THREE MEN AND A LADY
Chapter Two
Cal was not all right. Not all
right at all. He was used to feeling panicked; what with the state of his
soaps, who wouldn’t be? That was trivial compared to this. His gateway to the
world, his portal to entertainment, was gone. In short, he had lost the remote.
He had noticed its absence when
he came back from the kitchen on one of his frequent snack trips. He had
settled back onto the couch, doughnuts in hand, when he realized he couldn’t
find the remote.
Now, four hours later, he was in
full-on panic mode. He had missed his soaps, and Oprah was near the halfway
point. If he didn’t find it soon, he would be in total TV viewing hell.
Frantically, he threw empty chip
bags and beer bottles as he searched. He was so engrossed that he didn’t notice
Rose come in early from work. She stood in the living room doorway, watching
him as he searched.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
Cal whirled around, his arms full
of old cookie boxes. “I was…” He tried to keep the tears out of his voice. Jack
had recently lectured him profusely on when not to burst into tears, and he
wasn’t sure if this fell under that category or not. “I lost the…” Despite his
best efforts, tears filled his eyes. Rose groaned inwardly. She had no experience
with Cal when he cried, but didn’t imagine it would be a nice thing to go
through. At least, not from the stories Jack had told her.
“What did you lose?” she asked
gently. Maybe if she was careful, she could avoid tears.
“The remote!” Cal cried. He burst
into a torrent of tears. Rose crossed the room to him. She patted his arm.
“Have you looked for it?”
“I’ve looked everywhere!”
Rose surveyed the living room.
Pillows and empty food containers were strewn all around. “Maybe you did. Come
on. I’ll make you tea and you can calm down.” Her voice was soothing.
“Okay.”
*****
Fabrizio arrived home soon after.
He was immediately disturbed, as he couldn’t hear the TV or crying. What was
wrong with Cal? Maybe he was abducted by eco-terrorists who want his money, he
thought. The fact that they had spent all of Cal’s money on acid in the 60’s
didn’t occur to him.
He heard a creaking sound and
voices. It was coming from somewhere in the house. They were still in the
house! Maybe they wanted him, too! Fabrizio ran down the hallway, not stopping
to look in the living room or kitchen. He ran up the stairs, and up to the
attic.
Rose peered out the kitchen
doorway. What was that? she wondered. She shook her head in frustration;
Cal’s rants about the remote were obviously getting to her.
*****
Jack, too, was disturbed by the
lack of Cal crying on the couch, but he took a more logical approach to it. He
went to the kitchen. Rose was sitting at the table, reading the paper, her top
hat perched atop her head, beer in hand.
Cal was over at the stove,
cooking. His face showed signs of tears. “Why aren’t you watching TV?” he
asked.
Cal’s lower lip trembled
slightly. “I--” He couldn’t continue, as his voice was too blocked by tears to
get out more than a low croak.
Jack turned to Rose. “He lost the
remote,” she answered.
Jack nodded. Ah…that was it. He
might have known. He sat down at the table. “Why didn’t you just get up and
change the channel yourself?”
Cal looked at him incuriously.
This was clearly a new concept to him. “Myself?” he asked. The tears stopped
falling.
“I’ll explain it later.” Cal
nodded, and went back to cooking.
An hour later, they were
preparing to eat dinner when Rose realized that they were missing a housemate.
“Where’s Fabrizio?” she asked. Cal and Jack shrugged. It didn’t matter. They’d
find him later.
*****
Later that night, Jack was taking
a shower when he heard a creaking sound. Assuming it was Cal or Rose
downstairs, he ignored it. Five minutes later, Fabrizio fell through the
ceiling and into his shower.