It was evening, on the cusp of June, and they were on the
wide-plank porch that had once been in her family, an elevated spot where the
dusk could settle against the rhythm of crickets and a star was too light to
see yet.
She had her hair pulled back, a look he loved as it gave him
the full range of her angles, moved the color from her hair into the
full-throat of her eyes and it made her younger, made her more innocent, made
her appear more vulnerable.
I am just a
butterfly-wing smudge, aren’t I?
She looked up from her reading at his question, her eyes a
little narrow. In the haze of the
evening they almost appeared to be the color black. But he knew they were just a very dark
brown. He knew because he had been very
close to them once, particularly as they were closing.
A what?
A smudge. From a butterfly-wing.
She put her book down, a book of poems that he had bought
her once that she still leafed through…in it he had underlined certain passages
before giving it to her…tiny scribs of notes, stars where appropriate, and
perhaps influencing her on certain passages before she could conclude in her
own mind. He expected that it annoyed
her, like revealing an ending, but in the end he still felt it was a
sharing. He had purchased it in an old
book store while traveling…a nook in a block in an old city. It wasn’t full of love poems…rather it was
filled with tales of the oceans, views of the nighttime, the descriptions of
sounds in a thunderstorm. He loved it
and he wanted to share it with her because he found, while initially reading it
himself, that there were so many parts where he imagined he might find himself
in them…and if he had, he most had hoped she would be there too. So he bought it, used, and took it back to
the hotel where he wrote in it with the hotel pen…he earmarked certain pages…the
paper was old, the leather binding loose, but it felt like the spill of parts
and pieces of beauty strung together in something he could hold in his
hand. And he wanted for her to hold it
too, just in case the feelings he discovered might be discovered in her.
I’m not really
following you, she finally said.
He stood up and walked from the chair he was in up to the
patio post at the top of the stairs. He
could smell her lotion as it warmed in the slight wind, a unique smell to her
but also one generally available in many stores and once in awhile another girl
would be wearing it and his mind would go back to her. The flatlands rolled out in front of him, and
the breeze was just enough to stave off the night-bugs. He briefly imagined her having an electric
bug-zapper hanging off the corner of the porch, lightning whenever some poor
June Bug or something crossed the lethal threshold and he grinned at the
thought.
What are you smiling
about? She asked.
Nothing…just had a funny thought.
He turned back to her.
I was driving the other day…fast
down the highway because there was nobody around, fields deep and uncut on
either side, and I could see for miles so I wasn’t afraid of cops…it was warm
enough to just let the windows down and crank up the radio.
He walked a few steps towards her and she watched him as she
usually did, unrevealing and unveiling.
Again, with her hair back she cut through the distance and her face was
extraordinarily refined…the obvious cheekbones and the sculpture of her that
had transfixed him…if she had closed her eyes she would have looked beautifully
asleep…carved from marble. A hint of
sunburn had painted her nose a shade of cinnamon.
And as I was driving I
caught the slight movement of a large butterfly, just flying on the air
currents warming from the highway pavement…and of course it had tumbled in
front of me and while I didn’t want to hit it I just couldn’t swerve so I got
very close and then it got pulled into the trailing wake of the car and it
collided slightly with the top of the windshield. It left this gorgeous yellow thumbprint,
these lines and I don’t think I killed it as it was just a glance, but I know
we hit. We met. It left a slight scrape on the car.
The air was still now, the landscape
quiet. She regarded him, her fingers
lightly tapping at the book in her hands.
So I thought about it,
as I was driving and I looked back in the rearview to see the butterfly
tumbling, still hopefully alive, beautiful and unexpected but no chance against
me and my car…and as I was driving I saw the yellow smudge and I wondered
sometimes about me colliding against you…and perhaps I don’t leave a mark…I don’t
leave a dent…perhaps all I leave, on the part of you where I have touched, is
the simple smudge. Just like that
butter-fly wing.
She looked up at him, slightly blinking.
So…you’re comparing me
to a car?
He let out a slight laugh, knowing that her first defense
was to play offended.
Nooooo….no, I’m
not. It’s a metaphor.
I know what it is…but
you’re comparing yourself to a butterfly wing…which means I must be the
car. Or the windshield. Not sure which is worse.
When she tended to get this bothered her mouth tightened
slightly and her arms crossed. And when
she spoke her head moved side to side.
Classically angered.
Fine, I take back the
imagery. I take back the question.
You can’t take it back…you
asked a question…it’s now my obligation to respond.
You’re not obligated
.
If I don’t answer you’ll
just ponder your own version.
Probably.
So let me answer it
then. She pushed herself back into
the chair, looking sort of down at the wooden porch beams. Without the benefit of her hair falling
forward in her face, he could see her furrowing and narrowing her eyes.
No.
No what.
No, she said.
Okay…so I am not a
butterfly-wing smudge.
Nope. And I am not a car.
Fair enough.
And do you want to
know why I am not agreeing with the smudge hypothesis?
He walked over and sat next to her, and she turned and was
facing him but when she spoke she turned again and looked back out over the
purplish evening.
Because smudges come
off.
He watched her lips moving as she said it, it was actually
almost a whisper. Like a
reluctance. And sometimes she shared
only reluctantly and sometimes she shared knowingly. Like she knew that he actually had left
smudges on her before, many times, with her ability to erase, lick the napkin
and rub vigorously to get the spot out…but sometimes, when he wasn’t around her
and the evening was draining in ink and the night noises were starting she
realized something he might have said, or something he might have written and
perhaps she missed that piece and had forgotten to try to simply wipe it away.
And it had stayed with her.
