When I came back, Bonnie had put a twenty-dollar tip under the vase, so I gave her a ten
without comment and pulled out the chair for her. The short drive back was quiet but not
awkward for me because everything that could be said was out there. No secrets, no angst.
Nothing left, really.
Getting out of her car in the driveway, I declined her offer of a decaf coffee because I had a
legitimate job in the morning. “A bird guy is speaking about fences screwing up the migratory
crawl of bugs which screws up the food supply,” I said.
“Ornithologist,” Bonnie said as I straddled and started my 550cc machine.
“You just can’t help it, can you?”
”It seems that neither of us can,” she said, ending our confrontation scene.
Chapter 40
Lying restlessly on my futon, the evening’s conversation circled annoyingly around my
mind until a cascading mixture of ire and helplessness modelled a revelation framed in
humiliation. I so deeply resented Bonnie’s deceptions that I had no interest in continuing a
relationship in any form. In spite of inexplicable events apparently ‘stalking’ me, as Bonnie
described it, I simply didn't have an act of faith left in me, and within the freedom of again
having no expectations in life, I rolled over and fell into a deep sleep.
Around half past three, I awakened from a dream that was lost as soon as I realized I was
dreaming, but it left behind a mental itch I could not scratch. I passed time by rehearsing how I
was going to tell Bonnie I was finished without creating a scene; her efforts and my experiences
made it almost impossible for me to just run.
The alarm went off while I was staring at it.
I showered then met Matt and a local producer, who did the interview with the bird guy,
after which we walked around the park taking generic cover footage because there were no bugs
of this particularly sensitive species to be found. My day was over in three hours, so I picked up
a couple bottles of wine on the way home, jogged, showered again, and called Bonnie. She said
she was parched. Twenty minutes later, I led her to commenting on her client’s interests, to open
the door through which I intended to make my escape.
“I’m not surprised that she didn’t accept what you said,” I commented. ”My world still
makes more sense to me, the contradictions you’ve chipped away at notwithstanding.”
“Chipped away?” Bonnie exclaimed as if I had plugged her finger into a 220V outlet. “I've
blasted all reason out of them, but you won't let go!”
“Actually, I have thought about…”
“Do you ever wonder what it would be like to just write? Where would you go if you could
do that?”
“Some place warm, I guess. I’ve thought about…”
“There wouldn’t be any guessing about it for me.”
Exuberantly, Bonnie filled out her fantasy before apologizing for monopolizing our time,
then she asked me about my ideal living conditions in excruciating detail, thereby monopolizing
our time.
We explored another wish, and then another, until the afternoon became an evening that
passed in a gentle blur until my body called it quits around ten. I was home in bed by a quarter to
eleven and asleep soon afterwards, only to again awaken with the feeling there was something I
