Coral stopped stirring, punched the yellow book with her blue fist. "That's it, Anton--why you seem so familiar. All this time I've been trying to figure out where we could have met in this life. But it's all the shit we've been through in a past life I was picking up on."
Shit? Sounded like Coral thought she and I were married in a past life.
Past-lives inspired Coral to touch on her life this time around. Sure, her autobiography interested me, but first I had to do some probing into our past lives. Though I had no clue how Coral and I were involved in past lives, whether platonic love, star-crossed love, or the the most beatified of all, courtly love, I refused to believe Coral and I--a couple of old souls--would have tied the squarest knot of all: Marriage.
"So, that's it," Coral said, shrugging her shoulders, "my life so far."
I opened my mouth to inquire about a chapter she'd left out--how her hands got blue, but Coral cut me off.
"I know, Anton, my life must not seem like much to you--someone who's lived as long as you."
"Long? Who says I've lived long?"
"No, I mean, my life--coming into the world in 1980. For you it must not seem like much. But for me, it seems like a lot."
Oh, math, my dearest foe, please fail me now.
But no, even the math-challenged groundskeeper could add a few years to a zero. Cry me a creed! Coral was eighteen.
Of course, after that kind of math, I couldn't very well look the child--I had the jones for--in the eye. So I looked at the floor. There, rendered in the film--the film of charcoal that covered everything in Drawing--was a mark. A mark that ended at the toe of my workboot. Boy, did that mark ever tell a story. The story of the step--the dance step back--a man takes when he learns the woman he asked to dance is but a child.
We who had lived long were always on the lookout for that which raised our spirits. A bubbly teen all excited about growing a year older didn't do that. I'd learned from Oprah a good way to fight the glass-half-empty syndrome was art therapy.
Yes, this masterpiece I was toeing into the charcoal was coming along nicely. And as for the taste at the back of my throat; what a glass-half-full that was. Yes, maybe if I toed more vigorously, breathed more deeply, the charcoal dust would kill me on the spot.
It was then that Coral's hiking boot came into view. "But now I'm ready," she said, placing the yellow book on the chair in front of me. She pivoted on my charcoal, defacing my masterpiece. "Now that I'm going to be nineteen, I'm determined to resolve all those silly habits of mine."
Somehow, hearing the word nineteen raised my spirits. No, pinning eighteen years on a girl due to turn nineteen this Sunday wasn't entirely accurate. Ya, and nineteen; that rounds out to twenty. And twenty; what's that if not a year shy of a certified adult. And, as for my living long; why, I was merely at the dawn of my middle age. No, our age difference; negligible at best.
Coral went on to explain how nineteen was way too old to still have nervous habits like picking fingernails, grinding teeth.
"And stirring hair," I added.
Coral looked confused.
That's right; Coral was unaware of that little habit. No, when hair stirring was all the sex a guy was getting at the dawn of his middle age he sure didn't want his sex partner resolving that little habit.
"Ya," I said, taking off a glove, "that's my nervous thing." I reached for the back of my head. "Ya, I get nervous and before I know it, I'm stirring my hair like there's no tomorrow. I'm sure you've seen me going at it."
"No, I haven't. But I know of something you might try." Coral was offering up a cure for my chronic hair stirring, when big Beau--the clay-boy out to nail Alicia--entered Drawing.
The bastard.
Sizing up Beau--blocking my view of Coral with his broad back--got my face hot. But I don't think it was jealousy, exactly. Probably just the odd heat that dawns at middle age.
Fanning my face with my glove, I stepped forward to save Coral. But when Coral's face came into view, I stopped. Her eyes--lighting up Beau--weren't exactly saying, 'Save me.'
The bitch.
So I took another step forward that I might join the alive conversation. But no, the teen and twenty-something were speaking a language the aged didn't understand--search engine this, web surf that.
I smiled so Coral wouldn't see me glaring at her. Yes, just look at the harlot, fully exposing her throat, all so she could take in the likes of big Beau who was, perhaps, taller than I had been before I'd lost that inch to general decline.
A good way to fight general decline is to count to ten. So I started counting down the buttons on Coral's blouse. But because it was all of 60 degrees in the cooled-down Drawing studio, I couldn't count to three for the cross-count my eyes kept making of the two buttons under her blouse.
Out of the blue, Coral folded her arms over her breasts, causing me to take a decided interest in the yellow flood lights overhead. No, that's why my face was hot--the flood lights. And as for Coral, catching me copping an eyeful; nothing there to be embarrassed about. After all, Coral was eighteen; had had tits for a couple of years now, was all too familiar with us men copping eyefuls of them.
I was cooling down when Beau started in with his patented wooing technique--pulling back and advancing like some kind of shy puppy. This got my face searing so bad I felt dizzy.
I'd observed how women my age looked around for something to bury their hot-flashing faces in. I spied the yellow book lying on the folding chair.
Bowing, I looked into Pan like a mirror, hoping the yellow of the cover would leach the scarlet from my face. But bowing only sent more blood to my face. So I opened Pan, found the paragraph that always gave me a chill.
Somehow, hearing the word nineteen raised my spirits. No, pinning eighteen years on a girl due to turn nineteen this Sunday wasn't entirely accurate. Ya, and nineteen; that rounds out to twenty. And twenty; what's that if not a year shy of a certified adult. And, as for my living long; why, I was merely at the dawn of my middle age. No, our age difference; negligible at best.
Coral went on to explain how nineteen was way too old to still have nervous habits like picking fingernails, grinding teeth.
"And stirring hair," I added.
Coral looked confused.
That's right; Coral was unaware of that little habit. No, when hair stirring was all the sex a guy was getting at the dawn of his middle age he sure didn't want his sex partner resolving that little habit.
"Ya," I said, taking off a glove, "that's my nervous thing." I reached for the back of my head. "Ya, I get nervous and before I know it, I'm stirring my hair like there's no tomorrow. I'm sure you've seen me going at it."
"No, I haven't. But I know of something you might try." Coral was offering up a cure for my chronic hair stirring, when big Beau--the clay-boy out to nail Alicia--entered Drawing.
The bastard.
Sizing up Beau--blocking my view of Coral with his broad back--got my face hot. But I don't think it was jealousy, exactly. Probably just the odd heat that dawns at middle age.
Fanning my face with my glove, I stepped forward to save Coral. But when Coral's face came into view, I stopped. Her eyes--lighting up Beau--weren't exactly saying, 'Save me.'
The bitch.
So I took another step forward that I might join the alive conversation. But no, the teen and twenty-something were speaking a language the aged didn't understand--search engine this, web surf that.
I smiled so Coral wouldn't see me glaring at her. Yes, just look at the harlot, fully exposing her throat, all so she could take in the likes of big Beau who was, perhaps, taller than I had been before I'd lost that inch to general decline.
A good way to fight general decline is to count to ten. So I started counting down the buttons on Coral's blouse. But because it was all of 60 degrees in the cooled-down Drawing studio, I couldn't count to three for the cross-count my eyes kept making of the two buttons under her blouse.
Out of the blue, Coral folded her arms over her breasts, causing me to take a decided interest in the yellow flood lights overhead. No, that's why my face was hot--the flood lights. And as for Coral, catching me copping an eyeful; nothing there to be embarrassed about. After all, Coral was eighteen; had had tits for a couple of years now, was all too familiar with us men copping eyefuls of them.
I was cooling down when Beau started in with his patented wooing technique--pulling back and advancing like some kind of shy puppy. This got my face searing so bad I felt dizzy.
I'd observed how women my age looked around for something to bury their hot-flashing faces in. I spied the yellow book lying on the folding chair.
Bowing, I looked into Pan like a mirror, hoping the yellow of the cover would leach the scarlet from my face. But bowing only sent more blood to my face. So I opened Pan, found the paragraph that always gave me a chill.
"There was a boulder outside my hut, a big grey boulder. It always seemed by its expression to be well-disposed towards me; it was as if it saw me as I came past and knew me again. I used to like making my way past this boulder when I went out in the mornings and it was as though I left a good friend there who would be waiting when I got back."
I closed the book, walked over to where I'd shed my work clothes, put on my long sleeve shirt.
****
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