Electra's dictionary; beth ydw i, pwy ydw i?

I know that it is some time after two in the morning.  Suddenly he asks me,

“who was your father?”

I say,

“I don't know.”

“No, I mean.... the one you think. You said was famous in politics-- I think you said-- ”

It is always strange for me to talk about this. So instead I say,

“It is ....a long story.... I don't want to talk about this.”

I know how to erect this wall

I know it well

.... data bases, search engines, old yellowed books In archives at the Library of Congress. You search.... you search to find answers...

“And why have you never found out?”he asks.

Because I already know 

But I don't answer.

He says,

“you're scared to.”

But it is much more than this. It is about a fairy tale.... a fairy tale of father. One that I am not ready to be abandoned from.

We don't talk any more about this. He knows I don't like to. We talk about other things. The edges of things that we are not ready to really discuss. Just like the indefinition of our lives. The one week in Amsterdam that has turned into two, now becomes three and is turning into four.... and now he is renting space in Ruud's office for our business. But still we don't say.

But right now I see that he is interested in discussing things,

“I didn't tell you.... because I didn't want to worry you....” and here he hesitates and studies my eyes, “Clair asked me about you before I left for Detroit to do your husband's convention.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

He gets lost in thought. Then continues after a moment “....remember I told you about her friend-- you know, the one.... the one she told me who is taking the kids and the house....?” he looks at me as I nod in reply. He takes a deep, ragged breath.

But then I think he has let the subject go because he says nothing for awhile. He does not want to talk about this. I don't want to ask. But I do want to ask. He is engrossed within himself; staring inward.

But then he says,

“it was the day before I left for Detroit. She asked me: 'should I be suspicious about Beth?'”

“What did you say?”

“At first, I just froze....” he looks away. He looks at a picture that hangs there on the wall; it is an abstract with psychedelic allusions. I watch him brood in profile as he stares at it, holding my breath.  "I said 'yes'” and now he gives me a dead stare, “I said yes, Beth ….because I was sick of pretending. I wanted to finally tell her.”

“Why didn't you tell me this? But... this doesn't make sense--”

“Well.... I know..... because, later -–Beth...it's weird.... she just dropped it. She acted as if we never ... had the conversation ….I think, maybe it was like a threat, I don't know. The next day when I was leaving to go to the airport, she-- tells me she wants us to have another baby....” there is an enigmatic expression on his face as he shakes his head. And quiet rage. It seems to burn cold in his eyes. “Beth, we.... we have our kids, Clair and I, and I understand, we have all these years together....it isn't easy to let …. that go....”

I hear what he is saying, only I ask the obvious,

“Do you love her? ”

It seems like my words don't make sense to him, and he looks at me nonsensically. The creases between his brows deepen, and he says,

“sometimes you wish something to be true and you try to believe it because you need it to be true.... but it doesn't really ring true....because it is empty, an empty truth-- so do you keep forcing yourself to will something to be that you know is false?”

“Is that why it happened with her? Or did she conceive after you left Michigan?” But he is closed. There is regret but also something else. Something he does not want me to see. After some reflection on this, I say,

“so she really came to Detroit to see for herself.”

Only now as I say this I imagine being her. I feel something knot in my stomach as I think about this. The other side of jealously. When you empathize with your competitor and find sympathy. And it stabs at your core. Deep and intense.... and makes you hate yourself.

I cover my face and am filled with self-loathing.... I don't know how I will reconcile this. This is a different kind of shame. I say, “You belong to them, not me,” and now, suddenly, desperately, I need to physically get away from him. I start to push him away and as I do this his fingers grip my shoulders. I want to retreat, I want to be alone because I am filled with guilt. I manage to twist free and run barefoot on the cold wood floor towards the bedroom door. I don't know where I’m running to. I get half way across the room before he stops me and I am caught inside the vise of his arms. He whispers against my ear, “I belong to you....”

He lifts me and brings me back to bed and traps me in his limbs, folding me within his web.

“But you will go back,” I say, and then, when he doesn't answer I turn my head up to look at him. Search and fall inside those deep poet's eyes; the morass of moss,

“you know, I never wanted to destroy your life.”

He closes his eyes and holds my head to his neck,

“but you didn't. I thought you knew.... you brought me back from being dead.”

Elctra's dictionary; the bridge

The office building is in the main part of Amsterdam, I figure out how to get there and decide to walk. It is different to think about the same problems in another place, leaving to get a prospective has altered my thoughts. I had suspected it would.

But as soon as I get to the office there are problems. Of course it is the computers. I am only in the building about fifteen minutes and they have gone down and they seem embarrassed for the inconvenience. They don't know how I expected this. But this gives me time to discuss things with them. The art director seems surprised when I explain my approach to how I work, that I prefer the physical mediums to the graphics. But then we get to talk and I explain about how this country had been such an influence on me when I was growing up here. It all happened to me first here. The colors, the textures, the crudity, the humanity. I think maybe he was expecting a different kind of American. I saw his eyes change as we talked.

So it looks like my time here will be delayed. The art director's name is Ruud. We have been working with sketch pads for ideas because of the computer situation. He has purchased art mediums for everyone to work in, mostly gauche and water color pencils, some clear film, transfer paper, etc; old school. The older artists there have no problem with it, the younger ones seem out of their element. The week is turning out more interesting that I could have anticipated. I am in an oddly great mood.

Each day I walk back to the flat with something I buy on the way, so the flat is beginning to look a lot less impersonal. I buy flowers. That is something I always did when I lived here. What is it about flowers? It is that element of being reborn, the fresh optimism, the innocence. I bring magazines filled with more art, stopping at newsstands every day. I buy a sketch pad and graphite. I am like a flower that is being reborn. And each day I force myself to do a quick sketch on the way home, do it until I feel too cold as the evening temperature drops.

I like the bridges over the canals. I have been drawing those the most. From every angle. I like the bricks, the iron, the bare trees, their reflection in the water, how you can see the apartment buildings in the water too, their odd gables and the furniture hooks. I love those buildings. There is so much texture here. 

And while I feel so small here because they are mostly so tall and boisterous, I feel somehow less timid because there is no masked politeness to many of these personalities I encounter. I have missed that sense of being under fire, it is like waking up, to be challenged by this flow of wit.

Once I realize that this will not be wrapped up in a week I have to talk to my daughter and her dad, work out things, but he has been surprisingly cool about this. I tell Dean simply in a few texts that I should be here for awhile.

By the second week it seems like my whole life back there is a dream and that this life here is the real life. I start to wonder who that means I really am. Who have I been all this time? I think now too about Electra and the confusion over my identity, the father complex, etc. and somehow ….it feels different; seen from the altering of the prisms. It is so obvious now. That place is choking me. How can I go back there now?

****

And then one day I am walking home and he is standing there waiting for me.

I don't see him at first. I walk down the brick street looking into the canal, absorbed. I was thinking about him, so at first it doesn't register because I thought I imagined it, because it seemed so natural to see him. But then I stop. He is several feet away leaning on the railing of the bridge and he is watching me as I walk. He looks so good in these surroundings.... so at first I can't do anything but see this because I am an artist that is a slave to the visual. He is all dark and beautiful, the contrast is startling; dark mop of hair, looking more longish now, like a poet, the dark beard cut close to his face so that it outlines his jawline. He is wearing his navy blue coat over a rust colored sweater and brown corduroy. He looks like a poet. He makes my head go light.

I walk slowly wondering what I am going to say, wondering what this means. He waits for me to come, just waits and watches me, his eyes looking right into mine as I walk closer, he never looks away. His eyes are intense, like dark opaque moss textured stones, like the kind you see on the beach, washed up on the shore. He is rustic beauty. I know he did this on purpose.... he looks amazing.... the state of his groomed appearance says so much. I smile when I think of this because I know this is all for me and I think this looking up at him now. And now he smiles at me and he is even more perfect. There is gray in his hair, maybe more so now than there was the last time I saw him, but it looks good on him, I like how it goes with the colors around us. I am distracted and my brain foolishly on pause.

He removes himself from the railing and closes the space between us so that he is standing inches away and now he leans down to kiss me but stops and looks at me,

“may I?”

He waits and our eyes lock. He is asking for more than a kiss. His eyes ask me. He asks too much. He asks for everything. And then moves to kiss me anyway, first just his lips, but even that is possessive. He puts his hands on the top of my coat to grab me by my shoulders there and pulls me but waits looking down into my eyes. As soon as the tension leaves me he pulls me into his arms and kisses me hard, lifting me.

“We should talk,” I manage to say because I know where this always leads with us. But it is hard to say this because he is still kissing me, not letting me go, he has kissed off all my lipstick, he has rumpled my hair. “We should go somewhere....”

“Let's go inside,” he says now. When I hesitate he smiles at me that wicked smile and he says, “don't you trust me?”

I shake my head no.

“Come on,” he says and drags me with him across the street to the door of the flat, his arm around my shoulders and then we wait at the door as I consider this. I look at him and give him my best impression of a school teacher giving a student a lesson on obedience. Then take out the key and open the door.

He walks around the place, then goes directly to the living room and sits down on the couch. It is only now that I see his stuff in a corner of the living room. I see his bag, I recognize it.

“You have a key too?” I ask him.

He shrugs,

“I don't have to stay here but I did come here to see you.”

“Maybe we should go out somewhere,” there is a mirror in the dining room and I look at my reflection. He has made a mess of me, I am a smeared mess. “I'll go run up and change and then we can go somewhere.”

Chapter 12 Reclaim my way again. Ego, id and me.

Lately I have come to think that creativity and madness are closely linked. But I suspect that it may just be me. The madness needs a place to go. To lose or compromise the inner eye, for me, is a kind of suicide in itself. The hold of self dashed by the vulnerability of allowing someone in.

There is no confusion of who I am while I exist in that moment of creation. It is another place. An entire separate reality. And no one else exists in that world.

I protect that world jealously. This is why I cannot need anybody.

What's in a name? Maybe everything.

So maybe this is why.

If the self is lost, can anyone exist without ego?

If all is wrapped up on a self-made identity, what happens when it has become infiltrated? I am me, I am mine. I belong to me.

I don't need anybody.

Something ugly lashes out when that insulation feels stolen.

***

Without looking for it, I stumble on a picture of Bran's wife..... putting a face to a concept. It was on his website. I was just looking at something he messaged me about and it was there. A picture of them together from only a month ago. Around the time he met me. And in the picture they look so happy! --as if no two people could be more in love. Did he want me to see it? How could he not know it was there?

It is now tattooed into my retinas and I cannot get it out. I cannot stop thinking of them together, cannot stop imagining things.... I imagine them kissing.... fucking.... explicitly. It is in everything I look at and everything I do. I am too old for this. I avoid my phone. I have let the battery die. I hide it in the back of a drawer. I don't look at my email. I belong to me.

His voice, his eyes,that haunt me.... must be exiled because now he is the enemy.

I paint for twelve hours without stopping. Work on the Demeter mural that is six feet by four. It takes me to that place. At least here no one has access. At least here do I trust myself. I stay up and work on Demeter through the night, and don't sleep, get high off of no sleep. Don't eat. I enjoy this torture. It shows me that I have mastered myself again.

Again silenced. Mute. Mutation. Mutilation? Amputation.... adaptation. I can find my way again. Ego, id and me.

Chapter 11 Bran and Beth; voice 'n mist

Demeter so far now

Bran calls again at the same time. He asks me how I am. He tells me about his day. We talk for hours. He becomes more interesting to me each time we talk. Absorbed into him. It is the warm tone of his voice, the pace and rhythm, and how his thoughts unravel.... he uses words so differently. I love how he speaks. 

After awhile, he says,

“Beth, are you there?”

“Yes....”

“I thought I put you to sleep.”

“No, it's your voice....” I tell him, “it feels as if it opens my subconscious.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don't know....” and I realize that I am half conscious anyway.

For a long time he is quiet Because it is there.

“I don't know, Beth and I guess …. the only way to really try to explain this is to tell you that.... it's been so long since anything has moved me.”

I ask,

“have you ever been unfaithful?”

“No, I mean, I never acted on it. I had only.... thoughts. We've been together ten years.”

“Me too--Dean... and I.”

“So have you?”

“No,” I say.

“Not even thoughts?” he asks.

I think and realize ... I have been too busy trying to keep everyone happy, I .... don't remember a moment for temptation and I have never liked drama. It didn't really actually occur to me that I have been unhappy until .... recently. It was the drama and the drunken violence which had become a part of Dean's regular personality... while no, there was no time to look up to notice an attractive male distraction it also would never have occurred to me to .... stray. I am not that way. 

 

not unless --I have been wronged; then.... well, it would depend 

only now this line of thinking leaves me feeling very tired and weary of the conversation

I say,

“I don't know.... you are the only one I.... have kissed.”

And then once the words are out of my mouth.... the memory of his mouth.... comes. And I recall the feel of his kiss. And now that I have said it, I have laid it again between us.

He asks, after that electrical pause of silence....

“which time did you like better?”

it seems almost cruel

From his voice, from his words, from the memory of his kiss, I burn. 

There is a loud drumming in my head. It makes me dizzy. This can't be good for me. I am breathless. I try to conceal this and hold the phone away, close my eyes and catch my breath. And he is still talking, saying, “I myself can't decide.... kissing you at the traffic light.... or at Motown Blues when you kissed me....”

After a moment of quiet between us I whisper,

“we can't do this.”

“We can't do what? You mean, talk on the phone? I don't think we can avoid it unless you want to end our business connection.”

I say,

“you know what I mean.”

“That you don't want to see me again....” he says.

I don't answer.

He asks,

“do you want me to stop calling you?”

I don't answer.

Then we are both quiet.

I am still not well. My mind is not at its most lucid, I am fading in and out of thought. My mind is fogged. Yet, sometimes, within that fog, things come more obvious and clear. There is an honesty when thoughts are not being censured by pragmatic, trained, self-programming.

Finally, I say,

“I don't know what it is, Bran.... I know that this--we shouldn't do.... and know that I should feel guilty, which I .... do. I know I should. Because it is wrong. It is only ….it doesn't feel that way..."

I hear him breathe deeply and quietly sigh.

He says,

“I don't know, Beth .... but I don't think I can walk away from.... you --without first getting the chance to know you--I feel like I would regret it for the rest of my life.”

His words find their mark and embed. 

I do not want to fall for him. 

I do not want to fall for him. 

only.... I think it is too late. Yet still, I should not give in.

I am behaving badly. And I think, I am bad.... and I feel so ashamed.

But what about that decay? That was real. It is how I feel. As if I am so alone inside and it is pouring out of me, spilling out. How many hours have I spent in silence, mute and empty, feeling that decay; like shut in a jar, closed up and forgotten in a drawer. My art, my poetry, my passion to be, leaking out of me.... and wishing.... just to be heard. To just be really heard. By someone. Finally. Who cares enough to matter. Someone who gets it. And does not just pretend to.

He says,

“what if we just walked away from this now.... before anything had to happen? It would be the right thing to do. And we could just be friends. Like this. We can talk about our lives.”

“OK,” I say.

“We can just be friends, Beth.”

*******

But he calls again the next day. 

And the next. He calls each day at the same time. And after I am better. The time he calls works out well because it is the time of day when Jamie is at school and Dean is at work. 

It is the time of day when I am usually doing my work; writing or art. Yet, I don't mind. I willingly give it up. I feel he is filling me. There is something different in my head from the influence of his thoughts on me. A kind of healing that makes me stronger every time we talk and I think: 

how can this be bad?

How can this be a sin?

But it is. Even as nothing has really happened, it still is.

So when I am better, I try to be a better wife. I try to please everybody. I scrub the floors obsessively, clean and vacuum compulsively. I listen harder what my husband says and try to engage further when he stops short of conversation. But Dean has other things on his mind. And it most definitely is never me.

And maybe part of that feeling of decay is from his rejection of me. Because I only seem to matter to him when there is something that he needs. Otherwise, he does not see me. He does not hear me.

He is uncomfortable with closeness. He does not like intimacy.

He does not understand my poetry, or never looked at it long enough to try. I think at first he found me interesting because he saw me as quirky. Like one of those odd buttons he finds on the street that he picks up and collects and puts in a drawer.

Yes. That is it. I am just an object he once found interesting but now.... I am shut up in a drawer.

And yet, I crave passion. I need it to breath. 

Chapter 9 Bran and Beth: Motown blues

We go to the cafe/club. The place is crowded and noisy. There are two floors and we go to the next level. Already I feel claustrophobic as we get lost weaving through the crowd.... I am thinking about his mouth on mine. I am thinking about his kiss.

My head is exploding. I am dizzy.

The music is loud and deafening and then I feel Bran's hand reach out from bodies and grab me by the arm. He pulls me through a sea. And I stumble through. The smell of weed is in the air and I am getting a contact high. There is a corner table that he is pulling me towards, it is in the back but in clear view of the stage from the side. It is an interesting view, I like the perspective. I sit and stare and feel him brush against me, he sits next to me at the table as we overlook the stage. There is an intimacy of being in a crowd. We are hidden.

He says, bending his head down to me against the noise,

“Beth.... I had to see you again.”

His voice comes through deep and husky, the warmth of his voice makes me shudder.... I wonder if I am descending into hell, but I find I want to go. But it does not feel wrong even though it is. I am being tempted to go. I should resist. Only the truth is, I knew I had to see him again too. There had been that sense as soon as we met of.... what if....that feeling that.... I have to know.

Only I feel guilty. I have never done anything deceptive like this. And as I sit there silently thinking about what he has just said to me, I think about what Vera said. Her absolving me from my attraction to this person who has suddenly entered my life by suggesting that my marriage is practically a farce. But it is a betrayal. I shouldn't be here.

Bran seems able to read my mind because now he says,

“does your husband read your blog?”

Because of the noise, it feels anonymous when I say,

“he says he will one day. But that was a few years ago.”

And then he says,

“tell me about Electra.”

But I shake my head. I look at the stage, they are changing acts. I watch a sitar and a standing base seem to float across the stage, a blue light glows. We are drinking. I don't know what. It is the second one he has ordered for me and it is making me forget my guilt. I realize that I am drunk. I let him see that I am staring at him and in my mind I know that I am flirting with him. In this light he looks like some kind of god, the shadows of his face and beard, they contour and the angles distract me as I stare. I am aware of my attraction to him and without the shields up there is something primal in how he is making me feel.

I say,

“talk to me in your language.”

He smiles at me. He smiles that smile,

“What do you want me to say?”he asks me. But I don't care, I just want to hear his voice and so I tell him this. And then he starts slowly. He hesitates as he considers what to say and then smiles and goes into monologue. As he speaks, he watches me and moves closer and then my hand goes out to touch him. I touch his lips as he speaks, touch his beard, his hair. And then I kiss him on the lips. I lean into it and kiss him deeper, feel him kiss me back. I feel the stimulation of his facial hair on my lips and face and breath in his scent. It is the pounding in my head that warns me.... I stop myself and move away.

I cover my face. I am beginning to panic. I say,

“I have to get out of here.”

And then I jump up and start to run. I can't breath. I get to the door and push through, run out into the street.

When he finds me he says,

“are you OK?”

I nod my head. I tell him that I'm sorry.

“Let's walk,” he says.

We walk silently for awhile. We walk past shops, past their windows.

He says,

“you feel guilty.”

“Yes. Don't you?”

We walk more in silence. After awhile he says,

“Yes, I do.... but there is something about you.... it made me curious. I guess I was drawn to something about you. First it was your art and …. your thoughts that you write about. ”

But this is still bothering me. I watch the ground now as we walk. I ignore the fact that, despite his height, we walk in pace easily, as if we have done this all our lives.

I finally force myself to say,

“you have read it then....”

He makes a sound in his mouth. A sound that I am not sure how to translate,

“I read parts of it, not all of it..... you say your husband never read it..... but isn't that who you are, Beth? Do you really think he knows who you are?”

I stop at a shop window to look at something. Also as a ploy to not answer his question. He is coming in too close. And then he says,

“I'm only going to be here until Thursday.... let's get something to eat.”

He takes my hand. We walk until we find a twenty-four hour place to eat. We go in. We begin to talk about our past. As we talk, he tells me that both his parents are deceased too. We talk about what this is like for us. There is relief in this, in being able to share these kinds of thoughts and feelings about life. And we talk about other things. I find myself having more in common with him than I do with Dean the more he reveals of himself.... and as we sit there talking, the emptiness of my Wavegirl seems to fill.... as if I am a little more full from just being with him. And it makes me feel.... I cannot let this go.

There is something more happening between us as we sit there talking. Something more than just the words we say. I ask him more about his work. He tells me stories of his life. I want to know all of it and we talk for hours, long after our food has gone cold and has been removed from the table.

He asks me,

“what do you want to do with your work?”

His question surprises me.

“It's hard to describe....” I am not prepared to explain, so I hesitate, “I hate the idea of being made into a product by some mass market company.... do you understand that? – I don't want to define myself by attaching myself to a category.... ” I try to figure out how to explain. “You know, my mother always looked down her nose at my art. She was a classical artist....She was a brilliant artist. She told me I wasn't really a painter because my work was more like illustration and she compared me to Lichtenstein. She was trying to insult me by telling me it was like comic book art, but I guess I liked the comparison because it was rebellious. I wanted to rebel. Artistically.” I try to explain it more, “that is how I write too. I break rules, I like altering things, perverting things.... because I am trying to get something out; it is personal. I use distortion. To confuse what I need to say. What I need to say is my form of exorcism.... I like beauty that is mixed with a kind of horror. Some of my words get lost. Sometimes only the visual says what I mean. So I want to put my words with my visuals. I want to make them move, suggest, and say the ugly while making it beautiful. If I paint like cartoon, then why not make my diary like a comic strip? So, I thought....” but now I feel the alcohol wearing off and I feel that I have already said too much. I feel my face burn and then I shrug, “it's stupid, I know.... but I can't seem to let it go, so I keep working at it.”

Usually, by now, Dean's eyes would be glazed over, he can never follow this much conversation from me. And I look at Bran now to see if he looks as bored as my husband usually does. But he is smiling. Encouraging me, telling me that I should do it and as he says this he is studying my face.

Bran says,

“let me....” I start to pull back when I realize what he means. He is reaching for my glasses. I shrink into the seat and turn my head away. He says, “let me....” I move further away. But he moves closer and does it anyway. He takes my glasses from my face and everything's a blur. He lifts my head up by my chin and whispers, “look at me....” and when I do, I have to squint. He moves closer into frame absorbing me into the moss of his eyes, they stare into me. He says,

“you are so beautiful .... Let me make love to you.”

This makes me shiver. I push him back and move away,

“no....”

We pay and leave. We are quiet in the car. I drive him back to his hotel and stop by the entrance but then we are sitting there in silence staring in front of us. He makes no move to get out.

I get a text from my daughter: are you OK? When are you coming home?

Bran watches me. I answer: Is Dean mad at me for being out late?

She replies: he went to sleep hours ago.

So I write: You should too. I'll be home soon.

When I stop texting, I say,

“I should get going.”

“Did you bring the memory stick?” he asks me.

“Oh....” I dig into my bag and take it out. It contains more of my images. I go to hand it to him.

“Show it to me,” he says and doesn't take it from me. “Come in with me.”

“No.”

“I won't touch you.”

“No.”

“Can I see you tomorrow?”

“I don't know.”

He takes the stick from me and then he gets out. I let him walk away. I watch him disappear.

But after I am home I miss him. The place is still and everyone has gone to bed. And I feel sad and empty. 

Chapter 5 Leap of faith; Bran and Beth continues (Electra's dictionary)

[from blog entree: 30^th of March ~Electra's dictionary:]

Hating father

….I was afraid of my father. I lived in terror of him, he called me nigger baby. I did not understand why back then. If he was in a bad mood and he happened to see me, whatever object was around.... well... I just learned to run from him. Learned to hide in corners, learned how to make myself invisible.

***

As I pull into a parking place to wait for Jamie at her school, my close friend Vera calls and we catch up on each other's week while I wait. She tells me about her life; work, people and her woes of dating.

After awhile she asks,

“So are you going to see him again?”

“Who?”

“Like you don't know who I mean.”

There are two jocks in uniforms leaving the football field and the tall, dark haired one is looking at me through the windshield. He makes eye contact with me and smiles. I find this amusing. I smile back.... it seems, the first evidence of Spring has now arrived, detected like a barometer in high school boys.

“And you never told me about Mr. Blind-date,” I say dodging her question.

“Because there is nothing to tell. It was the worst date I have ever been on,” she says as the tall dark haired boy approaches the car. He signals that I should roll down the window. So I do.

He says,

“sweet ride.”

“Thanks,” I say. This is not unusual; I have a funky kind of car that always draws attention. I turn my own back to Vera, “so uhhh.....” but the tall, young jock is still standing there so I don't close the window. I look up and wait to see if he needs something.

His friend says,

“he doesn't mean your car,” and laughs.

“Yes I did!” but the dark haired boy's face is going red.

“Who's that?” Vera asks, “are you talking to someone?”

“Some boys,”I whisper into the phone but smile at the boy as I raise the window up.

“Oh, are you being chased by high school boys again, Beth?”

“Very funny.”

“So you didn't answer me --are you going to see this guy Bran again? I mean.... it is about time something exciting happened in your romantic life. ”

“Have you forgotten that I'm married? Anyway, this is a business connection, Vera. Which I need. He is interested in my art. It is a professional interest.”

“Uh huh. Whatever... you say that, but I hear it in your voice. There's something about this guy. You like him. I know you.”

I wonder how she could have guessed this,

“I have to go,” I tell her.

She says,

“I haven't heard you sound this way years, Beth. It's good to hear that again, you almost sound like you again.... I mean, didn't Dean stop going to marriage counseling with you, yet you still go?”

“Yeah....” but by now Jamie has made it to the car. I see her turn to say something to the two jocks as she opens the car door, then hear her say,

“she's my mom.”

I watch the tall boy's face stare back at me in shock as he says something else but I can't hear what he has said. Whatever it is makes Jamie laugh.

“Hey, I gotta go, Vera, Jamie's getting in. Text me later.”

Jamie gets in and swings the car door shut and as she belts herself in she says,

“That guy I was just talking to, Mom? Zack-- he thought you were my sister.”

We both laugh about this as I pull away. Being with my daughter always makes me feel young. We do not go straight home, we decide to have some fun instead. To her that means the mall and sugar. I think it is the Spring hovering that lets me indulge her because I do not like malls and do not believe in sugar.

When we get home later, my mood is lifted. And it is only now that I can bring myself to answer Bran's text.... daunted by his question of who is Electra? It is about eight o'clock when I finally text back: it's just a story....

***

That night I try to make love to Dean. I do not know if it is to convince myself of something or to cleanse myself of something else; some kind of guilt. But he turns away. He goes to sleep instead. There is a feeling of relief that is empty as I stare up at the ceiling. I feel like I am floating out of myself. Without anchor. No attachment. And it makes me think of my painting of  'Wavegirl' and the tremendous hole inside.

***

The next morning there is another message from Bran. He tells me that some business he thought he had taken care of here has not been resolved and he has fly back. He asks: can we meet again?

I hesitate to reply. And then don't....

But then, finally I reply: when?