[1.1] 1.2 [1.3] [1.4] [TOC The Six Degrees Stories] [home]
The college dean had always succeeded best with a captive audience; and the best of these were found bound within the forums offered by private schools. They had depended upon him; they had listened. The young woman is not one of his students. She was a stranger until two days ago, a stranger on holiday in the Greek Isles, a graduate student who would take up her MFA program at Warren Wilson College after the winter break. She is by no means dependant upon him for anything, but does seem to enjoy the finer views from his cliff-edge apartment.
“Beats the hostel,” was what she had said.
The sheets rustle and he makes a half turn to find her back turned toward him and her hand pulling the white up over her sun-browned bare back and shoulder. Outside, he finds the landlord’s gray cat has taken one of the blue chairs. She sits on her haunches as if waiting for wine to be served, and, for a moment, the dean almost visualizes Amelia seated there, waiting.
Almost. But her face is already a mish-mash of other faces, already has something of the jaw line, albeit much more lax, of the young, idle woman behind him; and Amelia’s eyes, their color, is a mystery to him now, like an epiphany that came and went before he could fix what color grouping they best fell into. He draws his right hand from his sweater pocket and examines the small linty ball, drab green, ultra fine merino, and perhaps the shade of Amelia’s eyes. He has never been good with color; to him, so many seem variations on gray. He thinks, in the case of Amelia, colors should be named otherwise than they are: wit, for instance; intelligence; for another. The dribbles of plaster out on the grape-dark Aegean have slipped into night when the young woman joins him at the low table. “I’m off then,” she says. “I’ll leave the door unlocked,” he answers. “Thanks. Sure you don’t want to come along? Dance till dawn? Toss back an Ouzo or two?” “I’m sure,” he says, but her back is already moving away, disappearing down the steep curving stairs between high plastered walls to the narrow side alley below.
“Are you listening?” he asks as if someone occupies the vacant blue chair next to his.
[word count 406] [more . . . ]
