A Sunning Talk

by Sharon Mollerus

“I’m worried,” Janna said, sunny side up with ultraviolet ray-repelling discs shuttering her eyes.

"Why?" Bliss asked from face down over the blue and yellow noodles of the lounge chair, her purple bikini top string untied.

"It's like he's so distracted. He smiles a lot, but to himself. I ask him: what? He says: nothing."

"Terry was like that. At the end." Bliss gleamed with oil.

"He's working all the time--Saturdays too now."

"With so many people out of work, you have to work more."

"Yeah, I know, Bliss. I'm looking for a job, too."

"I know you are.”

"Some headhunter is talking him into another job. It’s more money, but more hours and a ninety-minute commute each way."

"Yeah.”

"You know how that goes with traffic—it could take him three hours to get home. How are we supposed to have any time together? Twenty-four hours a day, minus ten hours of work, minus four hours on the road, minus eight hours of sleeping, minus a half-hour to shower, and there's eating. What's left?"

"So sleep less. Isn’t that why you moved in together?"

“Now I sleep more. Last night I called him at ten, and he didn't answer."

"He forgot to turn the cell on."

"So he said. What’d you do last night?” Bliss bobbed up for a sip of ice tea; the lemon wedge was split and wilting over the sweating glass.

“I was in bed,” Bliss said.

Janna shrugged under the glancing sunrays.



Janna sat up in bed in the studio in her black sateen babydolls, her straight blonde hair streaming down her back. The streetlamp on the walkway tossed a mustard yellow ball of light into the unlit bedroom. The fan by the screened window churned fusty breath in a semi-circle, as the slender black cat sat on the dresser blinking at the starless night.

As the moon slipped down low into the palm leaves, Janna lay back down, face up. She heard the screen door creak open and shivered in the humid draft, pulling the blue satin sheet up to her neck and turning her head away. Andy left the light off as he opened the freezer door in the tiny kitchen. The cellophane wrapper rustled, the microwave door clicked, and the plate circled with a whir. As he pried the bottle cap off a beer, the bubbles fizzled to the neck. The announcer’s low drone from the countertop TV wove into the clank of bottle, fork and plate. Andy left the dishes in the sink and smooshed together the trash bag, and the screen door screeched as he carried out the trash. She glanced back at him as he stood on the lit porch smoking, his black hair still shining wet.

Outside a teenage couple squealed and shoveled water at each other in the steaming pool. The palm trees waved delicately overhead, gathering voices into the soft clapping of its leaves.

Janna curled her knees to her chest and feigned sleep.

2005