Hell Hath No Strength Like a Woman Scorned

[Content warning: Strong language, alcohol use]

She stood outside her apartment door, hesitating to go inside. It was a Friday evening and she was all dressed up. Why not pop down to the pub down the road? No, she told herself, and put her key in the door. She was angry, and angry Elise made stupid decisions. Better to stay inside until she calmed down.

Another Tinder date, another night being stood up. Last week at Sunday dinner, her brother - eight years older and happily married - and her parents had marvelled at how often she got stood up. 

“In my day, you might have known one person in your circle that had ever been stood up. What are you doing, Elise?” her father had said. 

Laughter erupted around the table. Her family seemed to find her quest for a partner some sort of cruel comic relief. In the beginning, she enabled them, finding the ridiculous situations she got herself into rather entertaining. But after five years of this, she was over it. 

She caught a glimpse of herself in the hall mirror. “You are stunning, Elise,” she said to her reflection. And she was. On top of being smart, funny, and successful in her career. What was the problem then?

“MEN, they're the fucking problem,” she said as she dumped her keys in the basket and kicked off her shoes. She wished sexuality was a dial you could turn in one direction or the other like the conservative Christians seemed to think it was. She’d definitely choose to be a lesbian then. If only. 

She went into the kitchen and dug out a bottle of Pinot, pouring as full a glass as she could carry. She took a long sip before plonking down on the black velvet couch. She’d waited an hour - an entire hour -  before finally giving up. The waiter had looked at her with pity as she paid for her cocktail. She might’ve tipped him better if he’d had some words of wisdom or even a funny joke. Instead, he’d just given her a sorrowful look. She’d only waited so long because the bastard was so damn good looking in his profile pic. 

Elise wondered what had happened. Car accident? Missed train? Forgot his wallet and was too embarrassed to show up without any money? Better offer? She cringed at the last one and gulped down more wine. She picked up her phone and opened the app. Online now, it said. She sat up straighter, nearly spilling her wine. 

“What the fuck? Well, you’re obviously not dead then.” Scratch that possibility off the list. She opened up the messages they’d exchanged and started typing, but erased everything she tried to write. Her anger boiled hotter as she typed until she threw her phone against the wall. 

She could tell by the way it bounced off the wood floor that it had cracked the screen. It wouldn’t be the first screen she’d shattered that way. She got up and started pacing the room. 

“Seriously, who does that? Who just doesn’t show up, and then is casually perusing the same dating app he used to book the date he was meant to be on?!” She stopped pacing and screamed as loud as she could. 

Elise knew, reasonably, that anyone that did that wasn’t someone she wanted to be with anyhow. But reason wasn’t really where her head was tonight. Reason had no place on a Friday evening after being stood up. Again. 

The last time it happened was barely a month ago. Different bar, same outfit. (Maybe the outfit was the problem? Bad juju?) She’d left work at six, after getting ready in the staff bathroom. When she walked out, Finn had stopped her with a wolf whistle. She had rolled her eyes as she pushed past him. 

“Where are you off to looking like that?” he asked. 

“None of your business!” she snapped as she pushed the down button, desperately trying to avoid any further chat. She had already dated Finn and that was a hard no now. She had no desire to answer any questions from him about her dating life. Mercifully, the elevator came and rescued her, depositing her onto the busy street. 

She breathed in the city air. It smelled and sounded like a Friday night. This is why she lived here - the atmosphere on an evening like this was unparalleled. She pulled out her phone to check if he’d messaged her that he was on his way. No, but that meant nothing. She’d checked six times since lunch that she had the details right - tonight, 6:45 pm, at Bar 333. 

It was far enough into happy hour that there were no tables available, so she’d had to stand around awkwardly, nursing her drink. She’d asked for a beer because she knew he liked beer, and thought he’d appreciate that she was drinking his favorite micro-brew (thank you, Facebook, for this information) when he arrived. She left when she finished the beer and he was still a no show. At least on that occasion, she’d gotten an apology the next morning. Something lame about having a meeting that ran over. On a Friday? Yeah, right. Delete, block, done. 

Her eyes fell on the sideboard her TV sat on. It was the pièce de résistance in her apartment. Painted a deep blue-gray, with two glass doors and wine racks in the space in between the doors. She had fallen in love with it when she spotted it in a shop and had been so excited to buy it with her first bonus. So excited that she missed the box to tick for assembly. When it arrived, the delivery man had stacked the boxes in her living room, said goodbye, and walked out before she had a chance to realize her mistake. Determined to put it together herself, she started pulling the pieces out. Some of them were too heavy for her to even get out of the box on her own. 

Exasperated, she’d collapsed on the couch and used her phone to order an Airtasker. Two hours and $100 later, the sideboard was put together. In the wrong spot. She only realized this when she sat down to watch Netflix and saw the glare of the screen caught in the sunlight. 

That was a year ago, and it still hadn’t been moved. How was she going to move it? She hadn’t even been able to pull out some pieces from the box. How could she ever move the entire thing? It was incidents like that - and the pickle jars she could never open - that kept her on her quest for a life partner even when things got dire. Okay, that was a bit of an exaggeration, but also not entirely off base. Every time she thought she’d accepted she’d be single forever, another pickle jar would have her in a puddle on the floor. 

Elise stood up now and poured herself another glass of wine. She stood in front of the imposing sideboard, with one hand holding her glass and the other on her hip. Her eyes narrowed. 

“Fuck that,” she said aloud. “I can do this. I don’t need someone society perceives as stronger than me just so I can move furniture.” 

She took a big swig of wine. They always called alcohol liquid courage. Maybe it could be her liquid strength too. She set the glass on the counter, harder than she intended but only a bit sloshed out. Good, she would need the rest of that. The sideboard only had to be turned 90 degrees and then moved four feet backwards. That wasn’t so hard. She could do it. And when she did, she’d be free - she wouldn’t need a man. (Well, if she would also stop buying pickles, then she wouldn’t need a man.)

Elise pushed as hard as she could on one end of the sideboard, but it didn’t budge. Not even an inch. She huffed and she puffed, but she could not get that God damn piece of furniture into the right spot. Another sip of wine. A bit more pacing. 

“Think, Elise, think. Aren’t there stories about mothers lifting cars off babies because they’re so motivated to save the baby? SAVE YOUR SOUL, ELISE! You can do this.” 

It took about a dozen more tries, but she finally got it turned so that all she had to do now was push it back the four feet. But first, she had to move the loveseat that was on the wall where she wanted to move it.  She’d forgotten about that.

“UGH,” she collapsed onto the couch, feeling defeated. She couldn’t stop now though, not with this blue-gray monstrosity sitting in the middle of her living room. Her beloved sideboard had lost its allure after pushing it for an hour. She closed her eyes. A little break would help. In a seemingly subconscious effort to motivate her, her brain recalled the memory of the first time she’d been stood up. 

That time had been a Wednesday evening dinner. She should’ve known - someone that wanted a midweek dinner for a first date instead of Friday night drinks probably wasn’t the right fit for her. But their chat on the app had been so engaging, and they’d been carrying on with their clever quips back and forth for weeks. She was too invested to turn him down and too eager to offer an alternative option. 

They had planned to meet at the sushi train. She’d dressed down slightly - jeans and a cute top - to match the midweek timing of the date. But her makeup was perfect and her boots were hot. She had a good feeling about the night. She arrived exactly two minutes early, her usual strategy. Being late was disrespectful, too early felt desperate. 

They had agreed to meet at the corner near the restaurant and wait in line together. She waited on that corner for half an hour before finally giving up. Now, knowing better, she wouldn’t have waited so long outside without a drink to keep her warm. But her naiveté had been strong back then. She held back tears as she walked away from the restaurant, only letting them flow when she turned the corner onto an empty street. Thankfully, her walk home was short. She cried herself to sleep that night. 

The memory did its job to motivate her, and she jumped up from the couch, ready to tackle the move again. The loveseat was much lighter than the sideboard, and she easily pushed it out of the way. She took another quick break for a sip of wine, this time deciding against a top-up. The adrenaline was flowing, and she didn’t need that liquid strength as much.  

Another three hard shoves, and it was flush against the wall. She screeched with excitement, dancing around the room. She easily moved the loveseat where the sideboard had been and clapped her hands in delight. The TV was the last thing to put back together, and she was grateful she’d had the foresight to snap a picture of the cables before she’d unplugged everything. 

It took three glasses of wine and two hours, but she had done it. No more glare. And the room looked better this way. She felt a few tears of joy sliding down her cheeks and wiped them away quickly. Even though no one could see her, she felt foolish crying over something so silly as moving a couple of pieces of furniture on her own. 

She was hungry now after expending all that energy. She usually grocery shopped on Saturday mornings, so the fridge was bare. Elise found a new jar of pickles in the cupboard, and decided that would suffice. Without hesitating, she opened the jar. POP. The lid came off easily.