The Bench Read online

  Chapter 4

  She woke up with her face pressed hard against the leather spine of the notebook. It left a red welt across her forehead. ‘Lovely’ she thought, as she gazed at in the mirror. Greasy face, black eyes, bloody nose, groveling in the dirt and now a welt like the equator across her forehead. No wonder she couldn’t get a man – hopefully it would fade in an hour.

  She gently opened the carefully wrapped cardigan and admired the color. Dusty pink, the same hue as the end of a day, moments before the pink is swallowed by gold. She buttoned it up. The girl at the boutique had said to unbutton it below the bust line but that was too much for her, one from the neck would do. She pulled on a white flared skirt and hurried off, with her leather notepad tucked safely in her messenger bag. Perhaps she would be more noticeable on the bench in the strong pink. She cycled slowly, thinking of whether he knew she had found his poems. He must know, surely. He couldn’t leave poems randomly all over the place. She hadn’t seen him watching. How did she know they were meant for her? Maybe they were discarded from another woman? Her speed slowed. She began to worry that she was obsessed with a phantom. Was she in love with the discarded thoughts of an unwanted lover? That was too complex. She swung down a side path and cycled up the canal a few hundred yards past the bench, just in case.

  There was no one near the bench. It was good to have checked.

  When she arrived at the office the bike stand was packed. Either she was hopelessly late or a lot of people were too drunk last night to cycle home. She fought to make space for her bike.

  A male voice startled her. “Here hang on, I’ll give you a hand.”

  She turned it was a lycra suit, only he didn’t have his helmet on and therefore did not have the alien-dork appearance. He was actually really good looking and had massive thighs. He quickly lifted two bikes out and set them at the far end.

  “These two have been here for days, hell with them, they can sit on the end.” He carried both bikes at once, to the end of the rack and set them down carefully. He hurried back and lifted her front tire high, rolled it forward and lowered the bike into the slot.

  “Thanks, I have a hassle because of my goofy basket.”

  “Yeah, well it’s not a race bike, but then do you have to race to work? Makes you wonder.”

  “If you enjoy your job, I guess it’s okay.” Jenny said.

  “And you do?”

  “Usually.”

  “Aha, I hear a ‘but’ coming.” He said as he removed his gloves.

  “Well my opinions may not go down too well today.” He bent over and began to lock up his mountain bike.

  “It was a good idea to wear pink then.”

  “Sorry, I don’t follow.”

  He stood up and removed his pack from his back. “Pink, it’ll keep all the arrogant male egos at bay. You’re from the publishing company, right?”

  “Yeah. Coley and Greenberg,”

  “I know Robert. We play squash sometimes. He usually kicks my butt. I’m an engineer from the fourth floor. Structural engineering, very boring.”

  “I’m Jenny.”

  “Well, I better go Jenny, I still need to shower, I’m one of the fools who races to and from work.” He shook her hand politely and clickety-clacked his bike shoes across the cement. He hadn’t offered his name, did that mean he wasn’t interested? Or maybe he was the poet and wanted to remain anonymous. She shook her head and took her bag from her bike basket. He was pretty good looking though. Great thighs. She wondered.

  Having arrived a little early and as her cubicle was concealed in the back corner, she had not been noticed by the rambunctious crowd as they struggled to their desks. The tall, languid body of Cindy drifted by and she touched Jenny’s shoulder. “That’s lovely. It’s a great color on you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You pick it up at that store?” Cindy asked.

  “Yeah, but the place has really changed. There’s some fantastic stuff in there. Really funky.”

  “Careful Jen, this ain’t Motown, it’s as far from funk as tweed can be.”

  Jenny just grinned at the tall black girl as her slender shape drifted off. It reminded her of the trees across the canal, her body was like a long thin wisp of grass. She moved like a cattail rush in the breeze. Jenny wondered when Cindy’s marriage date was, she’d been engaged for almost two years. Strange it hadn’t been set.

  Jenny had written a few frank sentences regarding the poet’s work and hoped they would be enough for Robert. They were actually very scathing and she didn’t like to poison another writer’s work but it felt like the truth to her. It was a totally disinteresting body of work to her, but she wouldn’t be surprised if it found its niche. Still she felt dirty or cheap about ‘slagging off’, as Charles would say, someone else’s efforts.

  She thought she’d have a coffee and let the distaste for the poet’s work go. The office was noisy with jokes and stories of last night’s drink up. After the signing there was a party that had encompassed virtually all of the company’s seventh and eighth floor staff. She knew of the darts party planned by Charles but had forgotten about the official signing party. She wouldn’t haven been missed. As she entered the coffee room she saw her self in the small door mirror. She undid the second button on the cardigan. Maybe the spiky girl was right. Even so there were three more buttons before anything would be seen. Jenny wasn’t the kind of girl who paraded herself, least of all in front of morons such as Stephen and Charles. She was shapely, growing up on the farm had kept her fit, but she wasn’t the kind of girl to display it. She stirred her coffee and her thoughts drifted down to the canal. Would there be something today? Was the cyclist really her poet? He was very handsome and knew where she worked.

  A small party of readers were recounting the mayhem of the drink up the previous night. They were like children in a schoolyard. Stephen and Bernadette were trying to out do one another. Charles leaned stupidly over a half partition wall facing them. His tweed looked as if he had slept in it. Jenny slipped behind the small group and hoped to make her way unnoticed between the group and the elevator toward her desk at the rear.

  “Oi,” it was Charles, “there’s a romantic who can help us.”

  “You really think so Charles?” Stephen smirked.

  “Jennifer Pushkin?” She stopped and turned back glaring at the smart-ass.

  Charles swaggered around the partition and came across to her in his rumpled tweed jacket. “I was surprised you weren’t at the signing party last night.”

  “Miss me did you Charles? No one to throw your literary jibes at?”

  “No, I played darts later.”

  “The tip of a dart - would that be sharper or duller than your sterling wit?”

  “To coin a phrase my pearls are but the tip of an ice berg.”

  Jenny looked at him perplexed. “Well pound for pound your sterling wit is like Hamlet.”

  “Oh how so?” he ventured, drawn in to the possibility of a compliment.

  “You know, something rotten in the state and all that, old boy.” She had out done him again. Stephen and Bernadette laughed in the background.

  He knew that in his hung-over state he was intellectually as limp as a sleeping dog’s tail, but he obviously never believed in that old tale about letting sleeping dogs lie. “Come now then Jenny,” his British accent thickened to a pontificating smother, “tell us your impressions of our young Californian poet in regards to your learned friends from the lands of the Russian bear.”

  Jenny thought all Charles needed was a pipe and a deerstalker cap and he would be completely repulsive. “Well Charles-”

  “Oh do call me Charlie, darling. Please do, Jenny Benny.” There was a rustle of sniggers. He had his supporters, she would admit that.

  She noted his baiting but refused to lose her focus, it would be just what he wanted. “Well Charles,” Jenny was aware the room had gone q
uiet. “I thought it was callous and unrepresentative of the human condition. It was full of gratuitous adjectives, irrational violence and suffered an extreme poverty of heart, which denies the reader the pathos and empathy necessary for success. However, it is commercially quaint and will probably also be released as a violent video game for the small minds. I’m sure you’ll buy one.”

  “Well now, we know why we didn’t want you at the party.” Charles chuckled.

  “You asked my opinion Charles.”

  “Yes but that kind of acidic comment is not really, you know, it’s not really cricket.”

  “Not cricket? Christ your problem is your stump is too short for cricket! Get some balls. Have an opinion.” Jenny looked at him and then glanced at a few of the others, she decided she better cool down. “Charles I think I speak for everyone in here when I say, ‘cricket’ is a stupid game.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Jenny recognized the voice immediately and turned. Robert Coley her boss had been standing behind her for some time. It was obvious Charles had intentionally baited her to set her off on a scathing rampage. She hated Charles. She hated herself for how she was evolving through this week.

  “Cricket is a fantastic game.” Robert declared.

  “Too right.” Charles said smugly.

  “A game of intellect, wit, steely nerves, that is why the English so often get their asses kicked at it, eh Charles?” Robert said.

  “Now hold on, we invented it, we-”

  Robert waved him to calm down. “Just kidding Charles. We know the English are brilliant at it - they tell us all the time.” Several laughed at Charles.

  “They have to because we fall asleep watching it.” Stephen chipped in.

  “Sod the lot of you.” Charles sat down at his desk. Jenny had slipped unnoticed to the back of the office. She could still hear Robert clearly.

  Robert spoke to the room full of readers. “I’d like those brief thoughts, loglines, emailed to me chop, chop. Just a couple sentences okay.”

  Robert’s face appeared over the partition to Jenny’s desk and she smiled meekly up at him.

  “Sorry about the tirade against the poet.” she said.

  “Don’t be, he baited you. Your family has never been afraid of an opinion.”

  “Well, I did go on a bit. Here I wrote down some things, save you an email to trash.” She passed him a slip of paper with her thoughts on the poet.

  “You should have come to the signing last night.”

  “Yes, well, my opinions would probably not be very positively received.”

  “It was just a party.”

  “Of course, I’m just not…” she hesitated but he didn’t say anything just stared at her. She’d hoped he would finish the sentence and save any embarrassment, but he just waited. “I don’t really get asked, or I mean go to…” He still said nothing and watched her squirm in embarrassment. “My opinions aren’t really heard, yes that’s it, usually they’re not heard.” She spat it out and breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Why?”

  “What?” How could he just stand there and grill her. Everyone was probably watching.

  “Why aren’t they heard?”

  “I, I don’t know, ah-” she searched for a reason, something intelligent to say. Why was he being so cruel? It isn’t necessary to point out someone is not popular or is made fun of. Why was he being like this?

  “You let them ignore you.”

  “My opinions don’t count for much.” She blurted out.

  “Says who? Not me. Don’t assume too much.” He tossed the paper back onto her desk. “By email please. Don’t leave out anything from the elevator tirade.” He turned and left.

  She dropped her face onto the palms of her hands. She was shaking slightly. He was definitely not the poet. The poet would never treat her that way.

  She hurried from the elevator across the foyer. She carried her messenger bag and would be at the bench in a few minutes. A movement on her left caught her eye. It was the cap of the security guard. He looked up at her, straight at her. He never did that. Five years at the company and the mid-thirty something, overweight man, had never raised his face to her. He looked straight at her and smiled. “Great day for a lunch outside. You going to the canal again?” She nodded yes. “Enjoy your lunch.” He returned to his work.

  Could he be the poet? He knew where she had lunch. It couldn’t be him. Lots of people knew where she had lunch; lots of people had lunch there too. It couldn’t be him – she didn’t want it to be him. The poet was surely better looking and fitter. Jenny hurried through the heavy glass door and down toward the canal.

  It was warm and there was no breeze at all. The cardigan felt a bit close and she undid two more buttons and shook out the top letting some fresh air over her breasts. She didn’t do up the buttons, it was sunny and warm.

  It was easy to see the poem as she approached. There was no one very close and she hurried over to the bench. The poem was neatly folded as always on slightly old paper and had been clipped shut with a paper clip. The paper was set exactly in the middle of the bench. Compared to the haphazard way she had found the others it seemed strange that it should have been so carefully placed. She searched for the poet, he was nowhere in sight. Jenny was convinced it was a man. She was also convinced he was talking to her, wooing her even.

  She put her bag down and took out her lunch. She decided to tease herself and have some thing to eat before unfolding her dessert. The paper sat remarkably still beside her bag. She wanted to, but wouldn’t allow herself, to touch it. She unwrapped her bagel. It was peanut butter, celery and cream cheese, her favorite since childhood. Just as she looked up from her sandwich she felt the weight on the bench and immediately reached for the folded paper and slid it under her bag beside her.

  Startled by the sudden frightened gesture, the newcomer looked up at the pretty little woman in the pink cardigan.

  Jenny stared back at him. A cavalcade of emotions raced across her face. Initially protective of her paper, she was then stunned by how handsome the tall man was. He had an excellent suit and his wavy slightly gray, salt and pepper colored hair touched his shoulders. His eyes were an unusual green. His complexion was tanned and he was obviously an athletic outdoor type. She relaxed slightly, could this be her bench poet, she wondered.

  “Hi. Seems this is one of the few sane places around here to relax.”

  “Relaxation, sanity and city life don’t normally make a wholesome cocktail.”

  “You’re telling me. I’d just as soon be back on the beach.”

  “Not from around here?”

  “Na. Hey is that peanut butter, celery and cream cheese?” He leaned over closely examining her bagel. There was a slight waft of his cologne, not unpleasant. She didn’t shy away. She offered it up for him to see like a prize.

  “Yeah childhood addiction.”

  “Fantastic, I love that combination.”

  “Here take half.” She offered the other half of the sliced bagel.

  “No, no, that’s fine. I didn’t come here to scam your bagel.”

  “Hey, it’s okay. I think I should probably avoid the calories.”

  “I don’t think you need to avoid calories. Maybe weirdoes on park benches but calories are not a problem for you.”

  She smiled and just pushed the bagel at him. He was nice and extremely handsome. Bernadette and Cindy would flip if they saw her now. “Take it please. I don’t usually have anyone to speak to down here. Go on.”

  He reluctantly took it. He smiled at her before launching into the bagel. Jenny watched and prayed he would like it. He was gorgeous and to think her poet was this handsome.

  “Sounds corny but, do you come here often? I mean I have lunch down here most days, when the weather’s good, but I’ve never seen you.” Jenny said.

  “I’m just in town on business for a week. Yo
u work near here?”

  “Yeah on the seventh floor just behind us. Oasis building.”

  “This is gorgeous. Thank you so much. My mom used to make these for me back in Seattle, my hometown. I haven’t had one in years.”

  “I’m glad you like it. I’m from Wyoming.”

  “The pastures of Wyoming to the big city? Seems a bit of a leap.”

  “We’re not all skiers and dairyman out there you know. We have schools, libraries-”

  “Just kidding.” He waved at the trees across the canal. “Those trees, they look so weird – like they were cut from a children’s Christmas fold out. You know the paper kind they make snowflake streamers out of.”

  “Yeah, I know the ones.”

  “I was always crap at making those things.” he said. Jenny admired his wistful gaze as he stared across the canal. She could feel a flush below her neckline.

  “Me too. The whole origami world is amazing, but to my fingers it is like oil and water or paper and fire. It always looks dreadful.”

  He finished the sandwich and shot the wrapper into the trash basket on the other side of her. “Thank you, that was gorgeous.”

  They both looked at the trees, a little lost for conversation. Jenny broke the silence. “I always thought those trees were a sad statement against our inability to find beauty in the natural state of our environment. We end up modifying and manipulating our angst into our world by trying to prescribe the shape of nature.”

  “Whoa. That’s pretty heavy for a cream cheese bagel and some bad planting.” Jenny blushed it was a bit over the top. “Look I have to run, I have a meeting in five minutes in the same building. Can I buy you a drink tonight, to make up for the bagel and the trees?”

  “Oh that’s okay you don’t have to-”

  “I’d like to, that’s why I asked unless you are, sorry of course, you’re probably-”

  “What?”

  “Sorry, of course a girl like you would be married. I didn’t mean to push, look thanks for the bagel.”

  “I’m not married.”

  “Not? No Guy?” She shook her head. “Well what about it, just a drink. There is a bar I know, called Claudio’s just around that corner, over there.” He stood up to leave. “Sorry I gotta run, I’m now late. Can I meet you there at 5:30?”

  “Ah, yeah sure, thanks.” She stood up too and shook his hand. He turned and left. She watched him walk briskly up the slope toward her office building. He had a nice body, not too muscular but wide shoulders and a fit bum. She closed her palm and rubbed the fingers feeling the last traces of his hand.

  Jenny sat back on the bench, pulled out the poem she was sure he had left her. She turned the poem over in her hands, she smelled it. It didn’t smell of his cologne, but that was a good thing there was nothing worse than a guy drowned in cologne.

  She slowly unfolded the paper. His face and mane of wavy gray hair seemed to drift across the paper as she tried to read the words.

  LOVE ON A PARK BENCH 4

  Are you not my spring?

  Your breath is fragrant like lilac

  enthralling my belief,

  Your cheek glistens like the purity of a buttercup

  playful in its leaf,

  Your step is the whisper of blossoms

  searching for a sun,

  Your voice melds love upon my heart

  making it one.

  Are you not my summer?

  Your laughter tumbles over me

  as clouds play across the sky,

  Your warmth tingles through me

  like the sun dances on my eye,

  Your life force glows to encase me

  with the enveloping heat of noon,

  Your touch like soothing sunshine

  dizzies me to swoon.

  Are you not my autumn?

  Your lips in chorus, with blushed cheek

  call of bounty’s crest,

  Your heart rustles like fallen leaves

  with the languor in your breast,

  Your fingers caress my barren arm branches

  coloring my hope,

  Your essence robs my senses

  teasing them to elope.

  Are you not my winter?

  The mellow snowdrifts of your form entreat

  my spirits to soar,

  Your love like pristine ice pierces

  my soul to the core,

  Like hoarfrost on tree branches your love stands

  brittle and strong

  To be your lover for all time is all

  that I should long.

  Are you but a dream, a phantom of my hope?

  Are you but a vision for my heart to grope?

  Perhaps you are a blossom twinkling in the breeze

  Or the heart flush of spring to melt winter’s freeze?

  You are the morning songbird, your heart song fills

  my ears,

  You are the giggling baby that moistens my eye to

  tears,

  You are the running schoolboy, with freckled

  toothless grin,

  You are all things to wonder at, encaptured and

  graced within.

  Should I approach and display my love’s worth?

  There are no arms could hold so vast a girth,

  For I am smitten, enraptured, lost to all reason,

  My only desire is to love you through each unending season.

  She folded the poem and tapped her chin with the corner of the paper. He must have set it there just before she arrived. It was him, there was little doubt. He had been trying to win her over. Why her? With his looks he could have anyone and yet the heart is an untrustworthy advocate. She laughed at the thought, it sounded like Turgenev. Maybe she was lost in Romantic Russian Literature. But there was nothing lost about him, he had sat beside her moments before. She could still see his delight in the flavor of the bagel. How soon before she touched those lips or caressed the gray flowing hair? Her fingers brushed against each other, she could feel the gray strands drift through them.

  A tingling rush washed the skin of her arms and neck. She was happy enough to know who he was and then to even have a drinks date set up with him. A giddy innocent smile stretched unashamedly across her lips. She walked back to her office building trying to recall the previous poems. He was truly a romantic. What a wonderful way to be courted. She would tell Bernadette and Cindy. Or should she? Her teeth nibbled at the corner of her lip.

  She waited for the light to change and felt the soft whip against her calves. It was the tail of the big black Great Dane. He paused, glancing up at her, as if to apologize for startling her. He had a small white star on his chest and four white socks. There was also a tiny white dash on his nose. He looked at her with melancholy, coal eyes. He seemed to see deep into her. Did he know her pain, her loneliness and her new found secret. He cocked his head slightly as if he heard her thoughts and then suddenly shook. It was a virtual earthquake. The shudder started at his nose traveled through his lips and flapped his ears, it shuddered through his shoulders and torso finished powerfully in his hind legs, almost throwing himself to the ground. Without a moment’s further hesitation, he lowered his head and skipped a few paces to catch up to the old tramp. The two figures walked in noble rejection, like clouds receding. They moved without comment or judgment, happy and yet alone. Jenny knew that feeling and smiled to herself. The light changed. It was full ahead for her now.

  She saw the elevator about to close and called. Fingers came quickly around and held the door. She dashed around the corner only to see an empty elevator with but one sole occupant. Robert Coley stood smiling, holding the door for her. Why did it have to be him?

  She slinked into the elevator with a smile and tried to evaporate into the far side of the elevator. Seven floors she thought. How fast can an elevator go?

  He turned to her as the elevator began its ascent. “About your comments on the
Californian writer.”

  Damn she thought. “Sorry, Robert I had no right-”

  “It’s not a question of right. You above all, know the proper process for assessment, flying off the handle in the middle of the office is not so good.” He waited and watched her twist trying to hold her emotions in check. He and his colleagues on the tenth floor had always liked the fire of her opinions. She was just like her grandmother, a mixture of dainty and dangerous. “Even if that…”

  “Prat?”

  “Okay, Prat, did bait you.”

  “Sorry Robert, it won’t happen again.”

  “Everyone has a right to an opinion, just voice it correctly.”

  “Certainly,” she waited a moment and tried to hold her thoughts back, but he should know. “But cellophane wrapped commercial poetry did not make Chaucer loved by millions. The callow youths and verse portrayed- ”. The door opened and he held the button to keep it open. It was her floor.

  “Choose your moments or keep it discreetly to yourself. It’s all about presentation here. That’s how our world defines itself, through presentation.” He smiled and motioned her through the door. She could feel the heat on her cheeks as she blushed; she had flown off the handle again over the same issue. Just as it rumbled shut she heard him say ‘Nice pink too by the way.’ Was that the cardigan or the blush crossing her cheeks?

  The afternoon could not go fast enough for her. Everything she read seemed to pass a low level of acceptance. The desire to challenge or engage any of the writing before her was nonexistent, like a haze drifting on a moor, slightly cold, ethereal and utterly uninvolving. Her mind was consumed by her late afternoon tryst. Five-thirty could not come fast enough.

  An afternoon squall had rolled in - one of those five p.m. abominations that catches everyone without an umbrella. It had started to pelt down by the time she scampered to the first doorway for protection. It was only about four hundred yards to Claudio’s. She knew it well, though she rarely went there. It was where most of her floor used to go for a drink, but she doubted they would be there after last nights outing. She huddled in the doorway trying to decide when to make a dash. There was a touch at her elbow and the street darkened. Someone was beside her with a massive golf umbrella. He was young and someone she had never seen before.

  “Heading down the street?”

  “Yeah”

  “Come on. I need to get out of here before my boss realizes I scammed his umbrella.” They walked together under the massive umbrella. After about two hundred yards he slowed and stopped in front of a cheese shop. “Sorry this is as far as I go.” A pretty brunette was in the doorway and stepped under the umbrella. They kissed briefly, he waved a casual goodbye and they walked out to the street edge to catch a cab. Jenny stood watching them. She felt the trickle of water on her neck and realized she was getting drenched. She could see Claudio’s ahead and ran the last hundred and fifty yards.

  She arrived at the entrance and tried to shake some of the water off. As she tried to straighten her hair she saw the unmistakable tweed of Charles through the glass and oak paneled door. She could see Cindy and Bernadette as well. The most paralyzing sight of all though was her date, standing in the center of the group. Seattle, with his gray locks, was the center of activity. How could she possibly go in there? She didn’t even know his name. He saw her through the glass or perhaps it was the cardigan’s pink. He waved and began to cross the bar toward her. She pulled back from the door and hid around the side, but they had all seen her. She was exposed to the rain, it splattered off the wall beside her. A fine spray bounced from her forehead and cheeks. She was getting drenched but seemed riveted to the sidewalk. Her new pink cardigan clung to the cold wall like a shower curtain. Moments trudged past like mud-encrusted boots.

  She leaned against one half of the door trying to think what to do. The door opened. It was him. Before she could speak she saw the tweed jacket through the glass door.

  She ran.

  Jenny could just hear the end of Charles’ sentence as she tore away. “Believe me, she’s not one you want to have a drink with mate.”

  How she hated that tweed suit.

  “Hey, Wyoming, come back.” Seattle called.

  Jenny was gone and would not be returning. She headed for the office. She didn’t know why, it was the only place that seemed safe and her bicycle was there. It was nearing six and the office block would be fairly empty. The security guard saw her walk through the glass doors like the proverbial wet rat. Her mascara was smeared into devil rings, raccoon eyes again, even rats didn’t have to put up with that indignity. Her clothes clung to her revealing her every curve. The security guard looked at every inch of her as she stood and dripped in the foyer. Her drenched white skirt clung to her and even she could see her red lace panties through the wet fabric. She pulled the clammy fabric off her skin and glanced up quickly; she caught him leering at her. Why did men have to do that – stare like starved goats?

  “Here miss.” He got out of his chair and walked around the desk.

  She thought at first he was coming over for a closer gawk and got ready to slap him. He carried a long dark security raincoat. He wrapped her in it without taking another glance at her body.

  “There, that will get you home without every guy in the city chasing you. Bring it back tomorrow okay.”

  “Thanks.” He had given her the coat in such a casual brotherly way it had left her virtually speechless.

  “If you are taking your bicycle home, be careful on the roads. Idiots come out in the rain.” He smiled and without another lecherous glance, walked back behind his desk.

  “I’ll get it back tomorrow.” He just waved as the phone rang and he was distracted. Maybe she would reconsider him a little, but men were still lechers.

  She dropped the heavy coat at the doorway and rubbed her hand across the quatro text. She glanced at the mirror on the wall. Her face was streaked with Mascara and her hair was straggly, she looked infinitely worse than the tramp with the lovely old dog. She thought of a sonnet line. ‘A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted.’ - not hers, it looked like it was painted by Jackson Pollock. She noticed one of her eyes was a little blood shot from the biff on the nose by the musician in the bus. She removed her prized pink cardigan. It hung sadly, like those old red trapdoor underwear in westerns. Her mind envisioned the trap door – well life certainly was the shits today, she thought.

  Curry. That was it, whip up a curry and forget the destruction of Seattle and every other moment at work. Though telling Charles off had been fun. Prat, what a great word, she thought.

  She lightly washed the pink cardigan in a basin and laid it out flat on the countertop to dry. She put the frozen curry in the microwave, and nuked it on low while she took a shower.

  The steam swallowed her willingly and she ran her hands lightly over her body, dancing, teasing. The suds raced between her fingers. Is this how he would have touched me? Jenny had wide shoulders with pert peach-like breasts and a flat tummy, her arms were firm and muscled from lugging milk pails. It was a body other girls would envy but was rarely caressed by a man. She wasn’t prudish, just not involved. Lather swirled over her skin, inviting her to dream. Would we shower together? She’d read of couples showering together and it was often in movies, but she’d never had the opportunity. Though there were probably some logistical problems. In her shower for instance one person would freeze while the other baked, if you dropped the soap it would be impossible to pick it up without someone leaving the shower. How would you wash your feet without kneeing him in the balls? Who washes whose genitals? How do you deal with those questions? Not on a first date anyway. She let the thoughts fade and lost herself in the cascade of heat.

  The ten-minute scorching shower had left her skin glowing pink. The soft cotton of her favorite pajamas reassured her and chased away any dregs of disappointment. To night,
after the disappointment at the bar, was a night for cotton not satin pajamas. She had received the pjs for Christmas from her brother and his wife a few years ago. They had little jesters and theatrical masks scattered all over them. If chocolate was comfort food, these pjs were comfort cotton.

  Once the curry was ungraciously dumped over another bowl of hot rice, she grabbed the bottle of red from yesterday, along with a glass and moved to the TV. She pondered whether to turn it on. If it was Sex and the City she would shut it off, perhaps even hurl the TV set out the window. The last thing she wanted was to re-ignite the thoughts that had plagued her for the past two hours - the shower had dissolved them, let them stay that way.

  It was 24, an evening with Jack Bauer - the TV set stayed. She quite liked the series concept, in that the shifting scenes were like quatrains of poetry, each dealt with a specific aspect or concept.

  As soon as 24 finished she clicked the set off and refilled her glass. Her work flooded through her mind. Robert, who had rarely spoken to her over the past five years, seemed to be bumping into her constantly and in the most disarming circumstances. Could he be the poet? Was he in some way manufacturing a means to present himself? It couldn’t be Robert. He had a girlfriend or did until recently. The security guard? He knew where she had lunch, offered her his jacket and certainly had an eyeful of her. Could it be him? What about Seattle? He was gorgeous. Oh God she wanted it to be him. Then again she had stood him up and he had only just come into town. How would he know about her lunch spot? Couldn’t be him - pity.

  She chewed the inside of her cheek. The poet was still out there.

  It was almost eleven. Her mind was growing dull. She wandered to the kitchen with her curry dish, put it in the sink and filled it with water. She could get it in the morning. She hung the cardigan over the sink to drip dry and slipped off to bed.

  Crawling into bed she pulled the messenger bag up and fished out her notebook and the UHU glue. She pasted the poem in and reread it.

  Again the thought of who he might be trundled through her mind, it ran out like some old stagehand, yet, in some ways different, for there was still the excitement of the performance steaming in her vessels. Who was he? When would they meet? Could she love him through ‘each unending season’? Oh yes, yes she could.

  She wrote on the page opposite her freshly pasted poem.

  Lo, thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,

  For thee and for myself no quiet find.

  #27