Norman was a talker, which meant
that Anita, for the most part, was a listener and, by extension, an
observer; such as when Norman worked himself into a lather about
digital billboards—their pervasiveness and invasiveness and
wastefulness (energy-wise) and danger (driver-wise) and overall
awfulness-all of which Anita agreed with but didn't want to listen to
again at high volume as they waited out a red light at the intersection
of Barrington and Olympic, so instead she focused on the tiny globes
(or would it be globules, she wondered?) of saliva that launched from
her husband's mouth like micro-cannonballs and were briefly lit by the
low sun before exploding against the dashboard, the steering wheel, and
the back of her left hand that rested on Norman's right thigh and
registered the subtle contractions of his quadriceps with each guttural
sound he produced, leading her to wonder at the delicate web of cause
and effect created by the digital billboard, Norman's reaction to it,
her desire to calm him (thus her hand on his thigh), the tiny rain of
saliva on the back of her hand and the memory it summoned: of waking on
a beach on the other side of the world, decades earlier, her face wet
with dew and Norman's face nosed up to hers, his breathing deep and
vulnerable and his mouth quiet, even when he woke and smiled against
her cheek and pulled on the belt loops of her jeans so that they were
hip-to-hip, choosing instead of words a long, sour-tasting kiss that
sweetened as it lasted and was powerful enough to make Anita's mouth
water, all those years later, as she waited for the light to change and
listened to Norman spew his anger into the afternoon; therefore,
instead of slapping him (and she had to admit, if only to herself, that
she itched to strike him, to startle him into one blessed moment of
quiet), instead she slowly lifted her hand—the one on which a fine
spray of Norman's spittle had dried-and stroked the back of her fingers
against his lined cheek, which caused him, if not to become silent, at
least to speak more gently and to lean his large weary head against her
hand and say, "Blah, blah, blah...anyway, despite the state of the
world, I love you," leaving Anita with the thought, just before the
light turned green and they moved forward, that some day, decades
hence, she might remember this moment in their stale car at an ugly
intersection with the same vivid sense-memory that she recalled the
sour-apple kiss on the beach in Java and, if that were the case—if
minor magic could occur on
a Thursday afternoon in rush hour traffic—then how could she not want
more of the noisy, complicated, passionate life she had
chosen with Norman, and which, as she opened the passenger door window
to catch a breeze, she chose, quietly, once again.