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The year had moved so quickly since the last school picnic that Marion, standing still for a moment in the fall sun, had to close her eyes against the spin. She was thirty-six. This past year had constituted one thirty-sixth of her life; the previous year, one thirty-fifth. The years ahead would be even smaller until, at the end, like planets spinning out of sight, they would vanish exponentially. It was odd. The days still equaled days and the weeks, weeks. They measured up equally against each other and against the days and weeks of her past. August was still August and May, May. In fact, Monday to Friday now seemed to pass more slowly than when she, like Sarah, had been a girl at school. But it was the years that had changed their currency, seemed cheaper and quicker and worth less. Marion tossed her head and opened her eyes. She disliked self-pity even in its subtlest disguise. She prided herself on her common sense and on the fact that she, unlike other women she knew, got on with things, coped, resisted nostalgia. She wrapped up the sandwiches and then went down to the basement for a bottle of good red wine and the picnic basket.
The Roths had lived for eleven years in a large square house on a good street ten minutes from work and twenty minutes from school. Marion liked neat solutions. Even the house seemed tailored to their needs. She and Jonathan each had a study and Sarah used the small breakfast room, which must have been tacked onto the house thirty years before, for practising. Sarah had played the cello for six years, since she was eight, and was considered competent by Sumiko Nishimoto, her teacher. But Sarah, despite Sumiko's scrupulous assessment, was privately determined to become a cellist of renown and closed herself and her cello into the breakfast room for longer and longer periods each day. On a Sunday, like today, she would begin practising after breakfast and continue all day, stopping only for lunch. Marion heard the dull tremor of Sarah's scales as she ran up the stairs from the basement with the basket and the wine. She stopped at the door of the breakfast room. They were late for the picnic again this year. Last year, they had arrived so conspicuously late that she'd felt, almost tangibly, the animosity of the half-drunk, half-blond mothers towards her, the professional, a woman who always had an excuse. * * * Marion chose a spot near a group of fathers and told Sarah to spread the cloth there. Then she opened her own bottle of good claret and poured two glasses, turning her face to the sun and smiling. It really was a lovely day, the time of year Marion liked best. The sun was still warm, but the grass was cool, the shade cold. She laid out the sandwiches, the cheeses, the antipasto, and the glasses of wine and sat back, relaxing for the first time that day. Something in the season, in the smells of the grass and sun and wine, relaxed her. Perhaps it was the ripeness of the year, discernible even in the middle of the city in places like this where the earth was open to the sky for a few acres. She felt part of the fullness, part of the slanting of the earth away from the sun. As the wine reached her elbows and knees, Marion looked around her. She saw Sarah standing among a group of teachers and girls smiling and nodding. Jonathan had settled himself in the shade next to the fence. She saw a group of mothers swaying and laughing, tall and thin. And she felt suddenly benign towards them all, even the women as they stood discussing ballroom-dancing classes and the junior prom. How could they ever have depressed her? Really, she wondered, what are they, what were they ever to me, that they had the power to spoil my day? Marion closed her eyes and lay back on the grass with her hands under her head. The sun and the wine had set her cheeks on fire and warmed her breasts. She could almost feel the glow through her skin and into her bones when suddenly she was lying in shadow. Looking up, she saw Sarah standing in front of the sun, hovering really, grasping her skirt on either side. And there was someone behind her in the sun's shadow -- a man. "Mother," Sarah said in a low voice. "Mother, this is Mr. Lopez." "How do you do, Dr. Roth?" said the young man, bowing slightly. "I have been wanting to meet you." Marion tried to scramble to her feet, but her legs buckled under her and her head spun from the wine and the sun. "Good Lord!" she muttered. "Here, let me help you." He deftly hoisted her up, releasing her as soon as she was steady. "Well," said Marion, ignoring Sarah's warning, pleading stare and intoxicated still by her own sense of well-being, "well, Mr. Lopez, thank you! You saved me from an ignominious fall from power." Lopez laughed and when he did, she saw with wonder the sweetness of his smile. He was, in fact, beautiful. Everything in his face and body was in perfect balance. He was small, about her own size, and, she guessed, about ten years younger. There was a grace about him that suggested a dancer or, because of his size, a gymnast. But he was too little conscious of his body to be a gymnast. He presented himself casually. It was almost as if he'd never taken account of his smooth caramel skin, his jet-black hair, his onyx eyes, and full, sensual mouth. Sarah had never mentioned his beauty. Marion wondered whether he was gay. "Ah, Mr. Lopez," she said, "Sarah has mentioned you so often. What a pleasure it has been for her to have a teacher of your caliber." Lopez bowed again and smiled, looking her directly in the eye. No, she decided, he's not gay. © Copyright 2000 Lynn Freed |