A Lizard in Crimson
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I. “Careful,”
she said. “It’s still
sticky.” As
gently as I could, I set the canvas down on the easel and stood back.
The smell of turpentine was burning in my nose.
“That okay?” I said. “Oh,
yes, thank you,” said Jemma, wheeling in to inspect. “That’s perfect. What
do you think?” I
looked at the painting. It
was a big piece, and had been awkward to carry, even across the room.
And it was unmistakably Jemma, the kind of visionary grotesquerie
that I could just imagine her parents and small-town peers shaking their
heads at. This time her
subject was an enormous lizard, dewlapped and spined, colored a deep red
and wearing a crown. It was
draped over a mound of skulls, most of which were more or less human, with
one wicked-looking claw clasping the dome of one bare cranium like it was
the armrest of a sofa. There
was no other background, no horizon, only a deep purple glow fading to
almost-black at the edges. “Damn,”
I said. “It’s
called ‘A Lizard in Crimson.’ It’s
kind of a joke.” It
would be. I didn’t know
anyone with Jemma’s morbid whimsicality.
She had a MY OTHER CAR IS A PORSCHE sticker on the back of her
wheelchair. Nobody I’d ever
met had her fondness for awful puns, or knew more dead baby jokes.
Anyone who knew Jemma could testify that subtlety did not figure
chiefly in her arsenal; Jemma was spiked red hair and paint stains and
gallows humor. And a mind
like a scalpel. “I
don’t get it,” I said. “That’s
because you’re not an aah-tist, darling.”
She leaned over one wheel to pick up a crumpled-looking tube of
Artist’s Oil, and tossed it to me.
The label read ALIZARON CRIMSON. “Knee-slapper,
Jem.” I tossed her back the
tube. “Shaddup.
I didn’t say it was a good joke.
You like the painting, though?” I
looked it over again. It was
creepy, yes, but not in a cheap, goofy kind of way; Edgar Allan Poe
instead of Vincent Price. And
it was really beautiful too. That
was always one of Jemma’s gifts: pulling a hint of sublimity out of
monstrousness. One of the things I liked best about going to her openings
– aside from being a big, shaven-headed punk at an art show – was
going up to some horrified, turtlenecked art major and saying something
like that. “Yeah.
Yeah, I do. It’s
almost exactly the kind of thing that would set Molly’s teeth on edge.
Which is as good a yardstick as any.” Jemma
rolled her eyes. “Don’t
tell me you’re still finding reasons to keep her around.
Oh, Jesus, you are, aren’t you?” I smiled. She shook her head. “What
were you thinking?” I
shrugged. “She’s not that
bad, Jem. She’s, y’know .
. . fun, mostly. And she
gives good—“ “Okay,
okay, okay.” She spun her chair towards the canvas. “Far be it from me to rain all over your domestic bliss.
But you shoulda stuck with boys, Adrian.” “Mm,
yeah. I’m sure I broke all
kinds of hearts when I went breeder, Adonis that I am.
Speak for yourself, anyway. I
don’t see you renouncing the love of woman.” Jemma
was pulling out brushes, looking them over with a critical eye.
“Oh, sure. Lots of
action here. It’s a regular
Sapphic love-in at Chez Jemma. Sometimes
I have to carry a stick just to beat the baby-dykes away.” “Well,
anyway. I like the lizard.
I think it’s awesome. Is
it going in the show?” “Yeah.”
This slightly muffled by the end of a delicate brush clenched in her
teeth, as she squeezed several kinds of Artist’s Oil on a cardboard
palette. “If I get the
detailing done in time to dry, it is.
Still some finishing touches to add before I abandon this one.” “Excellent.
It’s wicked cool, Jem. Maybe
my favorite so far.” I
paused. “So, uh, how’s
the . . . the physical therapy going?” “Oh,
great.” She leaned in to
dab color on the folded tail. “Be
running marathons by the weekend.” “Well,
good.” It was a stupid
reply and I knew it, but I couldn’t think of anything else. “Hey, if
there’s nothing else you need I’ll leave you be, then.” I paused.
“So, you know that’s not true, what you said about me.” “What’s
that?” “About
me not being an aah-tist.” She
looked around, and I was delighted to see her flash a grin at me.
“Adrian, sweetie, you’re a bass player.
I don’t even have time to list the ways that doesn’t count.” “Oh,
yeah, right. Well, at least
I’m good for lifting heavy objects, then.” “And
that’s why we keep you around, love.
Of course, it’s also why I’ll be forever in your debt, but what
the hell.” She turned back
to the canvas. “See you
Friday, stud-man. Say hi to
the boys in the band for me. Play
nice with the other kids.” “I will.”
I shrugged into my big coat and walked out of the studio into the
little foyer. I was ready to
leave when I spotted a stack of books on the stand near the door, and
picked them up. They were
slender, battered chapbooks bound in heavy black paper with pale, silvery
lettering, and all by the same author: Ian Barrett. I
scanned a few of the titles. The
Feast of Lord Pan. Arlecchino in Hell. The Red Lord’s Comedy.
The Geste of the Great Worm. Dark
Habits. Song of the White
Hand. Turlupin and the
Headsman. The type inside
was small and frequently askew. Some
of the pages had weird little illustrations at the bottom or in the
corners. “Hey,
Jemma. Who’s this Ian
Barrett guy?” “A
writer.” Wiseass.
“Yeah, I figured. What are these, plays?” She
wheeled into the doorway. “Kinda
sorta. He calls them
‘dramatic poems.’ But
they do get performed, yes.” “You
know this guy?” “Yeah,
I met him about a year ago when he was putting up a show at the Cutup
Club. He used to do
illustration for Alan Gemini and Zacharias Cleve and guys like that. But he writes too. Says
he’s a ‘purveyor of forgotten mythologies.’” “He
any good?” “Sure,
I think so. Actually, I’ll
let you in on a secret. His
work’s the real inspiration for ‘Lizard in Crimson,’ bad puns aside. I did that one after reading Geste
of the Great Worm. It’s
mind-opening stuff. Even
better onstage.” “You’ve
seen it?” “Oh,
yeah. Here.” She pulled over to the table and took a tattered, photocopied
handbill out of the back of one of the books.
“Some of the guys down at the café talked to Ian and put on
Dark Habits last spring. It
was great. It’s all about psychotic cannibal monks.
I did some design for it. Got
kudos from Ian, too. Major
head trip.” “That
is excellently cool. You mind
if I borrow one of these?” “No,
go ahead.” I took The Geste of the Great Worm off the top and put it in my coat
pocket. “Thanks.
I’ll be careful with it, I promise.”
I bent to kiss her forehead. “Okay.
I’m going for real now. Maybe
you can introduce me to this Ian guy sometime.” “Yeah,
maybe so. Be careful out
there. And Adrian – thanks
for everything.” “No problem.” And I went out. II.
I
took the bus from Jemma’s across town, which gave me some time to settle
in with Mr. Barrett’s book. I
fished it out of my coat and opened it to the first page, which had a
frontispiece illustration of a weird, sinister-comic, dragonish thing
carrying an oversized jester’s bauble. It looked like an Aubrey
Beardsley done on crystal meth and acid. Under it were the words: THE
GESTE OF THE GREAT WORM It
was very, very weird, equal parts dream, fairytale and theatre of the
absurd, and just short of incomprehensible. The story seemed to be that of
Queen Verdant, her daughter, and the Tyrant Mage, a villain of inscrutable
malice and unclear motive who shows up, evil godmother-style, at the
kid’s first birthday party to trap her with magic “gifts,” while a
great variety of strange and grotesque characters come and go without much
apparent purpose. It was full
of oblique stage directions, ranging from the simply unearthly and surreal
(“Enter the Tyrant Mage crowned in white gold, with attendant Myrmidons,
Raveners, Harrow-Hunters, &c.”) to the completely obscure (“He
casts the Sevenfold Square, and speaks in the manner of the Verge
Domains”). There was no
glossary or any other kind of explanatory material anywhere in the book.
But despite its unrelenting strangeness, there were passages that were
quite beautiful and moving. One
stood out to me from near the end of the first scene: [Enter
the VOICE of the Great Worm, garbed as a Fool, and speaks to the CHILD.] Voice.
Fear not, Scion of Glory, though thy enemy is terrible; for what strength
he has comes of the Great Worm, and that power is in thee too.
All courses flow from the Great Worm, seen and unseen, and many
things are hidden even from clever eyes.
Take heart, daughter of green fields! And have this gift of me: to
know the flawed gem is more precious for its imperfections, nor does it
hold the less light.. Though he will pry into thy weaknesses, he cannot
break thee at them. Know that
which thou art, and heal, though hurt beyond the pitch of despair. I’m afraid I didn’t get much further than that, as the parade of the bizarre started to slide off my brain and I drifted off for a few minutes on the bus. My dreaming thoughts were a confused muddle of Tyrant Mages, riddling fools, black-bound books, and lizards in crimson. III. I
woke up right before I got to the stop near Tam’s house.
I half-stumbled off the bus, shoving the book down into my coat
pocket as I came down the steps. When
I had walked the two and a half blocks, Tam was out on the front steps,
smoking in her oversized denim jacket and reading Progression.
She looked up and waved as I walked up, smiling. “Hey
there. How’s
Hell-On-Wheels?” “Okay.
Working. Possessed.
You know.” “Uh-huh.
Hang on, lemme finish this and we’ll go inside.” Tam
is the vocalist and guitar player for my band, Frogbender, and half the
reason Jemma’s comment about the “boys in the band” was another
example of her refined humor – out of our trio, I’m the one male.
Tam is four foot ten, ninety pounds soaking wet, and made entirely
of ass-length cornsilk hair and lungs.
How she does it on a pack a day I’ll never know. She
was playing some kind of bizarre art-rock in the studio when we went in,
which she turned down but not off. “Sorry.
Getting in the mood. Want
anything?” “You
got tea?” “Sure.” “Thanks.”
I sat down in one of Tam’s huge, half-broken armchairs, and
listened a minute. “So you
say there’s music in here somewhere?” “Hey,
now. That’s Solaris, so you
just knock it off. I’ll
beat your ass, you know. Don’t
think I’m scared of you.” I
didn’t. “Okay, fine.
I just don’t get it is all.
All prog sounds the same to me.
Ten-minute moog synth solos and some guy singing like a fairy over
the top.” “An
expression comes to mind concerning pots and kettles.” “Ha,
no fair. And I’m only sort
of a fairy, anyway.” “Yeah,
and you only sort of sing, too.” She
punched me in the arm and danced back in a fisticuffs pose, knuckles
circling. “You wanna piece
of me?” “Owww.”
I rubbed the hit spot. Tam
packed a lot of wallop. “Touche, and no.” “Good.
Then come and keep me company in the kitchen while I make the tea.
I want to show you something.” “Long
as it’s not a can of whoop-ass.”
I hauled myself up and followed her. Tam
set a kettle on the stove and pulled a thick envelope out of a kitchen
drawer. “I forgot about
this stuff until Jem started getting her new show together. I’ve been meaning to dust these off.” The
envelope was full of photographs of sculptures – bizarre, disturbing,
grotesque sculptures. I was
pretty sure I saw the stamp of Jemma there, but I had to ask.
“Jem did these?” “Yeah,
a while ago. Before, you know
– the accident.” “Wow.
I had no idea. I’ve only
seen her paintings.” “These
were a while before your time, I think.
Check that one out.” The
picture showed a pair of white lace underwear stretched over a frame of
inward-facing spikes and hooks, with a phallic-looking barbed blade rising
up out of the center. Tam turned it over and read the back.
“That’s called ‘Chastity Belt.’” “Jesus,
that’s not funny.” “No,
I guess it’s not.” Tam gave it another long look. “You think she has some issues, that girl?” “Tam,
Jemma has more issues than the New York Times.” There were a lot of unsettling things in the photos: a
reclining female figure, headless and armless, with a sewn-up mouth
between her legs; a trio of copulating demons impaling themselves on each
other’s spines; a bowl overflowing with black tentacles; a totem pole
made of breasts and eyes. And
then there was one near the bottom of the stack that stood out to me for
reasons I couldn’t explain. It
was a figure in bronze of a human body, absurdly muscled and dressed like
a Roman soldier, with a gaping-mouthed fish’s head full of needle teeth.
The back of the photo identified it as “The Myrmidon,” and I
couldn’t remember why that jogged something in the back of my mind. The
kettle was going off, and Tam went to prepare the tea.
I said, “So what happened to all of these?” “Damned
if I know. Knowing her, she
probably had them all destroyed when she couldn’t sculpt any more.
She doesn’t even like to talk about them now.
You’ve only known her for, what, a year or so? So you never got
to see her before the chair. She
was a different person in a lot of ways then.” “No
less sick and twisted, I see.” “No,
I guess not. But she didn’t
have such a – I don’t know, a darkness eating her up inside. There’s despair in her where it wasn’t before.
Makes me sad.” She
set down a tray with two big mugs, sugar and milk. I took mine, sweetened and lightened it, and sat back with
the hot mug between my hands. “Well,
maybe doing this show will help some.” “Maybe.
You know what I think, though?
I think she needs to get laid.
A little woman-love would do her worlds of good.”
She wasn’t volunteering. Tam’s
as straight as a slide rule. She
took a sip from her own tea and looked at me over the top of it.
“Don’t you think?” “I
suppose so. Maybe after some
of this physical therapy stuff. But
I get the impression that’s not going as she’d hoped it would.” “Mmm.
Well, we’ll see. Anyway, drink your tea.
I want to run through some of the new material in a bit.” We finished our tea and talked a while, and spent the rest of the day practicing and putting our heads together. Soon enough my head was full of chord progressions for Frogbender songs, with the result that by the time I went home I had put Ian Barrett and his book almost completely out of my mind. Over the next few days, I was hardly even aware I was carrying it around with me. In fact, between one thing and another, I forgot about the whole thing until a week later, at the opening of Jemma’s show. A
Jemma opening is always an Event among our circle. For one thing, there’s free food, and nothing draws out the
freaks like a tray of cheese and crackers. Tam
was there when I arrived, with her boyfriend Paul, tall and gangling in a
tuxedo jacket over a Smiths t-shirt.
They waved. I also
spotted Fiona, our drummer, resplendant in piercings and punk-rock-grrl
leather pants, talking to Tam’s housemate Anna, a short, roundish
earth-maiden in huge round glasses and a long green dress.
There were lots of others there too, a lot of whom I only knew in
passing or not at all. Some
of them were even looking at the paintings.
Of Jemma there was no immediate sign. For
myself, I had, against all judgment and good sense, brought Molly along,
convincing both of us there’d be lots of interesting people there for
her to talk to. I had hoped
to steer her directly towards some social knot or other and bypass her
needing to look at any paintings at all, but it was not to be.
We walked in and she went right to a wall, pulled by some awful
magnetism, of the sort that puts bunny-rabbits in the path of huge black
SUVs. She
was sizing up “The Daimyos of Hell,” an enormous canvas showing
samurai warriors with smoldering eyes dressed in armor made from human
bones. I stood behind her,
waiting for the inevitable. “It’s
not that she isn’t very good,” she said after a minute.
“I guess I just don’t get what the point is of all this.”
She looked back over one shoulder at me, big green eyes with just a
hint of tilt to them behind her glasses.
“Do you know?” I
gave her my best I’m-not-getting-into-it shrug and said, “Not
everything has to be nice, babe.” “Y’know,
I knew you were gonna say that.” Molly looked at the painting again, and
her hair slid over her back, long and straight and red. I was having the familiar feeling of knowing how nuts I
really was about her in the middle of her setting my teeth on edge.
Go figure. “Okay,
look,” I said, “You know you’re not gonna like any of the actual art
here, so maybe you’ll have a better time just, y’know, socializing. Go
get something to eat.” Her
eyebrows went up, and my mind spun madly to find a way to follow up with
something less bitchy, but she smiled and said, “Oh, alright, you big
lug. Go do your art thing.
I’ll be over here looking for someone with a sense of
aesthetics.” She came up and kissed my cheek.
“Let me know when you’re done.” “Okay.
I’m gonna walk the gallery and find Jemma.
I won’t be too long.” I
took my time making the rounds through the paintings, though.
There were only a few I hadn’t seen before, but it was nice to
look at them all in this setting; it gave them a kind of legitimacy I felt
they deserved, Molly notwithstanding.
I’d regretted not being able to help set the show up, since I’d
been playing the night before, but I found I was just as glad to come in
and see it all fresh, in untried patterns.
It was a little like discovering Jemma’s work all over again. I
ran into the finished “A Lizard in Crimson” about halfway through.
She’s improved it since the week before.
There was more detail in the pebbled scales, more of a golden gleam
in the crown. It was spectacular. I
was ready for it to come crawling out of the canvas, spines and dewlaps
and baleful eyes all sprung to life; it was a painting with that kind of
power. Whether I had the
right to or not, I felt proud. As
I stood studying the Lizard, I heard a voice behind me.
It was singing, softly. “Wake
your reason’s hollow vote, I
turned around and found a man standing there, looking at me, smiling.
He had wild brown hair in need of cutting, and a bearded face I
couldn’t put an age to; he could have been twenty or forty.
He looked like a café poet: too-big leather jacket, shabby gray
sweater, faded jeans, well-worn boots.
His little oval glasses were tinted purple, and he had gold rings
in both ears. “Pardon
me?” “Nothing,
nothing,” he said. “Just
a little synchronicity I was appreciating.
You a fan?” “A
friend. Both.” “Excellent.
Me too.” He put out
a hand. “Ian Barrett.
Pleased to meet you.” I
did a double-take before I remembered to answer. “Adrian Ward.
Likewise. Wow. Oh, crap. I
think I’m carrying your book around in my coat pocket.”
I went to fish it out, like a moron. “More’s
the pity for me if you’re not sure.
No, no, it’s alright – you’re much too big to look like a
deer in headlights like that. Ah,
Great Worm. Another
meaningful coincidence?” “Actually,
it’s Jemma’s copy. I’m
afraid I, uh, haven’t read it all yet.” “I’m
afraid you’re not the only one. Of
course, if I’d meant it to be easy, I’d’ve written something else.
So I hear I’m partially to blame for this ferocious character
here?” He gestured at the Lizard on the wall. “She
tells me your play inspired her to paint it, yeah.” “Along
with an especially groan-worthy pun, for a particularly narrow audience.
Well, that’s how it goes. One
takes the compliments where one can get them.
In whatever medium.” “Hell,
it’s more than I could do,” I said.
“A box of crayons is like the Advanced Class for me.” Ian’s
eyebrow went up behind the tinted frames.
“Oh, really? You’re
not an artist?” “Jemma
would say no. I’m a
musician. I’m a bass player
in a punk band.” “Any
good?” I
shrugged. How the hell do you
answer that? “Ah,
well, then,” he said, nodding a little.
Then he leaned forward and said, “But there’s art, and then
there’s Art, if you take my meaning.” “I’m
afraid I don’t.” “Right.
Look.” He put a hand on my
shoulder, gently, and led me around.
I’m not really a touchy-feely person, and normally this would
make me nuts, but somehow Ian made it not be invasive or weird.
I was finding I liked him quite a bit. He
took me over to the next painting, which was a new one for me: a cityscape
at night, with a nude woman flying or floating in a luminous bubble high
above and looking down. Swarming
through the streets were hellish monsters, like mutant dinosaurs and
hybrid deep-sea creatures, coming up out of the sewers.
But their ravening seemed somehow muted and far-off.
The title was “Perambulations of the Adept I.” “Now
have a look at this,” said Ian. “Is
it a dream? A vision? A metaphor? If it becomes one, does it stop being
any of the others?” “I
don’t know. Is it a trick
question?” He
laughed. “There you go.
Maybe you know more than you think after all.”
There was a strange moment then, just a moment, as he looked at me
and his eyes gleamed brightly, and I felt weirdly exposed, like he could
look in and see who I really was, naked and unprotected and small.
“Look,” he said, and the feeling dissipated, “all of this, all Art,
is part of a huge, elusive language that must work on more than one level
at once. A house is, more or
less, only a house, in and of itself.
A painting of the house is the painting and the thing itself as
well, and potentially many more things besides.
If it’s done with great Art, it can unlock something of what the
house is beyond being only a house. Do
you see?” I
didn’t know how to answer. My
head struggled to get a hold on what he was talking about. This wasn’t the normal pretentious garbage I was used to
hearing in galleries; I’d heard artists talk about capital-A Art before,
but not quite in the way Ian was doing it.
When he said it, it was the way some people say “God.” And
there was something about his manner that made me completely unsure
whether he was dead serious or pulling my leg, or somehow both. “Ian,
are you feeding him a load of crap already?” We
turned at the same time. Jemma
was wheeling up in a Chinese-style brocaded silk shirt, black on black.
Her nosering tonight was a garnet, and her eyes were traced in dark
Eye-of-Horus lines. She
looked her best, beautiful and ferocious.
“But
never, ever ask the artist to interpret their work,” said Ian.
“They’re notoriously evasive.
Shockingly, they may not even want
you to understand.” He bent, and she kissed him on the cheek.
“Hello, Maestra. Congratulations on the spectacular opening.” “Hello,
Master Barrett. Hello,
Adrian. Oh my God, you own a
shirt and tie.” “Hey,
Jemma. Nice to see you
too.” I indicated the
painting we’d been looking at. “Care
to prove him wrong and show your hand?
I’d love to know where the hell this came from.” “You
wouldn’t believe me if I told you, sweetie.
Did you bring the Ray of Sunshine?” “Actually,
yeah.” I scanned the room
for dark-rimmed glasses and long red hair, and found her chatting up some
earnest-looking young fellow in a turtleneck – God, there was always at
least one – next to the buffet. “She’s
guarding the food for us.” “Good
for her. Hey, sorry I missed
the band last night. I hear
it was kickass.” I
felt myself blush a little. “Yeah,
well, so’s this. It’s
good to see so many disturbing things all in one place.” “Thanks.
It’s good to be responsible for them.”
She spun her chair towards Ian.
“You like the new stuff? I don’t think I told you I was working
on that one.” Ian
stood back from “Perambulations of the Adept I,” framed it in squared
thumbs and forefingers. “’My God, Elliot, it was a photograph from
life!’ Yes, you keep outdoing yourself, my dear.
It’s a wonder you’re not dead of exhaustion.” She
gave him a look, like she was trying to size up how to take that, and
finally said, “I don’t drop that easily.
Hey, I hate to run, but I’ve got to make the rounds of my other
adoring fans. I’m glad you
two are hitting it off. Give
me a call, Adrian. We need to
go to lunch soon. Ian, you know where to find me.”
“I
do. And the ‘Lizard’ is
gorgeous, Jemma. I’m very
honored.” I
swear I actually saw her flush and look embarassed for a moment.
“Aw, cut it out. You’re too kind.” And
then she looked pensive, as if she was going to say something else, but
then the moment passed and I wondered if I’d imagined it. “Thanks for coming, guys. You’re beautiful people.
Gotta go now.” When
she had gone, Ian turned to me and said, “Well. Make anything of
that?” “Was
there something to make of it?” “Now,
Adrian. What have we learned tonight about artists and subtext?” I
threw up my hands. “That every damn one of them is infuriatingly
vague?” “Ha!
I’m sure I deserve that, but no, there’s something else.
Too many correspondences to ignore, and she’s trying not to talk
about something. Maybe just
because she’s in public, but I’m not betting on it.” What?
Why did I get the feeling he felt like I was in on something? “Okay.
I give up. There’s
something you’re not telling me, Ian. It’s making me a little nuts and it’s making me worry.
What the hell is really going on with Jemma?” He
stood and looked at me a long, uncomfortable moment, while my skin started
to crawl. I wasn’t sure he
was going to answer, or if I should ask him again, but he finally sighed
and took off his tinted glasses, rubbed his eyes, and said, “You’re
right. There are a great deal
of things I’m not telling you, and I’m sorry.
And I can’t let you in on everything all at once, and I’m sorry
for that too. You’re
worried about your friend. You’re
not necessarily wrong to be. I’ll
make you a deal. Read the
rest of my book. I’ll come
to your show the next time you play and we’ll talk.
And maybe then I can start to show you what you need to see.” I
pulled the book out of my coat pocket again, and looked at it.
It didn’t seem like much: a sheaf of obscure text bound in cheap
black paper, full of acid-trip pen sketches.
But there was something in it that I’d tasted, a hint of
something glorious, strange knowledge half-hidden in riddles and nonsense
. . . . “Deal,”
I said. “But I have a
feeling you’ll have to do a lot of explaining for this stuff.
I’m having a hell of a time getting any of it. We’re playing next Friday at the Cutup Club.
Nine.” “I’ll
see you there, then.” He put out his hand, and I shook it.
“Good to meet you, Adrian. I
look forward to talking with you.” “Likewise.”
He smiled at this, and then without saying anything else turned and walked
off. I went to leave too; I
felt the start of a headache coming on. Molly
came to meet me as I walked to the buffet.
She was beaming, and gorgeous.
Some of the tension of the last few moments started to melt. “You’re
not gonna believe this, Adrian. Jemma
came up to me a minute ago and thanked me for coming, just out of the
blue. She said, ‘I know
this isn’t your thing, but it’s good seeing you here.’ And she told
me how glad she was for your being around.
Wasn’t that sweet? I
was blown away.” “Wow,
that’s excellent, babe.” She
came and took my arm, and we walked together towards the doors.
“I noticed you had a new boyfriend, too.
Should I be worried?” She
rolled her eyes. “Guy named
Peter. Went on and on about a
lot of pseudo-intellectual postmodern crap, in an attempt to be cool and
impressive. Completely trying
to get in my pants. When I
pointed you out to him, he went a little white and shut up.
He was kinda cute, though.” “Not
really my type. I like the
way he thinks, though. Let’s
get out of here.” We went, waving to friends and aquaintances on the way out. Out on the corner, I thought I caught a glimpse of a bearded face in a leather jacket, but we were walking too fast for me to be sure.
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