Love During Oyster Season

"What made you pick this derelict? Charlie's furious."

"He's perfect for her," Mark stated emphatically. His wife looked at him curiously. A piece of the puzzle was missing. It was beginning to be a habit. Then a curious thing happened. Charlie grabbed Mark's sleeve and marched him away to the railing, her hand firmly holding his arm, rather like a mother with a child, leaving Deandra with Bob. Deandra turned her head to Bob for polite conversation and immediately picked up the respectful deference Mark's friends always gave her as the wife, Mark's wife. It was one shred of privilege left she decided she no longer wanted. The awe bored her. What was so special about Mark anymore? She looked up from her drink to Mark and Charlie down the aisle as they engaged in an intense discussion, Charlie stabbing her finger into his chest angrily. Suddenly Deandra was fascinated. They looked like they were married, unhappily married, having an argument in public. How odd. Deandra never treated Mark like that, not even in the privacy of their own home, let alone in a public place, and Mark just stood there like a bad little boy who deserved to be treated this way. A sudden realization came over her that an intimacy existed between those two that excluded her completely. She glanced back at Bob. Did he see it? He shrugged his shoulders and walked off to the bar. Deandra turned back to watch the argument. Charlie was going at him full steam. By this time several other people had noticed the little scene, too. Mark and Charlie were oblivious, lost in their own communication, with Charlie holding all the cards. What power did she have over him, Deandra wondered. Mark took nothing from his wife. He dished it out. The criticism, the hostility, the abuse. And Deandra took it. And waited for him to leave so she could have some peace again. In the loneliness of that moment in Harry's Cafe Deandra had to admit that once again she found herself forced into the role of observer in her own life. Suddenly she felt very old.

Eventually Mark and Charlie walked back over to her table where she sat patiently waiting, her feelings safely locked in a little box. Bob had set up camp at the far end of the bar and was getting very polluted. Charlie's anger spilled out all over with tears and intensity. The arrival of the Midnight Hour did no good. Amidst loud whooping and horn blowing, Deandra asked her husband to take her home.

"Mark," she said privately in his ear. "Let's go. The weather is awful. It might be a problem getting home."

Mark nodded his head in relief. He definitely like that idea. Charlie did not. She leaped away from the table with great drama and started to charge across the floor bumping into someone grabbing onto his arm to catch her balance. When she got as far as the door she reeled back around and stomped off to the right, circling the perimeter of the floor. Deandra was again fascinated. Charlie was completely out of control creating a huge scene charging back over towards them crying out these stifled "no's" and grabbing Mark's jacket.

"We're leaving now," Mark said as he shook off her hand.

"Charlie, I'm really tired. This is late for me," Deandra tried to sooth the moment. It did no good. Charlie raced ahead to the door and barged out into the stormy night weeping and crying, turning dramatically into the street careening recklessly in front of a cab as she stomped off down the middle of the street in the wrong direction from her building.

"Let's get out of here," Mark growled, charging ahead of Deandra east on Bellevue towards Michigan Avenue. "We'll find a cab over there. It's hopeless here."

"Wait," Deandra cried after him. "You're going too fast."

He slowed for her urging her forward with great haste. She started to cry with her misery. The sleet cut into her face wickedly, and her feet were completely soaked and frozen from the icy slush pools. It was a frightening walk to the Drive. At least she had on a heavy down jacket and a wool hat. Mark was wearing only a light weight flannel-lined denim jacket, no hat, no gloves, no boots. This was no joke, an ice storm on the shores of Lake Michigan in the middle of the winter. Chicago could be a brutal city.

The storm had brought almost all traffic to a standstill that night. Few cabs, all occupied, sped by. The icy wind whipped at their faces numbing them with cold. Their feet had long since lost all warmth, soaking wet from tramping through the wet crusty snow that banked up against the curbs leaving soupy pools of ice water to trod through. Mark led her south past Mark Shale until they ducked into the shelter of the Continental Hotel's Michigan Avenue entrance. No bus came. Mark went into the lobby to rent a room. No luck. They waited in the building entrance, grateful for shelter from the storm. As time passed, more people straggled in chilled and frightened huddling in corners facing the street whose lights illuminated the streaks of sleet that whipped down at the pavement. A terrible battle was being waged up in the heavens. This was the fallout from an enormous angry confrontation among the spirit creatures.

Two hours passed from the time they had left the bar on Rush Street, the memories of Charlie's dramatic exit still haunting those two, each for a different reason and now a bus was finally lumbering up the Avenue packed with late night revelers who also had been unable to land a cab. Mark had tried to stop two empty cabs, banging on the window, his hair dripping wet, face red with the cold. He's beautiful, she thought, thinking back to the same red cold face carrying a Christmas tree up the back steps in the middle of a snow storm the first year they were married. Each time the cab driver angrily pulled away. Not enough fares.

"I'll pay you anything," Mark screamed beating his fist on the car roof. She knew he had $50 left. The driver would have been well rewarded. Mark had always been a big tipper, but here they were, two hours later, standing on the frozen windy Avenue hailing a bus. Others in the same predicament scurried out of the side lobby greedily racing for the already packed bus. The huge chariot pulled to a stop. The front door appeared hopelessly packed with bodies, so Deandra and Mark hurried to the rear exit door along with several others who shoved their way on. But Mark was holding back. He floated towards the front door. Why wasn't he getting on? Surely he could find some room. The driver wouldn't leave anyone behind on a night like this. Deandra leaned out the back door and yelled at him: