Could You Be With Her Now by Jen Michalski

Author:Jen Michalski
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Could you be with Her Now
ISBN: 9781938103643
Publisher: Dzanc Books
Published: 2012-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

6.

She read Alice’s stories in bed. It seemed luxurious, and intimate. She drank coffee and split a tangerine with her fingers, felt the coolness of the top sheet on her elbows. The story was about a veterinarian who had fallen out of love with her partner. At the end, the veterinarian begins to cry uncontrollably after euthanizing a particularly young, handsome Labrador retriever with inoperable brain cancer.

Is your ex a veterinarian? Sandra called Alice at seven o’clock on Monday morning because she felt she must know. Did your father die of brain cancer?

I’m assuming you’ve read my story?

Yes. The laptop was warm on her legs in the bed. She felt a tickle in her stomach at the sound of Alice’s voice, close to her ear. The light was soft through the curtains, dreamy. She heard a coffee pot percolating and wondered what was in Alice’s kitchen, whether she had a teapot. A spaghetti strainer. A wooden spoon. But this story comes from real experiences, yes?

Some of it. I guess most do.

Does your ex-lover date someone new? Sandra did not know why she was so demanding. Age had stripped her of patience, subtlety.

Not that I know of. She still calls now and then.

Why?

I don’t know. Maybe there’s still something there for us.

My lover went back to his wife. There was nothing left for us. She closed the lid of the laptop. I suppose you have studied other authors, and it sounds very professional, this one. Like a real story.

Did you like it?

I don’t like most stories I read because they’re about young people and I don’t understand them. No one ever writes about older people.

I don’t think that’s true. If you come down to the bookstore where I work, you’ll find plenty of memoirs and the like.

Memoirs talk about the past. No one cares about us now.

I don’t think that’s true.

It was true. She did not go out much anymore. The streets had changed and the stores had changed and the cars had changed and the clothes had changed and everyone was so young and they looked around her, through her. Unless they were being polite they did not see Sandra, they saw some old woman thrown on top of her and they mistook her for something small, frail, needing help. A stray.

The people from the grocery store delivered fresh fruits, vegetables, and she ate salads and soups, sometimes small cuts of meat. The driver came when she needed to go to the doctor. But mostly she played the piano and walked the block around her house, ever fearful of the new coffee shop, the Mexican restaurant that replaced the Jewish deli, the cell-phone store where the florist once was.

Listen, come to the bookstore later. I work from eleven to seven. I’ll buy you a coffee and we’ll find you some books to read, okay?

You make it sound like I’m a child. But perhaps she had been acting like one. All right. I’ll come. For a little while. Your story… your story I enjoyed very much.

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