No Return

No Return

By

Allan Meza

She had to buy herself something for Christmas, nobody else would. But even when the clerk retrieved it from the glass case she had joked “No exchanges, no returns, enjoy your holiday season.”
Sandra was sick for six whole days, but sometimes the price you pay for joy requires sacrifice. Every morning she looked at it was like a prelude to an hour of vomiting over her stupidity.
Christmas was pretty cold that year, the winds were icy needles that cut through almost anything she wore. She didn’t have anything that could truly keep her warm except thoughts of being next to Bobby. In fact, that was the only time she did feel warm.
It occurred to her when there was an intimate moment between them that February that it was time for her to lose a little weight and perhaps entertain him visually as well as physically. But every night in the shower her body told her a different story, it told her that she would have to work twice as hard as everyone else in the gym.
There were women at the gym that didn’t come to lose weight, but came instead to gain a man. They giggled when she was on the treadmill, snickered when she did aerobics, and muffled their laughter when it was time to hit the showers.
Bobby had told her that she was a real woman, real women put meat on their bones. But he may as well have told her that he could fly as well, for she knew that the women he worked with looked nothing like she did. Oh she teased him from time to time about wanting some of the slinky, spaghetti strap wearing, high heeled girls that walked the showroom from where the cars were being sold. But Bobby had not really given any reason for Sandra to think such a thing would be on his mind, ever.
He often invited her to spend the day with him and see what was going on in his world; but Sandra didn’t dare embarrass him. She knew that there were three reasons why he loved her, and two she wouldn’t dare reveal in public. She was content knowing that they could spend a weekend together in his apartment without a care in the world. It was there that she learned how to make him happy; during the day and early evening it was through her cooking, in the evening he was quick to give classes on the things that would make for him a happy wife.
Sandra was not a large woman, but she was not a happy one either.
They made perfect lovers in the dark, they made the best of friends in daylight. Somewhere in between the two they had learned to avoid one another.
Bobby was never one to speak about family, only on rare occasion did he ever say that he thought about returning home. As Christmas was approaching the occasions became less and less rarer. In November he had come to the conclusion that he would head home for the holidays, but it was only after Sandra had announced that she had to take over Christmas Eve at the 911 call center she worked at. Someone had to be there, and as luck would have it, the lot fell on her.
She tried to make the days before Christmas as special as possible, trying all the things she could learn from the video tapes he left laying around the house, but she still couldn’t bear turning the lights on. She told him that after Christmas she would be ready, and to her surprise, Bobby agreed.


It was Christmas, and he would be home tonight, and tonight he would see what she worked so hard all year for. She would show him that long hours at the gym and ridicule that turned to awe was worth waiting for. Her Christmas bonus was enough to convince Gary to cover her shift. Her plan would work out, she hoped, because her plans almost never did.
The apartment was as they left it a week earlier, but after thirty minutes or so she had to get out of the heels and risk ruining her stockings. She couldn’t let him come home to a mess after all.
The footsteps were heavy on the staircase, and she almost blew the surprise for wanting to help her man bring his bags in, but instead she went to the kitchen. The candles were in place and she shuffled in her purse hoping that she could find her lighter before the door would crack open.
Bobby stepped in with Penelope Parker in tow. Sandra could tell it was Penelope because the only thing that stood out more than her chest was her nose in the moonlight. Sandra sucked anger through her teeth, and with eyes closed she could smell what was going on better than she could see it, she had shut off the breaker to make the candlelight mandatory, baby steps she thought would be better than nothing.
Penelope grinned as she leaned her rail thin body on Bobby. “Again?” she asked.
“I want to make sure we can make each other happy” he said.
“She won’t do it with the lights on?”
“I prefer she wouldn’t, wouldn’t you?”
The sound of their lips smacking and clothes unzipping had taken Sandra to the edge. The edge of sanity. The edge of all that was fair and unfair.
“Turn the light on, I want to show you something” whispered Penelope.
Sandra had found her lighter, she had also found her hairspray. She also found a cynical sense of humor.
“Did someone say light?” cackled Sandra.

Gary answered the phone.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“The girl has third degree burns on her scalp and face, oh, and my boyfriends going to need some “sensitive” surgery”.
“Hey Gary?”
“Gary?”
“Yeah….”
“Know anyone that needs a positive pregnancy test?”