'How do you do it?' I asked her. 'How do you go on?'
She didn't reply, because inside she wasn't moving on at all. Her heart had shattered somewhere deep and now the sharp-edged pieces swam around through her belly, scratching away at her stomach and her sanity. She shrugged my question away and glanced out the window.
Looking at her like that, I was again struck by how beautiful she was. She wasn't, by far, perfect. Not in the traditional sense.
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In fact, there wasn't a bit of normal beauty in her. She was odd, she was like...a penguin in a sea of beautiful, perfect polar bears. I wish I could think of a more poetic metaphor, but she turned her head back so soon and pierced my yet unbroken heart with her deliriously flawed eyes.
'When I was young, I went to visit my grandmother. She lived in the country and I rarely went to the country. You know, it's funny, now I find I actually prefer it there.'
I hurried to switch the recorder back on. I had hoped that by switching it off, I would give her some sort of closeness, that she would tell me.
I didn't want to put ti in the book, because at that point, I didn't even care about the book anymore. I just wanted her. All of her.
This beautiful, imperfect, tortured goddess.
She looked at him and said 'Best not to flirt with disaster, let it decide to commit.'
And the man was silent, because he never interrupted her while she spoke. They came there, to the exact same spot, every day. They sat at the same table and had the same thing. Him a simple black Americano and she always had the Vanilla Latte. Always.
She probably didn't like change.
I didn't normally listen in to their conversation. Oh fuck this, who am I kidding, of course I did. I'm a writer, after all, it's what I do. You could say I was researching. Reading people is almost as important as reading books, for folk like us.
But this line, this strangely well-thought sentence drew my attention. It was the fact that it was so obviously planned that made it stand out. Or was it? Who was this strange woman with the oddly-perfect sentences?
And who the hell was she to spit them out on the spot?
She went on to explain, in quite some detail, that she had been naughty. She'd flirted with disaster many times, in her life.
I only could see her back, so I don't know what her face was saying as she spoke. But her voice was interwoven with so many layers of pain that it had developed this permanent rhythm of sadness.
'I always try to say hi to someone with a smile' I told her, because I could see she had fallen into one of her sad spells. Perhaps it was my question earlier that threw her off. 'I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry or upset you earlier'.
She looked up at me from her coffee and she had these great big tears in her eyes, that she had fought so hard to keep back. And you could see the frustration in her eyes that they had managed to get past her imaginary dam.
She nodded.
'Me too,' and she closed her eyes in that incredibly painful way that some women have, like the pain is too great and they are no loner strong enough to hold it all up. And to make it through.
I realized, with great upset, that with one simple question, I had managed to break her. To break all the defenses she had set up in all these years, to protect her from everyone else. And mostly from her, I suppose.
We developed a sort of strange closeness, a familiarity in these meetings. I suppose it's always the case, when someone's telling you everything about their life. She had grown to trust me, to let some of her guard down. And then I went and...asked that.
I wanted to push the coffee shop table out of the way and hug her, this great beautiful lost soul, and hold her to my chest and tell her it's okay, that I'm here and I understand the pain she's gone through and that nobody'll be able to ever hurt her again.
But I'd be lying. Because it's not okay.
Because it'll never be okay, probably. Not for her.
And because I just hurt her. Me, someone she had trusted, someone who never meant to hurt her.
When she opens her eyes, they are very red and the little makeup she is wearing – everyone said she was a natural beauty – is now running down her face. And soon, it will stain her immaculate white blouse.
There is just...so much pain in those wide eyes of hers and I'm so ashamed of what I've done, that I had anything to do with that much hurt and sadness. And I realize how much I wish I could blame it on the book. And one day, I'll probably claim that I was so hell-bent on getting the good scoop on this once perfect actress that I crossed the line. And I'll probably believe it, too.
But that's not the truth. I didn't want it for the book, I wanted that information for myself.
Because I saw that I could have it. It's as simple as that.
I see before me now a woman that has stooped so low, that has become bent and crooked and broken, from all the pain and the guilt that heaves over her in every minute in every day.
She looks out the window again, as if she could pass it off to someone on the street. I watch, fascinated, as her lips move silently.
My baby, my baby.
