Hot Time

It was hotter than I could ever remember it being in my dark bedroom. I lay sweating, wondering what I could do to lessen the stifling air that seemed to be hugging my body. The fan was no help. I stood up, closer to the window. No breeze. I went into the kitchen and poured a glass of ice water. It was warm in minutes. I took a cold shower. The air felt hotter by comparison. I couldn’t shake the choking atmosphere.

I lay back down in bed, my eyes heavy with exhaustion and begging for sleep. I began to drift off when my phone beeped. A picture message. “Yum Cobb salad!” Cobb salad. The LDC was texting me at midnight to show me his dinner, and all I could think was, “Cobb salad? Who gives a shit about Cobb salad? Let me know when you’re eating scallops with champagne sauce. Jerk.”

I was wide awake. It took me another thirty minutes to drift off to sleep again, and around 3:30 I was startled awake one more time. This time it was my subconscious that roused me but I was thinking about the text. His stupid text. Whatever the meaning behind it, I was angry. And I was up again.

Another glass of ice water, but this time I perched on the easy chair in the living room, next to the only window in the apartment that provided a trace of a breeze. I sat motionless in the dark, letting beads of condensation roll down the glass, across my sticky skin, and through the thick air to the wood floor below.

I don’t know if it was the ill-timed text or the ill-timed sender, but at that moment, in the heat, I felt lucky to be alone.