Fettle

Walking hand in hand through the park along the river, on our way to see the fish, grey skies but sun in our eyes.

Capitulate, panache, and verbiage

You talk funny, the girl said with a smile.

I scowled. For your information, this is a priceless artifact. You cannot possible appreciate its esteem, its significant, its--

She began to giggle.

Oh for god's sake, how much do you want for it?

She felt around in her pocket. I have a dime.

My eyes nearly popped out. A dime?! For this? For my most treasured--

She giggled again.

I looked around the room. There were only a handful of other patrons, and none were headed my way. A tent full of dyed silk scarves and exotic plant life was drawing the crowd. This might be my only chance for a sale.

Fine, I grumbled. She handed over the coin and I reluctantly relinquished the headdress. She put it atop her small blonde head and skipped away. Her shoes flashed with red lights every time she took a step.

I dropped the coin into a purse hidden under my folding table. I sat back down. I grabbed the flyer that listed my goods and their prices. I fanned myself.

Edify and melee

"You can't teach an animal by lecturing, or threatening, or tricking," she said, running the brush over the mare's mane. The horse stood patiently under Jill's touch. "Dogs, cats, horses, even cattle are not wired the same way as humans. They need to be instructed through patience and companionship, through positive reinforcement and encouragement."

"You don't think people respond to that stuff?"

"Oh, of course they do. But with people, there are more options. If you find out that a child has colored on the wall an hour after it happened, you can still explain to him why it was wrong and he can learn not to do it again. Animals aren't that way. There's only that moment to teach them. If you miss it, you can't get uspet. You just have to wait and try again."

Scion and numismatics

Greed to collect the coins, big heart to distribute. One family in a tug of war of grief -- whose claim is more legitimate? Their son, his daughter. The Man pulling his purse strings tighter.

Undulate

Tina sat on the back porch, watching the heat undulating over the open grill. People chatted in large and small groups. Kids played together in the pool. Even the hot dogs and hamburgers sizzled in symphony. Only she was alone.
I shouldn't have come here, she thought. It was too late to correct the mistake, but she could still minimize the damage.

She pushed off the porch steps and stood, brushing her hands off on her jeans. A quick glance around confirmed that no one would notice if she left through the yard's side gate. She knew no one would miss her. With both relief and a touch of wistfulness, she slipped through the wooden door.

To her surprise, Adam was on the other side.

"Oh," she mumbled as she bumped into him. "Sorry, I--"

"Leaving?" he asked. His tone was neutral and a shadow hid his face. She couldn't tell whether he was happy or sad to see her go.

Proponent and benificence

She told me once that she believed the best thing you could do was help someone else. Be selfless. Gain nothing.

"What's in it for you?" I asked.

She gave me a look. "What do you mean? The whole point is that there's nothing in it for you."

"Okay. But what do you get out of it?"

Now she frowned. "Nothing."

"You must get something," I pressed.

"No, nothing."

"Then why would you do it?"

"To help someone else."

"No one does anything for nothing."

"It's not for nothing."

"What's it for?"

"For the other person."

"And what about you? What do you get."

Exasperated, she yelled, "YOU GET TO FEEL GOOD ABOUT YOURSELF! OKAY?"

I smiled. "So there is something in it for you."

Misprize

"I think you misprize me."

"I don't even know what that means."

"Look it up. And when you understand -- or more importantly, when you give a damn -- call me."

Tintinnabulation

A tinkling of bells accompanied Jill as she entered the barber shop. She smiled at Patricia, and Patricia smiled back. Jill sat in a blue vinyl seat and waited to be called. She flipped through a fashion magazine and pretended not to notice how silent it had become since she entered. She re-applied her lip balm.

I guess they heard about Adam's leaving...

Disconcert and vociferous

She watched them napping on the couch -- the man and his dog -- and smiled. He was so tender with that pup, so open and affectionate. The things he couldn't always be with her. Sometimes it made her jealous, but more so it made her hope. That someday he wouldn't feel awkward or self-conscious about embracing her, about expressing his love. And she liked to see him -- both of them, really -- happy and at peace like that.

Then some noise from outside -- a rustling of the leaves, a twig snapping in two -- startled the dog and he began to howl. The man rolled over, groaning, and the moment was disturbed.

She smiled anyway.

Kitsch and suffuse

Inspiration suffuses my body like a good night's sleep, mind racing, heart gentle and steady but strong, dreams carrying me from one world to another. I take someone's hand to follow through their thoughts and stories, and I wonder if they would take mine in return. I stare in awe at the small things that make their lives real -- the rancid meat, the useless trinket, the sturdy tree with its rotting core -- and I think about what I have painted, what strokes have brought my words to life. Am I a Monet, a Picasso, an O'Keefe? Or am I yet undefined and undiscovered, but someday destined to hang in the halls of a great museum? I could happily echo the beauty of what has come before. But I hope my name will be printed on a plaque somewhere, crediting not just me, but the people in my life who bled into my art.

Auspicious

He didn't stop running until he saw the robin. A quick flash of red amid the blur of green and brown. When he did see the bird, his favorite, he took it as a sign. This was the place to stop. It was a small cottage in extreme disrepair, but it looked warm and welcoming in comparison to where he'd come from.

Evanescent and hoary

I think I always believed we would get back together. No, I know I did. They said we "separated," but that is not really true. We no longer shared a roof, but we would always share a child. How can you sever that kind of bond? Even now, in death, he is with me always. In her face, her smile, the color of her hair, the way she tilts her head and frowns when she is thinking. I had a hard time facing him -- her -- at first. But now that some of the pain has dulled -- not subsided, not gone away, only lessened into something more bearable -- I cherish the little slivers of him I can see in her. Through our daughter, he can and will live on, and then through her children, and theirs. He may never grow old, we may never sit on a porch and rock back and forth while looking out over the fields of his youth, his home country, we may never hold hands again. But we will always have her. I will care for him, through her, in the way that I was never able to care for him in this life.

Regale and torrid

"You're asking me to believe that you never..."

Tina shot him a look. "Never what?"

"Never, you know..." He fumbled for a euphemism. "Got jiggy with it?"

She might have laughed if the conversation weren't so accusatory. "Well, I went out to clubs. Just dancing with friends."

"Guy friends?"

"Friends," she said firmly. She hated having to defend herself, but she wanted him to trust her again. Still, she had to draw a line somewhere. "But it never got out of hand. Never, you know, racy."

"Still a good Southern girl, then?" he asked with obvious doubt.

"More so than you, it seems." Her eyes gestured to the bottle of beer in his right hand.

He followed her glance, smiled without a trace of amusement or amity. "I had my first one five years ago. After a really bad day." Adam brought the bottle to his lips and drained it, then pushed back from the counter and stood. "Let's just say this one hasn't been the best either."

He breezed past her, leaving the eyes of whole diner in his wake.

Laudable, plaintive, and cosmopolite

Tina marveled at Emily's composure, her ability to put her own grief aside -- though this of all days should have been when she could express it -- and tend to those around her, to the friends and the distant family and the acquaintances who had come to take part in this spectacle. Tina liked large crowds, but only when she was anonymous within them. The shoppers at Rastro markets in Madrid, the tourists gathered on the lawn at the Eiffel Tower, the ever-shifting throngs in Times Square, New York City. These were the places she felt most comfortable, most able to slip out of the physical mold she'd been given and into the names and faces and lives of others.

Glower, immolate, and bevy

Sacrificial dove. I give her for the bigger picture, knowing that you have already photographed this sequence and I don't figure in. I scowl off to the side, my poor, bloodless white bird in hand. You said you didn't need her.

Admonition

I warned you not to come here. I warned you this land is mine. I warned you that I didn't want to see you again.

Now I need not worry. Now your face is obscured by dirt and blood. Now you will never come back, or go away, or go anywhere again.

I only had one bullet left. It was for safety, for protection against bandits or trespassers. You were both. You stole my heart, and then you came back here, to my land, against my will.

I warned you. Really I did.

Comestible

Tina stared in amazement. Food covered every surface in the kitchen. Casseroles crowded the counter, loaves of fresh-baked bread in a pyramid, meatloaf and cold cut sandwiches crammed between the answering machine and the toaster. Pies on the only two stools. And flowers, dozens of flowers, pink and yellow and red and white and purple, overflowing the sink.
"Where did all this come from?"

Emily cleared off a small space next to a tupperware container of tuna salad and set down her purse. "The neighbors."

"We don't have this many neighbors."

"Well, the whole town. You know what I mean."

"Why?"

"So in our grief we don't forget to eat? Or I guess really so we're not burdened with having to cook after everything else we have to take care of."

Tina felt a twinge of guilt, knowing that only Emily had dealt with any of it.

"You hungry?" Emily asked.

They both stared for a moment, then burst into laughter.

Fop and gubernatorial

At Jimmy's Barber Shop we sat on the front steps while our fathers got their hair cut and our mothers got their perms, and we licked sweet sticky ice cream from cones, trying to get it all before any could drop onto our summer-tanned arms. Through the open windows we could hear the women gossiping and the radio broadcasting the governor's latest speech. "That man is a fop!" someone would cry. "Why the heck is he runnin' our state?" And no one ever pointed out the irony of a man in a barber shop criticizing another for caring too much about appearances.

Redress

I'm not sure what I came home for. When I was flying south over Arkansas, I thought it was for a funeral. I thought Adam played a part too. I thought it was for closure.

Now I'm wondering if it was to redress the past. Not the past as I knew it, but the past that I'd denied, the past that I'd colored with my stubborn teenage angst and my blissful physical and emotional distance. I think there was a larger plan, a greater force at work on me, like gravity, pulling me back down to Earth. To Discovery.