Turning on Black Ice

by Shauna Checkley

The LaLa Lounge was quiet that evening. Patricia nursed her cosmopolitan, as much attracted by its bright pink color as by its taste. Her newly done red nails gleamed like jewels. “So, you won’t take a second mortgage out on the house?” she asked her husband.

Rolling his bright blue eyes, Donovan answered, “Are you kidding me?”

“You’re adamant.”

He nodded and frowned. Though he was dressed business casual, in khakis and a light black sweater, he also sported his signature beard and earring. Not a particularly handsome man, he did follow the styles of the times, though.

He was the head manager at Skylar Warehouse, a place he had worked since high school. He loved his job and had many reasons to want to be there, some having little to do with his work.

There was a pause. Silence. The studio lighting seemed near intense. It made Donovan’s stud earring shine.

Deciding not to push things any further, Patricia let the matter go. She knew it was a touchy subject and always had been. Instead, they sipped their drinks and lapsed into small talk.

The LaLa Lounge was quiet that evening. Not being karaoke night, it held only the regulars and a few passing drunks. It was a typical bar, square-shaped with lots of seating and a long, polished bar near the front door, while neon signs regaling beer companies and sports teams decorated ts walls: Blue Jays. Jägermeifter. Donovan frequented the place fairly regularly, while for Patricia it was a rarity.

Between her office job and her plans for a start-up wellness company, Radical Relax, she was very busy. Just lately, she had finished her business plan and had an appointment with her bank to see if she could secure a loan. But she was also relentless on social media promoting her idea and pleading for investors.

When she relaxed from Instagram with a cup of coffee, she closed her eyes and dreamed the dream of all dreams, an IPO. Wouldn’t that be something, the absolute ultimate. Yet she knew that took years in the making. Maybe I could try and get on Shark Tank or something? She sighed.

They finished their drinks in silence then drove home. The neighborhood was as quiet as ever. Seeing a woman getting out of her car, Patricia said, “There’s Payton, your co-worker, over there.”

But, for some reason, the two co-workers avoided each other’s gaze.

The remainder of that evening Patricia and Donovan watched TV. Cuddled up to Donovan on their gray sectional, Patricia wondered at his limp manner. They held hands, but gone was the loving pressure and firmness of his palm. Instead, he seemed transfixed by the action show and only barely aware of her presence.

It hadn’t always been that way. He hadn’t always been lost in the big screen. In fact, he had been an attentive partner, some even said in the early days he had been beguiled by her. But now they were together in spite of his seeming absence. He seemed to be someplace else.

* * *

Dancing to the music in front of her full length mirror, Payton sang along with her karaoke machine. She closed her eyes and imagined herself to be Beyonce. She sang her songs. “Crazy in Love” and others, too. And she lived for Thursday nights, Karaoke night at the LaLa Lounge when she became the undisputed Karaoke Queen there, chanteuse unbound.

Shaking her long blonde hair loose and free, she danced uninhibited. She performed while the rest of the world consumed entertainment, content only to escape for a short while. Instead, she was the focus, the feature, everything.

Wearing a short leopard-print dress, Payton was gorgeous. Her hair was twisted into an up-do at the top. And she had a feral, almost primal energy. Everywhere she went, people were naturally attracted to her, at work and especially at the LaLa Lounge.

She was a good singer and dancer. She had done musical theater and drama while in school. Most of all it helped her escape her humdrum existence at Skylar warehouse, where she worked in the office doing the most mundane tasks imaginable. She couldn’t wait to get home in the evenings to practice and perfect her craft. After stir-fried suppers, she would either go on social media or perform. It was a tolerable enough life after all.

* * *

Kitten joined Patricia on the bed, the cat purring softly. The scent of warm fur brought Patricia back to her own childhood kitties, Pixie and Dixie, and their time together on the farm.

Patricia had grown up on a Christmas tree farm outside a major city in western Canada. Hers was an idyllic childhood, with loving family and a near fairytale-like existence of pine trees and their perfumed scent. When she thought of home, she would think of things like cherry pies and homemade doughnuts and popcorn balls. It was sensory memory at its finest.

She had felt very loved and protected on the farm, though an occasional mishap or all-out tragedy would tell otherwise. They were situated on a curve in the road and, sometimes in winter, it would be covered with black ice leading to the tragic and unthinkable.

It was that Christmas when she was in grade five that a father coming for a tree for his family encountered tragedy on that deadly bend. He was killed in a head-on collision. And it was then that the young girl realized that the world could indeed hold hidden dangers and harbor secrets in all colors of the dark.

Nowadays, she counted her blessings. She courted the light, not the dark. She knew that the life she was leading was very fortuitous, and she never stopped believing in things. In fact, for the most part, her life had been near-magical, one part fantasy, one part extraordinary miracle, that staggering beauty that defined all else. It had always been that way so why should it stop now? Yet her and Donovan’s relationship had cooled somewhat. Wonder why?

Rolling over and taking Kitten with her, they cuddled together, woman and cat. It felt warm and safe and protected, much like her early farm life. And then Patricia slipped into a most exquisite sleep. To any onlooker, she would appear like a sleeping beauty or princess with her shoulder-length auburn hair and pale skin.

* * *

“Going out to Karaoke night,” Donovan mumbled as he headed for the door. It was Thursday night, and the LaLa Lounge was the place to be. He was dressed sharply in new black jeans and a starched shirt. His pinky ring glinted in the overhead light fixture by the front door. He smelled deeply of soap and cologne.

Patricia looked at him quizzically. But she was so involved with her social media posting about Radical Relax, her would-be company, that she didn’t give it any further thought. Instagram. Facebook. TikTok. Chat rooms. As ever, she made her rounds. “How am I going to get these herbs and supplements and books on the market?” she asked herself. “What will it take? How else?”

She prided herself on achievement. She had always been something of an overachiever in school and in life. So why was she so stymied here? It then occurred to her that running a business, especially one with start-up fees was easier said than done as the old adage went.

Running the Christmas tree farm is so much more straightforward for Mom and Dad, she knew, marveling at both their strength and ingenuity. They all had a do-it-yourself ethos. It had been a family leaning amongst other ones.

Her parents had a beauteous, lifelong union, the type found mainly in yesteryear. It was a relationship that Patricia aspired to, one that she believed she had found. Donovan and her tenth anniversary had passed so quickly that it had hardly registered on either one of them. Where had the time gone? Just where?

* * *

Entering the blare of music and lights that was the LaLa Lounge, Donovan’s eyes immediately went to the front of the bar. Payton was rapping “Shoop” by Salt N’ Peppa and was doing a fine job of it. She was assisted by Ramon, who rapped the male part of the song. All eyes were riveted on her, including Donovan’s. She is so cool, he thought.

The place was near full, and the duo got a thunderous applause when they finished. Hurrying over to her, Donovan was beaming. “That was awesome, Payton! Can I buy you a drink?”

She paused. “Look, do you think that I come down here and sing just for you?”

He was taken aback but tried not to show it.

Tossing her hair in one flip, she added, “Donovan, you need to show me more than what you do.”

Then she turned on her heel and left for a table of her female friends in the corner.

Even though it hadn’t gone as he hoped, he was still having a good time. He went and bought a beer and sent another one to her table.

* * *

In the bank lobby the next day, Patricia was nervously awaiting her appointment. Gotta seem confident, self-assured. It’s the only way to present myself. She waited an unusually long time but enjoyed the businesslike ambience, the dark green leather seating, the oak furniture.

Finally, however, a fragrant, clean-shaven young man entered the room. He introduced himself and proceeded to the matter at hand. He was dressed in a navy blue suit with a matching tie. He had a warm smile but gaps between his teeth.

“You wanted a loan for your company,” he observed.

Patricia nodded. “Radical Relax it’s called. I submitted my business plan, and I believe it’s a very good idea.”

Smiling weakly, he shook his head. “I consulted with my supervisor, and we’ve decided not to go ahead with the loan. It has been deemed too risky. I’m very sorry.”

Patricia felt her heart sink. “Are you sure there’s not any other way? Could I get you to reconsider, read through it again?”

He shook his head. “We get so many applications for loans. If you had some collateral, it might be different.”

“So that’s it, then... Look, could I try reapplying again?”

He shrugged. “Yes, of course. But I can’t guarantee that the outcome would be any different.”

Patricia sighed. Like a bird had taken flight through her throat, she felt like she was unable to speak, like all expression had been taken from her.

“Alright then. Thank you for your interest, Mrs. Fields.”

She nodded and left.

As Patricia sat crestfallen on the couch later that day, Donovan approached her. “So, you weren’t able to pimp your idea to them.”

She looked at him darkly. “Sell them my idea.”

“Whatever,” he said, his tone dismissive.

She shook her head. She burst into tears.

He looked at her almost tenderly. Then he laid his hand lightly on her shoulder for a moment before disappearing into their bedroom.

Donovan was still on a high from the night before. Even if Payton had acted somewhat coldly. Every Thursday night brought him an outing, and karaoke night was particularly special. The place was always full of the most fun crowd imaginable. He had been going the last couple of years. It had become his reason for existence, in fact.

Stripping to the waist he examined himself in front of Patricia’s full length mirror. He flexed his arms several times. Then he got his weights from the corner and proceeded to lift. Gotta look good. Toned. In shape. Getting a rhythm going, he snapped the hand weights back and forth for an extra long time. It’s going to make me look even better, he believed. He lifted for a very long time until he felt the sweat snake down his forehead and pool under his eyes.

Taking the loan rejection rather hard, Patricia smarted for the next few days. It was only when she went home early, feeling feverish, a few days later that her world was thrown into an even greater tailspin.

Turning into the street where they lived, she saw Donovan kiss Payton through the window of his co-worker’s red Ford. Rather than hitting the brakes, Patricia just parked in the driveway where they lived a half a block down and went in the house and lay down in bed. Too sick to deal with this now. Gotta sleep it off. Then I’ll deal with the matter.

She slept. Waking up feeling a little better, she opted to go to work as usual. But that day was a flurry of texts and recriminations.

I saw you kissing Payton I saw the whole thing
Don’t lie
We don’t need to talk you need to move out

Feeling anger and betrayal as keenly as her fever the day before, Patricia was Mona Lisa overdrive. It was nearly impossible to concentrate at work, and she drank copious amounts of coffee to try and adjust for her mental confusion.

Arriving home that night, she watched as Donovan carried his bags down the street to Payton’s place. She blinked back tears. Then the floodgates opened. She cried as her bosom heaved and heaved. But she let him go. Infidelity was a deal-breaker, a game-changer in her world. It signified the breaking of a contract, reneging on the holiest of vows imaginable. Suddenly she felt she was sliding, wobbling on that black ice of her childhood, a frozen, ugly wasteland.

Still, it cut her to her very soul. She had almost stopped him at the threshold of the door to suggest that they start over, but she couldn’t do that, either. It wasn’t that she couldn’t forgive him. She would have. It was just that she could never trust him or resume things as they had been, for the template of marriage had been crushed. They would never be like her parents and that’s all there was to it. Besides, she was so full of mixed emotions right then that she couldn’t even begin to sort out the tangled effects.

Tossing and turning in bed, Patricia was sickened at how quickly her life had soured. No Donovan. No loan. Or anything. Her only consolation right then was feeling the warm fuzz ball that was Kitten settle on her feet. What am I going to do now? Just what? The grace laced with blessing seemed to have dried up on her all of a sudden.

Though she chided herself on thinking of money at a time like this, she knew that she had to be practical. She knew that she had to consider all things. “I do have half of our possessions at least,” she thought, “that could go to Radical Relax. Maybe I can put together some funds for my fledgling company after all. Just maybe.”

Returning to the bank for another appointment the following week, Patricia was addressed by the same loans officer once again. “I see that you’ve resubmitted your application and this time you have some collateral,” he said.

“Yes, I do,” she said, hopefully. Her fingers were crossed on her lap.

“Well, I spoke to the manager, and he said that we can approve it. Congratulations to you.”

Patricia felt her heart leap. She was elated. “Thank you so very much! You can’t believe what a relief this is,” she said.

The remainder of that day she was overflowing with joy. It spilled over for the next few days in fact. But, as ever, she continued to make her rounds on social media for investors.

One night, checking her phone one final time before bed, she was simultaneously wary and pleasantly surprised to see one solitary notification. It had come from a business chat room that she frequented: Power Ventures.

I’m very interested in Radical Relax. Can we meet to discuss this venture? My name is Richard Norman @ (306)222-3156.

Immediately, she phoned him, during coffee break the next morning. They set up a meeting in a upscale restaurant that he suggested. Mendy’s.

He approached her table wearing gray dress pants and a navy blue windbreaker. His shoes were black and extra shiny. He had a fringe of gray hair, and Patricia liked his breezy manner.

Extending his hand, he said, “I’m Richard Norman, and you must be...”

“Patricia Fields.”

“Let’s have supper, first. It’s on me. After all, I just might be investing in your company.”

“Thank you,” Patricia said, hardly able to keep her excitement under control.

They ordered. Then he got right down to business. “I’m a retired farmer. Never married.” He paused and then continued, sipping on a glass of white wine: “So here’s what I propose. I’d like to invest what you indicated you needed to start up. What was that again?”

“Fifty thousand,” Patricia said, crossing her fingers beneath the table.

“Yeah,” he said. “that sounds about right.”

“Not to scare you off,” Patricia said, “but why?”

“I believe that wellness is the way of the future, what with all the mental health issues these days. But first I need to see your business plan and all of that.”

They went to work. Between cups of black coffee and the occasional martini, they etched out a deal. Patricia was elated. She almost felt her previous sorrows lift.

As she developed her start-up, she was amazed at how forthright all had become once again, her life, her company, and everything. It was then that she felt her world become safe and happy once more. All of the black ice in her world melted. She felt free. And Richard smelled deeply of soap and cologne.