A Song in the Daylight. Paullina Simons

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      “The guy had to pay his tuition somehow. Parents got divorced and there were no funds to be had, and yet—well, you know how it is.”

      Just thinking about how it was got Larissa all flushed, because Kai said, “Is this making you uncomfortable? The drugs? That’s not my scene.”

      “No, I was just … the food went down wrong.” His age was supposed to be the liberating thing! The thing that made everything else so easy-peasy lemon-squeezy. Almost like sitting with one of her drama students, having a chat in the breeze. Why did thinking of his friends, dealing drugs to pay for their tuition, make her feel so twisted up inside? Could it be because her own college experience of dope and crazy protesting friends was twenty years ago? His lifetime ago.

      “Madison is a great small town,” Kai said. “Don’t you think?”

      She wasn’t sure. “Like Hawaii?”

      “Nah. Too many transients in Hawaii. Too many vacationers. Nothing is permanent there. This good stable life is so strange. So exotic.”

      “This life is exotic?” Larissa repeated in a flat tone. What was he talking about!

      “Honestly, you’d be hard-pressed to find a town as quaint and cute as Madison. I’m not saying I want to live here forever. I want to see the world. But to settle down? To raise a family? There is no better place. Really.”

      “If you say so. But it’s not exotic, Kai. It’s just not. It’s too normal to be exotic.”

      “See, to me, the normal is the exotic.”

      “Do you know what’s exotic? The Philippines. My best friend lives near Manila; she’s always asking me to go visit her.”

      “Why don’t you?”

      “Well, I can’t just pick up and go.”

      “Why not?”

      “What’s my family going to do?”

      “Oh, they’ll manage for a few weeks, won’t they?”

      “I don’t think they will.”

      “Go,” Kai said. “Have you ever gone anywhere on your own?”

      Larissa was actually scared to go. She didn’t know how to say that. She was scared of malaria, of dengue fever, of the horrid water; Che’s stories of never being able to drink the water without boiling it first filled her with dread. That’s why the children couldn’t come with her. She was scared for their safety. And for her own, though she wouldn’t confess that to Kai, who didn’t seem the type to be easily spooked, riding around on a speed-demon bike and having friends who were in prison. Besides, her best friend lived in Manila and was not afflicted, other than with childlessness, so it may have been in Larissa’s head. But then, much of life was in her head. Didn’t make it any less real.

      Time to go.

      Next.

      Next.

      Next.

      Why did she sit? She didn’t know. All she knew was that she sat with him for a few fine merry moments, and then it was over. Which was a good way to describe many things you did that didn’t involve routine or work. For a few fine moments, Maggie painted, Emily played volleyball, Evelyn sipped her wine and read her books, Tara walked and complained. Jared played basketball with Asher in the front drive. Ezra read tomes on existential materialism. Larissa dreamed of the joyous moments of a spring play from high school, intoning, “I do love nothing in the world so well as you. Is not that strange?” Except all those other things didn’t involve pushing open the closed door that in red block letters said, DANGER: LIVE ELECTRIC CURRENT. ENTER AT OWN RISK.

4

       Waiting for Godot

      “You don’t do theater anymore?”

      “What makes you say that? I do. I just …” Larissa broke off. “I do.” Just not like before. “I was director of the theater department at a private school in Hoboken for many years.”

      He grunted. “Many years, you don’t say.”

      Oh, why, why did she have to say many. Since when did hated pride come before puffed-up vanity? She’d rather be young and talentless than impress him with how many long years she’d been director of a theater department at a school where he could’ve tried out for a school play. “I once belonged to a theater troupe called The Great Swamp Revue. We were excellent.” When he chuckled, she, encouraged, asked, “Are you interested in theater?”

      “Nah,” he said. “I was always more of a music guy.”

      “Music, really?” Mental note to thyself: less about self and theater. Nothing more tedious than a woman basking in the deluded glory of former theater days, convinced she is the center of the universe.

      “What, you don’t believe me?”

      “Of course I do. What do you play?”

      “A little of everything. Guitar. Harmonica. Drums. In Hawaii every boy plays the ukulele, so I did too. So how come you don’t do theater anymore? No time?”

      She nodded; indeed there was no time. “I barely have time to paint the sets these days.”

      “You went from director to set decorator?”

      “Less stress,” she said almost without a beat.

      He smiled. “Kids seem like a lot of stress to me.”

      This was where the whole thing became so bogus. You just knew it was bogus.

      “Hey,” he said suddenly, “ever been on a bike?”

      “What, a bicycle?” A bicycle built for two. “Sure, who hasn’t? Many times. You?”

      He laughed. “Are you being funny?”

      She didn’t know. She didn’t know if she was being funny.

      He pointed out of her Jag to his Ducati. “I brought my bike today. Want to go for a ride?”

      Larissa couldn’t remember the last time she became this flustered. Not looking at him, hemming, hawing, she said, “No, thank you, but, uh, maybe another time. Seems too cold anyway. Well, it actually is cold. Windy. I don’t know how you do it, I mean, it must be even colder on the bike. And look at the breeze, it’s nippy. It’s like a squall.” Her cheeks were burning as she ruffled her napkins, stuffing them into the brown bag. “Maggie, my friend,” she said, just throwing it out there, “is taking me to lunch tomorrow.”

      “The curly one from the mall?” Kai opened the car door and got out, leaning in. “You two have fun.” His face was smiling at her, his small brown eyes dancing, his kinky hair СКАЧАТЬ