the early films of Martin Scorsese.
Charlotte started e-mailing me. Where would I be living in Prague? Did I know Prague was settled in the fourth century? Prague Castle was the largest castle in the world. There was also an entire wall of graffiti dedicated to John Lennon. I should definitely check out the museum of the Heydrich assassination. She sent me links to websites, and guidebooks she’d ordered on Amazon. She gave me books by Czechoslovakian writers. Who the fuck is Kafka? She signed the e-mails with
Agnessa read romance novels. She loved stuffed animals. She was thirty-one and still lived with her mother, who needed new teeth and an operation. I’d sent her an international calling card and she rang me every evening. She confessed she had two other men who wanted to marry her, one who lived in Indiana and had four flat- screen TVs, and one who lived in Florida and had three flat-screen TVs. Did I know how dear I was to her, that she was still interested in me even though I only had one TV?
Charlotte and I started meeting on Wednesdays for coffee at a place that served stale pastries and had too many free newspapers. Every so often I’d take Ray Jr. out of school for the morning and bring him along, just to remind Charlotte what a good dad I could be. Being a good single dad is better than having a pit bull puppy when it comes to attracting women. I made Ray drink his orange juice and study his spelling words. Charlotte said she was really going to miss me.
One day I got her to go with me to Hawthorne to shop for presents to give to the family who would be putting me up in Prague, before I had my own apartment.
“Who exactly are we shopping for?” she asked. We nosed around a crowded shop that sold expensive journals, massage oil, and funny greeting cards. The rain had started. The shop smelled like wet dog and patchouli.
“There’s a thirty-one-year-old living at home, a girl who loves stuffed animals.”
“Is she…” Charlotte looked at me, narrowed one eye a little like she does. I could feel my pulse in my forehead. She was going to ask me if there was something going on with this girl, if somehow I was going to Prague to see her. It was all over her face. Behind her a woman was trying to get at the wire card rack. I just looked at her.
I thought of Agnessa and her living room sparkler dance.
“It’s possible,” I said.
Charlotte picked out a hand lotion that smelled like apple pie and a stuffed panda.
I sent them to Agnessa, who loved the gifts. I loved Agnessa, for being so easy to please. I spent entire paychecks sending her shampoo, socks, Levi’s and one of those mesh bags girls stick their underwear in before it goes in the washing machine. I sent her some Happy too. Fuck Charlotte.
I gave notice on the apartment I was living in off Northeast Sandy. I told the landlady I was moving to Prague. Elaine was a chick with cats who worked in a bookstore and had a stack of books on Wicca beside her bed. She believed in the power of crystals and Match.com. I struck up an association with Elaine. It was an association of convenience. She was lonely. She liked helping me define just how evil Charlotte was, how slutty and duplicitous. Elaine volunteered to put a spell on Charlotte. I told her to stop; I wasn’t looking for a commitment. When I told Elaine I was moving to Prague she smirked, “Prague, Minnesota?”
“Uh, no,” I said.
“Where are you really going?”
“I got a new place on Southeast Ankeny, across from that yuppie wine bar.”
“Noble Rot, where wine is a meal.”
When Charlotte kicked me out she said I could take anything I wanted, so I did. The heavy stainless steel pots and pans we got as a wedding present. All the DVDs we’d watched together, and what the hell, the DVD player. The books she told people were her favorites. The flannel duvet cover with the roses. A black sweater that smelled of Happy, and a few pairs of her underpants, fished out of the dirty clothes hamper. Our wedding album, and from the freezer, the top layer of our wedding cake. It looked like a hat wrapped in waxed paper.
Elaine showed up on a Saturday afternoon to help me pack my stuff. She’d brought some empty boxes from the bookstore and started on the kitchen. The only things in the freezer were a few blue plastic ice cube trays, a pair of chilled beer glasses-a trick Charlotte taught me-and that damn frozen wedding cake. Elaine said I should toss it, didn’t know why I was holding onto it. I said, “I’m a good guy, I got a sentimental streak a mile wide, so sue me.”
Charlotte took me out for American food the day before I left. Before meeting her I had a sighting of Extreme the Clown’s art car, parked near the Starbucks on Burnside. The art car looks like a Mayan temple on wheels with hundreds of heads sculpted into the sides and a pyramid-altar thing rising from the roof. It’s well known that an art car sighting means good luck. I’m luckier than most people, but as I passed by I touched one of the open-mouthed heads on the trunk. The leaves on the maples were red and gold. I found myself wondering what the weather would be like in Prague, even though I wasn’t going to Prague.
Charlotte took me to Esparza’s. I’m sure she enjoyed the irony, bringing her ex to the same restaurant where she betrayed him with another, but I was having my own private last laugh-my new place was just across the parking lot. I could see into my new kitchen on the second floor. I could see my box of pots and pans sitting on the kitchen table.
I could be in R &D too. I could have my own secret projects.
After we ordered margaritas she pulled out a red suede pouch. Her hands shook as she unsnapped it. She pulled out her engagement ring, the one we’d bought together, the one she’d paid for, technically, since at the time I was between jobs. I’d said anything less than a single karat was hardly worth the effort and she’d agreed, and there it was and she was giving it to me, saying she wanted me to have it, to take it to Prague, to keep it in a safe place, and to think of her.
“I’m just really proud of you, taking this big step. I’m sorry we didn’t work out. I really am. But this is better. You’re going to really see the world.”
She cried. Her mascara ran. I made an old joke, about how she needed to get another brand of mascara, one that didn’t run every time she cried. Every T-shirt I owned had a smudgy black stain on the shoulder. I could have definitely gotten some that night, but there was nowhere to take her. My flight was leaving in the morning, and I’d told her that I was sleeping on Elaine’s fold-out couch. I liked to drop Elaine’s name now and then, just to make sure she was paying attention.
A week passed, then two. I went to work at the knob factory, where my job was quality control. I sat on a tall stool in a room with no windows, making sure our wall brackets had the right amount of screw holes. At night I drank Czechvar beer and played World of Warcraft and kept an eye on the parking lot of Esparza’s Tex-Mex to see if Charlotte and the film critic ever showed up.
I didn’t tell Agnessa I’d moved to Prague, though I did give her my new address and phone number at Southeast Ankeny. Agnessa was getting impatient. Her other suitors were starting to tug at her heart ropes. She was running out of Happy.
One cold night the server crashed and I couldn’t get back onto WoW, so I called up Agnessa and told her she should apply for a fiancee visa. What the hell. I’d spied Extremo the Clown’s art car again that day, parked in the lot at Wild Oats. Lucky me, and lucky Agnessa. I figured at least I could get her to Portland. Get her out of Chelyabinsk, where her family thought nothing of eating moldy bread spread with rancid butter. I liked this idea, saving Agnessa from her difficult life. A fiancee visa lasted for ninety days. I figured then I could decide whether to ship her back or not.
“Oh, Ray!” she breathed. “Thank you, I love you, thank you.”
“We’ll get the fiancee visa and then let’s give it a shot. Let’s send the engagement up the flagpole and see who salutes. Let’s take the idea of us out for a test drive.”
“Ray? Ray-I-uh-I…” I could hear her moist gasps of confusion.
“We’ll give it the ol’ college try,” I said.
Smoke and mirrors, smoke and mirrors. I admit I misled Agnessa, but she’d get over it. And I’m actually a good guy. To make things right I bought a black velvet box at Fred Meyer’s, and sent her Charlotte’s diamond, Federal Express. Agnessa called when she received the ring and wept. I should hope so. That ring cost Charlotte four grand. She sent me another sparkler video and some Russian chocolate. In the video, she showed off the ring and threw kisses into the camera.
