Alice

“What did you want from me then? What do you want from me now?” She spoke in an even tone. She was not being sarcastic, nor cynical. If anything, she was apologizing.
“It’s always been the same thing,” he said, “I’ve only ever wanted your trust.”
“I gave that readily the first time I saw you. You have it still. It’s just that…”
“I know,” he said, “It’s not about me anymore and what I want.”
“I’m sorry, Tom, I really am. I’m sprouting wings. I thank you for that gift, but now I feel the need to flex. I, I…”
“And so you shall, love. It’s time for you to fly.”
When Tom left, Alice smoked a cigarette and watched motes suspended in the still air of her apartment, wingless motes which tumbled in the smoke she exhaled, tumbled then fell still once again, suspended in place as surely as if they were anchored by tiny invisible threads.
She looked at the bracelet on her wrist, tried to twist it round, but it was too snug. The amber stones no longer shone. She unclasped it and placed it on the newspaper folded on the coffeetable.
Later, when she herself was going, it was one of the things she left behind.

Alice was sitting in a corner of the room. She was watching people enjoy themselves. The only people she knew there were Norma and her husband. She worked with Norma in a bank. Norma was an older woman who took a motherly interest in Alice and had invited her to the party.
The house was full and everyone was talking and laughing. Everyone, that is, except Alice. There was a young man standing near her. He looked over at her several times and smiled. Alice pretended not to notice him. When he wasn’t looking, she glanced at him shyly. But when he looked at her again, she acted as if she were interested in the pattern of the carpet.
Just then, Norma came into the room and walked over to her. “Enjoying yourself?” she asked.
“Oh, yes. It’s a great party.”
“Really? You don’t seem to be talking to anyone.”
“Oh, that’s because I…I prefer to sit and listen for a while,” Alice answered.
“But you can’t do that all evening, honey. Come on! Let me introduce you to a few friends.”
“Oh, don’t worry about me, Norma. I’ll be all right. I will, really!”
Norma looked at her doubtfully. Then her husband shouted something to her from the kitchen, and she hurried back to help him bring more food into the room.
An hour later, Alice was still sitting in the corner of the room. The young man was now talking to another person. Alice kept looking at the door, hoping that someone else she knew would come in. After a while, she got up and went into the kitchen, where Norma was joking and laughing in the middle of a crowd of people.
“Well?” she asked. “Met any interesting people?”
“Oh, yes. It’s really been a lot of fun. Thanks for inviting me,” Alice said, looking at her watch.
“You’re not leaving already, are you?” Norma asked.
“Yes, I’m afraid I have to. I’m expecting a phone call from a friend. I told him I’d be home by ten.”
“Well, all right, then. You take care, dear,” Norma said and kissed her on the cheek.

Alice got off the number seven bus and began walking towards her apartment building. On the way, she stopped to buy some food at one of the stores on her street. It was run by a Korean family, and although the prices were a little higher than in the supermarket further down the street, she did a lot of her shopping there. The vegetables were fresher and they had a number of things she couldn’t get anywhere else. Mr. Kim, the owner of the store, was checking through a list, but smiled, as he always did, when he saw her come in.
“How’s Mrs. Kim today?” she asked.
“Oh, much better. The doctor says she’ll be out of the hospital soon,” Mr. Kim said.
“Oh, I’m so glad!”
She picked up a basket and walked toward the back of the store, where the rice and grains were kept. The store was divided by three long aisles, with rows of shelves crammed with all sorts of things. Except for her and Mr. Kim, there were only two other people there, two young men with boyish faces. They were standing at the end of one of the aisles. She glanced at them as she passed. They were both wearing long, old-fashioned raincoats and she thought they looked a little ridiculous because the coats were too big and it wasn’t raining outside. But big coats were popular with some of the teenagers that season.
“Watch out, stupid,” she heard one of them whisper to the other.
She walked on to the next aisle and found the rice she was looking for. Then she heard something else. It sounded like a can falling on the floor. She peered through a gap in the shelf and caught a glimpse of one of the boys bending over. She saw him pick up a can of food, but instead of putting it in his shopping basket or back on the shelf, he dropped it into the inside pocket of his long raincoat. Alice glanced back down the aisle. She could see Mr. Kim at the cash register, still checking through his list. Then she looked through the gap in the shelf again, but the boys had their backs to her.
“Come on, let’s get out of here,” she heard one of them say and they moved. At the same time, she saw one of them put another can in his raincoat pocket. They moved further away from her. She could no longer see what they were doing or hear what they were saying.
When she got to the cash register, the two boys were in front of her. She watched them pay for the few things they had in the basket. They had both buttoned their coats and fastened them with their belts. Mr. Kim did not seem suspicious at all. He even smiled at them as they were about to leave. Alice opened her mouth to say something, but all that came out was the sound of hesitation, which Mr. Kim mistook for a sigh or a yawn.
“You need to get some rest,” he said.
“That’s all I do,” she thought, and paid for her rice with a twenty-dollar bill. Mr. Kim, preoccupied with his list, gave her change for a ten. She did not bring the error to his attention. “Thank you,” she said, “Have a good night. I hope to see Mrs. Kim real soon.”

She heard the telephone ringing as she put her key into the lock on the door. On entering, she placed her purchase on the little table under her father’s photograph and walked over to answer the phone.
“Alice, it’s Norma. Listen, dear, you left something here. We found your bracelet between the cushions on the sofa.”
Alice looked down at her empty right wrist.
“I, er, how…” she began.
“Don’t worry, dear. It turns out one of the guests lives very near your place and he’s offered to drop it off on his way home. Will that be all right, or shall I bring it to the office Monday?”
“I didn’t even know I’d lost it. My father gave me that bracelet when I was a teenager. I guess…”
“I know. You’ve always worn it. Listen, dear, Tom is a good soul and trustworthy. I’m going to send it over with him. You take care and I’ll see you Monday. By the way, did you get the call you were expecting?”
“Yes, yes, I did,” Alice said, “Thank you, Norma.”

She changed into more casual clothes and carefully hung her one good dress back on its padded hanger in her bedroom closet. She brushed her hair and sprayed some mouthwash into her dry throat. Then she poured some cherry liqueur into an aperitif glass and downed it quickly. She poured another and put the glass and the decanter on the table while she went to spray her throat again.
She was feeling dizzy with good luck and believed Norma was a true friend, the only kind worth keeping.
As she replaced the mouthwash in the medicine chest, she heard her buzzer ring.
She responded without asking who it was.
Two minutes later she was disappointed on opening her door and discovering that Tom was not the person she had been expecting. An older man, whom she had not noticed at the party, was standing there.
“Alice?” he asked, and she nodded.
“I’m Tom Sellers. Norma asked me to return this to you.” In his extended hand was her bracelet, partially wrapped in a tissue.
“Thank you,” she said, “Thank you so much. Can I offer you a nightcap for your kindness?”
“How sweet of you to offer, but I’m afraid I mustn’t take you up on it. I’m in recovery, you see. Perhaps,…”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I wanted another chance to speak to you.”
“How’s that?”
“I saw you sitting on Norma’s sofa and realized you were there alone. I tried to screw up the courage to say something several times, but I just couldn’t get past my shyness. Here now, with an excuse to speak, I’ve gotten past that hurdle. Do you think we might have dinner together some time?”
He really was rather handsome. Alice regretted not having been introduced to him at the party, but then she had been distracted by the younger man to whom she herself had been too shy to speak.

On a Wednesday when it was raining heavily and there was very little traffic at the bank, Norma and Alice had lunch together. Norma, as always, looked regal with her hair swept up. She was was wearing an emerald green business suit. Alice too looked regal and Norma commented on the change.
“You’re looking marvelous these days. Life seems to be treating you right.”
“I want to thank you for all you’ve done,” Alice said.
“What I’ve done? Why, I haven’t done anything. You’ve just awakened to your surroundings, dear.”
“Perhaps, but it wasn’t fate that placed both Tom and myself at your party.”
“How are things going between the two of you, if you don’t mind my asking?”
Two salads lay untouched between them.
“He’s a wonderful companion,” Alice said. “We have been all over the city together. We went to the Chagall exhibit last week. I’ve been doing things and going to places I haven’t been since my father passed away. He’s really helped me get out of the rut I was falling into.”
“I can see changes,” Norma said. “Do you think it might be serious between you?”
“Well, he took me to meet his mother over the weekend. She’s a tiny woman, nearly seventy she must be, but very lively.”
“Oh, how did that go?”
“We hit it off, but something, I don’t know, something didn’t feel right. She offered me a glass of wine with dinner. She had Tom pour one for her. He had soda and so I did also. But the decanter was near him and his mother kept glancing at it. I couldn’t tell if she was longing for another but didn’t like to be the only one drinking or if she didn’t trust her son, as if at any moment he might cave and fill his glass. He’s in recovery, you know.”
“Yes,” Norma said, “And I believe he’s very faithful to his principles. I’ve never seen him drinking and we’ve been friends for about nine years.”
“You seem more sure of him than his mother does.”
Norma leaned forward and said in a low voice, “She does drink a bit.” Then, sitting upright again, she added, “But hey, she’s seventy.”
A couple were taking seats at the table next to Norma and Alice. The young woman was fashionably attired and had her blond hair perfectly coiffed. She was wearing a brooch that looked like an eagle in flight pinned to her jacket. Alice felt she recognized her escort as he held out her chair for her. He looked so familiar, but Alice couldn’t place where she’d seen him before. Then he sat parallel to her and she couldn’t see his face without turning around in an obvious manner to look at him.
“So,” she said to Norma, “You don’t think it was a matter of trust?”
“No. A little wine with dinner never hurt anyone. Anyone who doesn’t have a problem with alcohol, that is. Tom never did succumb, right.?”
The blond at the next table looked over at them and Alice began to feel uncomfortable. “Umh, no,” she said, “No, he didn’t.” Perhaps Norma had responded in a tone that had evoked the young woman’s interest.
Shortly afterward, the waiter took away their uneaten salads and brought their check. When they rose to leave, Alice had another chance to see the young man’s face. She was astounded when she realized where she knew him from. This young man, dressed in a business suit, hair neatly combed, with a flawless complexion, looking for all the world like some successful young executive taking his fiance to a nice restaurant for lunch was one of the kids in oversized raincoats she had seen robbing canned goods from Mr. Kim! They caught each other’s eyes but there was no sign of recognition in his. He merely smiled. She couldn’t bring herself to return the smile but said, “Provecho,” in a low voice.
Norma looked sideways when she heard that. “You are full of surprises these days,” she said.

That evening she told Tom that she had decided to go to Mexico for her month’s vacation. He asked her if this was a sudden decision because she had never mentioned it earlier.
“Sort of,” she said. “I haven’t traveled anywhere in years. My parents used to take me on cruises when I was a child. I always thought I’d like to continue traveling when I grew up, but then my mother died and my father was sick for a long time. After he died, I guess I lost interest. Lately, I’ve been reading about South America and Mexico and thought I’d like to explore a bit – try something new.”
She was getting ready to go to the theater with him when he arrived and now she was just putting on the finishing touches. She picked up her bracelet with the little onyx stones on it and started to put it on her wrist, when he said, “Wait a minute.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a little box. “I brought this for you. I guess now we can consider it a bon voyage present.”
She opened the box. Inside was a bracelet of shiny amber. He took it out and put it round her wrist and clasped it with a bit of difficulty as the length was not so great as her one made of onyx. “Oh, Tom,” she said, “You shouldn’t have.”
“Do you like it?” he asked.
“Yes, it’s beautiful, but…” She placed the onyx bracelet in the box and put it on the table.
“I know the other one is important to you,” he said. “I know you wear it all the time. I just thought you might like to change off now and then.”
“My father gave me that one on the last trip we took as a family. It was for my sixteenth birthday. I guess I have been wearing it all this time for sentimental reasons. But this one is beautiful. Thank you so much.” She kissed him in sincere gratitude but was inwardly disappointed that she felt nothing more than that.

She put the box with her father’s bracelet in it away in a drawer and wore only Tom’s gift for the next two weeks whenever they went out somewhere together. She was wearing it on the Friday evening, her last day of work before she was set to travel.
She had made up her mind that she wanted to tell Tom not to wait for her to come back from Mexico. She wanted her future to be open.
When she broached the subject, he was a little upset but not angry. He told her he knew how she had been feeling prior to her voicing it. He said he felt their separation was predestined. He’d known it the first night he’d come to her apartment. He had felt her love was out of his reach when he spotted her at Norma’s party, her love, but not affection. That he knew was attainable. He had made his belated moves with only the simplest goal in mind.

Reading is an Essential Skill

There is an excellent online magazine en español called eLe which has recently started up. It promotes reading as a pleasurable pastime. It presents all topics in bite-size chunks and in an attractive format. Says one of its promoters, "eLe es un espacio que contiene fragmentos de libros, comentarios, recomendaciones, concursos, humor, textos de autor y algunos contenidos experimentales, todo ello elegido con ganas de divertirse y demostrar que leer es un placer." Check it out.
Another great site (blog) that I frequently enjoy reading is Scott Esposito's Conversational Reading. This one is in English, but there is much commentary on books in translation of diverse provenance.
I guess I spend so much time reading that I don't get around to doing as much writing as I'd like, but reading is research, no?