Scene Around

 

Before judgement and hoop earrings and clever wordplay. Acid jazz, before misunderstood intention and irony. Caffeine-free diet. Sex. Growing old with cats and willing to betray oneself. Before ego. Stomach ulcers, shortcomings, experimentation, memory, liquor cabinets and seen around on Saturday nights.

 

When she asks him questions in public, he smiles through gritted teeth and says,

“I’ll tell you later.”

But he never does.

She leans her weight against the bar, the flesh of her underarm clinging to a spot where someone has spilt Peach Schnapps. Her earrings dangle at her jawline and stretch her earlobes, which will have puffed in the morning and filled with the gunk of infection.

She is air kissed.

 When he talks to her she listens. And when she replies, he looks at a spot just above her shoulder and slightly to the left. She tells him he is not listening, and he repeats her words back to prove he has. Then he waves at a woman in the doorway.

He excuses himself by patting her back as if they are buddies.

A stranger discusses his irritable bowel, and she lifts one foot out of her stiletto, relief for the blister that has rubbed off against the leather strap and wept along her arch.

She catches her reflection in the window. Foundation has caked in the creases around her eyes. When people greet her she wonders if they notice.

 

Before a faster internet connection, longer length tops and a chemical peel. Before a touch of lipstick, jealousy, you’re a big girl now. Before early detection. Muggings and budgets and what do we do about 2010. Before flirtation. Before cigarette breath, new linen, anger.

 

She steps out on to the street, the winds of an electrical storm whipping along the esplanade, so that couples hurry indoors, men stretching to cover their partners’ heads with newspapers, ladies running with knock-kneed clinging to their wayward skirts.

 

A cab is parked at the curb. She climbs in and a smiling man named Roy introduces himself and asks where she would like to go. She directs him toward her home while they share a cigarette. She tells him that one of her favourite things is to hold people’s faces when she kisses them, and that she really likes it when things are a little damaged, or scarred, or maybe a little ugly.

Roy thinks she watches too many films, but he likes her anyway.

 

Roy waits for her to be locked inside before he drives away.

She stares at herself in all the mirrors and tries to find how each one reflects her differently.

She rubs at her makeup and splashes her face.

She pretends not to notice when he comes in at 4am. He kisses her forehead and a few minutes later, she hears him whispering on the phone upstairs.

 

Before running out of time, knowing the right people, vitamin supplements. Before the search, breaking news and statistic. A hot oil treatment, safety, cliché, low GI diet.

Before becoming

before

Before being seen around.