Page 14 of The Cabin
But the mouthwash being put away…it sticks in my head as meaning something; I just can’t put my finger on what.
He smelled like mouthwash when he kissed my temple. I scented it, briefly, faintly.
And something else.
Sharp, sour.
“Nadia?” I hear him shout. “Water’s boiling. I’m gonna put the noodles in.”
I set it aside. Later, I’ll have time to puzzle over why he would lie about mouthwash.
But it sticks in my craw—whatever the hell that stupid phrase even means. What’s a craw, anyway? I consider Googling the origin and meaning of the phrase, but it slips my mind and the rest of the evening passes in easy conversation and watching a sci-fi thriller on Netflix and opening another bottle of wine and then I’m tipsy and we sleep together, this time just sleeping, and yet even as I drunkenly slumber, I dream of Adrian standing in front of me, and he’s just looking at me, and in the dream I NEED to ask him what he’s hiding, but my lips won’t work, my mouth won’t open, and he turns away in the dream and the opportunity to ask him is gone. And when I wake up with the sliver of silver moon hung in the window frame like a stray fingernail clipping, I can’t grasp the shape of the dream, only the fleeting emotional substance of it.Whisky & WomenI’m having trouble with my appetite. Just…not hungry. Nauseated. I’ve been warned that with pancreatic cancer, having symptoms at all is not a good sign. The early symptoms tend to be vague, more generalized and not immediately tagged as symptomatic of cancer. Thus the fact that I didn’t get mine diagnosed till it was already spreading, and fast.
It’s already beyond my pancreas, so surgery wasn’t an option even then, at the very beginning. Chemo isn’t going to cure it. Just extend my life. Make it suck less.
People have lived for years with it, and others have died within months of first detection.
I’m maudlin, today. Nadia is at work, and I’m feeling like shit. Since she’s gone, I let myself just wallow in the shittiness, a rarity for me. It sucks. It hurts. I don’t want it. It’s not fair. Wah-wah-wah. The river of bullshit from my weak mind and sensitive, artiste heart is sickening even to me. Fuck this.
I’m trying to force myself out of the funk when my phone rings. Oh, yay! A distraction.
“Hello?” I answer it on the third ring. Don’t want to seem too eager.
“Adrian, hey. This is Nathan Fischer.”
I blink. “Hey, bud. Long time no see, how are you?”
Nathan is a carpenter, real salt of the earth kinda guy. I met him on the set of Love, Me, for which I was a consultant and executive producer and he was a set construction foreman. We ended up spending a lot of time together during the filming, drinking whiskey in my trailer and talking about our mutual love of old Hollywood westerns. We still talk, every so often, still connect for drinks every few months. He sometimes gets contracted for jobs outside the Atlanta area—he’s been in Glasgow for the past four months, working on a shoot for a miniseries, a WWI piece, I think he said. He must just be getting back into town.
“Doing good, man, glad to be home.”
“You were in, what, Glasgow?”
“Mostly, yeah. It was a challenging set. Complicated and extensive. Looks good on the ol’ resume, though. The director is getting a lot of attention, so having worked on his set will do good things for me.”
“Good to hear it, happy for you.”
“How’s books?”
“How about we meet downtown for drinks and talk, huh? Usual spot?”
“Sounds good. See you in twenty?”
“For sure.” I end the call; get my wallet and keys and head out. I still feel like shit, and drinking is probably not a great idea considering liver failure is what tends to be the real killer behind pancreatic cancer, but fuck it. I’m gonna live while I’m still alive.
Nathan is good people, and I always enjoy getting to talk to him.
We meet up at our favorite bar in downtown Atlanta. He’s big, Nathan is. Six-four, and broad as a damn barn. Heavy shoulders, thick chest, thick arms. His hair is almost as dark as Nadia’s, but he has tinges of gray at the temples. Short but thick beard, also streaked here and there with silver. He’s the same age as me, forty-one. His hands always fascinate me—they’re gargantuan, almost double the size of my hands; when we shake, his grip is loose and easy, but it’s like shaking hands with a cinderblock.
He got here before me and ordered for us—we chose this bar as our haunt because they have a bewildering selection of whiskey and scotch and rye. He’s ordered an obscure scotch, something he discovered in the UK, I figure.
