Deborah Garrison

“Father, R.I.P., Sums Me Up at Twenty-ThreeShe has no head for politics,craves good jewelry, trusts too readily,marries too early. Thenone by one she sends away her friendsand stands apart, smug sapphire,her answer to everything a slenderzero, a silent shrug--and every daystill hears me say she'll never be pretty.Instead she reads novels, instead her beltmatches her shoes. She is masterof the condolence letter, and knowshow to please a man with her mouth:Good. Nose too large, eyes too closely set,hair not glorious blonde, not her mother's red,nor the glossy black her younger sister has,the little raven I loved best.”

“For you she learned to wear a short black slipand red lipstick,how to order a glass of red wineand finish it. She learned to reach outas if to touch your arm and then nottouch it, changing the subject.Didn't you think, she'd begin, orWeren't you sorry. . . .To call your best friendsby their schoolboy namesand give them kisses good-bye,to look away when they sayYour wife! So your confidence grows.She doesn't ask what you wantbecause she knows.Isn't that what you think?When actually she was only waitingto be told Take off your dress---to be stunned, and then do this,never rehearsed, but perfectly obvious:in one motion up, over, and gone,the X of her arms crossing and uncrossing,her face flashing away from you in the fabricso that you couldn't say if she wasappearing or disappearing.”

“Used to be hewas my heart's desire.His forthright gaze,his expert hands:I'd lie on the couch with my eyesclosed just thinking about it.Never about the factthat everything changes,that even this,my best passion,would not be immune.No, I would bask on in aneternal daydream of the handsfinding me, the gaze like a windingstair coaxing me down. . . .Until I caught a glimpseof something in the mirror:silly girl in her lingerie,dancing with the furniture--a hot little bundle, flush withcliches. Into that pairof too-bright eyes I lookedand saw myself. And something else:he would never look that way.”

“It was not like everyone had said.Not like being needed,or needing; not desperate;it did not whisperthat I'd come to harm. I didn't losemy head. No, I was notgoing to leap from a greatheight and flapmy wings.It was in factthe opposite of flying:it contained the wishto be toppled, to be on the floor,the ground, anywhere I mightlie down. . . .On my back, and you on me.”

“Lately I can't help wanting usto be like other people.For example, if I were a smoker,you'd lift a match to the cigarettejust as I put it between my lips.It's never been like thatbetween us: none of thateasy chemistry, no quick, half automaticflares. Everything between ushad to be learned.Saturday finds me broodingbehind my book, all my fantasiesof seduction run upagainst the rocks.Tell me againwhy you don't likesex in the afternoon?No, don't tell me--I'll never understand younever understand us, America's strangestloving couple: they neverdrink a bottle of wine togetherand rarely look at each other.Into each other's eyes, I mean.”