A Serious Discussion

Cheryl and I did this thing where she’d hand me a beverage that she’d prepared, I’d take a big drink, and then, a few seconds later, she’d cock a carefully plucked brow and say something along the lines of “Something tells me you won’t be filing that report after all” or “I agree…I think one of us will get that promotion” or “Of course, the project will be delayed a day or two on account of the funeral.”

I’d smile a wan, confused smile and then begin to cough. As my coughing intensified, I’d clutch my throat, eyes wide and bright as doorknobs. I’d reach out for her, stumble, fall to the floor, retch and retch and retch, spasm uncontrollably for a few seconds, and then finally go still.

Then I’d spring to my feet and we’d take a theatrical bow. We’d do this even if we were the only ones in the house. But on this most recent occasion, we were at Tom and Martha’s. Tom and Martha were realtors. They’d helped us find our home when we moved to Elmwood five years ago. We didn’t spend much time with them, but they had always seemed like nice people.

“Bravo,” Tom said, clapping as I got to my feet. “It’s as if you were really choking on your own vomit.”

“Thank you,” I said.

Cheryl and I bowed. We started to walk away from one another and then returned to our previous spot, pretending that the audience’s rapturous applause had drawn us back to center stage. We bowed again and again.

Cheryl and I picked up our drinks and moved closer to Tom and Martha. We all laughed and sipped our drinks and laughed some more and nibbled on the lovely hors d’oeuvres that Tom and Martha had laid out on the dining room table. It was a moment tinged with social awkwardness but pregnant with possibility. From here, the night could go anywhere.

Finally, Martha looked at Cheryl and said, “It would be so easy, wouldn’t it?”

“What?” Cheryl said.

“Killing our husbands,” Martha said.

Tom chuckled.

“She jokes about this all the time,” Tom said.

“I’m not joking,” Martha said. She pointed to her own face. “Does it look like I’m joking?”

“She’s always saying she’s going to kill me,” Tom said. “In the morning. In the afternoon. At night. She says it in bed all the time. Right before I fall asleep, she’ll whisper in my ear, ‘Tonight will be the night, you fucking asshole.’”

“One of these nights, it will be,” Martha said.

“I’ll be ready.”

“Oh, you’ll never see it coming. Or, rather, you’ll only realize what’s happening when it’s much too late. I don’t want your death to be instantaneous. I want you to have at least a few moments of sheer terror, when your dying brain finally fully comprehends what I’ve done to you.”

I laughed, though a bit uneasily. I looked at Cheryl, whose smile could not fully mask her own discomfort.

“Yikes,” Tom said, pretending to loosen his necktie. “Well, you two heard what she said. If anything happens to me, you’ll know.”

“They’d be wise not to say anything,” Martha said.

She cast a hard look at me and Cheryl. Then her face brightened.

“Who’s ready for supper?” she said.

The next week, after Tom died in his sleep, Cheryl asked whether we should go to the police and tell them what Martha had said.

“But the police said it looks like natural causes,” I said as I stuffed another forkful of buttered and be-syruped pancake into my face.

“There are many poisons that mimic natural causes,” she said.

“How do you know that?” I said, looking up. “Have you been researching?”

“I think I saw it on a TV show,” Cheryl said.

“Martha said we’d be wise not to say anything,” I said. “Remember when she said that? The way she looked at us? We should probably just keep our mouths shut.”

I took a sip of coffee.

“Well, I’m not sure your opinion matters much anymore,” she said, cocking a brow.

I coughed, grabbed my throat, retched a bit, but my heart wasn’t in this one.

“Poor Tom,” I said once I’d lifted my head from the table. “And poor Martha!”

“Yes,” Cheryl said. “Poor Martha.”

A few weeks after Martha was arrested, convicted, and imprisoned for poisoning Tom, Cheryl said we needed to have a serious discussion. I followed her into the rumpus room.

We sat down on facing bean bag chairs. At least they appeared to be facing; it’s so hard to tell with bean bag chairs.

“What is it?” I said, settling in, sinking further, and settling in again.

Cheryl leaned forward, sank, leaned forward some more. I sipped my chocolate milk.

“I think we need to come up with a new thing that we do,” Cheryl said. “I don’t think I can keep pretending to poison you after what happened with Tom.”

I nodded, then began to cough. I clutched my throat.

“Please, stop,” Cheryl said. “You’re just making this harder.”

I stopped pretending to die. I exhaled loudly and then took another long draw from my chocolate milk.

“So what do we do?” I said.

“I could pretend to stab you, I guess,” Cheryl said.

She reached into her trench coat pocket and pulled out a long knife.

“Whoa,” I said. “Is that sucker retractable?”

“Only one way to find out,” she said.

Cheryl tried to climb out of the bean bag chair, but it wasn’t easy.

Of course, anything worth doing rarely is.