diana

“Hello? -- Hey.... That? No, no that was just Wallace. Yeah. Hmmm? No I wasn’t yelling. It was him, he’s always running around this place like a maniac, harping about bills and rent -- I think he hates me. The other day, he was going off about going back to school, like he was so much more superfluous than me for it, and I was like, Hey...I’ve got a life! and no college can teach me what I need to know to write, it’s like experience you know? and he said, ‘What about Seth?’ like asking about you an stuff and I was like he’s an artist. My boyfriend’s an artist. What about you? Heh-heh yeah no and then he’s all about Tune Ups and saying how your working at a record store doesn’t make you an artist per say. No. Yeah, he kind of was -- we were talking about high school reunions and whether we go back to them. Yeah. No it’s alright. I’m trying to finish the reviews section. Yeah they’re in there. But I can’t get anything done. They had one of their ‘meetings’ again tonight, yeah the oil got shut off, it’s been crazy cold. No! Obviously I didn’t mean you by that. Maybe you can help me. Hold on.”

Diana puts the phone down, loosens the towel, lets it drop to the floor and takes her time getting back to Seth, first looking at herself in the full-length mirror. Several tiny pimples speckle her chest between her small breasts. She wonders if they’re in-grown hairs. Or maybe that annoying sweaty friction with her new cotton sweatshirt. Then she notes each colorless stretch line on her white hips. Sifting around the bureau drawer, underwear and socks, she pulls out a pair of blue panties with white star patterns. One leg at a time, careful not to balance too long on either, the panties pull up to her groin. She struts over to the table top record player, hands on hips, and flips the record over, casually dropping the needle on spinning vinyl.
She takes a protracted drag off her sitting joint, feeling a twinge of pain, as the paper burns down to her dry lips. And then with another forced sigh, she picks the phone back up and plops into the computer chair.

“So...nhngfhh...yeeeaahhh... ‘kiss the bird’ baby...so I’m trying to come up with synonyms for ‘whore.’ Well I’m... doing this review of this band... ‘Artemis’...they’re like ballsy rock, but its all female fronted and they wear these provocative outfits, fishnets, red vinyl ...feathered hair and so I’ve got ‘hussy’, ‘slattern’, and ‘mink’ but none of those seem to fit. This is the sentence...what...that’s one? Yeah I saw it. John Goodman was great, ‘You’re entering a world of pain.’ -- Yeah that’ll work, ‘With their unique, punchy vocal sound tribute, these strumpets of unpretentious punk are worthy of radioplay.’ Ha! You’re great baby boy. ‘You gots the damage’...heh... no that’ll be totally genuflecting to them. Well, they sort of sound like a warm mix of The Rolling Stones and... Blondie... and maybe Ministry? But...yeah... yeah rock and roll is totally dead. Totally. I was trying to explain that to Wallace before the meeting. We’re like sitting there downstairs, and no one knows where Arthur is, and Wallace asks me about that first Nick Drake and I start explaining that that was like right around where it all ended. Oh no one will top the Velvets. No way. Noooo Hoooo.... It’s mostly all shit. ‘The Strokes?’ Fuck that. No I totally get into that when I review the Loose Cannon double. Loose Cannon? Here I’ll read it: ‘While mixing the veteran four piece musical tradition to new heights, L.C. combine plethoric musical styles: math, jazz, prog., classical, emo, hardcore, spiritual. The 60’s influence lends an endearing British live performance. Provided it’s good, repeated and listened to daily, Loose Cannon is life.’

Diana pauses, waits for a satisfactory response. But there's none. Not silence, because she can hear a flapping sound and then a balmy noise that reminds her of velvet furniture when she's running her hands through it's fade. She stands here, listening, occasionally breathing a sibilated, "Seth?"into the receiver. And then she hears a ruttle and dither, taking a delay to realize it's not in the phone, but actually at her window.

Her reaction time is slow, struck by a palpatated fear, goosebumps chilling down her bare back and chest before thoughts can converge. This is how Seth sees her, stationary like a hypnotized animal, when he hoists himself over her window sill into the bedroom. There's another second of glazed dead stare before she speaks back into the phone, "I'm going to have to go now..."

Seth pulls his cell phone out of the inside pocket of his brown leather jacket, "You do? Why?"

"My other boyfriend's here. I'll call you tomorrow," and then she just sets the phone sideways on the computer chair, not hanging it up, as she crosses over to him.
As they kiss she thinks how much less he looks like Peter Fonda in Easy Rider. His hair still feathers down into clipped lambchops, but there's more Jack Black these days with his stubbled gullet and consistent pout. She pulls a wool turtleneck sweater out of the walk-in closet and slips it on, over her form.

"The rope ladder?"

"The rope ladder."

She goes to the window, pulls it up from the clips that hook into the inner sill. Jenn gave it to her when they moved in together three years ago. As Diana brings the ladder up the side of the house she circles Seth, wrapping him loosely in the excess rope and chain.

"Now that you're snared in my magic lasso, you'll be forced to tell the truth. No man born on earth can resist it's power."

"Oh? In that case, I'll submit."

"Indeed...so who sent you?"

"Oh... They did."

"They did, did They? What for?"

"For these," and he drops a small manilla packet on the cracked hard wood floor. Diana picks it up, opens it and finds a series of aged photographs, each in a blue sealed zip-locked baggie. She flips through them. Each one, black and white, shows a balding middle aged man, pale naked from the waist down, posing against a desk.
"It's Henry Miller," exclaims Seth, "Remember in Tropic Of Cancer? When he talks about posing pantless for some degenerate in Munich?"

Seth points with both hands open, at the photographs, his eyes flaring, brows raised, "I got them on ebay."

Diana looks back at him cagey, "Right... I really liked Turn of The Screw."

"That's James."

"What?"

"Turn of the Screw? That's Henry James," with one long, deigned emphasis on "James".

Diana goes over to the bed and sits down, "You never answered me."

"About what?"

"Loose Cannon? I mean did I or did I not sum up the entire, you know, death of rock and roll there?"

"Yeah. Yeah sure," he pauses to untangle himself, "I mean, I think they even surpass that though. Like, they're not just a revival band like these other groups with 'rock revolution' and shit, it's beyond that. A ...a new thing. Post-whatever."

"Yeah. I got into that."

"You did?"

"Well later on. In the piece."

Diana looks around the room. There's an awkward silence. Seth covers for it by going over to her record collection and sifting through the albums. Diana looks at her walls, adorned with random store bought picture frames, still containing the generic paper photos of various couples, headshots and family gatherings. She's suddenly overwhelmed, and feels very very pretentious.

Things with Seth like this, just always left her feeling empty. She wasn't fooling herself, it was totally a relationship of convenience. Everyone knew it, she had told Jann and even her mother that she was just one of those girls who always needed a boyfriend. Seth must know. They had practically talked about it when they first started dating. Back then, like he was now, always boozy and unctuous, with that wavering smile, he could be so judgemental.

He comes over to the bed, sits down next to her so that their hips bounced a bit and then settle to one another, "Hey, you're pretty well read. What did you think of The Great Gatsby?"

His breath smells liked boiled onions.

"I don't know," she replies.

"It's total shit," he says, leaning back behind her, slumping his back against the wall, ruffling the Belle & Sebastian poster hanging there with his head. How do you tell your boyfriend their breath smells bad? Not just bad, but horrid.

She looks over her shoulder at him, but doesn't slide back. His eyes are getting doleful, but still glittering with that I know something you don't she despises. She feigns a double-take across the room, not wanting to look at his face anymore, afraid that if she did, her own face would reveal something after not too long.

"I read it in high school."

"Everyone did. Book magazine named Gatsby the number one character of the twentieth century. I just don't get that. I mean yeah: Holden Caulfield, Holly Golightly, Atticus Finch -- but Gatsby?

"I just think: Robert Redford."

"Right. Totally. Everyone does," he starts to put his hand under the turtleneck, rubbing his index and middle finger in a circular motion against the small of Diana's back. He slips them under the seam of the blue panties, running back and forth. It's when she feels the density of his nail atop the cleft of her ass that she stands up very quickly, away from the bed, looking toward him but not at him.

"Well if everyone does, how come you keep asking me?!"

"Whoah, what's the problem?!"

"Nothing," she says just to piss him off.

"Nothing? Nothing? Okay. How come you've been so reticent lately?"

"Reticent?!"

"Yeah. It's a word. Like, 'unusually quiet.'"

"I know what it means. I just can't believe you used it."

"What... I mean... what is this? Are you thinking about breaking up or something?"

There was no seal or contract. She had never promised any bond to him. This was just a sort of a premium between them, each one knowing that the other just needed to be with someone. And right now, the market was full of guys, lots of guys, who could easily just be another someone.

Diana lets herself look up at him. His knapped curls trail down, his head in his hands, rubbing his face. She has more stock here than she cared to invest with in the first place. And frankly, she thinks: I don't have the elasticity to cope with another down. Better to hold with our current options than to impart any discrimination to him, here and now, potentially ruining our relationship.

"No. Look. I don't want... that. I'm just, really taxed to my limits with the reviews and house stuff and everything. I can't imagine, now or seven months from now, ever wanting to be with someone else. It's either you, or no one, okay?"

He seems satisfied with this. They hug. Then kiss. Later, there will be nervous, loveless sex without flow or peak.

Still embraced, she whispers into his chest, mimicking Anthony Hopkins, "Quid pro quo."

"Hmmm?" he's lost in the moment, "What's that?"

"Nothing," she says, this time not to piss him off, "Hey. I want to show you something."

She leans over the computer desk, flicking the screen saver off with a quick mouse tap. Clicks on a folder, then a file. Below them, a booming bass beat shakes the house foundation. It sounds like the new Tool, a record everyone in Happy Harbor has grown to hate, despite their predilictions toward the band prior to Arthur's arrival.

"What's this?" Seth asks leaning over, brushing up behind, still slightly annoying her with contact.

"It's a new piece I'm working on. I'm trying some new stuff: manipulation of grammar and tenses. Maybe I'll dabble in a sort of metafictional self-reference."

He peers at the screen for awhile, "That first sentence is kind of long."

"I know. That's what I was talking about. It's on purpose."

"I wouldn't exactly call long sentences a manipulation of grammar."

"Just read it, would you?"

Temporarily at least, there's equity again. He looks up at her tenderly, "Okay", and begins reading.