It is later, long after the bride and groom were off on their exciting holiday
Greg and Diandra were back at the “coffee” place drinking what was starting to feel like their usual, only tonight switched to Tia Maria (with a spot of coffee)
with Diandra sunk low in the seat— tonight Greg found them a table further back against the corner wall, in a burgundy upholstered booth that insulated them from the noise going on. The noise was mostly at the bar and over an argument concerning bets on a game and every once in a lapse of arguing several at once called out angrily,
“Morty!!!”
and after twenty minutes of this, Diandra started to wonder about Morty herself
“Another?” someone seemed to say from the corner reaches of Diandra’s visage
and in volley, reply in the opposite reaches came,
“she’ll have another—make it two doubles this time. Save a trip,” she heard Greg say but what he meant was fuzzy. Except she liked knowing there was something much too sweet possibly coming soon that kept her forgetting to care about all her troubles
What were they again?
Uhhh….
where she should live —but where was she again —now?
So in her Tia Maria state (with spots of coffee) her thoughts went like this:
when ???? was she indeed…. what year exactly?….it was because —it felt—he was —he felt ….soooo familiar. And it was so easy to not care. And be lulled into the sense that yes…. she was safe ….here with him
who—?Greg…. Greg ? Greg Wilson ….which made no sense because she had lived in so many places since then. How could she be…. here —as if she never left?
And then ….she did realize she knew this place. From ….years ago
She looked up at Greg now feeling like a loser for only just making the connection ….this was where it first happened—that night….they were here and somebody vomited on her—
That was why she had to borrow his sister’s uniform. The coffee place was just around the corner from —his old house
Diandra’s heart started to pound. In her inebriated state it seemed to recall those deep hidden memories in the crevices of her thoughts
….she remembered the night sharply and now she stared up at Greg. He was watching her. And he saw her face as she realized this. He watched her look at the places in the room where ….each thing occurred ….how she arrived with Imogene and they both were with dates but Diandra was upset with the one she was with when Greg stepped into the pub and saw them. Was it coincidence he happened to go in there? She never asked.
But in the end, after Imogene left with her date, Diandra’s date began to cause a scene when she said she was calling a cab to go home. That was when—to Diandra, Greg appeared from thin air. Not knowing he had been following them most of the night. And she still never knew. And somehow there were some punches and some blood and then the vomit all over Diandra’s black and white houndstooth dress; soaking it through and ruining it with—what was determined instantly: permanent stains; the garment reeked and was sufficiently considered then rendered a piece of trash.
That was why the proximity of his sister’s uniform proved valuable. Why the uniform? It was the only article of clothes at his house that would fit her that wouldn’t be immediately missed as his sister at the time had chicken pox and would not be back at school for awhile.
And the disguise
allowed for a few anonymous clandestine meetings until his sister was fully recovered
The Tia Maria arrived just as this memory mushroomed in her thoughts.
Greg watched her expression.
And as she started to fill in more and more of that evening …. that night ….it was really what he had said that made what happen
happen
He had said,
“he doesn’t have the right to touch you like that,” and when he said it he was holding back a kind of rage.
But then soon after laughed saying, “at least he’s not like —what was that other one’s name who went to your university —he was that economics tosser who came to see you—I knew you hardly cared for that one. Too nice, too proper, would be too malleable for you, you’d be bored in a month.”
She was unaware he even paid attention that closely until that night.
But then what he said next was what got through.
She suddenly remembered it clearly now. It had started to rain on the way back and outside his house they found a spot she could remove the clothes covered in vomit within the shelter of his jacket. And it was after when he put the clothes in the bin and was leading her inside as the rain was coming down
She had asked him what he meant and Diandra remembered ….
She remembered what he said as if it were yesterday.
His reply stunned her with his accurate perception,
“a man like that would call you ‘dear’ and say ‘I love you my little squirrel—will you be my Mrs Squirrel?’ or some other stupid whatever name and simper all over you and you know what you’d do?—what you did do, and you know why?”
She had just looked up and waited before he said,
“because you can’t handle it, it just makes you run.”
He said it with such clarity. It held her in that moment to stare at him in the strange daze she had found herself in.
Once all the drama had ended with the bad date. He had that time too draped his jacket around her and walked her back to his house. They sneaked in unnoticed through the kitchen door.
But it was something else he had said….
They were outside a little room where Greg was searching through the cleaned laundry when he found his sister’s uniform.
He pointed down the hall to the bathroom.
Stood outside the frame of the bathroom doorway he put his right hand above her within the door frame. Even at his age, he was much taller than Diandra; she was always mistaken for a student because of her size. He then put his left hand on the other side of the door and trapped her
“you don’t want the man to ask, you want him to just take —and not ask permission….”
he didn’t do anything. He just stood there looking down at her
They both knew she could have slipped past him.
But it was his words that imprisoned her. His words. His ability to see what all the others never could even still ….and those words were only just the tip of the iceberg
but she knew he knew. and he knew she knew he knew. but she also knew why he knew. which was what made her want him so much even before this moment ….she always knew
Because she didn’t run
he did
****
She sat there now in the coffe place remembering ….as he saw her expression change ….to that first night
