer. “And what’s wrong with being ambitious? What were you doing back then, cocktail waitressing at that strip club? I forgive all of our twenty-year-old selves and I’m OK with having had some ambitions. I mean, I know I was an idiot, but that’s just life.”

“I made tons of money at that job. I bought this trailer with that money.” Larissa hits the joint and passes it to Sonia. Sonia holds it lovingly between her thumb and forefinger. She smells it, the sweet smell of weed. It’s been ages since she’s smelled it. She takes a tiny drag, holds it in as long as she can, blows out a thin stream of smoke.

“That was the most pussy hit I’ve even seen!” Larry says, laughing.

“I don’t really smoke that much anymore. And I am pregnant.”

“I bet weed is good for the baby. I bet it makes them little stoner geniuses, little Bob Marleys.” Larissa says, hitting it again.

Sonia feels a head rush, feels the beer in her smooshed bladder. “Where’s the bathroom?”

Larissa points to a door and Sonia, slightly off kilter, walks over to it. It’s like an airplane bathroom, but with a shower and miniature tub. It has some nice touches. A flowered bath mat, clean towels. She sits and pees and then she notices the wall in front of her. It’s covered with little circles of gum, like in Larry’s car, but here she can see discernible patterns. Smiley faces, stick figures, something that looks like a, a — dog? Now, Sonia’s a little high, but really just a little high and she’s barely had two beers but she questions her judgment nonetheless. She stares. She tries to understand. Some of the gum is in different colors. Finally, she gets up.

“Hey, is that, like, gum design in there?” She asks and everyone starts that slow, stoner laugh that warms Sonia. All the tension of their disparate lives goes away and she’s just back in South Bend, smoking weed with her buddies.

“Yeah,” Larry says as his giggles subside and then he actually pops some gum in his mouth. “Do you want a piece?”

“Sure,” says Sonia, putting a red stick of cinnamon gum in her mouth. “What the fuck is up with gum design?”

“It’s just something I started doing. Right, Larissa?”

“Yeah.” Larissa seems half asleep at this point. But Sonia feels energy, a tingling on her skin. Larry starts rolling another joint. Sonia looks over at the boys. They’re asleep, cuddled adorably against each other, the television still going strong. For some reason it warms Sonia. She’s just perfectly buzzed and she thinks of her sons, safe at home, sleeping in their beds.

“I just had the most amazing idea,” Sonia says. “This gum design, Larry.”

“What about it.” Larry’s eyes are red.

Sonia chews, the warm cinnamon coating her dry mouth and she sips her beer. Larry passes the joint to her and she takes another drag, a bigger one, and holds it in again, as long as she can. As she exhales, the world seems suddenly clear and right. “I think you could be famous. I mean, I know the art world in New York a little bit and I think that gum design, gum art , could make a huge splash. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s like part folk art, part naïve art, part found object art …”

“You’re going to steal my idea,” Larry says. “I can feel it.”

“No way, Larry, I’m just a painter. I might not even be a painter anymore. Maybe the weed is making you paranoid. Really, I could be your agent or get you a manager or a gallery or something.” Sonia stands. Her back was hurting but also she just needs to stand. Larissa appears asleep.