DURING THAT TIME in Ariane’s life, when she was working at Captain White’s and hanging around Corinne’s and living up to Tootsie Koochikov’s reputation, I stopped spending afternoons with her at her house—her parents’ house, that is—ending a practice that we had begun when I was eleven. I missed those afternoons. We would sit in the dark room where the television set was kept, and we would watch the afternoon movie together. I would try to snuggle up to her while her attention was focused on the screen. Nothing much happened between us—nothing physical, that is, but my little preadolescent heart beat faster as the distance between us diminished each afternoon, and I developed a keen sense for the signals of cinematic structure, with my longing and eagerness growing as the film approached its climax. I developed an especially keen understanding of the anticlimax, because in that part of the movie, while the loose ends were being tied on the screen, her interest in the story would fall away, she would yawn and stretch and look around, and discover, with amusement and mock annoyance, how close to her I had inched, and she might, if it was a very lucky day, give me a playful punch, or a wink, or even throw her arm around my neck and squeeze me in a momentary headlock to show me how well she understood the desires that I thought I was managing to hide.
In the long cinematic hours that I spent trying to get close to her, she wore, most of the time, a look that I remember as soft. I saw a gentleness and something like serenity in her face, her cheeks, her eyes, but sometimes, when she was displeased, she would turn on me a look that was harder. There was an edge to her then, and sometimes, in her eyes, I thought I saw something flinty, almost nasty, and sometimes I thought—I feared—that she might be laughing at me, even mocking me, toying with me. She may have been, but I don’t think so. I think that she was cursing her fate. Consider the circumstances. I was just a kid, content to be defined by my context rather than my self, and she was beginning to try to think of herself as someone, as a personality that was portable, strong enough to resist its surroundings and remain almost constant wherever she might take it. Just what that personality might be, who that someone might be, she wasn’t sure. At that time, I think, she was trying to become a sophisticated young woman. She watched the movies to discover potential selves, but when the movie ended she would yawn and stretch and look around, and what would she find beside her? A little boy. Me. Six years younger. A child. Grinning. Inching up on her. All but drooling. What did I expect of her? What did I think she was going to do for me? Did I expect her to treat me like a boyfriend? I had my fantasies—as she must have known, as she must certainly have known. Surely they showed.
That was when, and why, I would see the softness leave her. I could see her face harden, like the clay I left on the windowsill of the art room to dry before I painted it. In a remarkably short time, that softness was completely gone. I stopped going to see her, to watch television with her. We were no longer suitable companions.
[to be continued]
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