Don’t let Mom have a boy, he thought, adding lips. He barely
touched the canvas with a plum red, the lips transparent, lovely, and
nothing like any woman he’d ever known. Pouring some old crusty grey
onto his easel, he made eyes. The iris fanned from the pupil like cracked
ice. Tony was startled to find they were Rebecca’s.
“Always start with the eyes,” he thought. Rebecca’s eyes stared at
him, so neglected, that Tony felt ashamed to have forgotten that important rule of painting.
His woman turned out to be a prisoner, stuck in her wheel chair
with her broken eyes and mismatched body. Tony did not know how
to let her free. He freckled the cheeks and pierced the ears, but she only
looked younger, and sadder, a piss poor reflection... But of what, Tony
did not know.
He wanted to crumple it up and start over, but he was too hungry
to continue painting. Instead, he went downstairs to the kitchen while
she dried, and later threw her in his closet.
They were starting to read Romeo and Juliet in Mr. Pyramus’ Honors English class. Mr. Pyramus was a firm believer in reading work out
loud, setting up a little stool in front of the class. He called on Rebecca
to read the prologue. She kept her eyes down on her walk up to the front
of the room, clutching her copy of the play tightly to her chest. So thin,
propped up on the stool, timid, she looked like she could crack into a
thousand pieces. Tony half-expected her to squeak.
“Two households, both alike in dignity…”
“Two”… “Dignity”… these were sounds crisp as bone and as
languid as skim milk. Tony stared at Rebecca, memorizing her face, but
he only heard the words. All sense left, and the words broke into beats,
chaotic pulses desperate as a hummingbird. Shakespeare or Rebecca, he
didn’t know why or which.
And she never looked up. She read each line. Resolutely. Tony couldn’t
find the right word to describe it. It was anything but squeaky. Rebecca
transformed into wavelengths, losing all classical distinctions: gender, age,
race. He knew why she read so intently… how the words grasped at your
throat, tightly, lifting you into the air until you were floating, lighter than
a speck of dust.
She finished her section, and finally looked up, half-smiling. Then
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