Gunnar In The Carrels - Part 4
Gunnar In The Carrels
Part 4
She stood by the windows, bathed in the pale light of early spring. The blue cotton dress hung bell-like from her shoulders, trapping sunlight in its folds and seeming to lift her above normal gravity.
Across the aisle and two rows over, Gunnar caught his breath at the brave vulnerability of the nape of her neck, exposed beneath the cropped red curls of her pixie cut. Her hair was not blonde red like his, but a bright copper orange. Everything about her glowed.
Gunnar tried to swallow and realized his mouth was dry.
He hadn’t thought about another woman once since he and Jenny got serious in undergrad.
What about this morning with the girl and the sunglasses? Sigmund asked.
But that was nothing, Gunnar reasoned. Everyone did that. Looked at strangers and wondered. Didn’t they?
Not happy people, said Sigmund.
Gunnar looked again at the girl - woman - librarian - and his lips parted.
It was not just that she was lovely. She was the most beautifully coloured human that Gunnar had ever seen with apricot skin strewn with golden freckles. But it was her carriage that captured him.
She moved unfettered, as if there was nothing weighing her down; no cares like those that burden the rest of humanity. Surrounded by the marred and self-loathing, she alone seemed free of a permanent forward hunch and awkward layers of protective clothing. Above the simple neckline of the thin dress, her collarbone lay long and open and Gunnar’s enthralment was tinged with envy.
How could anyone so exposed be so relaxed?
Gunnar watched closely as She (as She would be to him from now on) was approached by a male teen with ear buds dangling from the back pocket of jeans whose crotch fell somewhere around his knees. Gunnar guessed that made sense since the waistband of the jeans hung directly below the kid’s ass, which was covered instead by canary yellow gitch.
Gunnar moved a row closer just in case.
Just in case what? asked Sigmund.
But Gunnar wanted to hear their conversation so moved across the aisle to the row directly beside the one She was in, turning his back and pretending to search the titles on the facing shelf.
The kid - the teen, Gunnar corrected - was telling Her about a book titled Bomb The Suburbs, waving his arms widely and using an astonishing amount of profanity.
“It fuckin’ opened my fuckin’ mind, ya know? It was like fuckin’ - fuckin’ - like I fuckin’ just realized that this shit is fuckin’ out there, ya know?”
And then She spoke.
How, in the midst of such foul, entrailed dross, was sounded...
Careful, Gunnar, that sounds like p~
Stop! Gunnar shouted at his brain, attention now sharply focused on what had brought him to the library on a Wednesday at 2 pm when he knew his parents were in meetings and Jenny was at the gym, and the conglomerate of hangers on, aides, co-workers, and business partners caught up in the family machine that he thought of as Et Al was at its least perceptive.
Gunnar bowed his head and exhaled slowly through his nostrils.
This is the last time. The last time I do this. And then...and then...and then I’ll let Mom and Dad sign me up for the fall pre-elections and Jenny and I’ll set a date for the winter, just like they want me to. This is it. This is the last time.
Well then, laughed Sigmund, let’s make it a good one.