I don’t understand it. How people want to be like them, want to be them, and always looking at pictures of them in the papers, and making comments on her dress and his smile, and the whole flash-bulb world looking over their shoulders; and Maisie at the store says how she’d like to be her for just one day.
I can’t imagine anything worse, but I don’t say that to Maisie. See, I’m the quiet sort. I likes it best when I ain’t noticed, when I just sits in a corner and nobody knows I’m there. Except I want Maisie to notice.
‘Don’t you think she’s the prettiest girl you ever saw?’ she says, holding up the newspaper and there’s a picture of Jackie in her ivory silk taffeta dress. I know it is ivory silk taffeta because Maisie has been saying how she’d just die for such a dress. Been saying that for more than a week. But I have no idea what silk taffeta is.
And I don’t think she’s the prettiest girl I ever saw, not by a long chalk. I think Maisie’s a deal prettier and I tell her so and she just laughs and thinks I’m messing and trying to be sweet, and she laughs again and there’s a small gurgle at the back of her throat when she laughs, the sound of water when it runs down the plug, and I think that’s sort of sweet.
‘What would you do if you had their money?’ she says, and she says it all wistful and as though there is a small hurt somewhere inside her, a hurt that I won’t ever be able to fix.
We’ve got plans, me and Maisie. We’ve always talked about getting wed. We’ve even set a date and a man at the courthouse has us penciled into his black leather bound diary for a day in July. And kids, we’ve plans for them too, a whole pick-up truck of them, and me and Maisie growing old together.
Saturday nights I drive her to a place out of the town. I’ve got a beat up Ford Galaxie that I been working on and it suits me fine. And we sit under the star-stud sky in the middle of nowhere and it’s so quiet you can hear the grass grow; and it’s is just us. We just sit on the hood of the car and we hold onto each other, so close we are almost the one person, and then I am the richest man in the world and I have everything I want in those moments.
Maisie thinks I am just trying to be cute and she starts listing all the things she would buy if she had a bit of money like the Kennedys. She’d buy everything in the store where she works for starters, and then there’s what she sees in magazines and what she sees in newspapers, and she’d buy stuff she don’t even need and I can’t see the point in that.
Then I get to thinking. And I think if Maisie had all that money, what would she be doing with the likes of me? And a part me is glad then that she don’t have more than a few hundred bucks put by for a rainy day and I don’t have much more myself, and having each other should be enough. But I don’t tell Maisie that, either. I just kiss her and tell her she’s as mad as a shook bag of ferrets and she kisses me back.
Again, you women leave me awestruck with what you do with these bits. I am honored to be part of this process. School year is coming to an end, and I hope to get some time in the next few weeks to post some of these things properly. If you don’t mind!
May 4, 2013: We wanted to be them.
May 4, 2013: We wanted to be them.
My response: http://judithlindenau.wordpress.com/2013/05/04/may-4-2013-we-wanted-to-be-them/
I don’t understand it. How people want to be like them, want to be them, and always looking at pictures of them in the papers, and making comments on her dress and his smile, and the whole flash-bulb world looking over their shoulders; and Maisie at the store says how she’d like to be her for just one day.
I can’t imagine anything worse, but I don’t say that to Maisie. See, I’m the quiet sort. I likes it best when I ain’t noticed, when I just sits in a corner and nobody knows I’m there. Except I want Maisie to notice.
‘Don’t you think she’s the prettiest girl you ever saw?’ she says, holding up the newspaper and there’s a picture of Jackie in her ivory silk taffeta dress. I know it is ivory silk taffeta because Maisie has been saying how she’d just die for such a dress. Been saying that for more than a week. But I have no idea what silk taffeta is.
And I don’t think she’s the prettiest girl I ever saw, not by a long chalk. I think Maisie’s a deal prettier and I tell her so and she just laughs and thinks I’m messing and trying to be sweet, and she laughs again and there’s a small gurgle at the back of her throat when she laughs, the sound of water when it runs down the plug, and I think that’s sort of sweet.
‘What would you do if you had their money?’ she says, and she says it all wistful and as though there is a small hurt somewhere inside her, a hurt that I won’t ever be able to fix.
We’ve got plans, me and Maisie. We’ve always talked about getting wed. We’ve even set a date and a man at the courthouse has us penciled into his black leather bound diary for a day in July. And kids, we’ve plans for them too, a whole pick-up truck of them, and me and Maisie growing old together.
Saturday nights I drive her to a place out of the town. I’ve got a beat up Ford Galaxie that I been working on and it suits me fine. And we sit under the star-stud sky in the middle of nowhere and it’s so quiet you can hear the grass grow; and it’s is just us. We just sit on the hood of the car and we hold onto each other, so close we are almost the one person, and then I am the richest man in the world and I have everything I want in those moments.
Maisie thinks I am just trying to be cute and she starts listing all the things she would buy if she had a bit of money like the Kennedys. She’d buy everything in the store where she works for starters, and then there’s what she sees in magazines and what she sees in newspapers, and she’d buy stuff she don’t even need and I can’t see the point in that.
Then I get to thinking. And I think if Maisie had all that money, what would she be doing with the likes of me? And a part me is glad then that she don’t have more than a few hundred bucks put by for a rainy day and I don’t have much more myself, and having each other should be enough. But I don’t tell Maisie that, either. I just kiss her and tell her she’s as mad as a shook bag of ferrets and she kisses me back.
The voice of the narrator is great. I love the colloquialisms (‘shook bag of ferrets’!) and word choice…
Again, you women leave me awestruck with what you do with these bits. I am honored to be part of this process. School year is coming to an end, and I hope to get some time in the next few weeks to post some of these things properly. If you don’t mind!