Sometimes, I like to do a sketch; like a snapshot into someone's life. I don't know what happened before it, and I don't know what's going to happen after. I probably never will, but it's not important. I like showing moments that bring out people's personalities. I think I would be friends with these two...
>i<
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At first, he didn’t see her when he came into the room. He
was disheveled, like he’d been up all night again with the comics and a cold
cup of coffee. His tie was undone, and his curly hair rumpled oddly off to one
side.
She knew he was in the room even before she saw him.
“Long night?” she asked, not turning around. He started, and nearly dropped his paper. He could
tell from her voice that her eyebrows were raised.
“Dockets,” he mumbled.
She smiled to herself. She knew it had been the comics. She
pulled her knees up to her chest and surveyed the desk before her; it lie
strewn with papers and notes, scrawled unintelligibly on scraps of things. She
had been systematically transferring the scribbles to a black binder in a neat,
precise hand.
It was no use telling him that a good lawyer has to keep
clear records. If law school couldn’t get that through his head, then his
sister certainly had no hope.
“Oh God there’s coffee?” he asked suddenly, lunging at the
porcelain mug on the desk.
“There was coffee,”
she replied, not looking up. “I’ve been up for nearly an hour.”
“Well, so have I,” he returned crossly. “And—and shouldn’t
you get dressed? A secretary shouldn’t wear….well…that….” He gestured vaguely
in her general direction.
She looked down at herself. “There’s nothing wrong with my
bathrobe…it’s comfortable. More comfortable than a suit and tie and cold coffee
on the couch, probably….”
He took the paper from under his arm and tossed it on the desk.
“Work…” he said indistinctly.
She smiled, and turned back to the desk. “Remember,” she
said, fingering the papers, “Remember, after they died…you said you wanted to
learn to read. You said you wanted to be smart, so you could go to school and
we would never have to live anywhere with faulty electric ever again…no fires,
no being afraid….So I taught you. Remember how I taught you? Late at night,
with the flashlight and the newspaper…you would trace the letters with your
pencil, and I would tell you what their names and sounds were.”
She swiveled in the desk chair, and brought her feet down to
the floor. She looked at him, and smiled. “Well, you did it. And now you’re a
lawyer…and a damn good one at that; if not a little…” she cast her eyes around
the well-lit room, “…disorganized. And—“ she picked up the folded newspaper he
had tossed on the desk and shook it open; a section of comics fell from the
middle and fluttered to the floor; “—you still trace your letters.”
His hand darted out and clumsily snatched the paper from
hers, crumpling it badly. He stuffed the balled mess back under his arm, as if
it had been something as normal as an umbrella. “I’m going to the office.”
He wasn’t upset; he had just never counted on having a
second mother after the first one.
She smiled again, and turned back to the desk. “Don’t forget
to shower first, love,” she called. “I’ll have dinner ready at eight.”
She bent, and picked up the fallen section of the Times. She smoothed and folded it
neatly, and then paused.
Her finger hovered over a portion of the page, and
then descended and traced, ever so lightly, the words of Calvin and his buddy
Hobbes. The graphite scorings over the letters, which followed the script in
imperfect duplication, were deep. She knew the coffee table in the den was now
forever inscribed with the banter of the two childhood playmates.
She sat back in the chair, her eyes far away, and smiled.
