The Day Roger Went to Imogene’s

Roger and Imogene are two characters I wrote about on an earlier post. Right now they have become two of my favorite characters to write about. (I have a few other short pieces that I have worked on.)

The day Roger went to Imogene’s was Sunday, after church. Roger decided on a whim to stop by after the eleven o’clock service before heading home.

Imogene didn’t attend church. Her church was her sewing room. She made it a habit to go in there every Sunday. Imogene happened to have coifed her hair and applied a coat of Glowing Embers across her lips that day. She was cutting up an old t-shirt for a rug she had planned on making over the winter, when there came a knock at her kitchen door.  

“Oh, hello Roger.” Her tone confused. Why had Roger stopped by like that, all unannounced and all?

“I’m sorry, were you expecting someone else?”

“No.” Imogene smiled. Her heart fluttered and her stomach ached. Roger had that effect on her as of late. He looked really good in his Sunday best. She blushed.

“Imogene?”

“Oh, sorry Roger. I must have gone somewhere. Come in.”

Imogene handed Roger a beer and poured herself a glass of wine.

“Follow me.” She led Roger down the hall off the kitchen. They walked in the last door on the right, her sewing room.

“Have a seat.” Imogene pointed to the couch with a bright eighty’s floral motif. Roger sat down and the large colorful flowers enveloped him as he sat back.

Imogene went back to cutting up the t-shirt she had been working on when Roger had arrived. She laid a new t-shirt down on the table, front side up. She smoothed the wrinkles and started to cut. She cut away from her across the bottom of the shirt. She stopped her cutting two inches from the other side of the shirt. She took her scissors and started again, two inches up from where she had made her first cut. She cut straight across and again stopped just short of cutting it completely through and repeated the entire process over another four times until she had reached the armpits and neckline of the t-shirt. On her last cut across the shirt, she cut all the way through and split the top from the bottom. She held it up and showed Roger all the loops of t-shirt material. She flattened out the loops and with a few diagonal snips of her scissors she held up one long piece of t-shirt. She wrapped it up into a ball and tossed it to Roger.

“Very impressive.”

“Thanks, toss it into the basket at the end of the couch, will you?”

“Sure.” Roger tossed to ball of material. “That was pretty cool; what you just did.”

“Yeah?” Imogene turned back to him and realized just how close her backside had been to Roger. Embarrassed, she moved to the other end of the table. Which didn’t change her situation much. The room had been quite small.

“Where are you going? I can’t watch you when you are that far down the table.” He grinned.

“Really?” Imogene blushed.

“Really. My old eyes and all.”

A shy smile rose from Imogene. She moved back to her original spot but stood awkwardly sideways. She took the neck half of the shirt and opened the seams up under each arm pit. She now had a rough rectangle and flattened it out as best as she could on the table. She started cutting two inches up from the bottom, moving the scissors straight away from her. Two inches from cutting the bottom strip completely off her right hand makes a hard left and the scissors are now cutting up the side towards the top of the shirt.

“Oh, flexible, are we?” Roger teased.

Imogene, her smile deepened, continued cutting up the side. Two inches from cutting off the strip her right hand makes another hard left as her body contorts to adjust to the arduous turn. Her right hip held her balanced against the table. She continued to cut in a circle without stopping to adjust the scissors or material. Only her body bended and twisted.

“Impressive. One continuous cut. Can you do the entire perimeter without stopping?”

Imogene said nothing. She had been too busy trying to figure out the perplexity of her new found geometry challenge. How could she keep cutting the shirt in one continuous motion without stopping and adjusting her hands or the material. Sure, she did yoga, but this required a freakish dexterity.

Automatically, while she had been still thinking about it, her right hand took another hard left and her body twisted even more to adjust and in a few short snips, she had returned to where she had started.

“Don’t even think about it.” Imogene said as she unfolded her body from the table.

“What?”

“You know what. Don’t dare me to go around a second time, it’s not physically going to happen. And you know it.” She pointed her scissors at Roger.

Roger just smiled. He took her left hand and pulled her down on the couch next to him. Imogene let the couch envelope her back into the sofa next to Roger.

Roger smiled. He pulled her close and leaned in to kiss Imogene.