Written for BatbLand's March 22nd Celebration.
Chan's drawing 'Night View' was our inspiration
for a vignette of no more than 1200 words.
(You do need to see the drawing to better understand the purpose of the story, but Chan's drawings can only be posted with specific permission from her proxy-group. So please, click the link!)
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Supposing I Dreamed This
She emerged from the taxi parkside, and rather than dash across
the street, she withdrew to the deeper shadow offered by the boundary wall
overhung with leafy branches. Could she but see it, above, she knew, was a sky
of summer stars.
Could she but see him, stories-high, disguised by darkness,
Vincent waited for her. This, too, she knew.
The light at 73rd changed. The only pedestrian in the crosswalk,
she slowed when she passed over the grate, spurred to the sidewalk by the blare
of a horn. The driver of the turning car thunked his forehead twice with his
palm and rolled his eyes. She couldn’t make out her balcony even had she
chanced to glance up, but she sensed ... awareness,
his stride from one lookout to another, watching for her. Watching over her.
The newsstand on the next corner was still open, a bare
fluorescent bulb burning brightly white. She stepped up to the window.
“So this is it, yeah?” the man behind the counter mumbled, his
chin sunk to his folded arms. “Need a paper?”
“I guess not.” She studied the candy shelves. Ah, two
left. “But I will take those,” she said, pointing to a tiered display on
the back wall.
The man pushed two purple packages of Jolly Joes across the countertop. “Bribe or apology this time?”
“Both,” she replied, grinning. “I’m likely to be late tomorrow
and I want Friday off.”
He waved away her five-dollar bill. “Gonna miss you, Miz C.”
“I’ll miss you too, Dhan.”
She turned from the kiosk, and before she climbed the first step
to her building, she heard the rumble of metal gates, the convincing snick of a serious padlock. He’d stayed
open late, she realized, to say goodbye.
In the entry, Roger stood against the open door. A grim couple
barreled through from the lobby, both of them checking their watches, forcing
her flat to the jamb. Roger huffed his disapproval at their backs and reached
for her elbow, guiding her to a less-trafficked place. His smile didn’t quite
reach his eyes.
“I don’t know what to say, Miss Chandler,” he said, turning his
stiff cap in his hands. “It won’t be the same without you around. You’re a good
one.”
She rose up on her toes to buss his smooth cheek. “I’ll be back
often enough. I sold my apartment to a friend, remember.”
“I met her. She seems like a nice lady.”
Was he blushing? She
reached out, touched the braiding on his coat-sleeve. “She is. And she’ll need
an introduction to the neighborhood, to the city, really. I’m counting on you.”
“You got it.” He sighed and patted her hand. “How will I keep the
old ticker going without you to bump up the heart rate, running out to the park
all hours of the night. Maybe I’ll put in for the day shift after all.” He
pocketed the change of address card she handed him, looked away toward the
street until a cab pulled up to the curb. “You take good care, now,” he said,
situating his hat.
Once alone in the elevator, she preened before the polished brass
trim, a golden but frustrating mirror. She fluffed her hair, tapped her foot.
Her nose pressed practically to the divider, she darted through the
just-opening doors, her keys ready. Inside her apartment, she dumped everything she carried where the couch had
been earlier that morning. Skirting the last stacked cardboard boxes, she sprinted
for the balcony and the shadow shifting there.
“This house of you,”2 he whispered, and she was
undone.
His arm was around her shoulders; her hip to his iron thigh, the
slow rise and fall of his rib cage moving against the swell of her breast. How
perfectly she fit, lodged in the landscape of him, the forge of his heat a strange
alchemy fashioning one from two. She nuzzled her cheek to the quilted softness
of his summer vest, the shapeliness of his chest, the surety of safety, the
promise of tomorrow, of forever ...
“This has been our vantage point, Catherine. And now ...”
“We’ll always have it. Here,”
she said, her hand spread at her heart. The stutter she felt was surely
anticipation. Excitement. Not the gathering of tears.
“The most astonishing moments of my life ...” Turning his back to
the railing, he pulled her close, his hands urgent at her waist. His gaze into
her eyes was reverent ... nearly.
She had to look away. “You promised. Once. It’s now or–”
He laid one finger against her lips. “Don’t say never, Catherine, please. I’m truly ... over that word.”
High above the city, she settled into his embrace, scootching her
hips a little on the wide, rough limestone ledge, wedging resolutely into the
-V- of his legs, which for a moment tensed to hers. Mmmmm, she heard from low in his throat. She clasped his enfolding arm
with both her hands, searched the northern distance. “Over there ... can you
see it?”
“I’d like to think so.”
“Tomorrow night ...”
“Our new vantage point. One from which we look up.”
“It’s beautiful here.”
“Yes.”
“After you’d leave me, you’d sometimes ...”
“Often.” The wind teased the black-green treetops below them in
the park; the jeweled lamplights quivered. A swirling spiral swept the face of
the building, when it reached them flirting with her skirt, mussing her hair.
His arm tightened around her. “Don’t be afraid.”
“Oh, I’m not. I’m not at all afraid.” Delight sang through her. Was it the breeze, she wondered, or the
resonance of their steady, mingling shine.3
“Catherine! Don’t ...
don’t kick your feet. You’ll lose–”
And one shoe went sailing.
“From this height, someone could be injured.” He leaned just
forward and together they watched the flat be caught in an eddying current, a
black night bird silhouetted by the city-glow, swooping and tumbling out over
the lake, dropping at last beyond to a dense thicket of shrubs and trees.
“Did it make it all the way to the Ramble?” she asked.
“I think it did.”
The second shoe soon followed suit, though it nosedived short of
its predecessor.
“Did you hear a splash?”
His answer was a rumbling chuckle that sent shivers up her spine.
Shivers of quiet joy ... and mischief.
Carefully, she pulled up her bare feet. Silently but
questioningly, he helped her stand, held her hand as she stepped over his
thigh. He shifted to one knee, rose tall against the granite facade, turning to
follow the sweeping arc of the silky fabric she next let fly.
Within the arched alcove of the false window, he’d layered
bedding, mounded pillows. His cloak was spread, their ready cover. She smiled
and the last wisp of lace took flight.
and the reason that i laugh
and breathe is oh love and the
reason
that i do not fall into
this street is love4
e. e. cummings
______________
1. e. e. cummings. supposing i dreamed this)
...(IX).
2. Ibid.
3. Charlotte Brontë. The Wood.
4. e. e. cummings. you being in love.
2 comments:
Ahhhhhh, this was so lovely and definitely one of my favorites from this challenge. I know you know, so I don't have to say this, but I so want this future for them. :)
-Krista :)
Thanks so much, Krista! You're awfully good to me.
Sharing this dream for them is a wondrous thing in itself. It's good to have a circle of believers. :-)
C
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