To Quench Our Love Pt. 01

This novel is a work of fiction. The chapters have importance to me as a writer, but the parts are just to make this more manageable as an internet novel, along with being a way to publish something while incomplete. At this time, only one detailed sex scene is written or planned. This story is not political, but mentions of politics occur. You will quickly see what side the characters lean toward - if you are on the other side and easily offended, I don't recommend continuing once you figure things out. But again, there are no political statements, just the occasional political discussion fades into and out of their lives. Because my goal is just to capture life, capture the lives of some regular people.

Table of Contents

Part 1:

**Chapter 1: The Lonely Silence of Holidays (6,342 words)

**Chapter 2: Just That But Also Something More (1,638 words)

**Chapter 3: Whence Rivers Come, There They Return (11,301 words)

Part 2:

**Chapter 4: They were Yung and Easily Freudened (~4,202 words)

**Chapter 5: The Love in Your Heart (~9,452 words)

**Chapter 6: Title TBD (~9,573 words)

Part 3:

**Chapter 7: Title TBD (~4,010 words)

**Chapter 8: Title TBD (~6,973 words)

**Chapter 9: Title TBD (in progress)

**Chapter 10: Title TBD (planned as final chapter)

Chapter 1: The Lonely Silence of Holidays

My hindsight tells me that 2009 was a simpler time. When I force myself to remember, I know that there was a terrible recession, and so many people found themselves without a home or job. In fact, for a few months, I found myself without a job, my first time job hunting since finishing college four years prior. But 2009 was also a time when charter schools were rare and uncontroversial, when the iPhone didn't work but was just a toy for status seekers, and many white people like me thought Oscar Grant was a one-time thing. Most of all, for me, the end of the year was the beginning and end of the best time of my life, which would ripple through the rest of my story.

I lost my job selling magazine ads in May as all of my sales dried up. We all did. I was mostly relieved except for the part where I moved back home, back to the small mountain town where my parents coexisted because what was the point of divorcing. I decided that an income was better than a mortgage, so I rented out my townhome and began bringing in a whopping $65 per month. At the end of September, I finally found a job, more than a thousand miles away in San Diego. The only lie I told to get the job was that I had connections in San Diego. Why make them worry that I was currently in a boondock town in a state that bore no significance to them?

I found a room for rent that would take my cat, purposely going short term in case something happened or I wanted to drain my savings and buy another house. I would be cold calling again, but at least I would have a paycheck. I was hired with a group of seven other young people, making me at 25 the second-oldest. Most of them became pretty good friends, but I found I no longer had much in common with recent graduates. Fortunately, I saw that quickly, and when our after work drinks the first weekend of October went stupidly boring, I called my real estate agent from back home and asked if she knew anyone in San Diego. I wasn't going to have a social life, so might as well make an investment while prices were low. And there was no risk of losing my job if they were willing to invest in those kids.

She didn't, but she hadn't sold a house in six months and had just started moonlighting at the Verizon store, which was on the verge of becoming her full time job. She made some calls to California and set me up with someone who would give her a cut. They worked fast and found me a decent house in a lousy neighborhood, just affordable enough to drain all my savings. I moved in what little I had brought to San Diego on November 14.

But success wasn't making me any friends. A few of my cohort couldn't hack it; we were down to just five people by the time I moved into my house. Two quit, one was fired. The firing alienated me more, because they knew I would be the last to go if they started shedding us. But now that I was both a landlord and a homeowner, I didn't have much interest in them. Despite my status, the establishment at the company saw me as part of that group of young people infringing on their jobs. I wasn't able to get to know any of them.

The break in my social life came the Sunday before Thanksgiving. I was raking my front yard, trying to see if I could at least make the exterior of my house presentable until I could afford to update the inside. The raking was nominal, what I'd have to do is remove the chain link fence. Then I saw a young woman walking a dog. I looked again. I might have stared a bit too long, but I felt I had to be sure. Her hair had never been that long and I didn't remember her wearing glasses. But I had remembered that face so many times since the last day of high school. "Polly?" I asked.

"Yes?" she looked at me and slowed her walk, not apparently recognizing me but open to talking.

"We went to high school together!" I blurted out, not knowing what else to say.

She had stopped walking and her look went from one of answering a question to one that said "I don't know what scam you're running but this here is a pit bull and I went to high school 1500 miles from here." But then her look softened, turned to one of inquisitiveness, and she asked, "Spanish class?"

"Yeah."

"Oh my God, Jack! You look... great."

I didn't, I was wearing an undershirt and some beat up khakis, but I knew what she meant. I had traded in my unkempt long hair, baseball cap, and glasses for a clean, professional haircut and contact lenses. Nonetheless, I was surprised she would lead with that comment since I don't recall ever even having a conversation with her. But she was always an extremely, even sickeningly, nice person. Leading with whatever compliment she could think up seemed in-character.

I smiled and said, "So do you, but you always did."

She laughed and turned her head, then said, "I didn't mean- well, what I was saying was..."

"Don't worry. I own who I was in high school."

"No, no, I guess..." she took a deep breath and I watched her struggle. "I always knew you were handsome under your hat. Oh my God, I'm sorry, I don't know why I'm saying this."

I laughed. "It's fine. I know I've cleaned up but still feels good to be called handsome by a girl like you."

"OK, thank you but I'm embarrassed enough. So you live here?"

"Just closed last week."

"Wow that's amazing. Where do you work?"

"I sell some kind of tech product. Don't care about it but I'm pretty good at it. You?"

"I teach gardening at the elementary school up the road. Well, technically science, but I try to emphasize growing fruits and veggies."

"I see that for you. When did you move here?"

"Right after college. What about you?"

"September."

"Wow, so you don't even know if you like it."

"Way better than those months I spent with my parents."

She laughed. "Well maybe we can catch up sometime, I live like a five minute walk from here. But Tumble's getting tired so I should go."

I thought about inviting them in to give the dog water, but didn't. Perhaps part of me was still the high school kid who was never sure what to say to Polly. In any case, bringing her into an empty house would have been weird, so I took the afternoon to get a dining table at Ikea. I couldn't move a couch myself, so that would have to wait until I saved up to get one from somewhere that delivers.

Seeing Polly made me think about her a lot in the coming week. I had liked her from when I first saw her sophomore year of high school. But I never figured out how to ask her out. Within a few weeks I decided we weren't personality matches anyway. She wasn't exactly a hot popular girl, but she was hot and had a lot of friends. But she didn't have that typical cheerleader look, didn't wear trendy clothes, and her numerous friends came from all possible social castes. And she was the opposite of a mean girl, seeming to go out of her way to be kind to people, so much so that the niceness was the main reason I never pursued her. She, I reasoned, would not be interested in being with someone as cynical as myself, while I would get sick being around someone who always had to take the high road. Though I shouldn't undersell my vanity: a few weeks after we met, she dyed her hair pink, making her my first crush with crazy colored hair. And just as I got over the idea that I could like someone with wacky hair, she cut her hair and I was temporarily no longer attracted to her. The hair grew back but not faster than my physical attraction, but I was never interested in asking her out again - because of personality, I said.

That personality must have been why she ended our conversation so strangely, saying that we should catch up. There was nothing to catch up on. We had never really talked, and as I thought about her in the coming week, I realized that even though she was nice to everyone, she wasn't nice to me. She wasn't mean, we just never talked. We essentially didn't exist to each other, except for the fact that I thought she was so pretty. So her kindly persona tells her to say we'll catch up, but she didn't give me her number or email.

Still, I wasn't the cynic that I was in high school. We probably could have some connection now where I wouldn't be put off by her amiability and she wouldn't be put off by my diminished acrimony. Maybe she did want to catch up - after all, she probably had little or no high school connections living in San Diego. Thoughts about her bounced through my head through the boring short week before Thanksgiving, how we might bump into each other again, what we might do. The fantasy seemed silly, the imagination of a high schooler, but for the first time since moving to San Diego, I felt excitement. As if in time for Thanksgiving, a reignited crush on Polly had reminded me to be thankful for owning a house and having a job in the midst of the worst recession in 80 years, rather than rolling my eyes at the work I was doing and who I was working with. Further, I was forced to confess that my claim of being sickened by someone nice like Polly had been my own insecurity: I acted nice to compensate for my cynical personality, so Polly had always seemed fake to me. But perhaps I had been wrong.

By afternoon of that Wednesday, the week was fading away. Work was quiet and many of the senior folks had snuck out for the long weekend. I assume people were working slowly if at all, as I was. Part of me had assumed that, despite my lack of friendship with any coworkers, someone would have asked me what I was doing for Thanksgiving. They knew I was from far away, and could probably figure that I knew no one else. I wasn't expecting any invites, but at least someone asking. But no one did. I didn't really mind until the day came to a close, the blue of the sky turning to grey and I prepared to leave into the early evening of late fall. Normally I would be traveling to my parents house, or already there, or preparing to leave in the morning. Even though there were some fraught relationships in our house - my parents were uninterested in each other and my brother and I had nothing to talk about - at least the quiet starts of the four-day weekend have some conversation, some presence, and some anticipation of a feast to come.

That year, though, I was staring into four days of nothing to do but sit in my meagerly furnished house, wondering whether to brave the crowds to make updates or if I could even afford updates. I spent twenty minutes making a dinner for one that I ate in three and cleaned up in fifteen. I wondered if I should read something while half paying attention to adult cartoons on TV. Really, the evening was no different than any other for a single guy, but the feeling was different. I knew that everyone else in the country was thinking about the big day, many were out partying (I had read that the night before Thanksgiving has the second highest incidence of drunk driving accidents of the year, but had no idea if that was true), and a few were in a mad scramble to get their last minute items. But I was just alone, supposedly regular day.

Thanksgiving morning I mulled around looking for something I could do to make my house a home. I don't think I would have thought those words had I not been hyper-conscious of my day alone I had always thought of my houses as investments. I looked at the grass in my front yard, and thought about needing mowing equipment. I could afford that but assumed nowhere was open to buy that, and that they would be chaotic in the following days. But still, I walked out to my front yard and wondered if I should rake again. Or if I needed to flatten the ground, which was pretty choppy. I could bring out my soccer ball and juggle a bit for entertainment.

And as I paced around my yard inspecting the ground and kicking some seeds the tress had dropped, I heard her voice say, "Looking for something?"

There stood Polly and Tumble, looking much the same as two days ago, except Polly wasn't wearing glasses and had tied her hair into a low pony tail. She still wore a fleece and jeans to walk on the crisp fall morning. "Just trying to figure out what I can do on this yard," I answered.

"Tumble knows what to do with a yard," she joked.

I smiled and walked over to the fence. "Not going home for Thanksgiving?" I asked.

"No, it's too hectic."

"Don't like hearing Uncle Joe and Uncle Jim argue over McBama and O'Cain?"

Her eyes lit up and she retorted, "Oh that's the best part. And when they run out of energy I drop one about Nader and start it over."

"You always seemed like a bit of a hippie."

"I voted for Obama and so did my parents, not a hippie."

"Uncle Joe doesn't think so."

"No Uncle Jim's the conservative one."

"Oh my mistake."

"No really," she said, "I really miss my home for the Thanksgiving, but getting to that small town when everyone else in the world is traveling, battled a snowstorm one year, can't do it. We usually Skype during dessert."

"That's nice," I responded. "I'm kind of relieved to not be home for Thanksgiving."

She looked at me inquisitively and said, "Wait, so those are your uncles?"

I laughed. "No. We just do the four of us for Thanksgiving but it sucks. My parents just kind of live like roommates."

"Aww, that's sad. I'm sorry, I don't mean that but..." Her voice awkwardly trailed off.

"No it's OK. My family's sad." I paused to say I was glad to have gotten canned so I could move here, but fortunately she cut me off.

"It's just that my parents are my best friend, it's hard to imagine a life where I'm not close to my parents."

I wasn't quite sure what to say. Saying that I was excited to finally not be obligated to be around my parents seemed too sardonic. But Polly bailed me out. "So what are you doing for Thanksgiving?" she asked.

"Mulling about my house trying to figure out what I'm going to do with it."

"No fancy meal or anything? Just give a little thanks?"

"I'm thankful," I said, "But don't pretend you're going to be cooking a whole turkey for yourself."

"Tumble gets turkey but I'm a vegetarian."

"Hippie," I teased with wink and a smile.

"Don't lie. Not one of those two hundred million turkey eaters likes the turkey best."

I sighed and said with a false tone of resignation, "Stuffing."

"Cranberry sauce," she replied victoriously. "So at least make yourself some stuffing."

"You know what the stores are like right now?" I asked. "I'm not fighting some old lady for the last box of B-grade expired stuffing."

"I could make some for you."

"That's nice of you, but I don't need charity to be thankful. I own a house, I have a job, I'm thankful."

She looked down and paused for a moment. "I meant," she paused again, "maybe we could do a little Thanksgiving together."

"Okay that sounds fun," I shot back, "but I don't have Thanksgiving food."

I could see her body relax and she said, "I'll bring it. Cranberry sauce and stuffing."

"Mashed potatoes too much work?"

"Excuse me, I am from a yam family and am much too small to carry all that."

"I'm teasing, that's plenty for two. I have water or water to drink and vanilla ice cream for dessert."

"I hate to ask this, but do you mind getting some kind of juice? It's just I always have juice but can't carry that."

"Okay, but it's your fault if I'm maimed by an old lady."

She laughed and told me, "Don't worry, I'm pretty sure the shopping wars avoid the juice aisle. Doesn't have to be fancy, just whatever."

"Well what do you like?"

"I drink the fancy stuff but really, anything."

"Okay, so I'll ruin your Thanksgiving with cheapo juice."

"Perfect. When should I get here?"

"You're the one with dessert plans. I only had the most boring day ahead of me before you showed up."

"I can ditch dessert, I talk to them every day. So when?"

"I don't know. It's my only entertainment for the day, so sooner than later I guess. Three?"

"Okay, three o'clock then."

"I'll see you then. Or is he good with cats? I can see both of you."

She bent over to pet Tumble and said "Not yet, he's a sweetie but still trying to get that hunter instinct out of him."

"Fang can help with that. He'll scratch it out of him."

She hugged her dog and said, "Not my poor sheltered baby!"

"Not today," I said. "But I'll tell Fang not to scratch you."

"I'm more worried about biting with a name like that."

"Yeah you're on your own for biting."

She got Tumble up and responded, "Well my dad's a vet so I've seen it all. I'll look forward to facing Fang."

"Alright, I'll see you later," I said as I turned to go in.

"See ya," she said as she continued to walk. Then called to me, "Oh, my family dresses up for holiday dinner."

I turned back and joked, "Darn, my tuxedo's at the cleaners."

"I don't care what you wear, I'm just saying, don't be surprised that I'm wearing something more than this."

"Don't worry, I'll see you then, however you come."

"See ya," she said again and walked off.

I went ahead and got some Odwalla from the store after seeing the sparkling cider was out. The crowds were bad but not nearly the drama that I made them out to be. I noticed that the sweet potatoes were mostly gone, but decided to check the canned aisle and found there were still some canned yams. I took one with a reasonable recipe on the back - this was just before the days of looking up a recipe on your smartphone - got what of those ingredients I could and checked out. I was excited, how could I not be? Whatever Polly's intent with inviting herself over, I was spending a holiday with an attractive girl - no, woman now - with a great personality. I wanted to make a little extra effort.

Polly was right on time and I wasn't surprised. I had already changed into a dress shirt and nice but older pants so that I wouldn't have to wear shoes in my own house. The yams were simmering, so we could serve in a few minutes or wait. I opened the door and Polly was deftly squatting to pick up her dishes, but struggling with balancing them and holding her dress in place. I told her I could get them and picked both up, then got to see her standing for the first time. She had worn a navy blue dress, with three quarter sleeves, a tight bodice, and a looser skirt a few inches above the knee, just enough to be sexy but appropriate for any occasion. No nylons were needed in San Diego, and her glossy pumps (presumably imitation patent leather) added a degree of formality to her dress.

After she thanked me and I invited her into my empty living room, I noted "I should have suggested your place, I have basically no furniture."