Michael Rizza - Cartilage and Skin

“What do you think?” she asked me.

“It makes sense,” I responded, even though I didn’t know exactly how much work would be involved because I had only a dim idea what a capri was.

Up ahead, in the beams of the headlights, the white dots of snow appeared spontaneously out of the darkness and rushed toward our vehicle. Vanessa’s row of odd statuettes was still mounted to the dashboard.

Connie expressed her giddy astonishment over how many adult women have never learned how to dress: They squeeze into outfits that are too small, hide in baggy clothes, and generally have no sense of what best flatters their body type.

She happily blathered on for a few minutes without interruption, seemingly in possession of copious examples, if necessary.

“Why walk around with your ass looking like mashed potatoes?” she asked rhetorically, just as Vanessa pulled the car up beside the curb.

When I got out of the car and followed them hurriedly across the street, where the falling snow was swept along in gusts, I realized that we weren’t too far from my apartment. I was about to remark this to Vanessa, but she was no doubt already acquainted with the fact.

She took my arm as we mounted the snow covered steps. Then, upon the landing, she released me in order to unlock the front door. Connie was hugging my dry-cleaning, the bag folded over her forearms. Her boyfriend was carrying four loose bottles of wine.

“You’re missing one,” I said.

“The bag ripped in the car.”

Inside the building, we ascended to the second floor, to a small platform with two doors. The staircase was dimly lit by one weak fixture, which housed dead insects, drying up under its glass plate. The walls were plaster, cracked here and there along the edges of the lath. Nevertheless, despite the dreariness immediately outside of Vanessa’s apartment, once she opened the door, I was greeted by the cozy warmth and the vanilla incense that pervaded her home.

The floors were dark, polished wood, with an area rug beneath the dining room table and another under the coffee table in the living room. These two rooms were distinguished by a simple change in décor. On the left was the clean delicacy of a liquor cabinet with bottles, stacked tumblers, and long-stemmed glasses; the china hutch with bone-white plates and teacups displayed behind glass doors; the oval, wooden tabletop with a glass bowl, filled with cashews, in the center. On the right side of the apartment, everything seemed deep, dark, and lush — from the couch rounding the far corner, the single easy chair with an end table beside it, the folded afghans, and the portly pillows to the wooden coffee table and a set of matching floor cabinets that were topped with black lace, an arrangement of picture frames, and various knickknacks, some of which were similar to the effigies on her dashboard. But none of these details mattered as much as the general mood of comforting relief that their totality conveyed.

We all hung up our coats in a closet beside the front door and took off our wet shoes. Connie was apparently such a regular guest that she, along with Vanessa, had her own pair of slippers keeping warm beside the radiator.

Vanessa immediately began to delegate chores to everyone. The boyfriend was in charge of setting the table, while Connie was assigned to kitchen duty, beginning with the washing of lettuce. My task was simple: Vanessa pointed me down the hall, saying, “The bathroom is that way, if you want to get changed.”

On my way to the open door at the end of the hall, I glanced into another room, attracted by the darkened shape of Vanessa’s bed centered against the wall. The rest of the furniture faded into shadows.

Inside the bathroom, I was once again reminded of the delicacy and care that females devote to their own bodies, for the back ledge of the bathtub contained a variety of bottles, and from a shelf suction-cupped to the glass wall of the shower door dangled a selection of brushes. A small basket of fanned and folded wash clothes and a glass bowl of colored marbles adorned the top of the toilet tank. Also, although the broad, shiny counter around the basin was mostly clear, displaying nothing more than a bar of soap and several toothbrushes brass-ringed around a plastic cup, both the vanity and the lower cabinet were packed inside with a multitude of beauty supplies. I had difficulty imagining that Vanessa used or needed so many lotions, creams, powders, and perfumes, especially since I could recall only two items stored beneath the sink in my own apartment: black shoe polish and bug spray.

With my dry-cleaning bag hooked on the shower door, I began to disrobe, and then, with the gabardine pants and rayon shirt rolled up on the counter, I leaned closer to the mirror to inspect my head wound, which bloomed stark and grotesque from my temple, disappearing beneath a swath of black hair and the inner band of my hat. I started to step back in order to get a fuller view of my body, but the sound of music from the other room startled me into motion.

I shortly left the bathroom, once again glancing beyond the threshold of Vanessa’s room to the square, thick bed sitting immobile and plump, beyond the reach of the hall light, in the quiet gloom.

The table was set, and the salmon, garnished with parsley and garlic, was already in the oven. Connie and her boyfriend had absconded into the corner of the couch. A long-stemmed wineglass was upon the coffee table, while Connie, sitting with her legs crossed, balanced a second glass upon her knee. About the living room candles burned vanilla and warm.

Vanessa inspected me from the kitchen doorway. Her whole face, from her glasses to her mouth, appeared to twinkle with amusement.

“You’re more daring than I first thought,” she said.

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“You’re standing in my dining room. I don’t know.” She shrugged her shoulders and smiled. “It’s a nice surprise.” She turned back into the kitchen, saying, “I poured you some chardonnay.” When she faced me again, she extended the glass toward me.

“Thank you,” I said. “I like your apartment.”

Looking briefly around, she quaintly shrugged again. “I keep it cozy.”

She directed me to take a seat at the dining room table and then called for the happy couple to join us, saying that we could get started on the salad and corn; the fish would be done in a minute.

I sat alone for a moment with my back toward the liquor cabinet.

When Vanessa excused herself down the hall, I turned to watch her walk away, her dark clothing shaping the length of her trim and elegant body.

“Look at you,” Connie said as she and her boyfriend sat down across from me. “You dress up nice.”

“Thank you,” I said, although I was beginning to find it strange that my smallest gestures — from standing in the dining room to wearing my own clothes — somehow provoked mild astonishment.

“You too,” I added, which made Connie laugh.

Her boyfriend began scooping corn into his plate, but rather than commence eating, he rested his chin in his palm and stared blankly at the table.

Connie snapped out her napkin and laid it across her lap. She started to talk, and I couldn’t determine if she were at the beginning or middle of a story, but she was saying something about a handicap ramp at the entrance to her college and how some boy had accidentally thrown his cell phone into the garbage.

Vanessa briskly passed the table, carrying a yellow plastic shopping bag and the sports jacket and overcoat, which I had left hanging in the bathroom.

“I’ll put these things in the closet,” she said.

“You can have your clothes back,” I said.

“No way.” She laughed. “It took me almost a year to sell that ugly jacket. It’s yours now.” Passing again, heading toward the kitchen, she said, “Eat, eat.”