wait and see. Adjust napkin. And reach for the bread. No. Offer some.
"Miss Tomson, let me cut you bread. White or brown."
"That brown looks good Mr. Smith."
"Of course, brown. Ah, here's the butter. Thank you Matilda."
Good appetite has Miss Tomson. And a forceful chewer.
"Mr, Smith, you don't mind my gobbling this."
"Of course not, Miss Tomson, I intend to gobble myself. Much healthier that way."
"Say Mr. Smith, you really go in for this health."
"Taken an interest in a certain robustness, Miss Tom-son."
"Sure, but why kill yourself."
"I'm not killing myself. A little exercise to keep my figure."
"After thirty you can't go back. What's a little pot. Real cute. I like it. No kidding. Why don't you try a corset."
"Miss Tomson, will you have your omelette runny in the middle."
"Yesh, please."
"Matilda, both soft in the middle please."
"If that's the way you want it. You better get that wine while I'm cooking. I got my hands here full. Never enough time for nothing."
Miss Tomson leaning across the table. She cocks her head towards the kitchen, whispering.
"Mr. Smith, she distinctly dislikes me. Why don't you some evening come to my apartment. I've got a typewriter there."
"That's kind, Miss Tomson, but I wouldn't think of such an imposition. You've got your own personal life to lead. I'm already imposing myself too much on your free time."
"What free time. I go home now, mess around, listen to music, make some clothes. I do nothing."
"Some nice young man will be around."
"That's a laugh. My brother he likes to come around, crowds the apartment out with celebrities. Bunch of stuffy stuck up deads. I told him to stop bringing them around, that I just wasn't interested. They all have to do the talking. I used to be crazy for that kind of crowd. And one day living in the nest, everybody showing up for tennis. You know, seeing them standing in the hall, a really healthy bunch of looking people. You know and just like that, I took a look at this crowd. Just stood and listened, you know, Mr. Smith, I was hearing them for the first time. And same day I'm standing on the court with my racket, resting when I get this poke in the back through the fence. It's a guy passing on the street. I turn around, I'm going to say who the fuck, sony about that, but who the, and he hands me a piece of paper. It's my first sight of the poetic curiosity. There's a poem on the paper and his address on the back. Hey, am I talking like mad. Must be the wine."
"Miss Tomson I'm most interested to hear you talking."
"You're not kidding."
"Certainly not."
"I was crazy then, you know. Going up with that gold key to the nest, the elevator crammed with presents I'm buying with this guy's money. OS the roof garden socking tennis balls mad laughing, bounce them on the underprivileged, help keep them down. I said everybody get a load of this, some guy's handed me a note with a poem. I started to read it. I stopped right in the middle. I thought Christ, this guy might have meant this and the words are nice and they were about me too, that's why I stopped I guess. I went all moody. Threw a few real crazy tantrums. Turned on all the water in the nest till it was pouring right down the elevator shaft. I was thinking what's this kind of life, what good is it. It was pretty good. But I was selling myself for peanuts. Funny isn't it, there I got all interested in the real things, you know deep things and the poetic curiosity all the while is interested in the free meal ticket and big time living up in the nest. Boy."
There was a tear in Miss Tomson's eye.
"Miss Tomson, please don't say any more. Have a little sip of wine. Good mouthful of omelette too."
"You know Mr. Smith, I do you injustice you don't deserve. You're a nice guy."
"Fresh pineapple. Or apricots."
"Sure. Love some."
"Matilda, the apricots."
Smith reaching to light the candles, scented and rumoured to be aphrodiziac. Out the window in the sky over the rooftops was a twilight of twinkling turned to a blaze of black and gold.
"Mr. Smith, you know what."
"What Miss Tomson."
"You're a strange guy. Why some debutante didn't nab you I don't know. Weren't they swarming over you."
"I regret to say, Miss Tomson, they weren't."
Matilda brought on the raw pineapple all sugar soaked, and a glass