My wife Moira gets back from the office and tells me her work colleague has invited us over for dinner Saturday night.
I don’t know this person; Moira has never spoken about her before. Moira works a computer at an insurance company. How do you make friends doing that kind of work?
I can’t tell her I don’t want to go. Moira says she hasn’t met her colleague’s ‘partner’ and wants to. Moira says ‘partner’ rather than husband or boyfriend and that gets me fretting that maybe they aren’t in a traditional relationship. People like that worry me.
I ask Moira should we take something and she asks what I mean and I say maybe a bottle of wine or some dessert. Moira says they probably already have dessert sorted but wine would be good. I ask should we take red or white and Moira says it doesn’t matter and I wonder if maybe we should take flowers instead.
Moira and me don’t go out much together. We’ve been married eight years and have no kids. Moira has her clubs and I go drinking with the boys. Moira could go to the dinner without me but I don’t tell her that because I might want sex later.
I don’t know what I should wear: a jacket and tie or chinos and t-shirt. I ask Moira what she’s wearing and she says she’ll wear what she always wears.
I ask should we book a taxi and Moira walks into the kitchen.
Words: Richard Rooney
Illustration: A.I.
Flash Fiction 250
Flash Fiction 250 