I see them with my mental eye, a fine and sharp thing of great utility and acuity that's fairly wide and whitely open these days:
The arc of her bare shoulder catches the light that stripes through the hotel's vertical blinds and into the darkness of the room. Vegas light, sodium arc edged with red. The white sheet clings to her back, curving upwards at her hip, and the curve rises even higher because her knees are drawn up towards her chest. Red hair flows onto the pillow.
And I can smell it: the conditioned air of the room, dry and colored with that ever-so-slightly freon tinge of plastic, the scent of commercial carpeting, recent paint a penumbra around the olfactory package of the scene. Having recently reread Jitterbug Perfume, scent and its mnemonic powers are fresh in my mind.
"It was good, wasn't it?" she says.
"Yeah. Yeah, it was good."
"But it's over now." It wasn't a question. "Isn't it." That wasn't a question, either.
Feeling it as well, now, as expressed in his posture and in hers, both equivalent, she on her side, folded in on herself, he on the edge of the bed, naked in the dark, his shoulders lowered with something like defeat, the gulf of the mattress between them. The two of them exist for me, their interactions within these precise moments of truth and realization illuminating the potentialities of the familiar. There are notes here, notes forming melodies that we all know.
"Yeah," he said. "I think so."
"You mean you don't know?"
"No, I know."
"So why'd you say that?"
"I don't know."
He does know, of course he knows: sometimes, even when it should be over, even when it is over, the bare fact of connection remains, that pure mammalian contact that we're loathe to give up, because once it's gone, there's never any certainty that it'll ever come again. Other times, that last little thread becomes a lifeline to the future, but it's easy to miss, and he's missing it now. It's drifting right past him. So I look in on them, with my wide mental eye, and I feel for them.
He stands up in the dark, and shuffles to the end of the bed, finding his pants with his feet, the belt clanking as he pulls them on. Behind him, she remains motionless on the bed, curled and thinly-sheltered. The sheet moves as she breathes. He can still feel her. "We had a good run," he says, and bends down to retrieve his shirt. He puts it on inside out, and buttons two buttons before he realizes it. "We don't hate each other."
"No, we don't."
"Lots of people don't get that. We're ahead of the game." He turns the shirt right side out, finishes buttoning it, sits on the end of the bed to pull on his socks and shoes.
"I didn't think we were playing a game."
She's beautiful, in all sorts of ways.
And he's being an idiot. I'd tell him if I could.
He doesn't say anything else before he leaves the room, not looking back, letting a wide wedge of light from the hallway spill across her bare shoulders, her red hair. The wedge narrows, becoming a thin beam just before the door closes and latches behind him. He's left his cardkey on the dresser, next to her purse, and when he has that final moment of doubt, and turns back, his hand on the door handle, it's too late: he could knock, but the effort of it is somehow too much. She might not answer. The flow has been interrupted. For a moment, he remains frozen in place, as though his hand has melted into the polished brass. Then it drops to his side, and he turns away.
It's a funny thing, really, because I know what he doesn't: if he had left his cardkey in his pocket after they'd entered the room earlier that evening, in that instant, with the door handle still in his grasp, he would have remembered it, and before he was fully aware of his actions he'd have slipped it in. The light on the lock would have flickered green. He would've opened the door, and gone back inside, nudged by the narrative.
But he didn't, and he doesn't, and so I watch him walk down the hall, towards the elevator, away from the room, and away from her.
The arc of her bare shoulder catches the light that stripes through the hotel's vertical blinds and into the darkness of the room. Vegas light, sodium arc edged with red. The white sheet clings to her back, curving upwards at her hip, and the curve rises even higher because her knees are drawn up towards her chest. Red hair flows onto the pillow.
And I can smell it: the conditioned air of the room, dry and colored with that ever-so-slightly freon tinge of plastic, the scent of commercial carpeting, recent paint a penumbra around the olfactory package of the scene. Having recently reread Jitterbug Perfume, scent and its mnemonic powers are fresh in my mind.
"It was good, wasn't it?" she says.
"Yeah. Yeah, it was good."
"But it's over now." It wasn't a question. "Isn't it." That wasn't a question, either.
Feeling it as well, now, as expressed in his posture and in hers, both equivalent, she on her side, folded in on herself, he on the edge of the bed, naked in the dark, his shoulders lowered with something like defeat, the gulf of the mattress between them. The two of them exist for me, their interactions within these precise moments of truth and realization illuminating the potentialities of the familiar. There are notes here, notes forming melodies that we all know.
"Yeah," he said. "I think so."
"You mean you don't know?"
"No, I know."
"So why'd you say that?"
"I don't know."
He does know, of course he knows: sometimes, even when it should be over, even when it is over, the bare fact of connection remains, that pure mammalian contact that we're loathe to give up, because once it's gone, there's never any certainty that it'll ever come again. Other times, that last little thread becomes a lifeline to the future, but it's easy to miss, and he's missing it now. It's drifting right past him. So I look in on them, with my wide mental eye, and I feel for them.
He stands up in the dark, and shuffles to the end of the bed, finding his pants with his feet, the belt clanking as he pulls them on. Behind him, she remains motionless on the bed, curled and thinly-sheltered. The sheet moves as she breathes. He can still feel her. "We had a good run," he says, and bends down to retrieve his shirt. He puts it on inside out, and buttons two buttons before he realizes it. "We don't hate each other."
"No, we don't."
"Lots of people don't get that. We're ahead of the game." He turns the shirt right side out, finishes buttoning it, sits on the end of the bed to pull on his socks and shoes.
"I didn't think we were playing a game."
She's beautiful, in all sorts of ways.
And he's being an idiot. I'd tell him if I could.
He doesn't say anything else before he leaves the room, not looking back, letting a wide wedge of light from the hallway spill across her bare shoulders, her red hair. The wedge narrows, becoming a thin beam just before the door closes and latches behind him. He's left his cardkey on the dresser, next to her purse, and when he has that final moment of doubt, and turns back, his hand on the door handle, it's too late: he could knock, but the effort of it is somehow too much. She might not answer. The flow has been interrupted. For a moment, he remains frozen in place, as though his hand has melted into the polished brass. Then it drops to his side, and he turns away.
It's a funny thing, really, because I know what he doesn't: if he had left his cardkey in his pocket after they'd entered the room earlier that evening, in that instant, with the door handle still in his grasp, he would have remembered it, and before he was fully aware of his actions he'd have slipped it in. The light on the lock would have flickered green. He would've opened the door, and gone back inside, nudged by the narrative.
But he didn't, and he doesn't, and so I watch him walk down the hall, towards the elevator, away from the room, and away from her.
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