Diane Williams - Vicky Swanky Is a Beauty

Unaccountably, I hesitated on the last step of the cinema’s escalator when we were on our way out, and several persons bumped into me.

An ugly day today — I didn’t mention that, with fifty mile per hour winds.

But here is one of the more fortunate facts: We were Mr. and Mrs. Gray heading home.

It has been said — the doors of a house should always swing into a room. They should open easily to give the impression to those entering that everything experienced inside will be just as easy.

A servant girl was whipping something up when we arrived, and she carried around the bowl with her head bowed.

We’ve been told not to grab at breasts.

Before leaving for Indiana in the morning — where I had to clean up arrangements for a convention — I stood near my wife to hear her speak. So, who is she and what can I expect further from her?

What she did, what she said in the next days, weeks and years, addresses the questions Americans are insistently, even obsessively asking — but what sorts of pains in the neck have I got?

Please forgive our confusion and our failures. We make our petitions — say our prayers. It’s like our falling against a wall, in a sense.

On a recent day, my wife gave me a new scarf to wear as a present. It’s chrome green. Her mother Della, on that same day, had helped her to adjust to her hatred of me.

I’d have to say, I’ve given my wife a few very pleasant shocks, too.

Derek is somebody everybody loves because everybody loves what Derek loves and he is handsome. I’ve left Derek behind on the veranda, in the vestibule, in the passage. He is fifty-two years old and behaving properly. Every day he thinks of what to do and wonderfully he tries to do it. I can make out his force, his shape. He sits at a shrewd distance from the dining parlor, now.

I poured myself a cup of coffee (none for Derek), bad tasting, that satisfies my hunger.

Oh fine — pretty rooms, opening out on either side. I am refreshed, filled with sweet feelings, enjoying a revival, long and looping, and I pull a door shut and take slower steps, as if walking to my bus stop.

I’ll be unmanageable at the back stair’s spiral.

Not a correct use of this residence.

But how odd it is — I recorked a bottle and stowed a jar of mayonnaise and Derek came in here for a particular reason.

Derek’s task is to provide continuity room to room — thoughtfully — consistent with ensuring that no violent breaks occur and shouldn’t I appreciate this?

Also, the recent calming wave of walls and ceilings has helped me very much.

However, the shovel and tongs, upright against the mantelpiece, you could argue that they just don’t belong!

I make every effort not to crack or to split and to fit in, albeit, fitfully.

Like this — leaning forward — she spit into a tulip bed within a block of Capital One — with her head like this.

Passing Rudi’s, she saw the barbers in their barber chairs — four, five of them — in royal blue smocks — they had fallen asleep.

There are so many more things like that. She had spent the morning with the problem of sex.

Now she was making her progress into town. The sun was low. In any case, the weather — there are so many more things like that.

The woman made her progress as if she were an ordinary woman who was not aware of all her good fortune. The pear trees in bloom looked to her like clusters or fluff. She saw more things like that, that were complete successes.

She had spit into the tulip bed, as so often happens in life, with verve, and that was fun. Neither was the sun too low or too cold.

The documents she signed at Capital One glittered like certain leaves, like some flowers. That bending, that signing had hurt her back. She had more money as of today in her everyday life and she was tucking her hair and bending her hair as she had so often planned.

When she awakened that morning, she had smoothed her hair — when semi-alert — but she was still capable of adventures and their central thrust and with some encouragement, the penis of her husband had been leaning its head forward and plucking at her.

The barbers in their smocks, in the town, had awakened and were busy with their customers. And, she’s a doctor! — or a lawyer! — with only a few griefs to her name. She’s great!

If we trace the early years of her life, the intricacies, the dark years, the large middle zone, the wide-spacing between the fluctuations, as between her progress and her verve — the balanced tension — we see that the woman turns everyday life into daydreams, trusts in the future, is gullible and has some emotional immaturity.

My association with Moffat was the luxury of my life or a decorative keynote — a postage stamp.

On Moffat’s recommendation I took a meal alone at Cheiro’s Café. I drank ginger ale with my black cherry linzer. I ate one fried egg and that felt as if I was eating a postage stamp — with its flat ridges.

I had begged Moffat, to be completely fair, to keep on with having what he called fun with me. Although, I have a respectful attitude toward the public status of the person addressed, he had become, he said, disentranced.

There is a reasonable code of conduct concerning Moffat.

I found I was a bit cold-pigged — drained, not dried entirely.

I came to rest in front of the elegant Blue Tree.

I had on a gather skirt — steeped in red — a blouse with a series of buttons, hair combed. I noted my showy, stylish approach in the shop window glass with relieved surprise.

Once inside, I bought a simulated coral and onyx necklace, colorless beads, another necklace with swiftly flowing floral decorations, with ruby and gold glints that gives me a liberally watered shine.

When exiting, I studied trifling clouds stacked deliberately.

By and by, Moffat came along, popping out his fingers bouquet-style and calling my name.

He made a simultaneous outward swipe, with both his hands, with his fingers spread.

What a darling! No bad side. He has a strong activity level and a good sense of presentation and he’s tentatively changed his mind — about me!

He’s added, throughout his life, quite a rare group of us to his collection.

Penelope, for one, has a coiffure with a small, japanned bun and she’s very neatly sweet.

My intention, with my own flourishes, is to create an impression of frankness and ambition.

I am prepared to be examined again.

I should be observed strongly and for a long time, so they can see the changes of my colors during the goings-on.

One Healdsburg Taxicab arrived while she put three wide, wide pieces of paper into her waste can. A peculiarly restricted number of flowers had been cast into the vase and Julius Minx is now here and he exceeds our space.

There’s usually a side table in the story — a place to put a vase of flowers — or a potted plant — a clock, a book. A late-blooming flower may show up in the story — a swimming pool, a carefully groomed garden, pheasants touring the grounds (I mean peasants), Bella Donnelly, the Fraser family, one-on-one meetings with people enthusiastic about work, laughter and companionship, the great tragedy inflicted when people go under, the notion that even a woman can thrust herself forward and up and so-to-speak out from under on the first step down.

The fact that she’s backlit makes her look ambitious and she tickles my funny bone.