Short story

Ok beloved former classmates, just because we are no longer in the Program, does not mean you get to stop telling me what is wrong with my work. Here is a piece with a whole lot wrong with it. I think it started out as a good idea and somewhere in the execution went all Harlequin Romance on me.

They met in Thailand a year ago. She was traveling clear her head, he was traveling to fill an emptiness he could not name. His divorce had left him numb, he told her over tin mugs filled with thick coffee at the tiny stands that dotted the streets of Chiang Mai. Children with skin the color of raw sugar flew by on rickety bicycles while he told her about his wife Sally and the morning she sat across from him at their gray kitchen and told him she needed more than he could give. “I realized right there and then that she was right,” he carelessly wiped the table with an open palm. “I let her go. But that’s not the point.” What he had discovered, in the cold nights that followed Sally’s departure, was that he had nothing to offer anyone. Years of sitting in a cube running figures and creating flow charts had left him with nothing to say, so he sold his car and flew to Asia where he could season his soul with color and dark chili powder.

Tamar didn’t care about Sally or damp London apartments. She came to Thailand to find peace, not spice, and William was just the right shade of vanilla. His auburn whisps of hair curled around his ears and his green eyes narrowed in the harsh sunlight. His touch soothed her like milk and she felt such a calm in his presence that it was easy to flow along with his dreams of a life spent traveling together. She humored him with a touch to the arm. Let me take care of you, he told her, his accent a warm blanket. With William, her feet finally touched the ground.

They rode on tiny blue buses crowded with day workers and merchants who sat quietly, their sacks filled to the brim with copper pots and fragrant seeds. William spoke with everyone they encountered, pulling the tattered English to Thai dictionary out of his back pocket.
“Sà-wàt-dee,” he’d enunciate, bobbing his head.
Thin women selling fruit at the local markets would smile broadly and giggle to each other. “Hello,” they would respond. “You buy bananas today?”
Eyes gleaming, William would purchase arm loads of fruit which they would eat late at night in their humid hotel room with the crackle of late night Thai television in the background.

A few days after they met-William, in a thin white shirt and a huge straw hat, had helped her purchase tea at the market-they rented a car and drove to the hillsides of Mungai where they had reserved a room at a hotel that the brochure had declared “the most romantic spot in Thailand.” The winding dirt road led to a thatched roof building wrapped in a huge veranda. Dotting the ceiling, bamboo fans spread their arms like giant wings, encircling the veranda with a cool breeze. On a swing in the far corner, another couple sat drinking ginger tea. They raised their glasses in unison as William and Tamar pulled their bags up the steps.
“Hi there!” said the Americans. “Welcome to paradise,” they declared.
Tamar and William kept to themselves for the rest of their stay.

On long afternoon walks, William held Tamar’s hand as if to prevent her from falling. The ground was saturated with the cool moisture of the mountain air. She felt as if she could float away, so she let him hold her hand in spite of herself. William talked about their next adventures as if he had already booked the flights, and Tamar gathered giant amber banana leaves which she dragged behind her with her free hand. She had never gone this long without talking, she thought to her self with an inner smirk. It was lovely, she decided.

In the same rented car, they drove across Thailand to Surat Thani, which William declared with a wink was a great name for a girl. Tamar ignored him as the road wound around the bend and the ocean opened up in front of her. They had lunch in half-empty cafés and made love in the afternoons under a canopy of white gauze that kept hungry bugs away. Later, she would swing the shutter doors open and step on the balcony naked, letting the salt stick to her skin, her hair, her eyelids. Looking over her shoulder, she would smile at William spread out on the bed, shaking his head at her. At night they shared bottles of rum and William would add up his money, saying there is plenty left, they could go all around Asia if they wanted to. Or, how did she feel about Europe? They could go to Paris, or Iceland.
“It’s so green there,” he said. “The hills just go on as far as the eyes can see. But we’d have to get you a sweater.” He laughed, poking her bare belly. But in response, Tamar just kissed his neck quietly.

He got the message. For the next few days, they walked quietly on the beach, collecting smooth glass for her mother back home.
“She keeps them in little bowls on her kitchen window sill,” she told him. “There is just something about them she loves.”
“What was once sharp and dangerous is now smooth and forgiving,” William said dramatically.

Two weeks of traveling through the deep green landscapes of Thailand and sleeping in William’s soft arms had been sufficient to cleanse her palate, so Tamar packed her backpack on a stormy July morning and told William she would be leaving after breakfast. He stood frozen in the middle of their hotel room, toothbrush in hand. As she whirled around him gathering her things from drawers and closets, William sat on the bed and watched her quietly. She had known there would be no protest, but his silence unnerved her.
“What? What do you want from me?” she demanded, stuffing colorful scarves into her bag.
Twirling the toothbrush between his fingers, William’s face began to change. The shock was gone, and he now looked at her with an accepting smile.
“You’ve tired of me, haven’t you?” It wasn’t really meant to be a question.
“William, don’t do this,” she collected her books from the end table on her side of the bed. “I just need to get home, I only planned on staying a week and I’ve been here for two as it is.”
“I don’t want to keep you with me if you’d rather go, Tamar,” he sighed. “I think I’ll skip breakfast if that’s alright with you.”

She looked over her shoulder at him as he walked into the bathroom and gently closed the door. A moment later, he emerged dressed and quietly left the room. Tamar stood in the middle of the small space. If she stretched her arms, she could almost reach both walls. She sat down on the bed, letting all the air out of her lungs in a long audible breath. Just like that, she was alone again.

On the plane back home, William’s calm smile lingered in the air like smoke. She smiled back in the dark, shaking her head. Just a month ago, she had left another lover, but it had not unfolded in the same way. Plates were thrown, their angry shouts woke the neighbors. But not with William. His hands had steadied her in Thailand, and although his face had already began to fade from her memory, the renewed strength in her had not.