Part VII: Time Warp 2000’s – Cut! #10 (Chapter 112)

Before getting dressed for work this morning, Shel asked about the maroon bikinis.

“I’ve never seen you in them,” he said. He knows that I hate wearing frilly things, that I would never slip on the maroon panties under my work clothes and teach with the lace strip around the legs scratching my thighs. We both understand the real meaning behind the panties, the issues involved with his buying them.

I said,

“They’re not cut right.”

*

January 1, 2001

I open my eyes.

Stink of vomit and stale beer.

“Christ!”

Naked and alone.

2:05 p.m.

Coffee brewing.

Sheldon up and about.

Still trying to figure out what happened yesterday.

Is Candy Halloran real or a figment of my imagination?

Oh my God!

Real!

I couldn’t dream up such preposterous nightmare.

I pull myself up and roll out of bed.

Slowly stand up.

Pass by the full-length mirror…

It doesn’t lie.

The woman glancing back is old and bloated, with puffy wrists and ankles, rolls of fat around her mid-section blown up like overinflated tubes.

Obese.

I pull on my white cotton underpants, cut extra-large, and wrap my worn terry cloth robe around me.

Maroon.