Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear

A short piece of fiction by yours truly

We were to meet for lunch at a place called Annabelle's, located in a small town on the coast off of Route One. It has been ten years since last we met, and the passage of time has done little to enhance my appearance. Someone once told me that women age like apples on the branch of a tree, some are round, oozing fat, others shrivel up like a prune. I am of the prune variety. Lately I have felt as if my life was in fast forward, frames whipping by, one after another. How unseemly. It is as if someone or something has been putting a heavy hand on those two little forward arrows on the remote of my life. People, places, things whiz by so quickly - one day rolls into another and then one day I  looked into a mirror. The prune stage has arrived.

     I was early.  I am always early, I bring my Kindle everywhere, along with my other electronic toys.  God forbid I should miss a text, an email, a headline informing me that there has been yet another mass shooting, another semi-automatic in the hands of some  disenchanted young man, his mind full of a diabolical  plan to wipe out an entire movie theatre. 

     The walls of Annabelle’s are lined with mirrors, the mirrors enable one to view the booth behind you. It has always been unclear to me what “objects in the mirror are closer than they appear" actually means. I do know that in my case “the object” is the prune. If I sit back will the prune go away, or if I sit closer will the prune reverse ten years? Not wanting to appear vain, I surreptitiously  checked myself out. (Who me, vain? The truth is I have been slightly in love with myself my entire life, one reason why the prune is so unwelcome.) The prune was intact. I then fished for my glasses in my over-sized tote bag that looks like a tapestry, chiding myself for spending  way too much money on that bag, turned on my Kindle, and prepared to dive into Edith Wharton.

     “Do you think you are suicidal?” I had given a cursory glance to  the couple in the booth behind me but thanks to the aforementioned mirrors, I could easily see the couple from my vantage point.  They made no effort to keep their voices down, this was voyeurism at its best. 

     Her beauty stunned me. It was hard to determine her age.  She was, however, at the zenith of her glory and she knew it. Her skin had a transparent glow without makeup, she didn’t appear to wear makeup of any kind, and yet she was the personification of a perfect Vogue model.  Thick curly black hair pulled back with a head band revealed her eyes, a soft blue, like a Siamese cat, but there was something in those eyes that frightened me. And there was something else. How could a young woman with so much charisma be so unhappy? She exuded unhappiness, it oozed from every pore.

     “No, but I have taken up cutting again,” she told her companion, as if this was a good thing.  Her companion, a young man also of indeterminate age, seemed to have a skill blessed by few. He listened.  He listened in between her rants and responded carefully.  Although there was nothing outstanding about his appearance, he was at the same time both kind and rather funny, at least he tried to interject humor into a very dicey conversation.

     “Oh, great. When in doubt, bring out those razor blades.” 

     “I think I started the cutting because I am off all my meds.  Every damn one of them.”

     “Why?”

    “Because I am sick of being the poster child for every pharmaceutical product on the market.”

“A Chloe off meds is a scary Chloe indeed,  what does your shrink say?”

“Good news and bad news.”

“Hit me with the good news first.”

“He has finally diagnosed me, I have a borderline personality disorder.”  

“And the bad news?”

“Borderlines are horrible people, Sean.”

“How could you be a horrible person. Chloe? Maybe a little sadistic from time to time, but horrible? No.”

“Yes, horrible. I read all about borderlines and we do terrible things. We are surrounded by people who love us and then we systematically pit one against the other and cause chaos. Do you realize I have  alienated just about every person in my life?”

“Well, Chloe, sleeping with your boss wasn’t very wise.”

“I know, I don’t even like him, I just did it because I could. And what is so bizarre about it is that I truly like his wife, it’s just that she is one of these perfect people that you want to strangle because of the fact that they are so damn perfect.” 

“And so the solution of this is to go off your meds?” Sean had a habit of cocking his head like a parakeet while he talked. It made him look simultaneously quizzical, interested and surprised, quite a talent. I’ll have to practice it, it may come in handy. 

“Who knows, but I have decided to grab the reins and take control of my life.”

“How, by turning yourself into a chopping block?”

“Yes. I never thought of it that way, but yes. I need to punish myself.  Even though I got the monkey off my back, the circus is still in town.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means what it means, if you don’t get it, I can’t explain it. I slice myself in front of a small picture of St. Francis.”

“Why St. Francis?”

“I love St. Francis. I love the fact that he was a naughty boy before he became a saint.  And you can’t find fault with “Lord, make me an instrument  of your peace.” It doesn’t get any better than that.”

“I don’t think St. Francis had razors in mind when he was talking about instruments.”

“Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t.”

All this was going on when a vaguely familiar face walked through the door at Annabelle’s, smiling at every pretty female  over the age of sixteen. Of course. Some things never change. He walked with a limp. A limp? What’s that all about? A flood of memories, all heavily laden with emotions hit me like a ton of bricks as he slid into the booth opposite me. Damn, I thought, I really believed that I had outgrown all this teenage crush stuff. 

"Hello.'

"Well, hello."

"Well hello back."

Peter graduated from The Harvard Business School, and I matriculated at Oberlin College in Ohio with a Visual Arts degree.  One would think that one of us could use the king's English more effectively, but there we were, stuttering and stammering like two ESL students. He is not what one could call a handsome man. Bald, thick glasses, a pouch, not  a snappy dresser, but what he lacked in style, he made up for with self-assurance, and for good reason. He had one of those effulgent personalities that triggered an instant response. Whereas I tended to turn people away, Peter was always one of those laconic souls who welcomed everyone with open arms.

"I see your ads on TV all the time, that peculiar little man selling Thompson Auto Parts," I said. Peter stared at me as if I was a puzzling object on a shelf in a gift shop. 

    "Goddamned television, we have to appeal to useful idiots in order to sell anything these days." There was the feisty Peter I had loved so much ten long years ago, but ten years is a long time, and much to my chagrin I found myself wishing he would be quiet so that I could continue my voyeurism.

“Why the limp?”

“Do you really want to know?” He looked sheepish, somewhat embarrassed and for the life of me I couldn’t imagine why, but then I recalled that Peter was always full of surprises. For a conservative fellow, he definitely had an impish element to his personality.

“I shot myself in the knee.”

“You what?!” 

“You heard me, I was cleaning my gun, and it went off.  It was stupid. I know better.”

“But you’re ok now?”

“Not one hundred percent, but a lot better than I was. I really don’t want to talk it.”

“Are you still a card carrying member of the NRA?”

“Absolutely, gotta be able to defend myself. Let’s talk about you.”

“I look like a prune.”

“No you don’t, you look great.” Well, maybe  a little bit prunish”

“Prunish or prudish?”  I hoped I wasn’t snapping at him, it was never my intention to snap.

“You never used to be a prude.”

“That was before I went off my meds.”  What in the world made me say that? I don't take medication. I had the rather frightening sense that I was reciting lines from some theatre production,  I had taken up where the pair in the next booth left off. 

“What meds? Are you on medication?  You’re not sniffing glue, are you? Peter looked at me quizzically as I cocked my head like a parakeet, hoping that I looked oh so wise. Peter told me about his recuperation, his retirement, his daughters. I listened with one ear, while out of the corner of my eye I watched in the mirror which made the objects closer than they appeared. I wanted to know what happened, I wanted to know why Chloe was cutting herself, and I wanted to know if she and Sean were lovers, former lovers or just friends.  

It's All Temporary