Fitting the Mold

Last night didn’t go well. Jaxson sat at his bay window thinking of his next moves.
Two squirrels in the front yard chased each other up a telephone pole. “At least they look happy,” he said.

A month earlier he had met Geraldine in front of the Bourgeois Groundhog Cafe. He had the best pick-up line. He untied his bargain-basement running shoes and said, “I’d better tie my shoes because I’m falling for you.” He found the line on an earmarked page of A Hundred and One Pick-Up Lines Guaranteed to Charm, a book left in an empty box on his street with a sign attached, “Free Stuff.”

Geraldine was silent, smiled and bit into a burger holding the bun in her delicate hand.

They chatted. He was a data-entryist. Not much to tell, just the average twenty-two years of a nine to five prisoner, sterile cubicle, water cooler, glowing computer screen and tapping sounds on keyboards all day. She was a scientist at UCLA who researched mold and pond scum.

“You wouldn’t believe it. There are hundreds of varieties of mold,” she said.

“So fascinating,” said Jaxson. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her pale, soft and fairy-like hands.

That weekend she invited him to her laboratory in the basement of a psychiatric hospital on campus. She revealed a treasure of petri dishes full of colorful molds in bright greens, blues and violets with spindle-like outgrowths like strands of cotton candy.

“They grow together from spores and just burst with colors,” she said, jabbing the poor mold with her fingers.

“I wish I could give you a bouquet of mold and pond scum,” said Jaxson.

Every night following their first meeting he lay staring at the ceiling fan, seeing mold and pond scum in a kaleidoscope of spinning, floating colors above him. He dreamed of Geraldine and how she adjusted her wire rim glasses when they slid down her slender nose. He adored the cowboy boots that she wore with her white lab coat. And by the next meeting, he had tripped over his shoelaces for her. He was in love.

On Mondays they met outside her laboratory. She embraced him as the earthy smell of mold and pond scum permeated the air. Jaxson soon started advising his neighbors on the dangers of mold. He also described the beauty of mold in elaborate detail. He saw mold in every corner of his kitchen, even though there was none. He peppered his speech with terms like spores, filaments, mycelium, penicillin and fungus. He loved how fungus contained the word fun and how pond scum, called spirogyra, flipped and danced off his tongue. He even envisioned himself with Geraldine exchanging vows at the Central Botanical Gardens among little water channels draped with scum.

But by the following Sunday, she was called to a conference in Blackpool, England where she would mingle with the greatest minds in the field of mold, mycelium and scum.

She left. Her last text message read “Twilight.”

Jaxson spent the next two weeks gazing out the bay window at the front yard with its two squirrels; one scurried up the pole then looked down on the other, but the one on the ground flicked its bushy tail like a paint brush and hurried in the other direction. He noticed mold in his pepper-jack sandwich. It didn’t strike him as beautiful, and the sandwich tasted like damp and dirty trousers.

Within a week Jaxson wandered off to Le Pied de Cochon French bakery. He had another pick-up line from his book and approached a middle-aged woman with wiry strawberry blonde hair piled on her head like an ice-cream sundae.

“Are you French, because Eiffel for you,” said Jaxson

She giggled like a ten-year-old, “No, I’m from Wisconsin. Ever heard of our cheeses? Great in baked buns,” and offered him a seat next to her under a striped awning.

Her name was Maisy, a baker. She told Jaxson of her dream of opening a fast-food bakery. This idea confused Jaxson, but he nodded, agreed, and said, “Oh great,” “really awesome” and “indubitably” to everything she told him about baking and baked goods. He was so enamored with the conversation, he didn’t have a moment to tell her about his twenty-two-year career in data entry.

That weekend she arrived at his doorstep with a cake in the shape of his bust, complete with icing and intricate piping of all his facial features. She showed him a slide show of her creations, cakes with hot pink fondant and chocolate ganache. She laughed after he thought that choux pastry was related to a shoe. They fed each other shortcakes and within an hour, he had fallen for her.

For two weeks straight he scoured books on baking, binge-watched “The Fantabulous American Baking Game” and was up until three in the morning, dusted in flour, concocting the perfect three-tier cake. Maisy was amazed. They bonded like sticky dough to one another.

Then the day of the surprise arrived. Jaxson had created the perfect cake for his new love. He wrapped it in a decorative gold box with tiny pink hearts and carefully drove it to Maisy.

“For me? I can’t wait to see,” she said as she lifted the box. In it stood a cake that looked like a swamp creature with a giant bosom, topped with maraschino cherries.

“It’s your exquisite form. Just for you,” said Jaxson.

“But the whole cake is just breasts. That’s what you think of me?” she said, tearing up and darted out of the room.

She closed herself up in the bedroom and didn’t respond when Jaxson called for her over and over. He plopped down on the sofa, stared at the flames in the fireplace and ate the cake, first picking off the maraschino cherries. He let out a sigh, then a burp, begged Maisy again to come out, but she was silent. He fell asleep on the sofa with pink frosting and crumbs in his moustache.

Back at home the following day, he stared out the bay window and didn’t see the squirrels. He wanted to feed them the leftover Kaiser rolls that he baked earlier that week, but he let them go stale.

At last, Edwina. Edwina had short, spiky hair. She wasn’t much like his type--stubby and strong with a torso that boxers could use as a punching bag. He met her in aisle nine of the grocery store as she was reading the ingredients of dog treats.

“I’d buy that brand too, if I had a dog,” said Jaxson. She half-smiled at him, slightly taken aback by his friendliness. She had white tufts of animal hair on her black pants and dirt under her cracked nails. Jaxon admired how she didn’t care about her appearance. She was a genuine, solid, no-nonsense kind of woman.

They walked out into the blinding sunlight of the street and made chit chat. She was a dog trainer and groomer at “Love at First Sight Animal Rescue,” but she wanted to upgrade her training to wild animals, like wild monkeys, “Like those ones in the streets in Thailand,” she said. She didn’t ask about Jaxson’s job, and he didn’t care. He was all ears for Edwina.

For the next week, he called her every morning. She nicknamed him Jax. He dropped off special liver treats to the rescue, and impressed her with his new research on border collies, labradoodles, rat terriers and teacup chihuahuas. He watched her pry open the mouth of a pitbull named Pepito and brush his gums. “You need to make circular motions. Let me help,” Jaxson said.

“Please, don’t help,” said Edwina. “It takes a special touch.”

Jaxson didn’t listen and dropped by the next day with new brushes, chicken flavored toothpaste and gloves. “Let me help you. Circular motions” he said again. “Move aside.”

She didn’t budge. Her face reddened with emotion and she stood in front of him like a fire hydrant.

“You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“But I want to help,” he said, stepping away, slumping his shoulders. He looked like a giant shrimp.

“No.” She shook her head in disapproval, threw down the toothbrush and walked away into a dark corridor. Pepito licked his front paws then nudged toward Jaxon.

“Good boy,” Jaxson said, patting the dog on his head. “I was only trying to help.”

The episode with Edwina, from dawn till dusk lasted only a week. So much and so little. Looking out at the front yard, the squirrels were gone. They had buried their nuts. They were awaiting the winter.

Jaxson met no one in the few weeks. It was a record. Then twenty days after Edwina disappeared into the dark corridor, there was a knock at the door. Edwina stood there, stocky and stumpy with her spiked hair now dyed purple. At her side slobbered Pepito.

“Jax, I didn’t like how things ended. And I didn’t say goodbye,” she said.

“Okay, well,” said Jaxson. “Goodbye, Edwina.” He patted Pepito on the head, smiled and closed the door.

He stood staring at the door, glanced at the cracked face of his Timex watch, then opened the door again. Edwina and Pepito with his wagging tail were half-way down the street.

“But then again, I’ve got all the time in the world. I’ve got liver treats. You know how to train a pitbull to roll over? I do,” he hollered.

Edwina turned around, waved hello or goodbye.

“It’s probably hello. Or I’ll be back,” said Jaxson to himself.

Edwina and Pepito then disappeared into the vanishing point.