thereโs such a tenderness to fate that has absolutely no importance, like a clothing rack barren aside from the single dress in your perfect size, or being seated at glance-length distance from a boy you find charming. so dom feels taken care of when she sits at the space assigned to her and notes familiarity all around โ harry, hila, even birdie โ despite the lack of sleep and perpetual feeling that someone is running a wet finger over the glass rim of her skull.ย
dom does mean, in some capacity, to pay attention to the headmistressโs spiel โ - but her dark cat-eye sunglasses are still on, and that makes it so easy to observe without being caught. then she catches the perfume on the inner of her wrist when she lifts her cup, and the scent distracts her with the useless wondering of who would be the next person to smell it, and what that circumstance might be. would anyone kiss her on the hand by way of greeting or introduction? she looks around behind the shield of her glasses and considers who it could be, like a murder-mystery game.
by the time the deanโs monologue has ended, sheโs retained nothing at all, and has to turn to her partner across the table to request a recap. they seem either flustered or irritated by her lack of concentration, but she grins and removes her glasses, after which forgiveness makes its way to the forefront of his cheeks in a pink tone. the next round goes much the same, with a stranger attempting to maintain the intended format before dominique smashes it over her knee, veering off course to talk about her interaction with desmond tutu two summers ago.
in fact, the only time she seems to be evenly-paced and well-matched in the room is in the next moment, when she stands up, alone, and proceeds to walk towards a man that wants her there. in that performative way sheโs so familiar with, dominique keeps her eyes to the ground at first, looking next at something that doesnโt exist on the opposite side of the room so that he might see her pale and slender neck. she makes eye contact before they sit, as if to acknowledge the position heโs taken for her, and she canโt help but think how darling it would be if he would kiss her hand.
โharry,โ she admonishes, full-up of absolutely no conviction. he looks like he tastes like vanilla rum and ralph lauren polo and dominique does her best not to acknowledge it, despite liking the way he says I know. it makes her feel he truly might. โyou havenโt even said hello yet.โย she puts her elbow on the table and her chin atop her palm, a careful gesture similar to stacking teacup on saucer.ย โdonโt be a bastard, say something nice to me first. go on,โ her free hand pinches a sugar cube in the centre of the table, raises it to her mouth and bites down on a corner. โor i wonโt say a word to you.โ
she uncrosses her ankles to nudge the pointed toe of her stiletto under the leg of his trousers, lifting the hem as if preparing him for a rising flood. dom smiles while she plays under-the-table greetings in a way that doesnโt quite match a girl wearing her grandmotherโs pearls. as if for the first time noticing it, dom looks at harryโs flask on the table to run her fingers over it, playing risquรฉ little games by leaving it where others could see.ย โi feel sick,โ her bottom lip pouts, playful in its slight exaggeration. it meansย iโm hungover and looks startling likeย canโt you do something about it?ย how terrible a little thing she is, switching as she did between being so unfathomablyย undeterred by everything around her and girlishly reliant on whatsoever stood opposite. her foot keeps rubbing against harryโs ankle offhandedly, and she goes back to sucking on the sugar cube as she eyes the glinting silver thing. โwhat is it, doll?โ
she hopes the side of her shoe is cold on his ankle, and goes on playing this way โ kittenish โ until the fun is closed off by the sudden, deliberate push of his sock, so it crumples at the lip of his ferragamo. itโs a useless, briny little prank, but sheโs pleased. her ankles return to proper form, crossed beneath her chair, and she pops the remainder of the cube straight onto her tongue. with renewed vigor she sits up, unclasping the flask and tilting it into her cup, as if sheโd only been waiting for a sugar rush. โtell me you missed me terribly, and then iโll tell you a story.โ
he is incorrigible -- this is a fact. he is horribly arrogant, terribly presumptuous; harry rothschild-fitzgerald thinks far too much of himself, and far too little of the world that he inhabits. he is a bastard, and she says it to be true. and what she says to be true simply must be so. his finger circles absently about the rim of his teacup, gaze drifting down to the wet pink of her lips, which admonish him as they always do. arrogant enough to believe that he could place his own upon the slender angle of her neck -- he thinks of the way her collarbone dips beneath the thin fabric of her blouse, draws ocean waves upon the porcelain with his mindโs eye -- and yet wise enough to know the way the story ends.ย
icarus burns, gatsby drowns, romeo drinks the poison; all tragic heroes die for their muses. but this is his hubris speaking, telling him that -- here, now, sitting across from such a muse -- he is both tragic and a hero, when in reality he is neither.ย
โhello, darling,โ he hums, speaking as if it has not been a near-whole summer since he has sat opposite her like this,ย โi would ask if you missed me, but i know well enough that you donโt miss anybody.โ they miss you. as they should.ย โand you should know well enough --โ he leans upon the table, mirroring her position, though he is not nearly as poised as she always manages to be,ย โ-- that i am a bastard. but something tells me that you enjoy it.โ if she did not, he knew, she would be as gone as a silk ribbon lost in a gust of winter wind. onto the next, then the next, then the next; he is incorrigible, but she is incomprehensible.ย
he leans back once more as he feels the toe of her stiletto upon his ankle. harryโs lips twist lazily, gaze locked upon her visage in an outward refusal to look down. itโs all part of the game, to not look. what happens beneath the table stays beneath the table; it is all at once too intimate and too childish, and it is this dichotomy, this stark, sugary juxtaposition that makes the game so delicious.ย
as her toe dips downward, he thinks of the film-camera photographs he took in florence, the seaside flowers he pressed between the faded pages of his journal, the poetry written with paper against a rock cliff face with a pencil snagged from a cafe table. her name exists in the margins; his muses play games with him, they are games. his breath catches in his throat, as her shoe is a harsh cold juxtaposed against the warmth of the muse-memory that the sight of her elicits ( for he thought of her often, often writing poetic letters and throwing them into the sea. it would be no fun to send them and be unable to watch her numerous expressions in reading them.ย ).ย
โrum,โ he answers, though his gaze refuses to drop to her fingers, to her chin in her hand, to her toe shuffling his sock deeper into his shoe; this is all in the game, and he would lose should he look away from the abyss-pools of her eyes,ย โit makes me feel as if iโm still on a beach somewhere; perhaps iโd be a pirate. iโd make a good pirate, wouldnโt i?โ but of course, she is too petulant, too demanding, too deep in the fun of the game to answer just yet -- he must, as is usual, pay a toll first.ย
at her prompting, he leans across the table, breaking his stoic stillness in the name of drawing closer. what was that she smelled of? it awoke in him a memory -- but which one he knew not. there were all too many.ย โtu m'as manquรฉ,โ he begins,ย โmi sei mancato.ย te he extraรฑado. mou รฉleipses. iโve missed you terribly. tell me, dominique, however was i to carry on much longer without you?โ by now, he has leaned fully across the table, so much so that he has stood from his chair without thinking, as if to take a too-deep whiff of her perfume.ย
and then his eyes fall downward as she reaches again for his flask. there she is.ย
โiโve missed you terribly,โ he repeats,ย โnow tell me a story before i make one up for you.โ
