Insecurity

by

Vernard Kennedy

The bell rang. Peter carefully placed his soldering iron on the coffee table, pressed the buzzer without asking who it was, and opened his third floor apartment door. It was Zelda coming up the stairs, not Michael Maynard, an elementary school friend he had recently run into and was expecting. What the hell was she doing there? Suppose he had another woman in the apartment? Just then it occurred to Peter that something worse than being caught with a woman in the apartment was about to happen. Zelda was about to meet the tall, charming, statuesque female-magnet, Michael Maynard, unless he thought of something really fast.

Peter's mouth hung open, his heart pounded as his delicate prized possession, beautiful Zelda, avoided his eyes, ducked under his arm into the apartment and strolled to the easy chair on the balcony. There, she stared at the blue sky through wrought iron bars and twirled a lock of her long wavy Spanish hair. Her right leg bounced incessantly.

The bell rang again. Peter felt as if his pounding heart had been yanked clean out. Michael had arrived.

Inspired by memories of their shared past, including how all the girls swooned over Michael, Peter received his friend with a hug. With two folding chairs in hand, he led Michael out onto the balcony. The scent of sea salt from the ocean two blocks away was pungent in the

September late afternoon air. Palms swayed gently.

"Zelda, this is Michael Maynard. We went to school together when we were kids. Michael, my woman, Zelda," Peter said, without taking his eyes off of Zelda's.

"Nice to meet you," Michael said in his easygoing manner. "Peter, you’re still the same: you have electronics everywhere; always taking things apart and putting them back together. You fixing all this stuff?"

"He's a hermit," Zelda interjected.

"You a hermit, Peter?" Michael asked.

"Somebody's gotta keep the world going," Peter said, his low voice rumbling, his long face animated at the end of the sigh.

Zelda didn't take her eyes from Michael.

"Peter, you remember third grade? Your name's Zelda, right? Zelda, you had to see his face," Michael said laughing, "when Sister Mary held him over her desk and whacked him with one of those old fashioned yard sticks for disabling the P.A. system."

"Man, you would have thought she was killing me!" Peter said. "I did." Peter contorted his face and upper body like a mime.

"Shoot, it was more than that," Michael said. "It was like you were being electrocuted." Michael reared back in his chair, laughing. His teeth were perfectly set in his powerful jaw. His bronze skin, even around the neck, was taut and flawlessly smooth after 25 years. He didn't even look real.

Zelda sounded a "dzzzzzz," going along with Michael and laughing too." Did he catch on fire?" she asked.

"Damn well might have," Michael said.

Zelda ignored Peter's disapproving scowl and turned right back to Michael. What force was at play here? Peter thought. She sat on the edge of her chair, acting silly, as if taken by Michael's seductive eyes.

Peter grew quieter, observing the interaction while darkness deepened. He had a half-smile plastered on his face, though his shoulders were stiff and his heart raced. Zelda hung on every word of Michael's, inquiring about Peter's past and giggling nervously, as though she might come out of that flowery sun dress and offer her pale body as a sacrifice. But what about the private e-mail? Peter thought. "Even though he barely lets me into his world, I am embarrassed to say I love Peter more than I love myself," Zelda had written to her best friend Abigail. What did the email mean? Peter thought. What did Michael's now teasing Zelda and her blushing mean?

"... oops, you almost fell from the chair!" Michael said to Zelda, laughing.

"That's stupid," Peter blurted out, screwing up his face at Michael. "She can't fall 'from' a chair."

Laughter ceased. No one moved and no one smiled.

"What did I say? From?" Michael adopted a formal tone. "That's right, from."

"That's stupid," Peter said, with a shoulder shrug. He shook his head. "Anybody knows, a kindergartner knows, that 'from' refers to leaving a place to go to another place."

"Yeah," Michael nodded. "Her butt almost left that place," he pointed at the cushion under Zelda, "and ended up at that place," he pointed at the linoleum.

"I think he got you there Peter," Zelda said.

"How do you know?" Peter directed his fury at Zelda. "What do you know?"

He glared at the slut who had betrayed him.

"Whoa, hold on," Michael said, palms outstretched. "Don't talk to her like that."

"Don't tell me how to talk to my woman!" Peter said. He stood up. His chair scraped the floor and knocked over an exposed stereo receiver.

Michael stood up, too; he was two inches taller than Peter and twice as thick . Zelda sat, looking tiny, knees together. She was wounded and perplexed.

"Aw, man, get out of here," Michael said. He smiled and waved a playful hand at Peter. "You’re joking, right?"

"No," Peter replied, looking straight up into Michael's eyes, "I'm not joking, and you get out of here, right now!"

Michael scowled and looked at Zelda as he made his way to the front door.

Peter thought he saw Zelda peek at her shawl, which was lying across a huge television tube. "You can go too," he said before he realized the implications. Veins were popping on his head.

Wounded, Zelda gathered her shawl, passed Peter and followed the hunk. When the sound of her heels and the sweet scent of her perfume faded, Peter felt a pang at his heart so sharp, so overwhelming, that he held his chest and stumbled against the wall.

Moments later, he'd recovered sufficiently to stand and stagger over to grab the bars of the balcony railing. He yelled into the darkness of the street below, "Zelda! Come back, Zelda! I'm sorry!"