Ask Eleanor (Special Edition With Alternate Ending)

by Briggs, Laura

  A child brushed past Eleanor en route to the sunlight world outside; ahead, she saw the two parents rising from a table, unobstructing her view of one in the distance. There was Marianne, tucked in the furthest corner, across from a young man facing away from Eleanor.

  Marianne had been leaning forward in conversation past two paper cups which obviously held either coffee or tea, her smile open with laughter and brimming happiness until she caught sight of Eleanor. Now, a bare arm was raised in the air, waving enthusiastically to Eleanor as the strap of a yellow baby doll sundress slid further up Marianne’s shoulder.

  A pair of army green dungarees with buckles and pockets and cuffed legs converting them into capris, a multicolored scarf around her head, a pair of orange canvas sneakers – if Eleanor had appeared in such an outfit, it would have drawn comparisons to the colorblind, but on Marianne, artistic, carefree girl, it drew no comment except compliments, or, else, the occasional disapproving stare or sniff from someone more sensible.

  “Oh, Elly, you’re here!” Marianne wrapped her arms around her in an enthusiastic embrace, the smell of turpentine and charcoal pencil drifting from her skin and clothes. “Sit down. Elly, this is Will. Will, this is Eleanor.”

  He was muscular. Tan beneath his casual white button-down. Dark hair curled tightly, almost untidily or carelessly around a well-formed face. A pair of green eyes that seemed intensely shaded and striking to Eleanor when they met her own.

  Handsome. Very much so. From bronze skin to the bare feet displayed in black flip-flops beneath a pair of denim-clad legs. An expensive pair of jeans which had once been ironed with a crease now wrinkling away.

  “Eleanor.” He took her hand when it was offered, as Eleanor slid into the chair between him and Marianne. She felt his fingers hold her own with a light grip, warm and dry. Calluses softer than Marianne’s roughened his fingers slightly. “So this is the famous Eleanor I’ve heard so much about.”

  “How do you do?” she said. She noticed that the contents of the paper cups were lukewarm and showed signs of having been present and ignored for quite awhile. “I’m afraid I’ve heard very little about you, Mr. –”

  “Allen,” he answered. “But call me Will. All of my friends do – I have very little use for ‘Mr. Allen,’ you see. That’s more my father’s department.”

  He smiled, his green eyes taking on a warmth or humor which was hard to define, except that it increased the general beauty of his face. His eyes had moved from Eleanor to Marianne, then back again in a graceful shift that seemed to include them all in a conspiratorial opinion.

  Eleanor glanced at Marianne. “Will’s father is in business,” she said. “But Will’s more ... independent-natured.”

  Then he must be your perfect match, Eleanor thought. But said, “So what do you do professionally, Will?”

  His smile widened. “I have no profession,” he answered. “I’m between ambitions at the moment – although I think you would say I’m ‘unemployed.’”

  For a fraction of a second, Eleanor was shocked by the rudeness of these words. In his eye, she caught a sudden flicker of mischief which altered the corners of her smile in an impish aspect.

  “I had you, didn’t I? Don’t worry – I consider myself unemployed, too. In fact, I’m thinking about remedying that personal flaw very soon. As soon as Marianne helps me figure out the best way.”

  “Will has this brilliant idea,” said Marianne. “He’s constructing a website – an online journal – for independent poets and artists. A showcase of their work that doesn’t use the whole ‘judgment’ and ‘discrimination’ theories of editors but lets work flow freely –”

  “Not that there’s anything wrong with editors,” supplied Will.

  “No, nothing...in general,” said Marianne, somewhat reluctant with this admission. “But it infringes on the artistic process. This way, artists will showcase their work the way they want it to be seen.”

  “Like a virtual gallery?” suggested Eleanor, to be helpful.

  “Sort of. Well, yes, I suppose so,” said Marianne. “Anyway, it’s still in the early stages, but I think it will be brilliant once it hits the artists’ community. Because he’s brilliant.” These final words were spoken in a sensual tone as she leaned across and kissed Will rather fiercely on the lips.

  It was a brief touch, but seemed strangely intimate to Eleanor’s eye and ... well, savage, somehow. From the corner of her eye, she could see Will was reading her expression and recognized the thoughts behind it.

  “Marianne is quite ... unlike anyone I’ve ever met,” he said. “It’s been my extraordinary luck – my privilege – to meet her. Something I have no doubt you know.” His gaze flickered to hers, with something humble, apologetic in its depths and in the softness of his voice. It had the effect of softening Eleanor’s concern, be it ever so slightly.

  “I was the lucky one,” Marianne answered, rather intensely. “I could have gone the rest of the day without knowing you existed. And spent it on crutches, hobbling from class to those winding stairs at my loft, had I not been so lucky.”

  “This is how you met, I presume?” said Eleanor. “You didn’t tell me the story, Marianne. The one about your near-death experience.” She was still curious and somewhat apprehensive regarding its details, the absence of which had been made all the more vivid by the physical presence of Marianne’s so-called rescuer.

  “I didn’t, did I?” Marianne seemed surprised by this. “I should have, I know. It’s just ... you know how it is, Eleanor. I forget to bring up the sort of things you think are important –”

  “It wasn’t a near-death experience. Not exactly.” Will spoke again. “It was merely a minor rescue on Monday morning on the train. I was en route from the boredom of my father’s office to some form of distraction, preferably artistic at that time of day, my manner of washing off the stain of corporate greed, if you will. And just ahead of me was a beautiful woman whom I could not keep my eyes from following, try as I might.”

  “Me,” said Marianne, who did not have the grace to blush with this word. “I had my sculpture with me. “Poetry in Motion No. 5,” which is the heaviest one because of the thickness of all those pages layered over the wire frame. And its wings stick out, which makes it harder to carry –”

  “– and the floor was slick because of the rain earlier when all the rush hour commuters tracked it on board in their mindless transit to intellectual slavery,” Will continued, with a sardonic grin, “ – something poor Marianne didn’t realize until the train came to a very, very sudden halt.”

  “There was a problem on the line, or something,” said Marianne. “When it jolted, I slipped. I would have fallen and slid under who knows how many seats; or else broken my arm and the sculpture, if it hadn’t been for a very strong pair of arms closing around me.”

  “Mine,” said Will. He was holding Marianne’s hand now, lightly, by the tips of her fingers, so that his own were exploring the curves of her nails and the sandpaper skin formed by sewing needles and papier-mâché.

  “It was second instinct. When I saw her tumble backwards, I simply stepped forwards and caught her. Almost as if I had some sort of skill in speed and precision that escaped me until that very moment when I caught her just below her elbows, holding her and this winged paper creature and a very heavy bag of books dangling from her shoulder.”

  “Really?” said Eleanor. For lack of anything else to say at this moment, when her head was filled with the vision of Marianne suspended in grace by a stranger’s strong grasp. A man who must have taken one, two, three strides forward, moving between other bodies to be there in the moment the woman before him lost her balance irrevocably. The spread of paper wings, the lines of poetry printed haphazardly across them, the bright fabric of Marianne’s clothes in the light –

  “My shoes were those old straw sandals and I couldn’t get any traction,” explained Marianne. “And the train started moving again, which didn’t help. So Will held me up a
ll the way to the next stop.”

  “To put her down would have been a crime,” said Will. “There were no seats open, the floor was filthy, there wasn’t enough room to take a step forwards without taking a bite out of someone’s shoulder. And the sheer pleasure of looking down into those eyes convinced me that it was worth the pain of waiting.”

  Marianne did blush for this remark; even Eleanor blushed, although it was more out of the embarrassment one feels when charm’s maneuvers are so recognizable that smoothness cannot disguise them. Marianne seemed not to mind it; and it rather surprised Eleanor that someone as – well, seemingly effortlessly charming as Will could utter a praise which seemed somewhat hackneyed.

  “All sentimental rot, I know,” he continued, with a faint wink directed at Eleanor. “But I swear it is true. The part about finding your sister utterly irresistible. And being fortunate enough in a city of thousands of eligible men to be the one in the right place at the right time.” He toyed with one of the half-empty paper cups as he spoke.

  “In a side note, the sculpture was completely undamaged,” said Marianne. “Just in case you were worried about it.” She directed a teasing little smile towards Eleanor.

  “Of course,” answered Eleanor, gravely. “Although ‘Poetry in Motion No. 4’ is my favorite.”

  “I like No. 3 best,” countered Will. She caught the same half-hidden, mocking gleam of before over the edge of his cup of lukewarm tea. He polished off its contents in a single sip.

  There was something about him, Eleanor had to admit. Something which made you feel quite quickly that you knew him well. That you were old friends sharing an inside joke, a companionable silence, a familiar conversation. Charm or skill – she wasn’t sure which one.

  “Refills, anyone?” he asked. “And for you, Eleanor – something to drink? We’ve held you hostage here – horribly, now – for almost twenty minutes, I think.”

  “A cup of coffee, please,” she said, resisting the urge to smile in response to his words. “Plain. A single creamer container to the side, if they have some.” Her smile had turned into a polite one directed at him as he rose from the table. As he disappeared in the direction of the service counter, she felt Marianne’s hand close over her own.

  “What do you think?” Marianne’s voice was slightly pleading. “What do you think of him, Elly? You like him, don’t you?” The fingers squeezed tightly with these words.

  “I do,” Eleanor began, although there was a slight hesitation in her voice. There was something about Will that was immediately likeable – something in his humor or manner which put people at ease, she supposed. Like tumbling into friendship with someone by accident. But – there was yet a ‘but’ in all of this, a line of trust which Eleanor did not yet cross.

  “I don’t think anyone could dislike him,” said Marianne, with relief. “There’s just something about him. It can’t be described ... I can’t explain it and I’m in – in love with him.” She said this last part with a force of emotion, of defiance, as if half-expecting Eleanor to challenge her.

  “Since when has my approval mattered?” asked Eleanor. “You cared very little if I had an opinion on your love life.”

  “But now it’s different,” Marianne answered. How or why, she did not say; but Eleanor sensed something beneath the surface of Marianne’s countenance which was altogether new.

  “Here we are.” Will set a paper cup before Eleanor, black coffee a quarter-inch from its brim. A small plastic container of creamer beside it, two more paper cups of tea between himself and Marianne.

  “Two sugars and a lemon.” He looked at Marianne with this statement. “And one plastic straw.” He produced it before her, then dropped it into her cup.

  “Thank you,” she answered. “But you know I’ll only chew on it.”

  “That,” he answered, softly, “is precisely why I brought it. A very bad and very adorable habit.” He lifted his own cup and took a sip from its contents.

  “Elly likes you,” said Marianne, smiling, then altogether radiating as she continued. “She just told me so. And Elly never likes any of my boyfriends.”

  Eleanor was slightly taken aback. “That’s not true –” she began, “– about the others –”

  “And if Elly likes you, then you’ve done the impossible,” continued Marianne. “It must be the lack of piercing and failure to say anything too senseless or frivolous about life in her presence. But then, we haven’t talked about poetry or art or music –”

  “What of tattoos?” queried Will. “Are they on your list?”

  “You have one, I take it?” answered Eleanor, mildly. In response, Will lifted the half-rolled sleeve of his shirt to reveal a design which looked art nouveau, surrounded by French words in cursive script.

  “There,” he said. “I defy you to dislike me now.”

  Another half smile tugged at her lips, against her better judgment. A cocky, arrogant attitude, she thought. A self-assurance which didn’t need her approbation and shouldn’t receive her approval in any case.

  “That won’t be necessary,” she answered. “As Marianne recalls, tattoos were not the reason I disapproved of any of her past boyfriends.”

  “Jerome had tattoos,” supplied Marianne.

  “Jerome also had an STD, dearest,” countered Eleanor. Will seemed to find this reply funny; his grin broke wide, the creases around his mouth more prominent as he laughed, covering his mouth with one hand as if to stifle its openness.

  “It wasn’t terribly funny at the time,” objected Eleanor.

  “And I was never at risk, was I?” persisted Marianne. “We never did anything more than hold hands, but no, you wouldn’t believe me when I said it. He was practically nothing more than a friend –”

  “We should drop these stories for Will’s benefit,” said Eleanor. “I don’t think he would care to hear every one of your past relationships dissected.”

  “You haven’t asked me about any of mine,” he pointed out.

  “No,” Eleanor answered. “No, that’s true. But I think that’s Marianne’s place and not mine.”

  Those striking green eyes met her own again. The look between them lasted longer than before; as if they were assessing each other, she realized. Drawing lines, determining places, calculating distance and agreement, all without betraying any firm feelings one way or the other.

  “I like you, too.” Will spoke again. “For what it’s worth. You are everything Marianne said – and a great deal more that nobody ever sees, to their very unfortunate loss.”

  Eleanor drew away from his gaze. “That’s ... very polite of you. And very clever, from the perspective of someone you want to soften just a little.” In her voice was a slight edge of playful recognition, as if she was daring him a little to deny its truth.

  “But you already know me too well for that,” he answered. “I don’t think those tricks work on you so easily.” It was not entirely a lie of flattery, smooth or otherwise, which Eleanor detected in his voice.

  Eleanor held out her hand. “It has been a pleasure to meet you,” she said. “But I have to go, as Marianne knows. My column isn’t half-finished for the day.” She shook his hand again, feeling the change in his grip with this second touch, so that it was slightly more firm, more knowing.

  “The pleasure was mine,” he answered. “And I hope that what Marianne said was a little true. About your opinion of me.”

  “It was,” she answered. A reply made somewhat more softly than she intended. Conciliatory, she might have said, although she was not quite ready to concede anything on this subject.

  “Goodbye, Marianne.” She kissed her sister lightly on the cheek. “I shall see you later, I hope?”

  “I’ll call you,” said Marianne. Giving no express reason for this statement, except for the glow in her eyes as they moved from Eleanor to Will again. Eleanor stood up, her bag slipped over her shoulder from its place on the back of the chair. Will and Marianne rose also – apparently, their interest
in lingering here was only for her sake in the first place.

  Outside, in the blinding daylight, Eleanor had one last glimpse of them striking off in the opposite direction. Marianne’s hand was clasped in Will’s, their fingers intermingled. In a chivalrous gesture, he had shouldered her heavy canvas bag of books and artwork. Their hands swung between them as Marianne half-skipped along the sidewalk. She raised her face to his as he spoke, upturned in the bright sunshine which set her aglow with radiance.

  *****

  “Then you didn’t like him,” said Marianne.

  “Yes, I did. He’s ... very likeable.” Eleanor’s voice held a note of reluctance with this admission. “But even you must admit that five days is a very short amount of time in which to actually love someone.”

  “But I do.” In Marianne’s voice, she heard conviction. “How can you say I don’t? You met him. You saw us together – you can’t tell me that it’s not real after that.”

  “I’m not saying you don’t have real feelings for him.” Eleanor shifted the phone to a more comfortable position, crossing her legs beneath her on the sofa. “Don’t accuse me of denying that. I’m just concerned that you don’t know him very well.”

  “I know everything I need to know about him,” said Marianne. “I learned more about his personality, his soul, his passions, than I could learn about someone else in a lifetime...”

  “Really?” said Eleanor. “Then who are his family? What kind of future does he see for himself, with or without you? What sort of feelings does he have regarding the world in general or government policies?”

  “Precisely the kind of things you would ask him.” Marianne’s tone was sarcastic. “And exactly the kind of things I don’t need to know to know someone.”

  “But you do.” Now Eleanor’s voice was slightly pleading. “Marianne, you must admit that it’s too soon to be talking about Will in terms of ... well, the long-term. In terms of a lifetime. You might say or do things that you’ll regret. It makes you vulnerable, being so open about these things.”