I'd like to see POV for Pense Bete!
thank you, @stormyks. a reverse POV from Andante. Not exactly following the script but close.
I lean forward, resting my forehead against my knees and letting my fingertips trail along the faded dressing-room carpet. “How is the crowd?”
“This is the Upper West Side.”
Dafna sighs.“I know, but they look like their chauffeurs drove them here from across the park.”
My eyes stay closed as I listen to Dafna rubbing at a spot on her skirt; the rough attack of wet wipe against wool is stark against the quiet.
“I should tell you,” she says, voice wavering with the effort. “There is one attendee with promise, like a storybook prince, but in reverse. Everyone is entering the venue, and he’s facing the other way—I can’t tell if he wants to bolt, or if he’s just waiting for rescue.”
“Go talk to him then, get his number,” I say, voice muffled against the fabric of my trousers. “Save him from his misery.”
“Nah, he’s not my type at all—too tall, too handsome—but he’s certainly yours.”
“Because he’s too tall and too handsome?”
Sitting up brings a head rush, and also exhaustion. Sometimes, the promise of new bodies is no incentive. Not that Dafna cares to know; she’s crossed her arms and her legs, at the ankles, genteel opposition squared. It amuses her to think I’m insatiable when really, most of the time, it’s the distraction, not the promise, that I seek. I’m not awake enough for more.
The heater pipes clang suddenly and there’s sharpness to her smile. “No, he’s your type because he’s clearly indecisive–and nothing thrills you like a question mark.”
I’m not in the business to deny truths, no matter how ungenerous; so I shrug, humming against my lips in careless agreement. “Does that mean you like them short and ugly?”
“I like strong noses and thin frames.”
The crackling house intercom buzzes to life, announcing fifteen minutes. I shake out my hands and close my eyes again.
Of course, all of it is a prelude.
The little girl seated directly in front of my bench never once looks up from her book, but keeps turning the pages, rapidly, too rapidly, like a tiny demonic speed reader. Periodically she flips to the front and pauses before returning to her previous spot. I spend the duration of the Schubert Fantasie trying to catch the title and eventually, do—Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie. How does one compete with a snowy potboiler? Tonight’s answer: by bashing out a furious interpretation of the Heroic Polonaise until she finally looks up.
The frustration evaporates easily. The little girl, Ana, has got a missing front tooth, and a quiet, tissue-paper-thin voice. After the show she asks for my autograph, while her mother shuffles awkwardly behind her. Ana plays the oboe, but assures me she isn’t very good. She likes my socks. And the Chopin. It makes her think of happy shouting.
I tell them to wait for me by the stage door and return to the dressing room to grab some CDs and a Sharpie. I’m like this, lighthearted and occupied, when I encounter Oliver again, standing on a checkered marble floor, smiling with a queasy mix of trepidation and warmth. Eyes the same, hair different, beard, in a suit. Coat, scarf. Beautiful as ever. Elio, Oliver, Oliver, Elio. It’s the first thing that comes to mind when I see his face. So easy, it almost seems rehearsed.
Clem steals me away to shake hands and pose for photos; and before rushing back to him, l find Ana and her mother. After scrawling a dedication on one of the CDs, I almost sign it with his name, then pause. It’s the brain, ever helpful. The body too; my hand writing down who it wants most. The ceaseless reminder. Get back, get back, get back. To the prince, to the answer.
“What’s my name again?” I murmur, embarrassed and a little lost but laughing too. It’s early still. There’s time.
Special thanks to @cheshirecatstrut for eyeballing this for grammar crimes.
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