Paradiso or Paris, Pick One

story segment


Madame Python says: It’s time for another segment and I’ve got another unpublishable story from the slush pile, Wicket.

Miss Cricket says: I thought today’s segment was supposed to be about how women could really care less about the visual. What's important is scent…

Madame Python: Oh, you mean expensive cologne?

Miss Cricket: Right, well, suitably manly cologne properly applied.

Madame Python: Properly applied meaning only a little bit under each ear and on the spot under the second button?

Miss Cricket: Yes, and I've heard that men are being told to put cologne on their torso. This is a terrible idea.

Madame Python: Oh, absolutely. If a woman is that close to a man's torso, it isn't cologne that she wants to be smelling. Not by a long shot. But I want to get this story included in this segment, Wicky. Can we stop talking about scent?

Miss Cricket: Are you going to ruin it by adding stuff at the end that the author did not intend?

Madame Python: Just take a listen…

     On the final day of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) convention, after the 3:00 p.m. workshop entitled "Renewable Energy Deployment Strategies: Contracting or Levelization?," Ruby took her chunky glassed gin and tonic out on the veranda of the Waikiki Hilton. The air was hot, her printed agenda was gathering a wet ring from the bottom of her glass and the beach was calling.

     "Ruby? Is that Ruby Ratulowski?," a voice called out from between table umbrellas.

     It was Jack "Panini" Luchini. He was nicknamed Panini in high school because one: he was always singing and two: someone accidentally thought the famous opera singer's name was Luciano Panini. As in: Tonight we are going to be able to hear Panini singing Nessun Dorma!

     He looked nothing like she had remembered him. And yet he looked exactly the same. The same smile. The same hair – well, a bit grey here and there. They had seen each other at a reunion or two, but it was a full 31 years ago that they had become fast friends. Never dated. Annoyed the hell out of each other to their mutual delight. Actually, in high school they were like an old couple – both wanting the other - neither admitting it. Never giving over any power. Being too young to negotiate a secret détente.

     "Panini! I can't believe it! What are you doing here?" she called out.

     "Looking for you, of course," he called back. His salt and pepper hair rustled in the ocean breeze.

     "You look the same."

     "You look the same."

     They paused two meters apart and looked each other up and down. Ruby ditched her drink and threw a big hug around his neck. She kissed each cheek before coming back down off her toes.

     "Tell me you're not married," she leaned in.

     "I'm not married," he said into her ear. He paused and smiled widely, "I'm not saying it's true. I'm just sayin' it."

     Ruby grabbed his left hand. No ring and no sign of a recent ring. She said, "Oh, this is a good thing. A goooood thing. This… this is the Hawaiian vacation I was looking for!"

     "You haven't changed. Still going to make me crazy. Still going to get on a plane and leave me to cry in my milk."

     "Still going to complain? Or going to go swimming with me?"

     The waves were mild and their mood was mild. It was as if no time had passed. Some thirty years had evaporated and they were their same selves – as of course they always had been but had forgotten. She found a small shell and he made her put it back. She said he wasn't any fun. He said she was killing the planet. She said he was personally responsible for global warming. He said she was personally responsible for some very localized warming. She rolled her eyes. He began to sing Nessun Dorma. She pretended to put the shell in her swimming suit bra. He just kept singing.

     The SEIA had been forgotten. Their respective dinner arrangements were forgotten. They sat in their swimming suits and talked about music and theater and their favorite New Yorker cartoons and how neither of them had ever been to Paris. It was a long time before they went in.

     He had a new job in Rochester that dealt with renewable energy. She had been in LA for a long time - an established career. He had two college-aged children. She had a dog. They made the trek to their hotel room hallway without saying anything.

     "You tracked sand in because you didn't rinse off like the sign said," Ruby said.

     After a pause she continued, "You made me wreck my paperback book. I'll have to pay the library for it. I'm going to send you the bill." She held out the half soggy tome: 101 Cat Mysteries.

     "You…," Ruby began to say, but Jack put his fingertip on her lips.

     "Shhh," he said and put two fingers under her chin. He ran his thumb over her lips softly left to right. He drew her close right there in the middle of the hallway sandy feet and all. She could smell his shoulders and could feel the palm of his hand pressing against the small of her back – pressing against the small of her back the way a good dancer holds his partner. Firm. Safe. Soft. With clarity. And that's how he kissed her.

     She just breathed and kept her eyes closed. She read his chest as if it were brail – some brail that spelled out awe and desire and friendship. Her fingers felt the hair at the nape of his neck. She opened her eyes. She shook but she wasn't cold.

     "I'm leaving in the morning before you'll be up," he smiled into her eyes, "Thank you for today." His fingertips traced her hair line and then the outline of her lips. "Thank you for today."

     He kissed her one more time and walked to his room whistling Nessun Dorma. They had changed. And they hadn't changed. The air was sweeter having spent the day a priori themselves. This day they had not been their derived selves – the selves of career, obligation, and responsibilities. Nor even their aspired selves – the selves of goals, benchmarks, and things strived for. They had been pre-name, pre-language, pre-prose. They had been poetry. Maybe some day they'd meet in Paris.

And then

Miss Cricket: Stop!

Madame Python: What?

Miss Cricket: Don't add another word, Py. You were going to add some sex scene and wreck the author's entire intention.

Madame Python: Well, what if I was?

Miss Cricket: It doesn't need anything else.

Madame Python: You don't think it would be better if she knocked on his bedroom door and it was ajar and she slipped between his sheets and he found her there when he came out of the bathroom and he took her to Paris right then and there?!

Miss Cricket: No.

Madame Python: And you don't think it would be better if they piled up a bunch of pillows and rode right on ahead to St. Petersburg?

Miss Cricket: No. Not to St. Petersburg or Hong Kong or Shanghai or on a boat or in a plane or with a goat or in the rain! Not everything has to have a sex scene in it.

Madame Python: Anything that isn't crap has a sex scene in it.

Miss Cricket: Okay, for the next segment you can find a story that has a steamy sex scene in it. By the way, I did appreciate that this story mentioned the scent issue. That was helpful.

Madame Python: What's your favorite cologne, Wickey?

Miss Cricket: I like Brut. Closing thoughts on cologne, Py?

Madame Python: I like sweat, Wickey. There's no better pheromone production location than…

Miss Cricket: Thank you, Py! Well, that'll be all for today. Join us next time to talk about what happens in Paris.

Madame Python: It stays in Paris – but we are going to tell all. Signing off from Hoboken. Don't write like Miss Cricket.

Miss Cricket: Don't write like Madame Python.

Copyright 2014, Elizabeth Cricken, All Rights Reserved

image credit: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paradiso_Canto_31.jpg