Nicholas had to work late the next day. Tuesday evening while I was waiting for his "I will be late" phone call, he walked into the apartment carrying dinner.
"Hope you are hungry," he said, swinging a bag of Indian take-out onto the table.
I was, though I had already grabbed two sausages from a vendor on my way home from work.
The pre-dinner meal had snatched the edge off, so a typical dinner would now suffice. This is yet another of the million tricks I had learned to adapt to human life.
Nicholas chatted about work as he took the cartons from the bag, placed them on the table, and set the table as well.
I graciously moved my papers to the side to let him lay out my place setting. I can be so helpful periodically.
Even after the food was on my plate, I still managed to avoid eating while I jotted down the final line of the article I was working on.
Then I pushed the pad of paper aside and dug into the meal.
"Mom phoned me at work," Nicholas said. She forgot to ask you on Sunday when you went over whether you could help her plan Becky's wedding shower."
"Really?" I heard the pleasure in my voice and wondered at it. Throwing a shower was not exactly the cause for high excitement.
Yet, no one had ever asked me to help him or her at one before.
Hell, no one had even invited me to one before excluding Sophia from work, but she had invited all her coworkers too.
Nicholas chuckled. "I take that as a yes. Good to know you accepted, and mom will be delighted too.
She loves that kind of stuff you know, all the fussing around and planning.
"I do not have much experience with throwing showers", I said.
"That will not be a problem. Olivia's bridesmaids are providing her with the main shower, so this will just be a small family one. Well, not exactly small. I think Mom has plans to invite every relative in Moncton and you will get to meet the whole bunch. I am sure Mom has already told them all about you. Hope it is not too overwhelming." Nicholas asked.
"No! It is not," I said. "I will be looking forward to it."
"Sure, you can say that now, you have not met them yet." Nicholas chipped in.
After dinner, Nicholas went downstairs to the fitness center for some weight training.
When he worked normal hours, he preferred to get his workout in early and get to bed early too, he also admitted that he was getting too old to survive on five hours of sleep per night.
For the first month we had lived together, I had joined him in his early workouts.
It was not always susceptible pretending to struggle bench pressing a hundred pounds when I could do five times that.
Then came the day when I was so engrossed in a conversation with one of our neighbors that I did not realize I was doing a sixty-pound lat pulldown one-handed and chatting away as casually as if I were dragging down a window blind.
When I noticed the neighbor double-checking my weights, I acknowledged my goof and wrapped it up with some bullshit about an incorrectly adjusted machine.
After that, I constrained my workouts to between midnight and six, when the weight room was empty.
I had told Nicholas some stories about taking advantage of a late-night second wind. He bought that, as he had readily accepted so many other of my quirks.
When he stayed late at work, I went down to the health club afterward with him and did my swimming and running workouts as I had done when we first met each other. Otherwise, he would go alone.
That evening after Nicholas left, I turned on the TV. I did not watch it much, but the moment I did, I indulged in the dregs of the broadcasting barrel, flicking past educational shows and high-grade dramas to tabloids and talk shows.
Why? Because it comforted me that there were people in the world who were terrible off than I was.
No matter what went awry with my day, I could always turn on the TV, and watch some moron telling his wife and the rest of the world that he is sleeping with her daughter and I had said to myself, Well! at least I am better than that.
Trash television as re-affirmation therapy. You gonna love it.
Today Inside Scoop, I was following up on some psycho who had fled from a Niagara falls jail several months ago, which is purely sensational.
This guy had smashed into the apartment of a total stranger, tied the man up, and shot him because he quote "wanted to know what it felt like".
The writers of the show had peppered the piece with words like "barbarian," "vicious," and "animalistic."
What bullshit. Show me the animal that kills for the delight of watching something die.
Why does the stereotype of the animalistic killer persevere? Probably because humans like it. It neatly clarifies things for them, placing humans at the top of the evolutionary ladder and settling killers down among mythological man-beast monsters like werewolves.
The fact is, if a werewolf behaved like this psychopath, it would not be because he was part animal, but because he was still too human. It is only humans that kill for sport.
The show was almost over when Nicholas got back.
"Nice workout?" I asked.
"Never nice", he said, making a face. "I am still waiting for that very day when they develop a pill to replace exercise.
What are you watching?" He tilted over my head. "Any nice fights breaking out?"
"That is Jerry Springer. I can not watch Springer, I tried once.
Watched for some minutes, trying to get past the obscenity to figure out what they were saying.
I finally figured out the obscenity was all they were saying during a break between wrestling bouts, the WWF of daytime TV. At least WWF has a storyline"
Nicholas laughed and crinkled my hair. "How about a walking baby? I will grab a shower while you finish your show." He said.
"Sounds good to me., I responded.