Diane Williams - Vicky Swanky Is a Beauty

They had admired a bronze sphinx with an upraised paw and an elegant and extremely fine clock on skinny legs.

The husband tried to buy a jug, enameled and gilded.

A number of his parts are modern and wide. He looks well made for sustained and undemanding and justified indulgence.

She was cockeyed on her settee — her face considerably close to the cushioned seat. She righted herself, but she dropped the book.

She was sick and her mother had died of typhoid, her sister of parasitic worms.

This had been one of the few occasions when she had been charming and tactful.

There were bruises on the lady’s face and indications of other injuries upon her delicate structure.

Her library table desk is made of sycamore, painted in the classic manner — the type of thing that seems peculiar.

They’ve selected Concord Gray Thermal — after working with Steve — for the deceased wife.

The newly married pair had had to stay in Montpelier overnight, as if on the sly, to buy her headstone.

“It still hurts,” the wife says, when they’re back on the road. “I wonder what’s wrong.”

Gently, from time to time, the husband had placed firm pressure to a point slightly below the tilt of the new wife’s torso at the pubic bone.

At Greg’s Place en route to Westport where they live, the wife says, “This wine is sour if you’d like to taste it.” She says, “Maybe the doctor injured my tooth.”

Akin to their lion mask front door pull, they both have brown circles under their eyes and yellowed teeth.

Indignation shows on the lower ledge of the wife’s eyes. Her pointed chin is so unlike her predecessor’s.

“What are you doing?” the husband says.

“I am checking out my jawbone.”

Her husband turned his head this way, away from her, half-pleased. Then the thought came to him. He still hesitated. He did not want to rush. He wanted to live a little.

“You think you are a do-gooder,” Mother said, “don’t you? You’re a do-gooder.”

After a minute, no more, a newcomer looked toward me, a toddler with her mother, I’d bet.

“These type of people,” Mother said.

“See that large bird?” I said.

“I don’t know,” Mother said.

The toddler acted as if she knew me.

It’s so interesting when a little person is so clearly distinguished. I can tell — by the superciliary arches above her eyes, the ultra-tiny hands. I regard this visitant as unreal.

The clerk reminded me of my dead husband who used to say he was always going around all the time with his penis sticking out and that he didn’t know what to do.

“Lady!” the clerk said.

A little old lady jerked herself toward that clerk.

A motley group of us was looking at a wristwatch and inwardly I prayed I’d see a glow of dancing matter to lead me. I am another little old lady.

“Mrs. Cook,” a clerk said, “are you here to have some fun?”

This is a shop with a bird on a branch in diamonds and pearls, a ruby-eyed dog, a ram’s head, a griffin, a cupid in gold.

“It’ll be entirely discounted if I understand you correctly—” my clerk said, “this is all that you want!”

“I can’t afford it and I’ll have that one!”

“You’ve broken it! You’ve ruined it!” the clerk said.

I said, “Don’t look so awful,” but he had already so imprudently advanced into my hell-hole.

The guest’s only wish is to see anyone who looks like Betsy, to put his hands around this Betsy’s waist, on her breasts. He’s just lost a Betsy. He followed Betsy.

In front of Betsy, who supports on her knees her dinner dish, you can see the guest approach.

“You got your supper?” he says, “Betsy?”

And Betsy says, “Who’s that in the purple shirt?”

“That’s not purple. You say purple?” says the guest.

“What color would you say that is?” says Betsy.

“That’s magenta.”

“I have to look that up. Magenta!” says Betsy.

“That’s magenta,” says the guest.

“That’s lavender,” says another woman who’s a better Betsy.

The woman secured her hairs together in a string. The child ate a donut. The woman suggested someone throw a ball. The woman fetched the ball, and then the woman fetched the child, and she bunched up a section of the child’s T-shirt, as she bunched up a section of the child’s neck, and she secured the child.

The waitress who is badly nourished or just naturally unhealthy has a theory about why the daughter never returned.

The daughter did return, for only a little stay, to ask which chicken dish her father had ordered for her.

The mother experiences her losses with positivity. She even frames the notion of her own charm as she heads into her normal amount of it.

Yes, she confides in the waitress, both her daughter and her husband have disappeared, and yes, her daughter is a darling, but hasn’t she made it clear to her there isn’t a boy her age to admire her within a hundred miles?

The mother roams home, wearing the fine check jacket and her black calf heels, alone.

She sees the pair of doors of a little shop where they are selling magic and all kinds of things. Inside, the clerks with elf-locks are dressed for the cold. There is a bakery the mother thinks would be nice and warm. It is okay, and after that, she goes to the gift shop, and gets those sole inserts.

Normally, the family’s frugal. They eat at home, buy groceries.

The mother’s legs are trembling, yet she has a good conscience and a long life.

She used to weigh one hundred and thirty-five pounds. Now she weighs one hundred and fourteen pounds, but it’s been very hectic.

As she sleeps, the telephone rings, wakes her, and she thirsts for a glass of water. She finds that one thing neatly, reasonably, takes her away from yet another.

I had stretched my body into a dart, inhaled deeply, and passed through the aisles at top speed and then a man with a red-nailed woman and a girl came up to me, and the man said, “You don’t remember me! I’m Kevin! I was married to Cynthia. We’re not together any more.”

They had been the Crossticks!

What he wanted now, Kevin said, was peace, prosperity, and freedom.

And I more or less respected Cynthia Crosstick. I didn’t like her at first. She is not very nice. She’s odd, but that’s the whole point.

I didn’t like my fly brooch at first either. It’s fake. You can’t get it wet. It’s very rare and the colors are not nice and I get lots of enjoyment from that.

I picked up Glad Steaming Bags and Rocket Cheese.

“It’s very cold. Do you want some lemonade? — ” said a child at a little stand, “we give twenty percent to charity.”

“No!” I said loudly, as I exited the emporium, although there might have been something to enjoy in swallowing that color.

“Why is she crying?” the child had asked an adult.

Why was I crying?

I had tried to hear the answer, but could not have heard the answer, without squatting — without my getting around down in front of the pair, bending at the knee, so that the proverbial snake no longer crawls on its belly.