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| Rules of Engagement (part fourteen) |
So Lucy idled in the driveway. Her balsam hair was blithe in a breeze-blown crevice of window tint with the crown of her head visibly active. I thought for a moment, from this lateral glimpse, that she must have been fully absorbed in some kind of pulsating electronica, but this dance was less rhythmic, more erratic and when I finally managed a frontal view I gauged the familiar cranial ritual which accompanies conversation. Her slender cell phone easily concealed beneath long layers of blond. She was engaged in terse dialogue with someone who was making a tree trunk of the space between her brows; awakening Botox paralysis.
"Another irate client," I wagered in a whisper, my breath fogging the glass. I caught her attention as I rubbed out the mist and held up an index finger.
"Be out in a minute," I mouthed.
I ascended the stairs to the second-floor loft where the girls played and mentally rehearsed how I'd justify their departure, each step more burdensome. I feared that their bright, beguiling eyes would seer, peerless, past my thinning facade of normalcy. They would know that something was wrong before I even spoke a word.
I thought that they would be upset, that there would be tears. I imagined, too, that I might even confess the whole thing; tell them how I felt like something was terribly wrong and how something about that woman's face in the paper and that letter from San Diego had something to do with it all.
But, as I reached the landing, I was greeted by those elastic smiles; the resiliency of youth, for which my swampy condemnation had discredited. They were standing there side-by-side, like Persian soldiers maximizing their width, armed with stretched grins and little, floral overnight bags. They must have overheard my call to Lucy asking her to take them for the night.
And they must have decided, militarily, that the best defense would be to face the enemy bravely. Not to run as to be chased. Not to cower as to be found. Not to wait but to engage.
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Posted by paperlily on 2009-04-18 01:01:57 | Rating: | Views: 43
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