The New Sofa

Excerpt from my novel-in-progress, Bird On Limb

Ellie parked her old Subaru and trudged up the steps to her boyfriend’s apartment. Ian opened the door before she could ring the bell. “Are you ready?” he said, his impish grin framed by the mouth coaster he called his “goatee.”

“For what?”

“To see my new sofa!”

Ellie wasn’t sure she was. Ian rarely made this kind of decision without her input. For seven years, she’d helped him pick out his shirts and furniture and wall color. He said he valued her artistic eye.

“I thought we were going to go looking this weekend.” She spotted flecks of cadmium blue on her nailbed from the new project she’d started after work. She probably had it in her hair, too.

“We were supposed to go last weekend, but you were too busy.” There. The crisp edge of annoyance in his words. Ian wouldn’t confront her directly; he never lost his temper or raised his voice though sometimes she wished he would.

“Busy getting my art show ready. You know, this thing I’ve been working my whole life for?” She felt the tension in her jawline. Prepping for the show had filled every waking hour, every thought, and every decision. If only the opening had been the success she’d hoped it would be.

He offered a contrite shrug. “It’s brown leather.”

“Huh?”

“The sofa. Brown leather. Come see.” He motioned her inside.

Ian bought a sofa. A niggling anxiety about it surprised her, as though the impulse to buy it without her meant something she couldn’t quite grasp.

“I have two weeks to return it. I mean, if you don’t like it.” 

That made her smile. Ellie would do her best to like the sofa, she decided. To honor that bit of independence in Ian.

She approached it slowly, as though advancing on a skittery horse. It was brown. Not quite dark, or light, more of a beigish brown, with too much yellow in it. Ellie might label the shade “baby poop-russet.” Ian’s living room already held two armchairs, a TV big enough to be a room divider, a bulging bookcase, and the foosball table he’d had since high school and made enough racket to rile the neighbors.

“What do you think?” Ian slapped the oversized beast with pride.

“Wow. It’s… big.” Big as a mastodon, overpowering the room. She sat, running her hand along the thick leather. “And sturdy.”

“Right? And watch this!” He sat beside her, punched a button she hadn’t noticed was there, and suddenly, his end of the sofa reclined back, a footrest erupting from the base.

“I hadn’t expected that.” This explained why the coffee table she’d helped him buy last year—the live-edge oak on a pedestal base--had been moved across the room.

“And look here.” He pushed a button at the end of the arm. The leather top popped up, exposing what looked like an empty plastic box. “It’s a cooler, Ell. A cooler. For beer!”

“Because… the refrigerator is so far away?” She glanced up at the doorway, not five feet from them, that led to his galley kitchen. 

He pointed at the other end of the sofa. “That reclines, too.”

It squeaked as she raised the footstool. The entire contraption shifted so that she was at a 70- degree angle. “I feel like I’m ready for the dentist.”

“Comfy, right?”

She nodded. The cushion seemed to mold itself around her oh-so-ample butt.

“I told you! I can’t wait for football season to start again.”

Football season, a good eight months away. Maybe she’d be used to this monstrosity by then.

“Drink?” Ian dropped the leg rest.

She nodded.

He stood to make his way into the kitchen, returning with a lager for himself and a Corona Light for her. He didn’t return to his end of the couch, instead planting himself closer to her.

She leaned back, stretching her neck. His hand reached behind her and began a gentle massage. She looked into his brown eyes. She could see the love. Also the longing. They’d been together for seven years, she knew all his looks.

 She took three quick swallows from her drink, wanting it to relax her. She sensed Ian watching, waiting, his hand on her back, fingers up and down the knots of her spine as though he was reading Braille. Always so gentle, those fingers. She took another sip.

“You look like you’re trying to fortify yourself.” Odd that he would comment.

“I’ve been tense. Stressed. Nervous about the show.” She leaned back into the crook of his arm. “The beer is helping.”

“I know what else might help.” He pulled her closer, kissing her cheek, her nose, her mouth. His tongue a warmth in her mouth. Their beer-tinged breath mingling. 

Soon he took her hand and led her to the bedroom. Lights off, the way she insisted, but she always had those fifteen pounds to lose. Ceiling fan on, the way he did. Clothes tossed in a tumble on the floor. Ellie slipped between the cool cotton sheets, Ian climbing in beside her.

Ian liked sex. He liked all the touches that led up to it, the cuddling after, but mostly the act itself.  She wished she liked it as much as he did. He always worked hard to please her because he was considerate that way, and she worked hard to convince him he had, not wanting him to know the truth.

Maybe she was too uptight. Maybe she wasn’t wired correctly. She held onto him, and made all the right sounds, and wished her mind didn’t wander to things like the canvas she’d just left or what she’d do about her mother or how many calories she burned during sex. And when he collapsed beside her, slick with sweat, she felt only relief that it was done.

What was wrong with her?

Maybe Ellie should see a counselor or something. She’d talked to her best friend Jessa about it, but Jessa was little help. Her theory was that there was nothing at all wrong with Ellie. The problem was Ian, he simply didn’t inspire a satisfactory sex life. Which wasn’t fair to Ian. He was a remarkable, kind, decent man. A faithful man, who’d loved Ellie for seven years.

“Then what are you thinking about?” he whispered.

She touched his chest, his creamy soft skin. “Us. How good we fit together.”

“We’re a perfect fit.” He gave her shoulder a little nudge.

“Yes, we are,” she answered, and wished with all her heart that it was true.

Carla Damron is a clinical social worker, advocate, and author of the novel The Stone Necklace, the recipient of the 2017 WFWA Star Award for Best Novel.  Damron is also the author of the Caleb Knowles mystery novel series, essays, short stories, and op-eds. 

Damron’s careers of social worker and writer are hopelessly intertwined; all of her novels explore issues related to social justice. Currently Damron teaches at Rutgers University and volunteers with Mutual Aid Midlands, League of Women Voters, and is the president of a local Sisters-in-Crime chapter.

This story is an excerpt from her work-in-progress, Bird on Limb: braided stories of a struggling artist Ellie Fenning, her famous author mother, Candice, and Ellie’s biracial half-sister, Rosalind, whose surprise arrival overturns their lives and everything Ellie knew about family.