"Personally, I'm not one for taking sides."
"Of course not."
"Personally, you understand."
"Oh, absolutely."
"But I do find instances--"
"You--?"
"--just instances, mind you, where I do find myself, sort of..."
"Sort of?"
"Leaning."
"Oh dear."
"Not siding, mind you."
"Yes."
"Just leaning."
"Yes, I understand."
"Towards..."
"His side?"
"I was going to say her side."
"Oh."
"Yes, uh...yes. Her, uh, well...yes."
. . . . .
"I shouldn't have said anything."
"No, it's all right."
"I didn't realize you--"
"I'm not taking sides either."
"Well, that's--"
"But it does seem to me--"
"I was going to say--"
"--That she does seem to be using you quite a lot lately."
"Me?"
"Yes."
"What do you--"
"Drinking. From you. She seems to be drinking from you quite a lot lately."
"So that's what this is--?"
"No, no, no."
"Because she prefers to drink from--"
"It's not about preferences. She can drink from whomever she likes. But it seems to me that you're getting used more and more frequently."
"And?"
"And that would suggest that she's drinking more and more."
"Sometimes she just drinks from me. It isn't always wine."
"Oh Charles."
"What?"
"Please."
"No, what?"
"We're both glasses here, aren't we?"
"Yes."
"Aren't we?"
"Yes. I said 'yes.'"
"And are we not wine glasses?"
"That doesn't mean it's always wine."
"So you're telling me she uses you to drink--what? Water? Ginger ale? Lemonade?"
"Please, don't even joke like that."
"Exactly."
"Cider. Sometimes cider."
"With what?"
"With nothing."
"Charles--"
"Vivian, I'm telling you--with nothing."
"Fine."
"All right?"
"All right. I'm trying to--"
"I didn't want to have this discussion."
"Yes, well, we didn't, did we? You stuck up for her. Now, the discussion's over."
"That's not what just happened."
"Charles, it's fine. In situations like these, it's sometimes impossible for the property not to pick sides. I mean, we're all going to live with one of them or the other, and it's fine to have preferences as to where you'd like to go."
"And you'd like to go live with him? A man who, until he married her, thought stemware was something you put in a vase?"
"I like that I don't have to worry about him breaking me."
"She would never--"
"She gets drunk. She gets clumsy."
"Vivian, you're being unfair."
"I suppose you gave that chip on your rim to yourself then?"
. . . . .
"It was the dishwasher."
"My point exactly, Charles. She put you in the dishwasher."
"You know, I wasn't going to take sides here--"
"The dishwasher, Charles. As if you were some sort of beer mug."
"At least she appreciates my--"
"As if you were a commemorative plate."
"Vivian--"
"Or a spork."
"All right, that's enough! I had no idea you harbored such resentment towards her just because she put me in front of you in the cupboard, and thereby, uses me more. I thought you'd realized that was just chance, and that you'd appreciate being able to relax a little more, since the only time that Neanderthal has a glass of wine is when he runs out Miller Lite."
"Charles--"
"No, I'm not finished. If you want to go with him in the divorce, that's just fine. But remember who owned us first. Remember who has exposed us to wine other glasses could only dream of. Remember who had the taste in this marriage, and then you tell me whether or not you want to spend the rest of your existence in some bachelor pad next to a shot glass with a picture of Donald Duck on it."
. . . . .
"Are you finished?"
"Yes."
"Charles, I will go wherever you go. We're a set. We go together."
"Well that's up to--"
"May I finish?"
"Yes, my apologies."
"I would prefer to go with someone who does not have a problem--"
"She is not a--"
"I was not saying she is something, Charles. I was just saying she has a problem. Please have the decency and presence of mind to at least ADMIT that she has a problem."
. . . . .
"She...may...have a problem."
"Thank you. Now. I would rather be next to that shot glass then shattered on the pretty marble floor she's going to have installed in the kitchen so her friends can ooh and ahh over how well she's coping. She'll laugh and flitter around serving them canapes, and then the next thing you know, her shakey hands drop the tray with us on it, and down we go. I doubt she'll even care. She'll just laugh about it to her friends, and pull those hideous glasses her mother got her from the back of the china cabinet, and the spirits will keep flowing and the laughter will keep ringing out loud and clear. And all the while, we'll be swept up in the dustbin by the maid--without so much as a tear being shed. Is that what you want, Charles?"
. . . . .
"Fine. I'll go with him."
"If you--"
"I said, I'll go with him."
"Thank you, Charles."
"But I don't like it."
"There's nothing about any of this to like."
. . . . .
"She was my first owner."
"I understand."
"I was a wedding gift. We both were."
"I...I understand."
"I thought it would last. I really did."
"Oh Charles, I..."
"Didn't you? Didn't you think it would last?"
"It's hard to say. These things, you know, they're..."
"They're what?"
"Fragile. They're so fragile."
No comments:
Post a Comment