story segmentMadame 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
