Fight Song A Novel - By Joshua Mohr Page 0,19
ice. It shatters and both husband and wife crash through it, flailing around helplessly in the freezing water, panting for air.
Another couple bickers close by the Coffens. The guy says, “So that’s how you really feel?” and she says, “Yeah, that’s how I feel all right,” and he says, “I knew you didn’t forgive me,” and she says, “You don’t deserve forgiveness,” and the bottom falls out and down they fall through the ice.
Other couples crash through their small frozen ponds, too. Ice explodes all around. These couples are in the midst of arguments, spats, screaming matches that Coffen can’t quite hear, but it’s easy to transcribe the sentiments: They are embarrassed and brokenhearted and enraged at what’s written on their partners’ dental bibs, and they can’t control their ire, can’t see that there might be truth written on the dangling signs: All they see are profane accusations.
More ice smashes.
More couples coughing and wading in the water.
Coffen sees one couple holding their ground nicely. They are nodding, hugging, kissing. Their ice appears stable.
It’s all such an overwhelming scene that Coffen hasn’t yet read Jane’s sign, but now his eyes move toward her dental bib. He’s so scared. Petrified that her sign will say SUCKING GOTTHORM COMPLETES ME. Or: NOBODY PILLAGES LIKE GOTTHORM! Or worse yet: I’M IN LOVE WITH GOTTHORM. Or it might not have anything to do with her water-treading coach. She might not be having an affair at all. Coffen is in no direct way suspicious of infidelity, but he frankly can’t believe that Jane is satisfied with their sex life. A woman has certain needs, after all. So does her husband, if anybody’s asking.
His eyes finally find her sign and here’s what it says: NEEDS REASON TO KEEP TRYING.
Immediately, Coffen’s psyche starts thrashing—instantaneously the severity of this evening slams into him like a drunk driver. Jane, his steady Jane, his practically minded Jane—she took time off her training schedule to come here tonight. Under normal circumstances, Jane would mock this. Mock Schumann’s bagpipes. Roll her eyes at Björn. She’d call the members of his audience livestock searching for the easiest answers money can buy. But that’s not what she did at all. In fact, she insisted that the Coffens come. It’s dawning on Bob that NEEDS REASON TO KEEP TRYING isn’t an early warning. It’s a final notice. It’s a death rattle.
The other thing that concerns Bob is reading Jane’s sign identifies a weakness in his own. Jane’s bib documents something that has to do with them both, their relationship, and Coffen thought only of himself on his sign, which says SMEARED IN THE OLEANDERS.
Jane’s eyes train on Bob’s bib. She tilts her head at it, looking perplexed, probably trying to work out its meaning.
Coffen hears their thin ice cracking.
“Are you making fun of this?” Jane asks.
“Let’s talk about it later, sweetie,” Bob says, worrying about falling through the ice.
“Are you making fun of me?”
“Let’s kiss and hug now and then we can really talk about it all later when we get home.”
“There is no guarantee of later,” she says. “That’s why we’re here.”
The volume of ice cracking gets louder.
“Shhhh,” Bob says to her.
“Do you know how hard it was for me to be honest?”
“Shhhh. Stop arguing with me or we’ll fall.”
“You mock all this right to my fucking face?”
“Let me explain what I mean by my sign.”
“If you have to explain your sign, then it’s a shitty sign.”
“I think we’re going in the drink,” Coffen says, solely focused on the thin ice.
“Forget it,” she says. She pulls off her dental bib, sets it on the table. “I need to be away from you right now.”
“The oleanders are from the other night with Schumann. Let me tell you the whole story of what happened there.”
“No more stories.”
“Jane, I’m a little lost right now, okay? I’m turned around. I don’t know who I am. I want to know who I am again.”
“You’re Bob,” she says, turning to leave.
“Yes, Bob is me.”
“You have a wife and two kids. You shouldn’t work so many hours. You’re compulsively online. And you’re acting like a total asshole tonight.”
With that, the ice buckles, but Jane has already moved off of their small circle, walking toward the ballroom’s exit. Coffen falls through the ice and into the water. He splashes around all by himself.
“I am Bob! Bob is me!” he calls to her, choking, treading water. “I want to try!” He gasps for air. Coughs. “There are reasons to keep trying!”
But she doesn’t stop.