Image titled "Honeycomb" by Britt Freda. Courtesy of Britt Freda.
He was there to clean the ashes. His clingy orange bodysuit was speckled in dust that looked like bits of clouds had rained on him. He smelled of smoke. A white bandana covered his mouth. His name was Edge, and he walked through Beth’s kitchen straight to the fireplace like he’d been there before.
Beth was preparing food for guests when he arrived. It was her turn to host card night. She’d put off having people over because she’d been keeping her difficulties—the official ending of her marriage, a secret. She was waiting for the right time to tell them, but when no one replied to her text reminding everyone about card night, she worried that word was out and their nonresponse was hurt or anger that she hadn’t told them herself. She wasn’t ready to tell it, though, much less live it. She wore her ring when out, and took it off when home.
She decided she would arrange cheeses, meats, and fruits on a wooden board and nestle slices of honeycomb throughout. She wanted it to look perfect. She was hopeful some piece of her old life was salvageable and that her friends would show up and for a night, she could pretend just a bit longer.
The chimney sweep worked her in last minute. It had been Beth’s intention to clean up the fireplace from the weeks of her incessant burning of reminders of him. The burning spun out of control. Ashes overflowed. Remnants from her old life, unburned, were recognizable, like her diary. She didn’t want guests to see this charred, dirty rendition of her life.
“Burning stuff doesn’t make it go away,” Edge said, assessing the ashes. “That box must have been special.”
It was Tom’s most prized golf possession –the ball from his first and only hole-in-one. She’d had it framed. When Beth thought about him holding on to whatever-her-name-was, the box flew from her hands into the fire, burning only half way. Edge got to work, making it all disappear.
Beth now lodged her fingers into the honey jar and pulled out the honeycomb. It dripped over her hands and onto the counter as she put it on a cutting board. She started to slice through its hexagonal pattern. The hexagons were symmetrical perfection. She thought about what her DNA strand would look like. She wondered if deep inside her pattern, she’d find imperfections like adultery.
The honeycomb’s pattern reminded her of reptiles and made her wonder how it would feel waking up next to one. The knife then slipped and cut into her ring finger. Blood dripped onto the honeycomb. She put her finger to her mouth and turned on the faucet. She slipped her wedding ring off under the faucet while water and blood dripped over it. She wrapped the ring in a paper towel placing it on the counter.
She looked down at her finger. Nothing severe, but her blood had ruined the honeycomb.
Her phone dinged with an incoming text. “For you, Bex.” it read. Online, she was “Bex.” It was from a guy named Ted she’d been exchanging texts with from a dating app. When she looked at her screen, his penis appeared. She zoomed in on it. She had grown accustomed to these photos and less startled. She left the phone, face up, on the counter.
“Can you make it all go away?” she asked Edge.
“Ashes are the easy part.” He said as he plugged in a vacuum.
The doorbell rang and Beth saw through the window that it was Denise. Denise was single. She partied. She was covered in black and white tattoos. They’d met at a liquor store.
“Won’t get buzzed from that shit,” Denise had said in the store that day as Beth was about to pull flavored vodka from the shelf. Denise bent over to pull a large jug-like bottle from the bottom. “This is what you want.” A connection sprung.
Denise later took Beth to bars, taught her about online dating, and introduced her to men she had no interest in. It all served as a distraction as a marriage unraveled.
She wasn’t prepared for Denise to show up. Beth’s card group were all married women. The sight of Denise would reveal her new life. When Beth opened the door, Denise was a mess of dripping tears.
“What’s wrong?” Beth said.
“That asshole,” she said.
Beth brought her into the kitchen. It was the latest in a string of Denise’s men that Beth couldn’t keep straight. Beth put her arm around her. Denise had done this many times for Beth, consoled her and then insisted she get out of the house and meet her at a bar. Beth would feel out of place and she’d drink until she could talk to men.
The sound of Edge’s vacuum fired up.
“Who’s here?” Denise asked through sobs.
“Chimney man,” Beth said. “Ashes got out of control.”
The burning had been Denise’s idea.
“I didn’t think you’d burn every god-damned thing.”
Edge breezed past the two women as he carried the remnants of the shadow box.
“Where are you taking that?” Beth asked.
“Truck,” he said.
“You can’t keep that,” Beth said. “It was supposed to burn.”
“But it didn’t,” he said.
“It’s mine.”
Then Denise stood to intervene. “I can take the box to the trash.”
Edge lifted his hand, motioning Denise to step back.
“You don’t want it,” Edge said, directing his gaze to Beth. “It won’t do you any good.”
Beth looked at the half-charred box in his hand. The ball was misshapen, indented in the middle and supple like it was on it’s way to charred ash. Beth put her hands on it.
“But what if I want to save it?” Beth said.
“You don’t.”
Beth wanted to rip the box from him. But she didn’t. Edge’s mouth was still covered in the mask, his beady eyes gazing at her. Beth’s grip loosened. He took the box and walked outside.
“Can I hang out here a while?” Denise asked.
“Of course,” Beth answered. She watched Edge through the window as he tossed the box onto a trailer piled with trash bags Beth imagined were filled with ashes from dying marriages.
The women, Beth remembered. They’d be arriving soon. And there was Denise. Where to put her? She heard her phone ding again from the kitchen, and she imagined a never-ending stream of penises coming across her phone while she was trying to entertain guests.
“Actually, no,” Beth said. “People are coming.”
“I can help you get ready,” Denise said. Beth tried to consider what the ladies would think when confronted with Denise. Her presence would expose Beth.
“Wait,” Beth said, a kind of defiance rising within her. “Stay if you want.”
Edge had come back inside, finishing his job. He went to the kitchen faucet to wash his hands. He reached for the crumpled paper towel on the counter, let it soak up the water from his hands and tossed it, still crumpled, in the garbage. Beth watched him, remembering something about the paper towel. But her phone dinged again, distracted her, and she went to reach for it, but Edge beat her to it. He smirked at the photo coming across the screen. He laid it down on the counter shaking his head in disapproval. He left the screen facing up. She felt as if he was looking at her undressed. She went to reach for the phone but stopped as she stared at Edge. Her hand retreated. She left the phone facing up.
They stood at the counter, the food platter between them. She looked at her hands and noticed ash from the shadowbox had stuck to them from when she earlier tried to wrestle it away from Edge. Beth went to wash the flecks from her hands just as the doorbell rang. She could hear Denise say she’d answer it. Her phone dinged again. Beth wanted to beat Denise to the door and at the same time hide her phone. She looked at the counter and noticed the one glaring imperfection on the platter. She had yet to dispose of the honeycomb.
Her blood had now dried on it. She looked up from the honeycomb and noticed Edge eyeing it. He lowered his head to smell it. He poked at it, flipped it over; leftover honey oozed out of the hexagonal holes mixing with dried flaky bits of her blood.
“Don’t touch that,” Beth said.
His eyes never left hers as he picked up the bloody honeycomb and began to chew on it.
She watched him looking at her as his face conveyed pleasure savoring her dried blood mixed with sweet honey. She slowly made her way toward him and put her hand on top of his, letting her hand slowly move up his arm, feeling the slickness of his body suit as her long fingers reached his lips. She let her fingers slowly catch a drop of blood and honey that dripped from the edge of his mouth. She put her finger to her lips and licked it, smiling, like it was candy.
Frances Nevill is a freelance writer and professor of English literature. She is the creator and host of The Writer’s Constellation podcast. Her essay “Florida is a Pretty Girl” was chosen to appear in the anthology The Wilder Heart of Florida: More Writers Inspired by Florida Nature (University Press of Florida), which was edited by Pulitzer Prize winner Jack E. Davis. Her short story “Empty Places” was named a finalist in the Machigonne Fiction Contest for The New Guard Literary Review. Her nonfiction has appeared in WNC Woman and Plough to Pantry magazines. Frances lives in Orlando and holds an MFA from Converse College. Read more about her at francesnevill.com.