1/31/11

The Plight of Katie Green
By Timothy Tarkelly


Katie Green bent over the edge of the balcony and let loose the remnants of the only meal she had eaten within the previous two days.

“Should I leave?” James said, still standing at the door. His head was turned in an attempt to not watch the embarrassing display, but he still caught glimpses of orange and yellow mist, and Katie's face twisting and contorting into ugly poses.

“No. Please,” She took a deep breath and waited for something that never came. Steadying herself, she leaned against the railing. “Please, stay. I'm sorry you had to see that. I probably shouldn't have had so much wine with dinner.”

“Or the screwdrivers for desert.” James offered.

“Yeah. That too.” She felt around for something to clean her face with. “Can you get me something? There are some towels in the hallway closet.” She pointed without looking and James ignored the the completely wrong direction Katie's fingers were sending him. She started yelling from the balcony. “You must think I'm an awful mess.”

The towels were in the bathroom. “No.” James yelled back. “I was just worried because...well, you know.”

James laid the towel along the railing and resumed his post at the doorway.

“Sorry about that.” Katie said.

“Well, I kissed you. Then you shoved me to the floor and ran outside to vomit.”

“Look, I said I'm sorry.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

“Well, thanks for the nice night, James. I hope this is the second date you dreamed of.” Her eyes, still stinging with the sweat and involuntary watering, were now filling up with tears, faster than she could make up excuse for them.

“I wasn't trying to...”

“So, you're staying then?”

Neither of them spoke. They both gradually drifted into the living room and sat on opposite side of the couch.

“I'll make you some coffee.” James got up and darted in the kitchen. “Coffee pot?”

“Instant. Cabinet above the microwave.” She joined him in the kitchen, getting two cups and explaining the directions. “I don't have a coffee pot. I've never used that stove. Honestly, I don't even use my bedroom. I've been sleeping on the couch for the last month and a half.”

“How long have you lived here?” James asked.

“About a month and a half.” They both chuckled. “You're being really sweet.”

“I'm just making coffee.”

“No, really. You're great.”

“No, I'm not.”

“Really.” Katie reached out and touched his hand. James half smiled and took their cups to the living room. He waited until Katie sat down and, again, sat at the opposite end of the couch. They both searched their inner cab driver for some sort of asinine small-talk.

“Dinner was nice.” Katie dained, while her drunken eyes looked around the room at nothing in particular.

“Yeah. You didn't eat that much of it. I figured you didn't like it.”

“No, I love Italian. All of it! I just haven't had much of an appetite lately”

They both nodded and Katie kept talking. “I mean I love it. Have you ever eaten at that place on Garfield? The one with the big archway over the door? And the...”

James shrugged and shook his head from side to side.

“Well,” Katie continued. “It's really good.”

James shrugged again. At this point Katie knew that he wanted to leave.

“You know, we could watch a movie or something.” Her voice climbed a couple octaves. “You like movies?”

It took a second for James to come out with an answer. “Sure. What do you have?”

“Well, I'll take a look.” She jumped off of the couch and immediately put her hand to her chest and began wobbling like a toddler. “Whoa, must be a little wine left in there after all.”

“And screwdrivers.”

Katie fake laughed and got back on the couch this time laying across it, resting her head on James's lap. She felt his leg squirm uncomfortably, but she ignored it.

“Are you alright?” He asked.

“Yeah, I'm fine.” Closing her eyes she adapted an innocent expression. It felt forced and she hoped it didn't appear that way. A feeling of calm overcame her and quickly vanished at the though of James and his squirming leg. More than anything in the world, she wanted James to stay. More than she wanted her life to go back to normal, more than she wanted to be at her old house, more than she wanted to wake up next to HIM again, she wanted James to stay and never leave. She wanted him to kiss her, or at least talk to her. Tears began to pound violently against the inside of her eyelids and now she just wanted him to stop squirming his leg.

“You know, James,” She leaped from his lap. “You can stay if you want to. The night, I mean.”

The quiet and calming living room suddenly exploded into a violent and noisy frenzy. The clock started ticking, and above that the ceiling fan was making its horrendous revolutions, all the while Katie's heartbeat was turning into a spicy ooze at the back of her throat. She prayed she didn't vomit again.

“Well, I don't think so.” James said, deciding not to insult her with a reason why he had to leave.

“Please?” Her look of forced innocence melted into a tearful and bright red mess. “Look, you were going to get laid tonight, anyway. Don't let me get in the way of myself. I'm sorry I drank so much. I'm sorry I didn't eat enough at dinner. I don't know what to do.”

James did not speak. He sat on his lonely edge of the couch while Katie took turns pounding on the cushions and her forehead.

“Please.” She begged, her voice growing quieter with every desperate twinge of self-pity. “You're such a sweet guy.”

“I'm not sweet. You don't know anything about me. What did I do that was sweet?”

“You stayed and took care of me. You cared about me. You didn't care that I was...”

James stood up.

“Or did you just feel sorry for me?” She was practically screaming by now.

“Look, I don't....”

“Get out.” Katie said. James was still standing in between the couch and the coffee table, feeling useless and aggravated. “Please, leave.”

He left quickly, leaving a big sigh of relief behind him.

Katie spent another ten minutes kneeling on her couch, hating the universe, its population of men, and it's supply of wine and screwdrivers. She grabbed the cups off of the table and brought them to the kitchen. As she stood by her stove, that she never used, and reheated her cup of instant coffee she began to wobble again. Convincing herself that it was not the alcohol, but some kind of disease generated by loneliness and lack of independence. She had to call, or she would faint, she told herself.

She got her phone out of her purse and dialed, her heartbeat quickened as the monotonous synthesized ringing of a telephone appeared on the other end.

“Katie?” The other end said.

“Hey,” She bit her fingernails and a flood of tears came pouring back out. “I need to talk to you.”

“Katie, you gotta stop doing this.”


Katie slowly came to the world in the morning. The acidic flavors of liquor and bile still hovered in the back of her throat, but her body ached too much to get up and get a glass of water. Her mind jumped to the daunting tasks that lied ahead of her: showering, cleaning the vomit off of the porch, calling James to apologize, and so on. She debated each item's importance above the rest while she drifted back into the kind of sleep people always regret.

When Katie snapped back to life, the pain had left her body, but her throat was in pieces. She drank two full glasses of water and sat back on the couch. The time of day had escaped her. Her limbs felt unrecognizable, foreign and heavy. She shifted her body in several directions trying to recharge her groggy disposition. The world seemed different.

Katie started remembering the details of her tantrum and the phone call from the night before. She stood up and moved in the phone's direction, trying to remember exactly where she had left it. She saw it in front of the stove, showing off its brilliant lights, and she decided to shower instead.

Thirty minutes later she picked up her cellular phone to find that HE had sent her a message. Her breath escaped her as she read: "Are you OK?"

She received it hours ago. She decided to call.

Her heart stopped as the space between them sounded its rolling alarm.

"Now isn't a good time." HE hung up.

She threw the phone to the ground and stomped back to the couch. Hopefully, the next day would feel more real.

It took all of two minutes for Katie to slump back into a stage of slumber, and about three minutes for her phone to interrupt it. She answered it immediately, expecting it to be someone in particular. It was James.

"Um...hi..."

"Um, hello...":

"It's James.”

If disappointment went by any other name, "James."

"Should I not have called?"

Silence ensued for way longer than it should have. Katie spoke. "You don't have to apologize."

"Well, I was actually calling to ask for a third date..."

His resilience seemed worse than his absence. Katie decided to back out.

"Look, James. I am not ready to go out with anyone."

James didn't give up. "Well, how do you feel about staying in?"

A knock rose at the door. Katie's head swiveled between the noise and the phone. "Are you at my house?" Her voice climbed to its highest level of awkwardness. Katie opened the door and found James hugging a brown paper bag.

"I can show you how to use your stove..." James offered.

"Creeper."

James laughed.


The evening went well. Stories were told and explanations were made. James, having heard about the conquests and betrayals of the infamous late-night guilt-caller, was confused, but unaffected. Katie was strung out on caffeine and empty hopes. She surveyed Jame's every word and action, observation and opinion. If he had known the scrutiny his dialogue suffered, surely he would have behaved like a completely different person.

After the last remnants of their meal were washed down the garbage disposal, Katie began slinking into a comatose haze on the couch while James tried, with as much inconspicuosity as humanly possible, to close the distance between them.

"What's the difference?" Katie asked, her face held at a distant and accusatory angle. "Why do you want me tonight?"

Katie tried to think about it. There were at least a million different ways the night could play out. Very few of them had an ending separate from a much anticipated phone call. The guilt would be tremendous, though she did not know why. She owed no one anything. There was the remote possibility that someone, maybe even James, was able to sift through her...pre-occupations? Maybe, something in between.

"OF course," James began to explain an alternative. "I also love to teach."

"What do you mean?"

"I hear you don't know how to use your bed either."


- - -
I live in Kansas and I'm twenty three years old. I am attending Neosho County Community College. I plan on moving on and majoring in either theater or English.