Vincent Scarpa is pursuing his BFA in Writing, Literature, and Publishing from Emerson College. His original play, “Hostage,” was put on by Quiet Hours Theater in Boston in the Spring of 2010. He has also participated in the Young Writers Workshop at Bard College and as a reader in the Literary Firsts reading series based in Cambridge, MA. His fiction and poetry have appeared or are forthcoming in Monkeybicycle, The Battered Suitcase, The Emerson Review, apt, Girls With Insurance, and other journals. His debut collection of short stories is available at www.vincentscarpa.com. 

Two Stories (February 20, 2011. Issue 25.)

It Will Be Easy to Leave

She won’t let go of what the man at the convenience store said when she asked for directions to the theater. Walking or driving? is what he said. She’s sitting next to you in the car and won’t stop about it. What’s the fucking difference? is what she says. What a fucking idiot. You will be tempted to forsake the lessons you’ve learned in dating her—let her win, you have learned—and say that there is indeed a difference. That there are one-way streets and also highways which do make directions different depending on method of travel. It’s four miles from here. Who would walk that far? she asks. You don’t respond so she answers herself. Poor people, that’s who. He thought I was poor. Going to the theater, and also poor. She’s still at it as you turn into the parking garage, and you feel mean words form on the tip of your tongue. They taste like candy. The parking attendant waves you into a spot right by the exit. At least it will be easy to leave, you think.

Your seats will be front and center. The theater will be gorgeous. The band will play your favorite song, the one you had hoped they would play, and also come out for two encores. The next day the paper will call the lead singer a revelation; a performer’s performer. But you won’t notice these things. You will be busy thinking that you hate her, the woman you’re with. You hate her just a little bit.

I Just Die

Eric wants to know what I think of the house.

“I just die for those hardwood floors,” he says, before I get the chance to answer. I tell him that I’d never be able to live across the street from a cemetery and that I hate it when he talks like that.

“Like what?” he says, “When I talk like what?”

“I just die for those hardwood floors. It makes you sound—”

Because he likes to avoid confrontation, and probably because he knows I’m right about what I would’ve said, he points to the cemetery and says, “How many people are dead in there, you think?” I don’t respond. “All of them,” he says. “It’s a joke.”

“I don’t like her either,” I say, meaning the realtor. “She looks like the boy from Mask.”

“Rocky Dennis?”

“Yes. You picked Rocky Dennis to be our realtor.” I take out a cigarette, but it’s too windy to light it.

“Her name is Tammy,” Eric says, “and I think she’s quite nice.”

“You would. She’s eccentric.”

Eccentric is the word my mother uses to describe Eric. What she means—what everyone means—is gay. He’s an actor, and recently auditioned for the part of Stanley in A Streetcar Named Desire at The Putnam. When Eric asked the director why he didn’t get the part, the director said he “couldn’t put his finger on it.”

“You’re in a mood today,” Eric says. “Maybe you’ll like the next one.” Eric sits one step below me on the porch of the house we will not be buying as Rocky Dennis takes a phone call.

“We need to be done by four,” I remind him. “Your appointment is at four.”

“I know that, Beth.” Eric is embarrassed by therapy.

“Are you going to talk about our sex issue?” I ask, still failing to light the cigarette in the wind.

“That’s private,” he says. “And you should quit with that.”

“Smoking or pestering?” I ask.

“Both,” he says.

I would tell you the last time Eric and I had sex if I could remember it. It’s been months now. I am praying for the day that he will just come out with it already and save us the paperwork. The wedding is in June, and every day we get closer to not canceling it. But Eric is persistent. He’s the one who proposed, and also the one who called the realtor. I am just along for the ride.

Tammy comes outside and can already tell we’re not interested. “It’s the cemetery, isn’t it?”

Eric tells her that he did love the hardwood floors, and Tammy tells him they were imported from forests in Brazil. She looks to me. “You’ll love the next one. No cemeteries.”

“Great!” I say, wondering what it is I’ll have to pretend to hate about the next one. Because guess what? I loved those hardwood floors too, and cemeteries don’t creep me out a bit. Eric is the problem.