"Staging A House" by Brandy Reinke
a short story
Minerva sits in her usual spot on the gray slate-tile floor, her back against the exposed brick wall on the west side of the kitchen, as Cole cooks dinner. Her left leg is bent, elbow on knee. She is between the white modern high-top table with the distressed leather barstools and the curio cabinet they filled with different types of succulents in clay pots that match the colors in the room. Cole hates that she calls it a curio cabinet. He calls it a corner shelf. But her mom used to call the one in her kitchen a curio cabinet. She’d say, “for curio-sities!” and Minerva would laugh. Minerva said it to Cole, repeating her mom’s joke, when they first looked at it in the store. He rolled his eyes at her but put his hand on her lower back after she said it, offered a little tilted smile. The same smile she noticed the first night they went out for drinks after meeting on an app and texting for three weeks.
Cole is standing behind the island with a black undermount farm sink. He likes the offset of black against the base of white of the quartz countertop that has marbling of gray and gold and black running throughout. Minerva thinks it’s too harsh, too stark, the black. She thought Cole should’ve chosen silver or white. She does love the shape of the sink, how it starts higher at the corner and the bottom slopes down towards the drain. She doesn’t have to use a dishrack with it. It’s the first home she’s ever been in where a dishrack isn’t up on the counter with one of those plastic trays underneath that end up making it gooey with mess around the edges no matter how much she cleaned. Or with a dish rack hidden in the sink making a two-bowl sink shrink to a one bowl. One-bowl sinks reminded her of the sink she had in the apartment she rented right out of college. That one-bowl sink broke the line of sight across the kitchen, piled high with dishes, if she didn’t hand-wash the dishes right away.
That’s what Minerva remembers about that apartment, the dishes, vodka, a handful of faceless men pulling their shirts on over their head -fast- before they reached the front door after leaving her bed. Minerva could see them leave from the way the bedroom sat. The apartment was advertised as a one-bedroom, but it was a studio with a half-wall. The wall created the illusion there was a separation between the rooms. The bed was on a dais, visible, so she pretended she was still sleeping when the men left.
Cole is slicing mushrooms and zucchini on the bamboo cutting board with the Zwilling knives his mom got him for Christmas when he finishes the story he’s been telling her for the last twenty minutes.
“The charges were dropped though. I knew they’d be. They searched my house, didn’t even get past that. She was never even in my house, which I told them as I stood there like an asshole and watched them go through my stuff. They took some of it and gave me a receipt, but all of it was trashed when I got it back. Had to buy a brand-new bedroom. Pissed me off. The whole thing was a lie. I never did what she said I did.”
The slate floor is rough and curved. The grittiness of the material slowly rises and falls but not enough to trip you the flooring guy assured them when Cole put it in last spring. It replaced the vinyl flooring that covered the entire first floor. The vinyl was nice, but the slate was so much better. That’s what they said after installation was complete: this is so much better! They had to wear socks and slippers around the house, so their feet didn’t get cold or scratched from the tile. They were not wrong, though. It looked so much better than the vinyl, just felt worse.
Minerva runs her right hand over the floor softly, following the bumps. Drex lays his front paws across her left foot, his giant head propped up against her calf. Drex for Drexler, of course, Cole told her that the first time she met Drex, when she kept saying, Dex. Cole corrected her, but not mean. Her face turned red with embarrassment after he said it. Minerva would practice when she was on her own saying Drex, slowly, so she made sure it was right. She made sure she and the dog were buddies. That was important to Cole, that the dog liked her, so it was important to her, too.
She pets his head, drifting the tips of her fingers across it. Minerva likes the silkiness of the dog’s head underneath one of her hands against the roughness of the floor underneath the other. She is glad the dog is there, anchoring her, after Cole tells her this story. The first thing that pops into her head when Cole pauses is Queen Latifah saying: What would the world be with no men? A world with fat, happy women, and no crime.
“I appreciate you telling me, trusting me with this,” Minerva says to Cole, comforted that her voice comes out even and low. Her voice is much louder in her head.
“No problem, baby. I was thinking about how we’ve talked about you moving in lately. Seemed like a good time. I wanted you to hear it from me. In case you heard about it from someone or if you Google me.”
He laughs when he says Google me, looks up and smiles at her, the knife paused in mid-air. On their first date they joked about Googling each other. Minerva told him she hadn’t looked him up. She hadn’t, but her best friend did it for her. Cole said he hadn’t either, which he later admitted he did. It’s been an inside joke ever since. Google me, one of them will say and they both will laugh. They share a smile before Cole looks down and starts chopping again. She continues to pet the dog, covering the way her hand has started to tremble.
“It was terrible, that time. I was so paranoid for so long after it happened. Until I met you, really.” Cole says as he turns and scrapes the vegetables into the wok on the counter under the microwave.
They got a discount on the wok after they took a cooking course when they’d been dating for six months. They debated if they should both use the discount, each get a wok. But then we’ll have two, Cole said. Minerva was okay having two, one at her place, one at his, and figuring it out in the future. Cole was adamant they didn’t need two. We can share. So now they did, they shared the wok.
The oil pops and hisses. The smell of frying food fills the air. She is grateful Cole has stopped talking. Minerva needs a minute to digest his story before they sit down to dinner, before she can respond to him. She tries to listen to her gut, to her instincts, but doesn’t hear anything. She wills her heart to slow down, counts her breaths until it does. She needs to take a second and think. She can’t think with her heart pounding this hard.
Minerva runs her hands over the rough part of the tile again, scooches her butt left and right. She knows she can’t get comfortable now. She doesn’t know why she’s even trying. When she shifts her left leg straight, Drex lays his head across both of her thighs and the weight presses them down into the floor. She can feel where the floor is uneven in a way she can’t normally see. Even though the floor guy said they wouldn’t trip, she’s tripped a few times, from the one piece of tile outside the guest bath she uses in the morning.
Minerva doesn’t like to use the bathroom at Cole’s house, even though she stays at his house at least five nights a week now. Using his bathroom feels real in a way, couple-y in a way, she’s not comfortable with yet. Sometimes she can’t help it though. The drinking, the fucking they get up to on Friday nights, make it impossible to wait or plan. She’s made peace with it, kind of. She bought some spray and stashed it on the back of the free-standing cart they put in because there was no shelving around the pedestal sink she had to have when Cole remodeled the bathroom. Minerva stands by the decision on the pedestal sink. A larger sink with cupboards would have been too big. It would have ruined the room.
She put the spray in the back behind the toilet paper that she stacked three-by-three, that she refills religiously, so the cart will look exactly right. She angled her head side-to-side and leaned up and down to make sure no one could see the spray nozzle sticking up in the back when she first put it there. Minerva knows Cole knows it’s there because she’s smelled the spray a few times when she’s used the bathroom but hasn’t been at the house during the day. They just don’t talk about it and that’s fine with Minerva. She doesn’t want to know. What Cole shared, what he trusted her with, is now laid down between them, it can’t be hidden anywhere. There is no spray for this. Minerva bends forward and puts her mouth in between the dog’s eyebrows, hands under his ears, and hides the tears filling her eyes, the little quiver in her chin. Acts normal.
Minerva was thoughtful when she first clicked on Cole’s profile. She spent a year getting healed, taking classes, going to therapy. Long before Cole, she broke her streak of men leaving her apartment in the middle of the night. She broke her streak of the pleasure the men brought during their visits and the inkling of shame she felt after they were gone. Just an inkling. Not enough shame to stop, but enough to leave a mark on her days after they left. The days after were always a little faded. It took her time to figure that out, to make the connection.
Minerva makes sure Cole doesn’t know the real number of those other men. He doesn’t know when she stacks up two of his extra-large down pillows behind him and says lean back and close your eyes. Kneels between his legs on the faux-mink blanket they artfully curve across the bottom of the bed when they make it in the morning or fold in half, then in thirds, and store in the leather cubes that sit at the end of the bed that took three hours one Saturday afternoon to decide on. They chose the cubes for when it’s too hot to keep the blanket on the bed but mostly for how they looked, mirroring the design of the headboard.
Although Cole has never asked, her rule is to stop the list of names of the other men at the number ten. She recycles the names in her head, moving one to the top, dropping one off the bottom, here and there, until she hits ten. It seems reasonable, like she’s been in some relationships, like she’s had some care. It would explain to Cole why she knows how she knows some of the tricks she does in bed. Like she spent a lot of time learning one guy. The truth is she spent a lot of time learning a lot of guys, but Cole doesn’t need to know that. He doesn’t want to know it’s more than ten; she’s certain of that. There are so many things he will never know about her. So many things she wishes she didn’t know about him.
Minerva likes the feeling of the faux-mink on her knees, on her thighs, on her elbows when she leans forward and does the thing she does with her tongue that Cole likes. The thing he likes so much he pretends not to see who she may be. The thing she does to forget who she used to be, even though a tiny part of her misses that girl. That girl who mistook recklessness for boldness, until she learned too late, the hard way, that it’s not. She likes remembering that girl though. She likes bringing her back for Cole but only for him.
One afternoon Minerva anchored two ring bolts low behind the headboard posts. While Cole was out watching football at the bar with friends, she went to Michael’s and bought craft bunting because it doesn’t leave a mark on wrists. Minerva told Cole she read about it online, was curious. She winked after she said it. She got the idea from a friend, she said. One of her wild friends she tells him about. He doesn’t know she’s, in fact, the wild friend. The first time they tried out the rings and the bunting, when she was lying there after, her cheek on his stomach, tracing a small pattern across his thigh with her fingernail, Cole said, thank your friend, and she blushed. He saw her blush underneath the piece of hair he was playing with near her cheek and laughed a low laugh. She assumed Cole thought she was embarrassed that she acted out a fantasy for him. She was, just not the way he thought.
So many things we do and are doing are not the way we thought, Cole. She wants to say this as he stirs the vegetables, adds organic, free-range chicken to the mix. The smell makes her gag a bit. This will change things, she thinks, and digs her shoulder blades back into the brick wall. Does it change things though? Just a whisper in the back of her head. But that whisper is loud because Minerva can’t forget they both are happy. That’s the real problem. Minerva and Cole are happy. Once a month, they get wine from Brazil and imported pasta from World Market and make it over the gas stove with the iron cooktop she loves. Gas cooks so much better! They say to each other and test the pasta. Minerva nods along when they say this but honestly, she can’t tell the difference between this stove’s food and the electric stoves she’s used over the years. The stoves with tinfoil underneath the pans that are underneath the burners. Her pasta doesn’t taste different but man, that stove is beautiful.
Minerva can see the stove now, just out of the corner of the eye. The knobs over-large, beautifully symmetrical. The black-on-black Cole insisted on. Still black, not silver, so he doesn’t look like everyone else. The inlaid gold of the countertop is reflected by the pulls they bought one morning at Lowe’s. Long rectangle pulls in a gold so muted it’s almost bronze. When they found them, Minerva told Cole she wasn’t sure they would match. She said it against his mouth, followed by a soft kiss. He told her he was in love with her that same morning right after they woke up. He said it first. They kissed at random times during the day after he said it, his hand flexing on her waist, keeping her close. They were caught in each other’s eyes. Minerva hadn’t said it back that day, but it was in the air between them. Joyful, those pulls.
She was pleasantly surprised to be wrong about the pulls matching. She didn’t tell Cole she was wrong, instead she bought him a standing vase for the living room in the same color as the pulls. It curves up like a wave towards the 20-foot ceiling. She added long bamboo shoots for drama. Gave it to him as a present because she knew it was exactly right for the space, for them.
Minerva rubs Drex’s ears again, turns and rests her cheek against his forehead, stares at the vase in the corner. The color of the vase complements the leather couch Cole bought. Cole didn’t mention the new couch before she walked in and saw it after she had been out of town for work for a week. When she said it looks nice with the vase, Cole said, oh I didn’t even notice. He hadn’t remembered the vase when he bought the couch. She stomped around the house the rest of the night, thinking about the way he doesn’t notice things that are important. How he just does what he wants when he wants, regardless of what is going on in the room around him. Minerva mumbled to herself when she was getting ready for bed about him not noticing anything else, what anyone else wants, when she saw him turn on the lamp on his nightstand. He bought the woven beige lampshade because it was supposed to arc the light down and away, for when he stayed up reading and she wanted to sleep. Cole heard her mumbling under her breath and said, what? She said nothing and kissed him, turned over, pretended to go to sleep. Minerva was still awake, picturing the couch downstairs, picturing Cole picking it without giving the vase a second thought, when Cole turned off the light and said goodnight. She didn’t respond. She didn’t sleep the whole night.
For those first few weeks, Minerva couldn’t let the couch go. She told Cole she hated that she slid around on it, that it was so cold under her skin, then hot and sticky on the backs of her legs the longer she sat. The final straw was that the back was too straight, so she couldn’t even sink in and relax. She yelled that at him and threw a pillow that bounced off his chest. Cole laughed, grabbed her, and kissed the spot on her neck next to her collarbone. Against her best judgment, they broke in the couch right there in the middle of her fight. Cole pointed out the couch worked for some things. She left it alone after that.
Over time, she found the couch worked best for eating. She sat forward, pushed from the too-straight back, with her plate on the low coffee table, her spine curved to eat dinner, next to Cole doing the same thing. They got used to eating there, using the kitchen table only on rare occasions. The couch suddenly worked in a way she could not have anticipated. Rather like them, she thought, at the time.
*
She follows the line of the couch from her spot on the floor, enjoying the precise edge of the back of it against the square of the living room window, the curve of the vase, the bamboo arching up, how the high ceilings all reflect together in the glow of the setting sun. How they create such cohesive shadows and shapes that anyone seeing it would want to live in this room. How she wants to live in this room, even now.
Minerva doesn’t speak when Cole says, “It’s ready,” and starts to plate her dinner. She gets up, shakes out her legs, and heads toward the couch, waiting to be fed again, in just this way, by Cole.
About the author:
Brandy Reinke is an author living in Phoenix, Arizona. She has published pieces in: The Redrock Review, Esthetic Apostle, Tulane Review, Big Muddy Review, Microfiction Monday Magazine, Moonstone Arts, HCE Review, Glassworks, and Midway Journal. She was a finalist in Alternating Current Press’ 2024 Luminaire Poetry Award, awarded an Honorable Mention in short -fiction in Glimmer Train’s final publication, as well as had a piece short-listed in the Fish Anthology. Her novel was short-listed as a finalist for Unleash Press’ Inaugural 2022 Book Prize.