November Novel Excerpt.....

He had his back to her. She looked at his coarse flannel shirt tucked into his overalls that were snug around his flat, square bottom. She wondered how she could stay with him for another minute. He turned around after flipping an egg, the wooden spatula in his hand, and smiled and her. Cigarette stained teeth. Or maybe it was just the putty-like plaque on top of them that was stained. If only he'd brush them, she could really know.
The eggs smelled burnt and her stomach turned. It smelled like her childhood neighbor's house where she'd pass every morning before school to fetch her classmate Veronushka who was never outside waiting for her as she ought to have been.
She wondered if being with Benji was actually better than living back in Russia. Yes, she'd married Benji. "Benji," she said to herself,"my husband's name is Benji!" The whole situation suddenly seemed ridiculous. She pulled off her heels and put her feet up on a wicker kitchen chair.
She'd lost her true love anyway years ago. Life after that had been one large joke. Oh yes, a real man's love was glorious and golden, mythic and silent. She had been enmeshed in a scintillating net of warps of love from him, love for him, love for herself, and wafts of love from the world, love for the world. But then he left her. But he was still with her. He still walked beside her, she felt his gallant stride. She asked him in whispers for his advice and he blew warm truth in her ears. There was a thick cord connecting his heart to hers, pumping a constant halo around them both. But, he wasn't for her, anyway, she thought. Men like that belong to no woman but to all women.
She stared at Benji, the eggs hissing, as he let salt fall on them from his dirty fingernails and she threw her head back and laughed.