House of Blues

people were
watering their lawns, coming home from work. Though it was the
Heberts' weekend, it was still Monday for everyone else.
    It should be safe enough now, and she needed the
break from her family. That and the fresh air. She took some deep
breaths. The city was a little like a sauna, but there was a breeze.
It was going to be a heavenly, velvety, subtropical evening.
    Flowers were in bloom.
    Sugar painted flowers.
    This was her hobby and her art. She had wanted to
work in the restaurant, but Arthur hadn't wanted her; had tried
volunteer work, but had had the sense of being interchangeable with
everyone else who was doing it. She had to find something that was
uniquely hers, and she had happened to take a course in watercolor.
And that was it. She loved the softness of the colors and the
softness of flowers; the two belonged together.
    She had tried other things, but she hadn't been good
at them. Figure drawing was beyond her. Landscapes were tedious.
Flowers were her. They went with her personality, and her name. She
was nicknamed Sugar for a reason—in her peaches-and-cream
blondness, she had reminded her parents of nothing so much as
something yummy for dessert. Her dad had told her that a thousand
times.
    Pink was her favorite color.
    Flowers were her delight, and her symbol. They were
endlessly fascinating, with their pistils and their stamens, their
petals and their sepals, their stems, roots, xylem, and phloem; she
was in heaven when she was surrounded by flowers and paint.
    What's wrong with Arthur?
    What does he think he's doing?
    Sugar banished thoughts of the ugly thing happening
at her table. She wanted to be away from all that for a while.
    But she couldn't stop herself.
    Maybe he wants Nina to run the restaurant.
    And maybe he just can't stand to give up control.
    "Hey, Sugar." Mary O'Connor was on her way
to her car.
    "Hey, Mary. Your yard looks nice."
    " You know, I just thought you'd want to know. I
was in Hebert's the other night and it took an hour for the entrees to come. It was a delicious dinner, but don't you think that's
ridiculous? I just thought you'd want to know."
    "Thanks, Mary. I appreciate it."
    "Well, actually, some of the vegetables were
really underdone. I don't mean al dente ,
I mean barely warm. Raw, to tell you the truth."
    "The chef is breaking in some new help; I'll
speak to him about it."
    "Well, I knew you'd want to know."
    She'd have to remember to tell Arthur. Or Reed. Who
knew who was going to run the restaurant? The players seemed to be
changing drastically.
    Sugar was much more in the mood for flowers than for
complaints about Hebert's. Right now there wasn't that much in bloom,
at least on this street. There were some hibiscus and some roses,
though—some gorgeous double yellow hibiscus. They'd be fun to
paint. She didn't usually work with tropicals—something about them
seemed a little too easy, like long summer days with nothing to do.
She preferred a more complicated flower, like these double blooms.
    A kid came barreling down the street on his bike,
pedaling so fast his feet looked like an eggbeater. He was giving it
every ounce of energy he had, pouring it on as if that were all there
was to life, moving your legs and feeling the breeze in your face,
your heart pounding in your chest until it hurt. Sugar could remember
doing that, and for a moment bemoaned the dulling effect of age,
regretted that she'd never do it again nor want to. Though she could
remember the act, she no longer had the slightest notion what it was
like to have that kind of energy.
    As she drew closer to Reed and Dennis's, she walked
more slowly, enjoying herself, glad to be away from the oppression of
the house.
    Of Arthur.
    What's wrong with me? she thought. He's my husband
but I can barely stand him anymore. The older he gets, the surer he
is that he's right. Which is all he wants to be.
    She didn't think at all about how the problem with
Reed would be resolved—she wasn't interested. She thought only
about Arthur. She thought he had been horribly unfair to Reed, given
the hard work she'd done for the restaurant. But fairness entered
into few of Arthur's decisions. He wanted what he wanted, which was
to be right, and to be in control.
    She wondered what had made him think for a moment
about giving up control of the restaurant. He had said he would run
Hebert's II, and that he couldn't do both. But it would be like
Arthur to die trying.
    Do married people ever really like each other,