Not Today, But Someday(27)

“What do you have?”

“My CDs are over there.” I motion to a large cabinet door. “Pick something.”

She slides over to the far wall in her socks and opens the heavy doors, revealing the stereo and hundreds of albums. “Wow!” She starts shuffling through them, looking at covers and immediately splitting them into two different piles. I’d spent a few hours last weekend arranging them by genre, then artist. I guess she sees no rhyme or reason in my organization. “What do you want? Something ethereal? Pop? Rock?”

“My vote’s Radiohead,” I suggest, remembering the clothes she wore yesterday.

“I love them!”

“I know. You had the Mercury Lounge shirt on yesterday,” I admit. “I was there, too.”

“You went!?”

“I figured you did, too. How’d you get the shirt?”

“My sister got in with her boyfriend.”

“Fiancé,” I remind her.

“No, that was someone else. Rich,” she says.

“That concert was only two months ago...”

“I’m aware.”

“Interesting,” I comment.

“She’s kind of a slut.” She takes out the CD and puts it in the stereo, hitting the play button first, but then forwarding through tracks until she settles on one of my favorites. Very ethereal. I love to paint to this song.

“Do you like anyone in your family?” I ask, watching her as she returns to the cushions. She’d taken a handful of CDs with her, and as she settles back in beneath the blankets, she starts to take out the sleeves, opening them up to read lyrics.

A beautiful girl can turn your world into dust.3 Suddenly, there’s life in those words. A meaning I’ve understood, by sound and sentence structure, but I’ve never truly felt what they mean. I start arranging my paints hurriedly, anxious to translate these emotions into art.

“You’re not even listening to me.” Her voice startles me. I hadn’t forgotten she was here, but I hadn’t realized she was talking, either.

“What were you saying?” I ask, still visualizing what my first stroke will be. I finally look back at her when she doesn’t answer. “Sorry?”

“You asked me if I like anyone in my family.” I had forgotten that I asked her that.

“Right. And?”

“I like my brother. And Mom, for the most part, but I hate seeing her like this. Still, she’d do anything for my dad. After all he did, she’d take him back in a heartbeat, and that drives me crazy. Like, have some self-respect,” she rambles.

I think about Misty, realizing last week I’d decided I would take her back if she still wanted me. Tonight, I wouldn’t. Tomorrow, I wouldn’t. I can see better opportunities now. This girl in front of me has shown them to me. “Her time will come, Em,” I say. “Can I call you that?” I ask, realizing I’d shortened her name, and liking the sound of it. I like the familiarity. Already, she feels that familiar.

“Em?”

“Yeah.”

“Sure.”

“Cool. You know... just put your life in someone else’s hands, just once, Em, and I think you’ll see that things aren’t so cut and dry. You can’t turn it off. I think love is greater than us all,” I tell her with a smile. “Sometimes, it traps people, and holds them, frozen in time... for weeks, or months, even years.”

I hadn’t noticed she’d retrieved her purse, but she must have when she went to change. Suddenly, she’s digging through it until she produces her copy of the Canterbury Tales. She opens the book to a bookmark– a ticket stub, it appears – and reads aloud.





“He cannot escape love, even at the cost of his own life.”2





“Is that part of your story?” I ask her.

She glares at me, as if the words have offended her. As if they’ve left a bad taste in her mouth. “Yeah,” she answers tersely. “I hate it.”

“I thought it was beautiful,” I try to engage her in conversation.

“It’s just not very timely for me.”

“Or it’s just timely enough,” I suggest. “That knight’s a pretty smart guy. I think he knows what he’s talking about.” She rolls her eyes at me. I wish there was more light on her face. I want to see her eyes again. “Is that as far as you’ve read?”

“Yeah. But I’ve read these two pages about forty times. I just can’t focus beyond that.”

“Try. You should read on. Aren’t you curious to see who you end up with, at least?” I ask, referring to the heroine in the Knight’s Tale as her.

“I hope I end up alone,” she says. “I presume I do. These guys are in jail.”

“Read,” I tell her, this time more sternly. “Although it’s kind of humorous how similar you are to the fair Emily.”

“So pure, and beautiful,” she nearly sings. I laugh.

“She wishes to remain a virgin, a servant to Diana,” I tell her.

“I never said I was a virgin,” she corrects me.

“You’re not?”

She hesitates, but finally answers me. “No, I am.”