Running Downhill Like Water by Jane Woods

Author:Jane Woods
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Now or Never Publishing
Published: 2021-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

SHEILA

It’s Lucy who called to invite her here, so it strikes Sheila as awfully strange that the woman doesn’t ask her a thing about herself: is she married, does she have kids, grandkids? Is her health okay? Possibly it never occurs to her, though it’s also possible that Lucy simply assumes Sheila’s life has been an unending series of grands jetés from one stellar triumph to the next. By the wry, crumpled look of her, she doesn’t seem to be begging for an earful of crap like that.

She seems nervous, though. Shy even, certainly more than she ever was back in the day. Evan had warned her that Lucy was a private person, tricky to handle, suggesting that Sheila not get in touch with her but let Lucy make the first move. Looking at her now, the term “tight-sphinctered” leaps into Sheila’s mind, and she has to suppress a smile. But it isn’t exactly shyness she’s seeing, either; it’s something else: a rawhide toughness, a Marlboro Man reticence. Many mystery cards held close to her chest.

Lucy certainly hasn’t bothered to dress for the occasion, clearly unconcerned with making an impression in her dun-brown tee shirt that reeks of cigarette smoke, and worn, grey jeans three sizes too large. Sheila, in her blue summer dress, feels as frivolous as a debutante. The two of them are earth and sky, sitting on the terrasse of Sainte-Clémence’s one French restaurant, drinking chilled wine on this June afternoon. Rustic wooden tables, wicker chairs with fat fuchsia cushions. The whole patio to themselves, a great maple canopied over their heads, sunlight dappling Lucy’s face, improving it by a marginal percentage. I Only Have Eyes for You drifting from inside the near-empty restaurant.

Look at us, Sheila marvels to herself. How did this happen? When did we turn into crones? She’s never worried much about her own aging, but seeing Lucy now, so rutted and weathered, she feels, like a hard punch to the stomach, just how much time has gone by since they parted ways.

Lucy’s still thin as a teenager though, and sits like a kid too, sprawling sideways, manspreading in her big clodhopper running shoes. Every fifteen minutes or so, she hightails it to the sidewalk for a smoke; it’s close enough that she can easily talk from there. From behind, Sheila can see her shoulder blades poking through the thin cotton of her shirt, her neck knotty as a dry twig.

“How do you stay so thin?” Sheila asks brightly, an empty, conventional compliment, but she can’t think of a thing else to say.

“Must be my irrepressible zest for life.” Lucy’s face is turned away as she draws in a deep drag. “I’m quitting soon,” she adds defensively, holding up her pack of Rothmans to indicate her meaning, though Sheila hasn’t said a word. Lucy flicks her spent smoke into the street and returns to sprawl in her chair. The pack of smokes never leaves her left hand.

Lucy sprawls but Sheila sits bolt upright, the habitual straight-backed posture of the serious musician.

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