One night stand
Desperate to restore a sense of normalcy to his life after the break-up, he’s willing to spend as much money as it takes.
She had left holes in his life, big gaping holes that tugged at the edges of things and unravelled them. Strings and strands of memory and emotion, drawn into a swirling vortex that gave nothing back. The spaces on the hallway wall, where happy eyes had been, stared disapprovingly at him when he came home of an evening, chill wind ushering him through the door and whipping his coattails around his legs so the wet fabric stuck to him and sent ice creeping under his skin to reach fingers to the marrow of his bones. He went to make pancakes, the watery morning sun seeping through the windows, shattered into rainbows by dewdrops clinging to the glass. But the good pancake pan was missing, and the spatulas were gone. They’d been hers, and then theirs, and now they weren’t his. In the end, the pancakes stuck to the pan and came away black and broken, and he tossed them into the bin, along with his old life.
The bedroom was the worst. Just aching, lonely spaces where she had been and gone, and everything was wrong. He kept forgetting, rolling over with one hand out and hitting only empty space where there had once been something.
He couldn’t cope.
His car purred into the parking lot, the exhaust clouding thickly in the freezing air and fogging the dull sky a darker shade of grey. It was mostly empty, thankfully, free of prying eyes to mark his desultory progress.
Brilliant light blinded him as he stepped inside, the interior starker and cleaner than he’d expected. For some reason he’d expected something else, maybe heavy on the perfume or some sort of kitschy velvet décor. But then again, it didn’t really make any difference to the reason he was there. He’d barely had time to take in the straight, smooth lines of the walls and the brisk, sharp eyed blonde lady behind the counter, when a young man, sharply dressed in a dark uniform with slicked back hair and thin, wire-rimmed glasses, hurried over to him, trailed by an air of obsequious helpfulness.
“Welcome, sir. How can I help you today?”
He could see his own face reflected in the young man’s glasses lenses, face drawn and pinched from lack of sleep, dark bags under his eyes. A man fallen far, desperate for some semblance of normalcy, stared at him from the reflection. Far enough that, despite his neat suit and the trappings of his salary, he was reduced to coming here.
“Um, hi. I’m looking for a… um… night stand.”
The helpful young man grinned up at him. “Of course, sir. Any you had in mind?”
He cast his mind back to the website, frantically trying to recall the unfamiliar name. His mouth seemed uncoupled from his brain, leaking semi-related words that described his target, yet didn’t help in any meaningful way. Blonde. Nice legs. Adjectives abounded, absolutely useless.
“Some Swedish name. I can’t pronounce it.”
“Not to worry, sir, very few people can. Give it your best shot.”
“Bejaw… Bejorkan… Kansas…”
“Björksnӓs, sir?”
Relief. An affirmative stumbled over his embarrassed lips, and he nodded.
“Right this way, sir.”
***
There was a spring in his step as he approached the front desk for the second time, having gotten everything he’d come for. A tiny band-aid patched over a larger problem, but still a step closer to a feeling of wholeness. One hole patched and filled, for a reasonable price, a short drive and a little bit of physical exertion.
“Did you get everything you needed, sir?”
“Sure did.” He slid the flat-packed nightstand over the counter, IKEA logo almost glowing under the glaring electric light, and considered a life where he once again had a place to put his reading glasses after he climbed into bed with a good book.
