Charlie and Kath: Jealous

There was something on the fridge that Charlie hadn’t noticed before. In the middle of dinner he’d looked up and saw a postcard with a picture of the Parthenon that in big bold letters read “Greetings from GREECE”.

“Do we know someone in Greece?” He asked Katherine who was finished with her Chinese takeout (her favorite) and was graciously flipping through an old Utrecht catalog. She pretended like she hadn’t heard him, but she did because her eyebrow twitched involuntarily which signaled that she’d almost answered, but then better thought it not to. “Hello,” Charlie said again. “Earth to Katherine.” He poked her with his fork. And Kath, being the girl she was, grabbed it and jerked it out of his hand.

“There are better ways to get my attention,” she said very motherly and set the fork down gently beside her. Her radiant auburn hair slid past its holding place behind her ears and covered her face. Almost as a defense mechanism.

“Why are you avoiding my question?” Charlie asked.

“It adds an era of mystery to me, don’t you think?” She closed the catalog and propped her elbow up on the table while using her hand to rest her chin on. She smiled a half smile. But Charlie wasn’t amused. He just stared back, frowning.

“No,” Kath finally said, getting up and rinsing her plate in the sink. “We do not know anyone in Greece. I know someone. And old friend from high school. Do you remember Archer?”

Archer. Archer. That named sounded familiar to Charlie, and not because it was one of his favorite shows. But he wasn’t putting a face with the name, other than the cartoon character. “No,” he replied. “Should I?”

“Nope,” Kath said quickly, picking up the catalog from the table and throwing it in the trash.

“Wait, you said that a little too quickly. Who is this guy?” Charlie asked, and just as he finished the words he remembered that Archer was the guy Kath dated after they’d broken up the first time, their senior year of high school. It had almost ruined prom for them, until they got back together three weeks before the dance (not that Charlie really cared about prom, but it meant a lot to Kath). “Archer? Archer your ex boyfriend, Archer?” Kath was moving quickly into the bedroom but Charlie followed her.

“Yes,” Kath said turning to face him. She had her eyebrows up and her hands on her hips. This was her “I’m ready to take on anything” stance and Charlie knew it. “I hoped you wouldn’t notice, but since you notice everything, I was sure I’d have to tell you eventually. And yes, it is from Archer. But you don’t need to go getting all jealous like you usually do. He was just being nice by sending a postcard. He knows that I’ve always wanted to visit Greece. It was very thoughtful.”

Charlie didn’t like the way she said “thoughtful”. It was slow and drawn-out and hard. Like she was challenging him to say otherwise. “Yes,” Charlie said. “But we don’t need to hang it on the fridge.” Charlie immediately went to the kitchen to take it down, but Kath was quick and she ran there before him and snatched it before he could.

“Then where will we put it?” Kath said. “I was sure you wouldn’t want it on the bedroom mirror, so the fridge was the best place for it.”

“The bedroom? Why would you even bring this up right now?”

“Why are you being so difficult?” Kath’s nostrils were flaring. She couldn’t stand when Charlie got jealous about other guys. And that was his biggest flaw, that he was sometimes too jealous. But with a girl like Kath, how could he not be? She was beautiful, a little crazy, but sweet. He saw the way guys looked at her when they went out. He had a right to be a little jealous every now and then. But it drove Kath crazy. She would always bring up the fact that she was an adult and she made her own choices and he had nothing to worry about. But he did anyway.

“I’m not being difficult. Maybe if you’d come out and told me about the postcard before you let it blindside me then I wouldn’t be as angry.” His voice was raising a little higher than usual.

“Oh you would still be as angry!” Kath yelled. “You’re always so jealous when it comes to me and I just don’t understand why! So what if an ex boyfriend wants to send me something nice? It doesn’t mean anything other than a nice present from a friend!” She threw the postcard on the ground, not because she was mad at it, but just to be dramatic. Charlie was used to it.

Charlie bent down and picked up the card. On the back was the note from Archer. He scanned it and it wasn’t even remotely flirty. Just a simple “Greece is great! Hope one day you can experience it. Archer.” Charlie sighed because he knew that he’d been beat. He looked up at Kath who was standing with an un-amused expression on her face. Her arms were crossed in front of her and she wasn’t blinking until he apologized. They’d played this game many, many times.

“I’m sorry,” he said, sticking the postcard back on the fridge. “I know there’s nothing going on with you and any other guy. I just get overprotective of you when I have to share you with others.”

Katherine’s face softened. She smiled and ripped a piece of paper off of the notepad sitting on the counter. Then she took a pen and quickly drew a heart on the paper. Then inside she wrote “Kath’s heart” and she gave the paper to him before she kissed his cheek. “I’m all yours babe,” she said. “And there’s nothing you can do to change that.”

And with that, she sashayed into the bedroom.