by C.P. Kemabia
The street was getting dark. Eastward in the sketchy horizon, you could see the night gather rapidly. The street lamps were already on and their sodium flood lights falling upon the pavement gave it a fractal look.
Antwone and Mary walked side by side. They had reverted to small talk, conversing at intervals in a light tone, but never feeling the need to buffer their sentences with levity. All in all, it made for a pleasant way to keep the mood gay and keep the whole air between them casual. And Antwone didn’t mind that. After he had let himself go and had the atmosphere in the house laden with his unchecked emotions it was better to put a lid on them for a while...
Everywhere cars were parked on both side of the road. Along the curb were lined flowering trees with lean, sinuous branches blooming with shades of green and purple; some of them were presently losing their color with the approaching night. There were also a few people sitting and talking by their screened-in porches and watching Antwone and Mary as they walked by.
The beagle was pulling ahead with its tail wagging merrily, its snout directed to the floor of the sidewalk, and its leash seemingly holding it back. From time to time, Mary would give it slack and Spooky would then jump around for a bit, and try to make his way across the road and Mary would pull back on the leash and that would send him jogging straight ahead along the sidewalk.
They all arrived under a tree that was covered with purple blooms. A passing wind took them up to the clouds. Mari looked up and smiled.
“Do you know what this tree is called?” she asked Antwone.
“Jacaranda tree,” Antwone said. “Or something.”
“It’s true that writers do know everything by name.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe that’s what I’ve always believed.”
“We don’t know everything by name,” Antwone said. “But we use our instincts and our intuition to know how everything is supposed to feel.”
“So you’d say you have good instincts?”
“I’d like to think that.”
“And you can put yourself in everyone’s shoes and feel what they feel?”
“That’s the requirement of the job.”
“I admire you for that, you know.”
He eyeballed her incredulously. Her ear rim briefly showed under the wavy cut of her hair. Her eyes were sparkly; her cheeks were very pale as if there was no blood under them.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Mary said. “It’s true, I admire you.”
“Why? What I do doesn’t call for any admiration.”
“Oh, but I think it does. Suffering through one’s private emotions is hard enough as it is. Yet you writers choose to experience the suffering of others to make a living.”
“We don’t have much choice there,” Antwone said. “Suffering is what keeps the art alive and sharp; any art actually.”
“I think you are lucky to be doing this and being successful at it.”
“You were good at it too. Or have you forgotten?”
Mary smiled; a very thin smile which happened mostly across unmoving lips. Her left hand holding the leash was extended out. Head down, Spooky was sniffing at the pavement.
“I haven’t forgotten,” Mary said. “I remember scribbling mostly uninteresting things.”
“That’s not how I remember it,” Antwone said. “You were good. I liked what you wrote.”
“Well, thank you. But I think you liked it because you were naïve. We both were, in a lot of ways.”
Antwone said nothing. Yes he had been naïve. He had once believed in a lot of things he no longer believed in nowadays. Time had cured him from his illusions, struck them from his language and belief system. Now, as a grown man, he only saw things for what they really were, without the veneer. And that, too, made for great writing material.
A couple of senior citizens passed them by and Antwone and Mary bowed to them amiably. Opposite them, across the street and inside a fenced yard, two little boys were playing with squirt guns. It was a very nice neighborhood, Antwone thought: a good place to start and raise a family. This was evidenced by the continuous bursts of kids’ yelping sounds booming out from some of the houses.
With that thought about family and children in mind, Antwone looked at Mary and noted that a petal of a purple bloom had purposefully clung itself to her. It was half hidden under her hair, a little way behind her ear.
He reached over and, smoothing locks of hair out of the way with two fingers, plucked the flower petal, exposing in the process one third of the tattoo Mary had on her neck. Antwone didn’t need to see the rest of the tattoo to know what it was. And it marveled him that Mary had kept it. Sure, he had never supposed she would ultimately have it removed or anything, but it felt strange to see yet another token of the good old memories he had had with her back in the house by the lighthouse.
Startled by his reaching gesture, Mary turned to Antwone and he showed her the petal, saying, “Just doing a little housecleaning…”
“How did that one get there?” she asked.
“You obviously have irresistible hair.”
She took the petal from him and brought it up to her nostrils.
“It smells good,” she said. Then, unexpectedly, she placed the petal on top of Antwone’s head and started laughing. Her shoulders and her chest shook with every ripple of laughter. It pleased him to see that the years hadn’t eroded her spontaneous playfulness along with her ease to laugh with an adorable silliness. Something he was used to when he was around her.
The wind blew the petal off just as Mary was through laughing and Antwone said, “If I were to ask you to dinner, would it be jumping the gun?”
“Dinner?” she repeated. She hadn’t completely switched out of her laughing mood and it made her voice sound a little bit funny, as if she found the invitation to be a ridiculous idea. She opened her mouth to say something more, but closed it again. Antwone supposed she was internally going through things that only women go through, which aren’t obvious to men.
“My literary agent,” Antwone explained, “who … um … has a big part in my life invited me to a dinner over at her house. And I don’t want to go alone.”
“And you thought about me?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Wow,” Mary said. “I didn’t expect us to get back in the swing of this kind of social engagement, you know. Like, this soon… I figured it’d take time to slowly get there, I mean, considering––”
“—You think it’s awkward, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t think it’s awkward.”
“But you think it is,” Antwone said.
“Why? Do you think it’ll be awkward?” she said.
“I asked you first.”
“I mean, I guess it’s a little awkward.”
“Yeah––I felt it the moment I asked.”
“So what now?”
Antwone grimaced.
“Alright, it’s a little awkward but so what?” he said. “You said you wanted us to be in each other’s lives again, right? So this is it. I’m making an effort here.”
“In that case,” Mary said, “I guess I should put in a little bit of my own goodwill.”
“Not like that. Not if you have a problem with this dinner thing.”
“I don’t have a problem with it, if you don’t have a problem with it.”
“I knew you’d say that.”
“You did?”
Antwone didn’t answer that. Instead he said, “Are you glad I came by today?”
“If you ask then you must know I am.”
“And that didn’t seem awkward, did it?”
“What do you think?”
“I think on the whole it went pretty well.”
“There is your answer.”
“Alright, that settles it,” Antwone said. He was feeling a little lighter in the head. And he also wanted a smoke. “Bring Marc along. Because if we’re really going to be in each other’s lives again, I
guess we should get to know the people who are already in it.”
Mary half-turned her head to look at him and he saw gratitude rise up inside her and show in her eyes. Just now, Antwone thought that he had found the Mary of his childhood, in that dewy face of hers which was brightening up with radiant smiles.
The wind blew around them as they walked along the curb of the street lined with trees. Now and then, a car drove by with its blinding headlights. It was dark all over. A dog barked somewhere. Sounds of a show airing on a television set could be heard too. The wind came and went. As they walked along, side by side, Mary grabbed Antwone’s arm.
16
