Mud Vein(38)

“And today is the right day?”

She shrugged. “Maybe. I just felt like coming, I guess.”

She ambled over and sat across from me at the worn dinette I’d taken through three relationships. If I ended up with this girl I was going to buy a new table. I’d had sex on it too many times for it to be relationship kosher.

“This is a stupid world,” she said, and traced her finger along the edge of the table like she was reading brail.

I waited for her to go on but she didn’t. My forehead was creased. I felt the skin wrinkling against itself. She was sipping her coffee, already thinking about something else.

“Do you ever have a complete thought?”

She seriously considered my question and languidly took another sip. “I have many.”

“Finish the last one then.”

“I don’t remember what it was.”

She drank the rest of her coffee, then stood up to leave.

“See you Tuesday,” she said, heading for the door.

“What’s Tuesday?” I called after her.

“Dinner at your house. I don’t eat pork.”

I heard the screen slam behind her. Max raced for the door, barking, his nails clicking against the tile as he scrambled past me. I leaned back in my chair, smiling. I didn’t eat pork either. Except bacon, of course. Everyone eats bacon.



She showed up on Tuesday, right at six. I had no idea when to expect her, so I made sushi with the salmon I’d bought that morning from the market. I was busy wrapping my rolls in seaweed when she let herself in. I heard the screen door slam and Max’s manic barking.

She slid a bottle of whiskey across the counter.

“Most people bring wine,” I said.

“Most people are pussies.”

I choked on my laugh.

“What’s your name?”

“Brenna. What’s yours?”

“You already know my name.”

It was mostly true. She knew my pen name.

“Your real name,” she said.

“It’s Nick Nissley.”

“So much better than John Karde. Who are you hiding from?”

She unscrewed the lid from the Jack and drank straight from the bottle.

“Everyone.”

“Me, too.”

I looked at her out of the corner of my eye as I poured soy sauce into two ramekins. She was young, much younger than me. What did she have to hide from? Probably an ex-boyfriend. Nothing serious. Just a guy who didn’t want to let go, most likely. I had some exes who probably wanted to hide from me. It was a shallow thought, because if this woman was really that simple, she wouldn’t have struck my interest. I saw her standing still and quiet, and she caused movement in my brain. I’d already written over sixteen thousand words since she’d walked with me to my house and then disappeared. A feat, considering I’d been claiming writer’s block for the last year of my life.

No, if this woman said she was running away, she was.



“Brenna,” I said that night as we lay in my bed.

“Mmmm.”

I said it again, tracing a finger along her arm.

“Why do you keep saying my name?”

“Because it’s beautiful. I’ve known Brianna’s, but never a Brenna.”

“Well, congratulations to you.” She rolled off the bed and reached for her skirt. That skirt had been what started it all. I see a skirt and I want to know what’s underneath it.

“Where are you going?”

The corner of her mouth lifted. “Do I look like the kind of girl who sleeps over on the first date?”

“No ma’am.”

She fished around on the floor for the last of her clothes, and then I walked her to the door.

“Can I take you home?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want you to know where I live.”

I scratched my head. “But you know where I live.”

“Exactly,” she said. She pushed up on her toes and kissed me on the mouth.

“Tastes like a New York Times Bestseller,” she said. “Goodnight, Nick.”

I watched her go and felt conflicted. Did I really just let a woman walk out of my house in the middle of the night and not take her home? I hadn’t seen a car. My mother would have a coronary. I knew so little about her, but there was no question that she wouldn’t take well to me galloping after her on my imaginary steed. And why the hell didn’t she drive? I walked back into the kitchen and started cleaning up our dinner plates. We had only made it through half of the sushi before I leaned across the table and kissed her. She hadn’t even acted surprised, just dropped her chopsticks and kissed me back. The rest of our night was impressively graceful. I credit her with that. She undressed me in the kitchen and made me wait to take her clothes off until we reached the bedroom. Then she made me sit on the edge of the bed while she undressed herself. Her back never touched the sheets. A true control freak.



I put the last of the dishes in the dishwasher and sat at my desk. My thoughts were coming at me fast. If I didn’t get them down, I’d lose them. I wrote ten thousand words before the sun came up.



A week later we took our first trip into Seattle together. It was her idea. We rode in my car since she said she didn’t have one. She looked nervous sitting in the front seat with her hands folded in her lap. When I asked her if she wanted me to put on the radio she said no. We ate Russian pastries from paper bags and watched the ferries cross the sound, shivering and standing as close as we could get to each other. Our fingers were so greasy when we were done we had to rinse them off in a water fountain. She laughed when I splashed water in her face. I could have written another ten thousand words just from hearing her laugh. We bought five pounds of prawns from the market and headed back to my house. I don’t know why the hell I asked for five pounds, but it sounded like a good idea at the time.