The U Turn 02:21
Back to the kitchen table. The small circle, and the half glass, waiting in pauses.
"Did she write you?" Goldy ventured.
"Yeah." This was a delicate topic, so he left it short. He liked Gold but she didn't inspire the heart on the sleeve side of his nature. Not like Silver. A person couldn't hide long from that lightly sparkled gaze, if she turned it towards a subject. It might as well have been a locksmith, picking inside the mind— soon enough the mouth would open, surprise, surprise, and start talking.
But Gold had her own pragmatic approach. She opened a binder. Stuff that triggered Stan, mainly because he had remembered and forgotten, and once again was startled.
"Yeah. Maybe I should have wrote back more than I did," he offered, seeing that the words Gold asked didn't exactly frame the question that was hanging.
"So, there aren't more pages...?" she checked.
"No."
"But it sounds like... I don't know. It sounds like there's something outside of... all this," she gestured, "that's missing here."
That's the way it is with Poetry.
"Do you write poems?" he asked her suddenly curious. Silver had never mentioned.
"...Well, I used to. A lot actually. For a little while. Er, on and off..." she thought of Aaron. Of Florida. Those smoldering illicit nights in the campus production studio, before he left. The cool pistachio stretch of linoleum floor, the flecked Formica tabletop, as inviting as the expanse of a yacht for sun thirsting bodies. Writing after dark, when they wouldn't be together— and then when she wouldn't see his hazel eyes sliding wantonly down the milkiness of throat—Foolish imaginings. She swallowed, and shifted herself amply in the wooden chair, adjusting the little pillow fussily, taking a sip, and bringing the water line well below the halfway marker.
She imagined, back then, she would have tried her prowess on this man. He was still handsome, he looked capable. Goldy smiled to herself. It wasn't a pleasant expression, but he didn't catch on. He'd already written her off. Cold. That's what he saw. Gold knew better and sobered her face to the outside. He was nice.
She wanted to drop the essential question, but she wasn't sure if they were ready.