Gary A. Braunbeck - Cages and Those Who Hold the Keys

"We will gather images and images of images until the last—which is blank: This one we agree on." —Edmund Jabés, "Mirror and Scarf"

1. Ones Who By Nature

As she watched people file into the pub Amanda found herself recalling some lines from an old T.S. Eliot poem: In the room the women come/and go/Talking of Michelangelo. How many women, she wondered, had come in here since she’d first sat down, come in quite alone but looking ever so lovely, only to leave with a man in tow, complimenting him on how wonderful he looked and getting the same in return? How much attention had these women relinquished on their faces, their lovely, just right, just so faces, making sure the eye shadow wasn't too heavy, the base not too thick, the rouge not too bright, all of it in an effort to—as that old cosmetics slogan used to say—Right Nature's Wrongs?

In the room the women come and go...

Lighting a cigarette, she blinked away a sad memory and shrank into herself.

There are lonely ones who by nature cannot smile; watching in silence as people pass by, they never dare to speak for fear they might say the wrong thing. It would be a mercy if the Passing People became little more than vague shadow-shapes to the lonely ones, but that rarely happens; always there is something that draws attention: a knowing smile; a certain glint in the eyes; the lilt of a voice; the brief, sensuous, teasing scent of a woman's perfume or a man's cologne that still clings to the body of their partner; an echo of the embrace, the kiss, the humid passions left amidst soft, rumpled sheets and in the damp, sculpted impressions that moistly reshaped downy pillows: O my love, my love, my love....

Amanda looked toward the left— If only I had a smile like hers —and the chill of her isolation deepened; she looked straight ahead— What I wouldn't give for her cheekbones —and suddenly the ache in her center widened, a pit, a chasm, threatening, as it always did, to swallow her whole.

In an attempt to make herself feel better and pull her thoughts out of the mire she reminded herself that, for a good long while now, by choice and thanks to a lot of hard work, hers was a life marked not by giddy emotional highs and gut-wrenching spiritual lows but a steady unbroken line of small disappointments occasionally counterbalanced by equally small satisfactions, all of them the sum total of an average woman's existence; for that was the word that best described Amanda: average.

Or so people told her.

She crushed out her cigarette much more violently than she’d intended, then rubbed her eyes much too hard, amazed again at how pliant they felt under their slightly quivering lids. It would take so little pressure for her thumb and index finger to become spears...

She pulled her hands away, opened her eyes, and caught a glimpse of her inverted reflection in the small silver spoon lying beside her glass.

At least the ugly, the scarred or deformed, were given pity ; awe was reserved for the truly beautiful, but at least the ugly were given some quarter; either way, both received attention from the people who passed.

She stared at her half-empty glass, chastising herself for thinking this way. She'd never been the type to indulge in the false luxury of self-pity—well, maybe once, long ago in dead yesterday, when she’d been younger and so damnably foolish and was quick to spill the contents of her heart; yes, then, probably at least once; but now—now these evenings of quiet soul-searching were the closest she ever came...still, there could be found, from time to time, when one person too many failed to return a look or a smile or an “Hello,” a certain edge in her voice, not quite bitter but more than dark enough, intended to cut not whomever she spoke with but herself. Call it resignation.

For at least the ugly were given pity.

The plain were simply left alone.

At the bar a woman laughed a little too loudly at a joke told by the man sitting two stools to her left. The woman took a second to catch her breath and regroup, her eyes fixed solidly on the man's face, just long enough so he'd know she was appraising him, making a decision, then the moment of truth arrived and she gathered her drink and her purse and gracefully, promisingly, with perhaps a bit more stretch-and-wiggle than was needed, moved closer to him.

Amanda ordered another diet soda, smiling at the waiter who either didn’t notice or didn't care.

She stared down at her folded hands. She had come to know her routines as well as her limitations: Fridays were for collecting a paycheck, going to the bank, then over to the pub for dinner and two weak cocktails before heading home for a little television, then it was off to bed with a novel. She only drank on Friday, her wild day, her crazy day, her get-down-get-funky-Get-Real day, because too much alcohol might serve to soften her resolve, and after thirty-seven years of being eclipsed by others' smiles, others' eyes, others' voices and faces and figures, Amanda knew that soft was dangerous.

Her soda arrived. The waiter was perfunctory, abrupt, damn near rude; he tossed down a napkin, set the drink on top of it, laid her check on the edge of the table, and cleared away her remaining dinner dishes. He never once looked at her, never once said anything.

The woman at the bar laughed again and slipped her hand under the joker's arm, and soon the two of them were gliding toward the door, compliments flowing freely, the scent of her too-expensive perfume mixing with the aroma of his cheap cologne, an augury of things to come.

God, and it wasn't even seven o'clock yet.

...the women come and go....

Amanda watched them leave, unaware that her grip had tightened around the glass.

Music oozed from the jukebox in back—a sappy love song, wouldn't you know? She checked her watch, took a few sips of her soda, and was reaching into her purse for money to pay the check when the woman came in.

Every set of eyes, including Amanda's, turned toward her.

Her physical beauty was breathtaking. Shimmering. Enviable.

Those women who were with a man suddenly reached for their partner's hand—just to make sure no one got any ideas; men who were alone casually glanced in the nearest mirror, straightening their ties and patting down their hair, readying themselves for the approach.

The woman herself seemed oblivious to any of it and looked for a place to sit. The pub was crowded and Amanda quickly realized that sitting on a barstool was too common and so held no interest for this woman—

—who quickly crossed the room and, without a word, sat down across from Amanda in the booth.

"Please join me," said Amanda in a flat, irritated voice. The woman smiled without looking at her, then turned her attention toward a group of men clustered near the end of the bar.

Amanda's grip on her purse tightened. So. Much. More. It. Hurt.

It was one thing to see a man's eyes effortlessly dismiss you; it was another thing altogether when a woman like this so glaringly snubbed you because you couldn't compare to her.

I must be the perfect contrast to you, thought Amanda, and therefore the perfect accessory.

She swallowed back her anger, reasoning with herself. After all, there was no other place for the woman to sit but here. Fine—

—but that didn't mean she had to act like this; she could have at least said something, a hollow greeting, but she’d chosen to ignore Amanda in the rudest way possible.

You have every right to feel offended .

Amanda was not a vindictive person, had always thought herself to be a level-headed pragmatist, but at that moment, in that place, with that woman and her beauty declaring they wanted no part of the plain creature sitting across from them, she felt a fury so intense, that stung so deep inside of her, she thought for a moment her bones might dissolve. It was the most violent, frightening sensation she'd ever known. Why tonight, after all this time, she'd felt a stab of truly unreasonable jealously was beyond her; she only knew that she did, and it was ugly, and diminishing, and she hated it.