Soap Cure
I am well-equipped for the task ahead of me. I like to wear those silly pink latex gloves with sparkly fur trim even though I know that extra frills like those really won’t help me conquer the piles of dishes that had appeared on the fake marble counter top the night before.
I say “appeared” as if I had no idea what had caused the influx of mess. But really, I have no one to blame but myself. It was my idea.
Last night, Barry and I threw a dinner party with four of our mutual friends from work. Altogether, the six of us formed a group of perfect couples. Or rather, we sat at the rectangular table, Barry and myself sitting on opposite ends, with smiles plastered across our faces pretending we were perfect couples. We drank cocktails and discussed irrelevant politics while smoothing over the details to hide our ignorance about the subject. It always works for me, and it worked last night too. Barry didn’t say much because he didn’t want to have the party and was cross with me.
Even so, we smiled brightly, because we had been using whitening strips. They worked wonders since we had ignored the television set’s warnings about the deterioration of teeth enamel. (We aren’t supposed to believe everything we see on television, remember? We can pick and choose what we want to see and hear with so many channels at our disposal.)
The party went smoothly until Glenda, with her hair swooped on top of her head and secured with an artificial bird barrette, spilt her fifth cocktail on her date Elmer’s brand new suit. His happy-happy smile disappeared and a frown took its place even though she quickly stood up to wipe the spill with her napkin. Elmer rose too and surprised everyone in the room by lifting his plate from the table and pushing his leftover food off the porcelain surface and onto her taffeta dress. Glenda felt the need to retaliate so she took the plate from his hands to send it crashing across the room. Dylan and Abbie, who are the most boring people I know, didn’t say anything and sipped their drinks, watching the display with mild interest.
“What is a few broken dishes among friends?” Barry said with an awkward laugh.
I gave Barry a disapproving look and he stared back at me. “Their coats, Barry?” I said, irritated, and he finally took my cue and grabbed the guests’ items from the hall closest. I waved our company out the door and locked it once they all had left.
“Your friends are crazy,” I told him before we went upstairs to bed last night, and he grumbled that they were my friends too.
In reality, those four aren’t really friends at all, but we feel social obligation to host each other periodically to maintain ties. As I watch the basin of the double sink fill with suds and adjust my gloves, Barry appears behind me and says, “Thanks for not throwing a dish at me so far.”
“At least she missed,” I say, and smile. “I’ve got much better aim so it would be more dangerous for you.” I scrub at a dish that hadn’t been rinsed the night before due to the chaos. I’m a little happy that one dish was broken so I have one less to cleanse of rock-hard food debris.
Barry turns on the tap and fills the second sink with soapy water. “Pass me one,” he says, and I give him an equally tough dish. He scrubs alongside me without the benefit of pink fluffy gloves.
“Sometimes I get exasperated and want to give up on this,” I admit. It’s true, relationships stress me out.
“Yeah, dishes are tough. It’d almost be easier to buy a new set,” he says. “But I like this dish set, even if most of the plates have gotten chipped over the years. We all have our problems.”
I pull my right hand out of the sink and grab his left, pink glove and all. “I’m glad you feel that way.”
“Hey, your hands are all soapy!” he protests.
“So are yours!” I say. We stand in front of the double sinks, an equal share of space for both of us, and watch bubbles dissolve as soapy water drips onto the floor from our interlocked hands of skin and plastic. We don’t mind at all.