Merriton

“But the rent is only $350 a month.” Curly was trying to find a way to fit his gym into their budget. The yarn shop didn’t renew its lease this year, so there was an empty spot two doors down from the grocery store where he could put his gym.

Angie pointed at the computer. “We are a month and a half late for our estimated taxes and you want to spend money on ANOTHER business?” The tone of her voice made it absolutely clear that she wasn’t asking him a question. “Let’s just try to keep the business we have afloat.”

Curly ran his meaty hand over his bald head. He could feel the slight bristle of stubble. It was the end of the day and the stubble always came back by bedtime. He pointed at the election fund that Angie was hoarding for next year. “How about we open the gym instead of runnin’ for mayor?”

“This town needs me. We’ve been stagnating for too long under Tortimer.” Curly shrugged. “Tort’s not all that bad. Just old, that’s all.” Angie nodded. “Yeah, too old to do his job.” He pulled off his shirt and the smell of a hundred hamburgers and twenty-five Egg Things wafted past his nose. He tossed it into the overflowing laundry bin and then reconsidered, hefting it out of the room.

He turned the washer on hot and set the load for extra large. He used a full cup of detergent and filled the fabric softener cup to the top. No matter how much he cleaned or how much detergent he used, his clothes always smelled a little bit like Mt. Zen Cafe. For those rare times he wasn’t in the diner, he had separate clothes just so he wouldn’t smell like a grease pit all the time. Even then, he felt like it invaded his skin.

Angie called from the computer in their bedroom, “Plus, it’s not just $350 a month. You have to pay someone to man the place and you have to buy the equipment. Your worn out weight bench in the basement isn’t going to be good enough for a gym.” Curly nodded as he added the clothes into the washing machine. The hot water nipped at his wrist and fingers while he distributed the clothing evenly. When he emptied the laundry basket, he felt a strange sense of satisfaction. It always felt good to clean something when he was feeling this way.

“Random said he’d invest in the gym when I was ready.” Curly carried the empty basket back to the room. Angie sat transfixed at the computer screen. “Then we wouldn’t own it. We’d have this other guy in the mix. It’s hard enough to make a decision with two of us, much less three. It’s best to wait until we can afford to do it on our own.”

The printer started spitting out pages. “How much do we owe?” Four times a year, they had to send in the estimated taxes to the IRS and every time it was a struggle scraping together the money to pay them. Angie sighed and watched the paper come out of the printer. “Well, the good thing about making less money is that we owe less taxes.”

It didn’t sound so good to him. Their whole married lives, they had strived to make each year better than the year before, but the last few years had been hard on them. There were less tourists coming to Mt. Zen since the bottom fell out of the economy and the ones who did were usually foreign, unwilling or unable to venture away from the ski resort to eat. Curly’s mind started churning, trying to think of a way to attract all those Germans and Japanese ski jackets.

“It’s not that bad. We’re the last restaurant in town. All the others have folded, so they don’t have a choice but to come to us.” She pulled up the program on her computer again and pointed at a graph. “We should probably add some more Mexican food to the menu since The Lazy Burro closed.” Curly nodded, “Sure wish I got the recipe for that Chile Verde sauce they had. I kinda miss it.” The two of them chuckled. Angie smiled, “What, isn’t the green sauce from Sysco good enough for you?”

Curly smiled and unbuckled his belt, dropping his pants to the floor. “If I make it from scratch, it’s cheaper than Sysco AND tastes better.” Angie came up to him and patted him on the shoulder. “You have to make too many things from scratch. We’ll just have to stick with the burritos and hope it’s enough.”

Curly pulled up the gym shorts that he slept in, feeling their elastic band around his waist in a familiar comfort. “I still miss Tank. You’d think I’d be used to him bein’ gone by now, but this year’s worse than last year.” Angie arranged the papers and signed, handing them to Curly to sign as well. He noticed that she signed in the second spot, leaving the first one for him. It made him happy in the strangest of ways. He might not be able to open his gym this year, but they still worked on things together and she still thought he was number one.

Angie copied the amount they owed to the checkbook, signed it and ripped it out neatly. “He’ll be back for Christmas break. It’s better than when Andrew went away.” Curly shook his head. He hadn’t thought of Andrew for a long time. “Don’t know if that’s true or not. When I stopped hearin’ from Andrew, it was ‘cause he was dead. Kinda worse this way.”

Angie folded the papers into thirds and tucked the check in the middle of them. They all went into an envelope and she held the envelope in her hand for a bit raising it up and down to evaluate its weight. Curly watched her put two stamps on the envelope and finish addressing it. “Sometimes I feel like everyone else gets to escape Merriton except me. They all go to college and leave us behind.” She placed the envelope in her purse, ready to go for tomorrow morning. “Only a handful of people we went to school with are still here. All the rest left.”

Curly felt the same way, but at the same time, he was proud of the little business they had built together. “I just didn’t expect Tank to have the money to go to college. Randy payin’ for all of it is really nice.” Angie laughed. “I know. I should be happy for Tank because Randy is paying for his college, but I’m jealous at the same time. No one offered to put me through school.”

Curly lounged on the bed and opened his arms for his wife to join him. Angie curled into his arms, bringing her legs to her chest like a baby in a womb. “That’s okay, baby. We didn’t need college. We were smart enough on our own.”