Topical Guide 176
Mark Dorset
Expectations: Great, Preposterous
I became more and more convinced that I would be able to acquit myself quite well when I went out onto the rink. I began to wonder why I had ever worried about being able to skate. Watching Veronica, I could see that it was so much easier than I had imagined, and it was clearly lots of fun, such a delight to zip around like that, to whirl, to spin, to glide along with one leg stretched out in the air behind you. I was going to have a ball.
Little Follies, “Take the Long Way Home”
Life: Stages of
Mrs. McCall put her hand on my knee. “Oh, here’s Jack,” she breathed. “Hi, Jack!” she called out. She waved at him with her other hand, and squeezed my knee so hard that I turned toward her with some alarm, wondering what I had done to upset her.
“Isn’t he cute?” she whispered to me. He didn’t seem at all cute to me. After all, he was a grown man.
“He’s handsome,” I said. “Veronica’s cute.” I paused. Distractedly, I corrected myself. “She’s more than cute, if you know what I mean,” I said. “She’s quite a little number.”
Mrs. McCall looked at me. She seemed to be noticing me for the first time.
“Why, you’re right,” she said. “She is, isn’t she?” She looked out across the rink. … Jack swooped up behind Veronica and gave her a pat on the rump. Mrs. McCall muttered, “My God.”
For several minutes, we watched Jack and Veronica cavort around the rink. Jack would grasp Veronica between the legs, his large hand forming a seat for her, her tight nates settling into his palm, his fingers reaching up toward the small of her back. I thought that Mrs. McCall might pass out. She breathed in short, shallow draughts, and she had begun languidly to massage my knee, as if she were trying to make up for the pain she had inflicted earlier. At last Jack put Veronica down. … Mrs. McCall sighed and said, “I’m going outside for a cigarette. You want to come?”
“Sure,” I said. …
“So you think Veronica is quite a little number, do you?”
“Yes,” I said. I felt my ears redden.
“And Jack is handsome,” she added.
“Right,” I said.
“What about me?” she asked. …
“You look sexy in that sweater.”
Mrs. McCall choked and burst out laughing. “Oh, thank you, Peter,” she said.Little Follies, “Take the Long Way Home”
See also: Life, Metaphors and Similes for TG 40, TG 55, TG 60
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