Scatting over untalented fetishists and burlesqueries
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Tabitha’s hair is a presumptuos red, daring, somewhat stuck-up, but only as much as the girl herself, so despite the shocking, deep red, I have forgotten it isn’t actually her natural hair colour.
May’s hair is much more… shoulder length and brown. And the two, chatting over coffee, scatting over untalented fetishists and burlesqueries, make a very grounded pair.
Says May, “The ‘only burlesque troupe in Dallas’ is totally awful.”
“It’s true. We stood there making fun of them.”
“They should’ve done more yoga.”
“They were fat and disgusting.”
“They could’ve stood some Proud Warrior.”
“Their high kicks weren’t very high.”
“Some Downward Dog would’ve helped, too.”
I do not know May as well, but elitist witticisms fall from Tabitha’s mouth as if they were gold coins, and she, a fairy tale heroine:
“This guy was wearing gloves, and looked totally ridiculous. I was rude: ‘My friend wears gloves to keep the demons in his fingers. What’s your excuse?’ Then May dragged me away.”
I can’t say it started innocently. She’s attractive. And we were both married.
How many times had we done this? Dinner, drinks, fascinating conversation, her smile.
I can’t say it started innocently. She’s attractive. And we were both married. And our marriages, the slow, cancerous deterioration, and poisonous spouses were common ground.
And the margaritas, and the conversation, and the laughs. Isn’t that how they say it should happen? After you’ve wasted the first years of youth pursuing storybook love, and you take your measure, isn’t that how they say it should happen?
When I was younger I never believed in love.
We still meet monthly. A cocktail has loosened our inhibitions. We’re relaxed. The conversation comes comfortably. A smile, or a gesture, her eyes will catch my attention, and the restaurant noise, the neighbouring guests, even the story she’s telling falls away, and I am filled with the position of lovers, no. 4: An urge wells up to burst the lovers chest, an instinct to kiss the other.
Soon it passes.
A thousand reasons why and why not. Justified by strategies for later, when I walk her to her car, meet her at her house. But these do not matter.
As with all early positions of lovers, it is the hesitation that is of import. As if the bellows of the heart suddenly quiet, and the fire retreats back into the coals where it consumes them from within.
I do not tell young lovers I am getting divorced or that I am married, but soon not to be. I would not want to suffer some doubt in their idyllic world.
“The first thing I can remember, I’m two years old and I’m in my little white dress and I have my purple gingham little kitty kat in my hand, and I’m standing on the back stairs of my grandmother’s house in Mississippi, and my mom and grandmother are hanging laundry to dry on the clothesline. It was two or three lines strung up from one of those T things. I can feel the breeze, warm across my arm.”