NaNoWriMo fingerbarfing continues. Want a better place to go until it's done? Make an Almond Joy Martini. Watch all of the Pixar short films. Wonder whether the analysts are right and there finally are too many Starbucks per intersection. (I can now easily walk to four from home - three of which I can hit without going over two miles.) What do you think they'll become?
"The long way around to the mountains, isn't it?" Cryn teased the man lying next to her, what the old movie scripts would call a Distinguished Gentleman. His ruddy waves even greyed at the temples, although the small paunch might leave the question of tennis up in the air.
Cryn tried every day not to be breathless and barely-past-30, but this was a bona fide adventure, and since Colin was annoyed when she spent even a few minutes with her travel diary (Away from him? Away from their love?!), she had to talk. She had to point at the statues and notice the shutters and leap around in the wet sea air that whipped around the island.
Colin! Cryn and Colin! Cryncolin! It sounded like an estate already. (Although a double-l would enhance the brand further.) It was like something she dreamed once. Then, two months ago, when they were only four months overdue for Cordes (Was Alice angry? Was Jane angry? Shouldn't everyone be as happy as Cryn-and-Colin?), he held up a yellow legal pad with two drawings on it.
"Choose."
On the left was a sketch of a small brownstone, perhaps in a place in the States. The other drawing was, well, a castle. Circular driveway, trees, grounds. After several months of living in the grimy Corsican street (grimy until their door opened, beyond lay a pristine wealth of hardwood and four-digit thread counts), seclusion from other people's smells had its appeal.
The look that shaded Colin's face was brief and unreadable. Did he take her choice as criticism? Would there be a moment in their lovemaking that night when he'd walk across the room, open the curtains, and wait? Wait with his back to her until she slipped in front of him, naked against the pane, and they resumed? Then the next day there'd be a reason to walk somewhere, slowly, as wives hung their washing and men argued on the steps. For him, an eyebrow, maybe a shake of the head. For her, rude stares, low comments in Corsu.
But that night they only talked, talking until dawn, for Colin did know a little about keeping a woman, even if his confident anecdotes did often trail into boorish territory. Did you really stare down death in the Alps, Colin? Could you tell it again, darling?
Alice called every other night, and always Cryn made wild gestures to put her on the line, let her be the kind of Official Mistress Jane was. But Colin, to acknowledge her presence, only gestured to his cigarettes. Cryn would ignore this and find business in the small bathroom until the call ended. ("Keep well, Alice. Love you.")
Then she'd find him lying across the bed, smoking, reading the newspaper. She hated the newspaper as much as the smoke - the way she wanted to wash her hands after touching the rough newsprint, the way she had to wash her hair again if he made any progress through the pack. He'd lie there, pleasant, sincere, but not passionate. It would be up to her to stir him, to slip her tongue into his oily mouth and try not to think of the one time she'd asked him to rinse his mouth.
And as long as they kept playing this out, she was his, and what was his was hers.
Now, Colin rolled onto his stomach and slipped closer to her, like their life was a slumber party of shared secrets. "It's the longest way to the mountains, my Yankee Rose." She giggled at his whisper, at his hand reaching for her.
"And he just left her there?"
Bramford opened his eyes wide and gave the missus a look he'd learned from his daughter. She called it, "Duh."
"Do you even know anyone in Corsica?"
"It's sorted. Friend of a friend of... well, something. Colin didn't even want to hear it, this time."
"A mess! What about Jane?"
"What about Jane?"
She frowned. She sat down. For the first time in too many years, Bramford remembered his wife when she was just the possibility of a woman, not the force she'd eventually become.
When she spoke, he took a moment just to listen to the clear alto of her voice. She was still music to him. Better suited to a clarinet solo than the cacophonous percussion that played throughout the day, but the song was still there.
"I really wish we'd at least found the book."
Jane waited for Alice to come back into the living room. So he never came to Cordes. Shocker. (She laughed, then measured the laugh for bitterness.)
"Obviously, this has not played out well," Alice had said, her own laugh somewhere between cheery flight attendant and madwoman of the dale. "I'm not dead, true, but you're not rich, either. How... mediocre."
Alice could be a little philosophical; she didn't even know what color Colin's sheets were now, but Jane's mind wouldn't stop coming back to one point: could it have been her? Cryn (What was her last name? Did anyone even know?) was in a sack in the dirt in - pardon the lack of French - freaking Corsica. Colin could've pointed to any ten lackeys to end this with a little diginity, a little marble scratched with a name and date, but instead - so Mr. Lane told Mrs. Lane told Alice told Jane - it was just burlap and a bribe.
Jane got up and leaned over Alice's laptop. As deep lines tried their way across her forehead, she punched the keys, murmuring, are ee eye dot see oh ehm.
Nice reading!!!
Posted by: photo restoration services | 05 May 2009 at 10:55 PM