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Show Motherlunge a novel 47 "Oh," I said. "Maybe it's nothing. But still. I met a boy." I told her about Eli, the plant guy at work. Twice a week down the carpeted hallways of our office he pulled a small wagon that held a large plastic water container with a coiled spray hose coming out of the top. Eli was thin and tall and had brown eyes and messy brown hair; he wore a carpenter belt with various clippers and soil pokers. He often wore a faded Cramps t-shirt and worn Toughskins. I told Pavia: Along with the guys who scaled the outside of the building to clean the windows, along with the mud-spattered bicycle messengers, he was my type as I was beginning to understand it. "What? Skinny and in appliance-requiring non-skilled labor?" Pavia raised one of her perfect, boomerang-shaped eyebrows. "Maybe it's just that there are hardly any men in your office. How do you feel about the UPS guy?" "Those shorts. No. Anyway, ours whistles." "So do you." "I don't whistle while I work." Pavia nodded, took another bite of her pastry. She looked at me as she chewed. She nudged me with her foot under the table, waiting for me to go on. And suddenly, as if I were an accelerator pedal, I felt a surge of primitive, desperate affection for my sister. Like how Jack, having won her attention and approval for a moment, would probably always want it back. Eli, I told Pavia, was quiet, but he had a nice laugh. He wanted to be a photographer; he was a photographer. He did take pictures. We had had coffee twice after work. "How did you manage that?" |