She shook her head, looking down into her hands, picking at what might have been the remains of a manicure, “No. I’m tired of hearing my name.”
He was caught off guard, “I don’t believe I have ever known anyone who was tired of her name.”
“No, I’m not tired of my name. I am tired of hearing it. It seems to show up at the beginning of far too many sentences these days whose intention is to make me feel small. My name is followed by demands and accusations and recriminations. Every time, my name comes first, every bit of hatred personalized. Let there be no misunderstanding . . . this hostility is for . . .”
She let her words trail off, but she raised her eyes to meet his, “So let me be me.”
“Alright, you be me.”
The faintest hint of a smile played over her lips, “Yes, that will work for a bit.”
He lifted his empty glass, “So do we want another drink?”
She stared at him for a moment before answering, considering, “I don’t want anything and I don’t want you to want anything.”
“Yes, but do you want another drink?”
Another faint smile as she slid her glass toward him, “Thank you.”
There was silence between them as the drinks were ordered and delivered, and then he ventured, “Divorced?”
If she was surprised by his directness, she did not show it, “Not quite.”
“Complicated?”
“Very.”
“Children?”
“Once upon a time but no more.”
He wasn’t sure what those words meant, and so he said nothing in response. She lifted her glass and took a sip, “My turn.”
She turned to look at him for a moment, and he sat taller in his seat, “Ask whatever you like.”
“Oh, I don’t need to ask questions. I see you.”
He laughed, uncertain, “Do you, now? Let me hear what you’ve got.”
She released her grip on her drink and reached with a cool damp finger to trace the lines of his face. From the outer corner of his eye along his cheek and down along his jaw until his chin rested on her single index finger, “You are me.”
She had startled him with the knowing intimacy of her touch, and it was with a small measure of relief that he heard her words, “That’s cheating.”
She brought her hand into her lap and leaned close to his face, her eyes the color of an old photograph . . . a rich gray-brown. He searched for the word, finding it and announcing his discovery in triumphant tones, “Your eyes are sepia.”
She exhaled warm approval against his skin, “And your eyes are the color of pain.”
“Pain is not a color.”
“I disagree . . . your eyes are smoky blue . . . the color of a bruise newly inflicted.”
“They have always been this color.”
“Yes, but now they speak for you. They speak of you.”
“What do they say?”
She lifted a hand again, as if to touch his face as she had before, but this time, she merely traced his outline in the space just beyond his skin, “You’ve lost someone.”
He was struck by how very much he wanted to lean to bring his face into contact with her hand, but he kept his words light, “Everyone has lost someone.”
She did not respond at first, instead reaching for her drink, “Let me speak plainly, then. You’re divorced. It was complicated, because divorce always is, but then she died, making things both simpler and more impossible all at once. There are children, but they are grown and they blame you for . . . well, for everything . . . and so you are coming up on the far side of the middle of the ages you will get to live, and you are . . . alone.”
Confused, he scanned the room for an explanation, and finding none, returned to her, “Do I know you?”
“I think so.”
“From where?”
“Here.”
“We’ve met here before?”
“No, we’ve met just now. You know me from here and now. You know me.”
He laughed nervously, “That’s right . . . you are me.”
“Exactly.”
He stared at her, “And you have lost someone.”
“Yes.”
“Amidst betrayal, you lost someone,” he spoke with more confidence now.
“Yes.”
“And it’s complicated.”
“Yes.”
“Because,” and he reached here with a shaking finger to brush a rust-colored strand of hair from her cheek and tuck it behind her ear, “You wished them dead and then they died.”
Her breath came raggedly, “Yes.”
“Making things simpler and more impossible all at once.”
A whisper, “Yes.”
“Once upon a time but no more.”
Her voice faded to almost nothing, “And now I am only me.”
His voice was pleading now, “Please tell me your name.”
She shook her head and stood, “No. I am tired of hearing my name. Let me just be me.”
He watched as she walked away, but he did not move, instead staring into the growing space between the two of them.
He reached a hand into that space, a futile gesture, “Me.”
And then he sank back into himself, “You are me.”
Alone.
