The Surrendered

The smell of the steak and onions made his mouth water, and though Dora wouldn’t have minded his sitting down to the meal in his undershirt and shorts he decided to put on clothes he hadn’t worn in years. Maybe he would even take her out this Friday, somewhere other than Smitty’s; there was a new place on Lemoine where younger people drank colorful cocktails at the polished metallic bar, and though he’d normally steer miles clear of such a place he thought Dora might get a kick out it, and maybe he would as well. Visit the yuppie zoo. When it came to drinking, the day of the week never mattered before but now it seemed wrong somehow to do the same things over and over again, Dora herself suddenly complaining anew about the lack of a women’s room at Smitty’s, where she’d otherwise peed happily.

In the closet he found a secondhand suit given to him some years ago when he did some custodial work at a thrift store, still in its black plastic coverall. He held the suit jacket to his nose and didn’t like what he smelled but the trousers weren’t as funky. He couldn’t find a neck-tie or a decent belt but he had black shoes and when Hector stepped out into the kitchen Dora nearly dropped the spatula, as surprised as if he were a stranger come in from the street.

“My goodness, Hector,” she said, catching her breath. “How you clean up!”

“You don’t like?”

“Gosh, no, I like, I do. Come here.” She touched his shirt collar and ran her hand down the pressed crease of the sleeve. “You could be a businessman, just home from the office.”

“Yeah, but there’s no money in these pockets.”

“Let me see.”

Dora put the spatula on the table and stepped around him and slipped her hands into his trouser pockets. Her fingertips raked gently at his thighs and then with one hand she massaged him in the soft parts but just when he was coming alive the smoke alarm went off in the short hallway to the bathroom. The steak in the pan. He was surprised there even was an alarm, and while he went to take out the battery, Dora hustled over and took the pan off the heat.

“Oh, now look!” She was wincing and getting a little panicked, frantically scraping up the onions that had stuck to the pan. “This always happens in the end. Whatever I do. I ruin it.”

“No you haven’t.”

“I have! Look at the meat. It’s charcoal.”

“Just one side. Anyhow, it can be good well-done.”

“You’re just saying that.”

“Not so.”

“You are.”

“Okay, maybe I usually like it rare.”

“Oh damn!” She nudged him in the chest and he pulled her to him and they kissed long enough that their di

She told him to sit while she made up their plates. She had roasted some potatoes and he was glad to see that the oven worked. She served steamed sliced carrots and peas, a bowl of which was set beside a stack of di

But now he wished the table legs weren’t so deeply scratched, that the chairs were less wobbly, that he had thought to paint the walls just once at least, rather than simply having moved in and squatted, all to match if only by half the simple, clean decency that was abounding with her presence: along with the food she’d picked a small bunch of wildflowers from the vacant lot down the street and had placed these in a glass. Paper napkins were folded in half and topped with silverware he didn’t recognize as his own, for she’d buffed out the water spots. His plates were a puke-colored earthenware but Dora now dressed these up, too, by arranging the potatoes and onions in the tuck of the steak, which she’d sliced thinly on an angle and then fa

“Is everything okay? How are the onions?”

“The onions are sweet,” he said.

“They look burnt to me,” Dora said. “How do you like the steak? Do you want more?”

“Yes, thanks.”

Dora sliced him some more, and she ate, too, but not half as exuberantly as Hector. She was enjoying the wine he’d bought her, which came in a regular-sized bottle, with a real cork; he could have spent less and gotten her four times as much of the jug wine she favored but the label was illustrated with a pen drawing of a duck nestled among reeds and it had reminded him of Dora, or at least the way she always seemed snugly reposed, even when perched on a barstool at Smitty’s. She nipped at the wine to start, as it wasn’t juice-sweet like her brand, but she was quaffing it now in deep, regular pulls, saying it was lively and tart on her tongue.

In deference to the meal, Hector was drinking beer instead of whiskey, and he was taking it with some gusto but with a different rhythm than the usual flooding pace he’d get into with Co

But now here he was, focused on finishing off the steak and gathering the peas and carrots in a pile on his fork like a man come rightly home. Was he finally getting old? His body was as ever mysteriously impervious, but his mind was, like anybody else’s, encumbered with time’s accruals, and if over the years he’d disappeared on more than a few women at this very point, excusing himself from a table at a restaurant or from a bench in the park in the middle of a conversation and never returning, never calling again, never offering a single indication that he was even still alive, he was feeling none of that weakness now. He cleaned his plate, and while Dora got him another can of beer he topped her glass with the last of the bottle, of which he was glad he’d bought two.

“Leave room for dessert,” she said. “I have a cherry pie.”

“You made it?”

“Oh, goodness, no. Who do you think I am, Julia Child?”

“You’re not doing too bad from where I’m sitting.”

Dora didn’t answer but was clearly pleased with how things were turning out. This morning when they awoke she had dressed quickly and muttered she’d see him “around” but Hector sensed she was lingering and uncharacteristically replied that they ought to have a real meal together and that’s when she offered to make them di