Things Withered Read Free

me like scandal. I had lately developed a wattle that horrified me. My pants had long ago reached sizes that I previously hadn’t known were available without a prescription, and I was perpetually cheating on some diet or other. These days it was the soup diet. I was eating only soup, and peeing like an infant. Poor Kevin had taken to eating his big meal at his office, and I tried not to feel bitter when he came home smelling of Bolognese or BBQ. He was gracious over dinners of chicken soup, vegetable soup, onion soup (no cheese or croutons, just onions, sadly).
    Over the last two years, as the weight gathered, I had taken to the fat lady’s diversion of overdone nails and over-processed hair. Recently I’d dyed my hair a luscious red, suitable, the stylist assured me, to my fair complexion, which was a nice way of saying “doughy.” The hair might have been a tragic error on my part. It was
very
red and in my worst late-night moments, I felt sure it was clownish.
    But you can’t overthink these things. I am fifty-six years old and I’ve spent a lifetime trying to compete with prettier girls, slimmer girls, girls who sparkled. It wasn’t happening.
    “Sparkle,” was our team leader’s favourite expression and he could work it into any circumstance. Apartments and buildings had to have “sparkle.” So did ads, addresses, sell-sheets, and most importantly, realtors. His favourite usage was,
you might want to try some sparkle.
The first time he said it, I had misheard it as “spackle.” Funny now.
    Richard Maynard. Oh, how I hated him.
    At the end of the meeting, Himself asked me to stay behind, like grade school.
    “Anita,” he said, “Can I have a word?”
    I had a feeling the word would not be
sparkle.
So while everyone else filed out, without even the decency to shoot me a sympathetic side-eye, I stayed plunked in my seat at the far end of the boardroom from Richard.
    “Of course,” I said. I pasted a smile on my face, even though my gut was turning. It was never good, this kind of staying behind.
    It started bad, and got worse. “One sale does not a career sparkle, Anita,” he said.
    That would be me.
    I had been having trouble sleeping lately. It seemed that I would drop into bed, dead on my feet, and crash into something deep and settling, only to wake up three hours later to stare at the ceiling for what seemed like hours before I fell asleep again. That was where I was at when I got the phone call.
    Kevin was beside me, lightly snoring, probably dreaming of pork roast and gravy, because by then I was on Weight Watchers and actually doing quite well. I had lost about four pounds over two months, and that was the best I’d done in years. It wasn’t my weight that was keeping me up at all, but rather a desire to
sparkle
and bring up my numbers before the end of the quarter. I’d been warned by Richard and while it wasn’t yet at the dire point, I was likely within spitting distance.
    The phone rang. I was awake, but I couldn’t help but feel dread. I looked immediately at the clock. It was after 3 A.M.
    Kevin rolled over, eyes opened. He looked at me without speaking. When you get to a certain age, phone calls in the middle of the night never mean anything good. He took my hand.
    “Hello?” I said. First there was nothing and then a little static. “Hello?”
    I realized it wasn’t static at all, but crying.
    “Anita? It’s Myrna Crane. I’m sorry to call but—” her voice broke with another deep sob.
    “What is it?” Kevin sat up beside me, alarmed. I shook my head at him and covered the mouthpiece. I tried mouthing “Myrna Crane,” but eventually, I just shook him off with a wave.
Nothing.
    “It’s Barney Kloss, on eight—he’s dead!”
    “Barney?! Oh Myrna . . . what happened?” With that, Kevin groaned and fell back to the bed with a grand sigh. He shook his head and turned over onto his side.
    “He fell down the back stairs today—he’s been trying to get
fit
for