|
Page 37.
 I want you to love me like I love you.
She read the look in his eyes and stared. “You should leave if you are going to hurt yourself.” She reconsidered the legalese in that look. “I don’t want to hurt you.” Then she made faces as if seeing him for the first time. “Oh, baby. I do love you. I am just—stuck like this. A beetle trapped in amber. You are a poet, Léopold Montblé, free as the wind. I am a prisoner, and you brought me a loaf of bread with a file baked in it, but I am too weak and foolish to saw my way out or even see my way out. What would I do? I keep busy typing and filing at my day job where you met me, a little light reception work. I couldn’t possibly support myself.” She paused. “I never finished college. I wanted to take singing lessons, but I can’t hold a tune. I was going to major in communications, but I can’t write. I was going to be a history major, but I can’t remember the difference between Julius Caesar and Caesar Salad.” She stroked him as if he were a pet chinchilla. “Baby.”
“You are beautiful,” he said. “You have a doctorate in being perfect. I am a lawnmower. I know, one day I’ll teach Literature or something. My creative juice drained away. Just freeze-dried lettuce that’s safe to talk about, usually dead poets like in that American movie with Robin Williams. Nothing new, fresh, daring, or original. To a real poet, it’s like being forced to squat on the floor and lick someone else’s plate clean. I don’t even want to think about it.”
She laid her head on his lap, the girl from the cigarillo ad, this samba chick who had never been to Rio, whose husband was that craggy handsome cowboy riding away into orange mesas in the remote provinces of Upskate and Downskate. She would never age, nor want for money, nor fail to speak in symbols (money this, institute that, prix des champignons bleus or blahs or whatever, Lah-di-Dah).
You are not leaving Jérôme to run away with me.
He rose, took her hand in his, and sat on the armrest by her legs. She breathed in deeply, a gesture of sadness, “Marc, this trip to Versailles might be the only few days we ever have together. I mean real days together, where we can be alone and without any thought of being seen or being wondered about.” With the corner of her eye she indicated the dense tree crowns all around. “I’m pretty sure nobody can see us, and even if they do, they don’t know Jérôme, and nobody would wonder about you being here…” As she spoke, her eyes evinced a deep and sincere thirst to drink from his cup. Their age difference was, after all, slight. She looked younger, and he could pass for older. He bent his head to kiss her hand. He half-lifted her willing, elegant paw, but stopped—instead, more gallantly, he lowered his crown to honor her.
“Maybe a weekend in Versailles would be overdoing it. Maybe there is someplace around here where we can have a picnic,” she pressed. “Oh, you mentioned the Bois de Vincennes.”
“Yes, that’s doable. We could take the Métro.”
“Ça va. There we go.”
He rose and lifted their communal tea glass. The liquid tasted sweet and bitter. Her hand fell onto the thin cotton of her dress, and he noted its early, faint patterning amid the late-hour tennis tan. She saw her hands too, and said, “I just wanted to see you again. I was wondering if you’re all right.”
“You care. That’s lovely.”
“I do.”
“I care also. It’s just—limitations. You don’t have to think there’s a trap. Only whatever is in your head.”
He looked doubtfully out into the tree crowns, where a darting squirrel zigged and zagged evasion patterns across warped dark-gray bark. He remembered a certain young woman (now what was her name even?) a few years ago in a situation that hadn’t worked out. What had she said? Nothing complicated, okay? Meaning, just a few hours and I don’t care if I ever see you again. He’d lost her telephone number. She’d never called to inquire, so she (what was her name? no matter) really didn’t care. It was just as well—what was meant to be. Like this relationship, this relativity, with Emma.
|
This generous program allows you to read half the book free. If you like it, you can buy the whole book safe, secure, and quickly at Amazon (print or e-book). The e-book is priced about like a cup of coffee (painless, fun). Thank you for reading. If you love it, tell your friends. Please post a favorable review at Amazon, Good Reads, and other online resources. If you don't care for it, please do no harm; easy refund, and just move on. Authors need your support! Thank you (JTC).
|
E-Book
|
Print Book
|
TOP
|
