The Caress

She is seventy-eight, a paltry cheeked widow who will some day fade away and be mourned by none.  But for now, she believes her fortune has turned.

She is walking through the grandest of all ballrooms, mingling with guests who are rich and elite in equal measure.  Her taffeta dress swishes past tuxedoed legs and other cinch-waisted dresses adorned with Swarovski crystal brooches just like hers.  She nods demurely and says, “How do you do?” to anyone who will look her way.

She tastes the shiny blue music of the jazz quartet bounding off the high, smooth walls and closes her eyes.  She taps the toes of her black suede pumps out-of-time with the music.

Richard loved to swing dance.  He adored its wildness.  She was a bumbling chimp when it came to following dance patterns, so she would watch Richard dance, the blush rising up on her cheeks like two, plump cherries when he brushed his hand over his partner’s buttocks and clasped down in a playful squeeze.  She hated his innocent flirtations, but most of all, she hated that this was what she remembered of him.

She sits now, overcome with hunger, at a table with tall, white candles and a squat vase of sprawling, pink tulips.  The table groans under thick platters of food.  She has never seen such extravagance in all her life.  Her hands tremble.  She hesitates.  She fingers the brooch at her throat and peers at the young woman next to her.  Such a fine, exquisite face she has.  Such lovely eyelashes and bow-shaped lips.  Why is this charming beauty sitting here all alone?

“Might I inquire?” she says.

The young woman’s eyebrows fly up, and she shifts away from the old woman.

“You are so lovely,” she says.

“Sorry?” says the young woman.  She pulls at her Miu Miu handbag and scurries away, leaving the old woman to sit alone at the table.

She slumps and reaches for a plum.  The plum juice is just seeping down her chin when she recognizes another face, a face like her son’s—open, honest, and good.  She leaves the table and hurries toward him.  He will rush right past her if she doesn’t stop him.  She reaches for his face and lightly caresses his cheek.  “So, here you are,” she says.  “I miss you.”

* * *

Adam left his brownstone late that morning with half a bagel hanging out of his mouth.  He ran to the street corner and down the stairs into the crazy din that was the subway.  His thoughts were of stocks and risks and mergers, so he didn’t see the quick gray flash of costume jewelry or hear the rustling plastic grocery bags or hear the incessant thrum of the jazz quartet buskers until that old bag lady with the cloudy blue eye touched him—right there, on his cheek.

[Post image: Subway by feta on stock.xchng]