She was beautiful in the way of few. I was awestruck, breathless.
We’d spoken on the phone a few times. Her accent twirled and lifted the words from ordinary to the delicate texture of shimmering heat off in the distance. Distortion of the intangible and perfectly abstract.
She told me her name, asked me to fax my resume, and said she’d see me the next day.
I did.
I was dressed in hemp, donned a leather band on my wrist, and my hair flowed free. I was dressed appropriately. I drove to the end of the earth–this portion of it anyway. I drove and sat in a posh lobby and felt the sweat on my back. I was nervous.
I had grown accustomed to voices that did not match faces. I learned to listen to the intake of breath. How often? How deep? How subtle? Did it barely tickle my ear? I caught nothing from her. Maybe there had been a bad connection or that part of her fell into the gap that swallows sentences whole. I wasn’t sure, only that when she said my name and I looked at her I was amazed.
She knew she was beautiful, and not something for which she needed an affirmation. As truth knows beauty, she knew herself. She didn’t stride or sway, she didn’t expand to occupy more space. She was comfortable. And her eyes, barely a lighter shade than my own, looked through and around and inside of me. I smiled and looked down, but there was something about her which beckoned me. She dared me to look up.
They were impressed with the resume. The resume was my ticket, my foot in the proverbial door. It said so very little that was of any use, but it was bold. It was daring. It was me trying to sabotage the job. It didn’t work. It backfired, and I was so glad it did; because there before me was this woman who saw something in me.
She studied the shyness of my exterior, could see the words I wouldn’t say forming behind my eyes. She knew I wanted to speak to her in the way I’ve spoken to so few, the way I speak to everyone.
With silence.
And the words were all I had. They were sheathed in clear plastic on twenty-four pound, watermarked, cotton-fiber paper. She looked at them and looked at me. She waited patiently.
I said nothing.
(March13, 2008)
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