Standin' On the Edge (5/6)
RJ Ferrance, DC, MD (rferrance@VCU.ORG)
Tue, 6 Feb 2001 12:37:06 -0500
Michelle found herself wondering if all writers had attention-deficit
disorders.
Morning had burned into afternoon, afternoon had melted into evening, and
now evening was becoming night. In the twelve hours Matt had been
'writing', Michelle had watched him water his plants, do the dishes,
straighten up a bookshelf, play a few old songs on the baby grand piano,
dust the picture frames, unclog the filter on the Jacuzzi on the back deck
(well, she had asked him to do that), read and send a dozen or so e-mails,
surf the web for an hour, and drink God-only-knew how many bottles of beer
from the well-stocked refrigerator in the garage. She had started out
rereading the story in Rolling Stone. But watching him had proven to be
much more entertaining.
In his defense, something in the later afternoon - be it the dusting of the
picture frames or perhaps the umpteenth bottle of St. Pauli Girl - had
seemed to finally break the deadlock. His fingers commenced to flying
across the keyboard and he fell into total silence. Michelle wandered in
and out of the room a few times after that, but Matt never even looked up.
Did she even exist in whatever world he'd gone to, Michelle wondered?
She decided to find out.
She came back in from the Jacuzzi looking incredibly hot in her pink
one-piece and he still didn't look up. She replaced his feminist-rock with
her techno-rap on the sound system and he didn't even flinch. She changed
into a casual blouse and shorts and announced she was headed out in search
of some supper for them both and he managed little more than a grunt that
might have been an acknowledgment. She left him in his Zen-like little
Happy Writing Place and foraged for dinner.
The thing she wouldn't tell him was that the day had been lonely. His
moroseness aside, he wasn't all that painful to be around. And she'd never
been one to revel in silence and solitude. Of course, drawing the old man
into conversation which might ultimately lead to her liking him was filled
with its own danger; how often had Amanda warned her not to get too friendly
with a Mark?
But with that damned password between her and his computer, her task was
going to be very difficult without somehow winning his trust. And her usual
way of winning trust wasn't working at all on this guy. She began to wonder
if he'd left his hormones in his doctor bag back in Richmond.
Matt Brennan was standing at the back glass wall, a beer in one hand helping
him to contemplate the ocean, as she stepped back through the front door,
her quest for purchaseable dinner now complete. He was barefoot, in
Docker's shorts and a navy blue T-shirt under an open cotton shirt with the
long sleeves rolled up to mid forearm. Dressed that way, he almost could
have passed for twenty-something.
"Where've you been?" he asked, turning from the window. His voice was
light, almost as if he was glad she was back.
She stared at him and blinked several times, finally deciding not to remind
him that they'd already had this conversation. No, actually, it hadn't been
a conversation. Still, he had been briefed. "I went out to get us dinner,"
she told him, heading across the room. "After your snarky little lack of
comments on my pizza yesterday, I thought I'd let someone else not cook well
enough for you tonight." Her crooked smile diluted the pissiness in her
words. She pulled still-hot cartons from the bag she carried and laid them
out on the glass table they'd have to share with his laptop computer.
"Defensiveness is not an attractive quality," he said to her over his
shoulder, heading out to the garage. He was back moments later with two
more cold ones. He twisted the lids off both of them and offered her one.
"Thanks," he told her. "I love Chinese."
"So, I did something right?" Her tone punished him less than her words.
"You do a lot of things right, I would imagine, Michelle," he told her
easily. "Making pizza just isn't one of them. Yet. And neither,
apparently, is cleaning up the kitchen after you've spilled flour all over
the floor." He held his bottle toward hers. "Will you join me in a toast?"
he asked. "In celebration of Chapter Three having been successfully
de-clichéd?"
"De- cliché-ing seems like a reasonable enough reason to have a toast," she
told him, tapping her bottle against his and then sipping from it. She set
her bottle at her place on the table and headed to the kitchen for plates
and silver.
"So, it's close to being finished?" she asked him.
"Closer," he agreed, "but certainly not close."
"Can I read part of it?" She hoped that didn't sound too hopeful. It
shouldn't. She had little hope that it would be that easy.
"Sorry," he told her, almost sounding it. He lit the two candles on the
table and dimmed the lights. "It may be de- clichéd, but it's still not
suitable for public consumption."
"Oh?" she asked, "why's that?"
"It's still a little too raw," he told her. "Too ... harsh, too bitter,
too...."
She came back from the kitchen bearing their place settings. "Too honest?"
she asked quietly.
He met her eyes and smiled a bit sadly. "Too honest," he agreed.
Now there was a conversation killer. "Ooh, candles," she noted, acting as if
she'd just noticed them. "How romantic." Her voice fell somewhere between
teasing and impressed.
He shook his head refusing to rise to the bait. "I prefer my dinner - and
my friendship - by candlelight. Don't read anything into it."
"Me?" she asked innocently, slipping onto her chair before he could hold it
for her. At Matt's rather sudden silence, she stopped shoveling General
Tso's chicken onto her plate and looked up questioningly. When he had her
attention, he bowed his head and Michelle, with little hesitation, followed
suit, holding her silence as he recited a short blessing. If she stayed
around long enough, she decided, she'd eventually remember to do that again.
"So," she asked him, resuming the business of dinner and accepting the
carton of white rice, "this novel you're writing.... Is it about
Immortals?"
"Well," he hedged, scanning the five entrees she'd bought for the two of
them, "yes and no."
"Yes and no?" she pushed, making it obvious she didn't find that an
acceptable answer.
"It's a story about some Immortals," he told her. "But without Immortality.
Except, perhaps, for Immortal love." His voice had turned cold and bitter
with his last statement. Or maybe just tired and sarcastic. His
inflections still puzzled her a bit.
"I see," she said, not any further ahead than she had been.
"If such a thing even exists," he added, almost under his breath.
She chewed for a moment, thoughtfully. His tone had surprised her, and she
found that she was, perhaps, a bit disappointed in him all of a sudden.
"I'd like to think that it does," she ventured, almost defensively.
"Really?" he asked her, not sounding convinced.
She nodded. "Really."
He held her eyes a moment longer before nodding, looking almost... pleased?
"Then there might be hope for you yet, Michelle," he told her. Were his
eyes ... teasing? Or was that a trick of the candlelight?
More beer, more Chinese food, a few quiet, thoughtful moments preceded her
next tentative question. "Amanda's told me some stories about the two of
you," she said, an almost embarrassed chuckle punctuating the words.
"Pirates? You as a pirate...." That bought her a crooked smile which she
had learned could signal anything from embarrassment to pride. She wasn't
placing any bets. "You're not... you know... writing about any of that by
any chance, are you?"
He looked almost surprised by the question. Something was dancing in his
eyes, though. Damn those candles. "I guess," he said quietly, taking
another sip of his beer, "when it's done I'll have to send you an
autographed copy so you can see for yourself."
Michelle was suddenly glad for the lack of light, and hoping her blush was
hidden in it. Damn Amanda, anyway. Did he know, now? Was he on to her?
Embarrassed and feeling rather small and out of place, the main reason for
her feeling that way washed over her yet again. She was suddenly back in
New York, feeling the pain, and the disorientation, and smelling the stench
of rotted food and soggy cardboard and blood-
"Michelle?"
She started as she realized he'd called her name three times before it'd
registered. "What?" she asked, her eyes snapping up to meet his. They
darted away again as quickly as they could.
"Where'd you go?" he asked her. His eyes weren't dancing now. They were
looking... concerned?
"I...." She cleared her throat, then shook her head. "I'm sorry," she
said.
His stare didn't let her escape that easily. "You... want to talk about
it?"
So... now she had his attention.
She shook her head vehemently this time, and hid behind another long drink
of St. Pauli Girl. "You wouldn't understand," she told him with a bitter
laugh. "You're way too...." Experienced would have been the proper term.
But the other word would sting more.
"Old?" he asked for her. He sat back a bit and sighed. "Don't think I
don't feel it sometimes," he told her softly, his eyes staring out over her
shoulder toward the Atlantic beyond. There were a number of moments of
silence before he spoke again. "I don't remember a whole lot about my life
before Immortality," he told her. "It didn't occur to me then to reinforce
the memories I had of a... normal life. The things you hold most precious
to you - your memories of your parents .... I don't even have those,
Michelle." She looked up to meet his eyes, almost disbelieving him. But the
sadness she saw was real. And she knew that look. "Immortality can be a
bitch sometimes," he added.
She was nodding. "For many reasons," she agreed softly.
He sat quietly for a moment, studying her much closer than she would have
liked. "What I do remember, Michelle," he told her quietly, "is just how
much we lose - how much of a burden we take on - for the things we gain."
There it was: Words for what she knew she'd felt, but couldn't find voice
for. "We have to kill to live," she said softly.
"Which isn't fair," he told her. "But is true nonetheless. There are but
three rules," he said, "and fairness isn't mentioned in any of them."
"I hate Quickenings," she announced rather suddenly.
That made him laugh, but she forgave him because the laugh sounded
sympathetic. "So do I," he said. "They're loud, they're bright, they're
painful.... But don't let that get out, okay? It'd ruin that tough-guy
image I've worked so very hard to cultivate."
She forced a smile as she asked, "You have a tough-guy image?" She dodged
the fortune cookie he tossed at her, and then the smile faded. "So, what
have I gained?" she asked him quietly.
He shrugged and pursed his lips. "Time," he said. "Which may not seem like
much now, and in fact it may not be much. Depends upon how you choose to
use it. You can learn some positive things from Amanda. She enjoys life,
no one can argue that. Think of the best friends you had when you were
mortal," he told her. "Now, realize that you'll have hundreds, maybe
thousands, like them in the years to come. And if you're lucky, you'll have
a few friendships that will last not for years, not for decades, but for
centuries. Maybe even longer. Like Amanda and me."
She allowed him an embarrassed smile, her task again sneaking into her mind.
"Hopefully," she told him with her knowledge of the secret, "better than you
and Amanda. Maybe like Theresa and you," she tried.
He nodded. "Hopefully longer than Theresa and me."
They sat in silence for a while longer, as if he was expecting her to say
more, or ask more. But she was done. The tears that had threatened to
break free earlier had been chased away and replaced with... hope?
Optimism?
"Well," he announced, stretching and then standing, fighting a yawn every
inch of the way, "De- cliché-ing is hard work. I'm off to bed." He started
to gather the prodigious left-overs but she stopped him.
"I'll clean up," she promised. Before he could protest she added, "I need
to do something to earn my keep."
He smiled a warm, genuine and grateful smile. "Today, I broke three weeks
worth of writer's block," he told her. "So you've earned your keep, because
I'm assuming your company helped do that. Your company," he teased her, "or
Theresa's leftover beer." He stepped around the table to lay a hand on her
shoulder on his way past. "Good night," he said softly. "See you in the
morning?"
"Sure."
She sat alone for a few minutes, Sarah McLachlan again rotating through the
CD player with her song about remembering. Sad and hopeful all at once.
Must've been some kind of sign, she decided, finally pushing herself out of
the chair to do the chore she'd promised.
"Weep not for the memories," were the last words of the song. And those
pushed her already festering conscience over the edge. A confession would
be in order, and quickly, before she changed her mind.
Tentatively, she stepped to his door and knocked softly. Probably too
softly. The lack of response from within melted her resolve, and she turned
away.
She washed off the table, and found that the laptop was still running. And
those damned strings of balls were still doing whatever it was they did,
with the drug trying to stop them.
She tossed the empty beer bottles into the recycling bin. Theresa's
leftover beer, which she had left Matt along with the house.
And the computer.
She stopped. The house, the computer, the beer.
With the sudden elated thrill of knowing, knowing she was right, Michelle
quickly reached back into the bin and retrieved a bottle, checking the label
for the spelling. She slid into the seat and used the space-bar to clear
the screen saver again.
One last try, she promised herself, trying to find a middle ground between
her mission and her conscience.
Stpauligirl.
Enter.
A moment's hesitation and then Windows98 welcomed her to "Theresa's Brain in
a Box".
^--*-*-*--^
****************************************************
RJ Ferrance, DC, MD
Combined Internal Med/Pediatrics Resident
Medical College of Virginia Hospitals
Richmond, VA 23298
rferrance@vcu.org
http://views.vcu.edu/~medtoast/anvil.html