Soap Opera Blues - Chapter, Second

A white bird alights the bench.
A white bird alights on the bench near me.

A white bird alights.

Paul has been staying at Hotel Chateau in Manhattan since the wedding night. Jocey has not been with him. Jocey needs time.

Ada waits, frustrated, in the garden. Maximilian has been coming down with a cold. This means he cannot act as chaperone on their sordid walks.  Ada waits for Adam. Ada belongs to Adam. Ada m.

There have been developments.

The fight with Management in Maine as well as Paul’s inevitable disappointment with his family. Jocey has retreated to Florida for the late autumn, staying with a good friend in Fort Lauderdale. The winds have shaken the sun out of the palm trees.

Infinitely unhappy, Jocey watches the palm trees bend with the rain and winds towards the equator in prayer. She watches their long leaves kiss the earth in supplication. She thinks about her devotion to Paul. It had been so unwavering, so infinite; her patience knew no bounds. She would have prayed at the altar of his waspish empire, washed him clean of his Irish sins, loved the pain out of his bones and made a home with him.

Jocey imagines a life with Paul – so empty and pure.  

Early one morning, Jocey wakes with the moon. Bright and curious about the possibility of it all. Jocey is not happy – she is intoxicated with the possibility of what can be. This is joy, she knows it. Finally, the tremendously neurotic evenings of double-guessing and wondering what’s right what’s wrong is finally over. Here comes a morning that is calm after a night that felt like velvet.

Rubbing the steamed mirror, Jocey stares into her jilted reflection. Dull green eyes, darkness near the eyelashes and pale white all over. A cold sore adorns the beauty mark on her bottom lip and all is  hazy ocean all is hazy green all is blossomy bloomingly cherry red on an eastern European summer’s day in the fields.

She giggles, because sometimes thoughts crowd like stuffed tram cars on a tiny continental street. The fog the smog the breath the fire.  Flash flash.

A black crescent of liquid eyeliner embraces her upper eyelid and eyelashes stretch like peacock feathers displaying majestic length and an ashy black pattern against the delicate under-eye. An under-eye like an alligator’s underbelly –blush bruised and soft.

Red. Dress and Lipstick. Fur hat. Brown curls. Jocey is doing it all. She is in Manhattan because Paul wanted a meeting.

*
(Think of Breakfast place)

Paul – sitting across Jocey at brunch. Crisp European morning. Late November so it’s cool and everyone wears wool crepe Burberry with Chanel bags. The air reeks of Paris.

A Parisian rose has blossomed inside the dome of New York. Pushing its mighty fleshy petals all the way into Long Island and pressing, furiously, against the lower classes. Shaming the unfortunate with oily hues of Coco attitude.

Paul looks like a cold machine. Inside his eyes, the fires of Hades are burning and she can almost see wisps of lava explode into tiny fireworks of hate.

“Darling, please stop being so silly”

It is impossible to hate someone as much as she hates him.

“I have taken to the Sun in Florida. I believe I can write again. I need more time with the beach, the songs of the ocean, the swing of the palm trees”

Jocey does not tell him she enjoys the Spanish flavours and colours. He wouldn’t understand.

Twitch. Paul looks at his watch and makes the mistake of finding himself conflicted in front of her audience. To beg? To act aloof?

“Jocey, we are married now and you are an England. You understand the implications?”

Jocey has a fault. She needs to give an account of her state of being. Naturally, her emotional state can just exist inside her physical self with almost no need to splash out.

Paul is gritting his teeth and holding a perfect glass of orange juice in his beautiful, long hands. His wedding ring is sexy. She is not wearing hers. She had waited for their wedding for so long, she had wanted to be an England …and now… now, she wants peace.

“I will come home when I finish my novel. It is almost done and besides, the Sun is good for my emotional well-being. Mama has been staying with us and I dare say she ain’t seen sun shine so bright since we gone left New Mexico back when. Remembers, you married a Southerner …sort of”

“Stop it. The drawl isn’t cute and it isn’t even real. Adam settled in the East before New Mexico was anything so don’t pretend you’re old money.”

[Now readers, remember how Jocey’s great grandpa had come all the way to NYC just to begin trekking South? What did Paul ever know about his journey? What do we ever know about the constant wind of change? About the tug at your heart when the smells change and you miss the movement, the miles travelled, the memories unfolding before you like they are going to happen to you again any minute, like you are trapped in a mirror with your senses intact not knowing if you are moving forward or, if mesmerized by the past, you keep moving into the great Unknown unarmed but curious]

“Pressed for time, changing our faces, changing our manes we morph into the horses we ride into war”

Paul asks for the bill and picks up his hat. “You will come home with me this week. The decorator is coming by and Mother needs to know about the chandelier. Remember, the Modigliani is a deep mahogany. Think of something.”

She prepares to leave but Paul moves quick. Through gritted teeth: “And you are coming with me. And we are having a baby. And you will bring your clothes. Your mama can visit with Mother and rest here. Please do not make a scene, my love”

*

“But do you love him?”

It’s always this question. My friend – he’s a lawyer. He knows how to push my buttons.

I had stayed with Paul in New York for a few months after that brunch. I had waited on him and had attended all the fancy dinners, I had waited for him to love me. He let me go see the palm trees again this weekend. I am due back in NYC after this weekend and I am dreading the cold.