layers of alice

alice lowered her head and toward the bowl and began smashing the avocados into a creamy pulp. i put on anthony and the johnsons who sing "fistful of love" and i think of a lover i once had once, of shivering underneath blankets in winter, that cup of coffee when i said goodbye. it had started to rain and the sunlight dissolved into a gray mist that darkened the porch outside. the wind picked up and made the hummingbird chimes clink together in a silvery song. i swirled my wine and inhaled the aroma, trying to detect the slight smells they always tell you about: dates, velvet, oak, hay, whatever it is they say you should be able to smell.

"how did you know i wanted to hear this song?" alice asked, barely turning her cheek toward the table, where i sat holding my wine.

"i didn't know anyone else really liked them"

"i do." she brought the bowl to the table and sat down without touching it. she looked at the contents without accomplishment or joy. it was a task that was finished, nothing more. "i really needed to hear this song tonight."

"yeah, me too." i poured her a glass of cheap pinot noir and had another sip of mine.

"it's strange, you know you never stop loving when it's over. it's like layers, like childhood and growing up."

"i don't understand." i said, looking up at her, but she didn't raise her eyes from the bowl.

"all those things that make up a person- the joy and pain and fears of childhood- are always the same in people; they just learn to cope with it. when i was a kid, i went to new york with my parents and this homeless guy gave me a newspaper. i was shocked that he was so nice to me, said thank you, and walked away from him. he followed my family to the car and told my dad he wanted money for his paper. my dad got mad and started yelling, took the paper from me and threw it at him. my mom told me it wasn't my fault, but i felt so terrible. i played that scene over in my head for weeks and i never really got over it. i felt like i had done something terribly wrong and i still feel a little guilty about it."

i didn't know what to say exactly. i was worried that if i said the wrong thing she would stop talking, but if i said nothing she would feel like i didn't understand. i wanted to watch her open up- to watch her facial expressions as she thought through those moments and compiled them into something manageable.

"i still do things like that on a grownup scale." she looked at me while hanging her head slightly downward, so that one lock of red fell across her cheek and it looked like she was blushing. "those experiences, they are like love because it never stops. love layers like age. it gets old and distant, but it never really stops. it's still there, underneath everything that you do and who you become because you've let that person shape that time in your history."

last week i dreamed that He got married and told me after it was done, like it was a secret i was supposed to keep from others. i woke up sweating and i cried because i was terrified that i would never love like that again. i wonder if alice is thinking the same thing; i wonder who her He is.

"it's raining." she says.

"i know."