Page 130 of Bad at Love
I walk around to her front door and knock.
Wait a moment.
And then the door slowly opens, extra dramatic, with wafts of cigarette smoke billowing out toward me.
There stands Miss Havisham, though I suppose I should start calling her Barbara now. And unlike the Miss Havisham fromGreatExpectations, she’s not wearing a wedding dress but a long, red, satin gown with a lacy, white shawl over top.
A cigarette dangles from her sticky lips. Her hand holds out another one for me.
“Here. Welcome,” she says, walking over to the fireplacewith her gown billowing behind her and grabbing a giant, vintage lighter from the mantle.
She lights her cigarette first and then lights mine, peering intently into my eyes as she does so.
“You remind me of Montgomery Clift,” she says, blowing smoke.
I raise my brows. “Wasn’t he gay?”
She shrugs. “Everyone was at some point. But you both have that brooding intensity, that need to embrace the dark. He always played the moody, sensitive and self-destructive characters because he was the same in real life. I bet you are too.”
I try and shrug it off. “It’s a bit self-indulgent to refer to yourself as brooding. I’m often thinking and lost in my head.”
“And your brows do this,” she says, sliding a finger down over my forehead, pushing my brows over my eyes. I’m hit with a wave of rose perfume. “You do that and you think and you overthink and that’s what makes you broody.” She makes a flamboyant gesture to the couch. “Here, sit down.”
I do so. I have to admit, the nicotine feels good, even if this whole situation is a little weird.
“So what do we have here?” she asks nodding at the papers as she takes a seat in an armchair across from me.
I absently flip through the pages. “They’re for Marina.”
“But what are they?”
I take a long drag of the cigarette, finding courage. “Poems,” I tell her, the smoke falling from my mouth. “They’re poems I wrote about her over the years. I wanted to give them to her.”
“Why?” she asks hoarsely, coughs.
“Because. She…I want her to know how I feel.”
“How do you feel?”
“About her?”
“It’s a simple question,Lazarus.” She draws out my name. “How do you feel about her? Do you love her?” She blows smoke rings out into the air and watches them float to the ceiling.
“Yes.”
“Are youin lovewith her?”
I swallow. “Yes.”
She cocks a thin brow and ashes into a silver dish. “Well. Isn’t this interesting.”
“Is it?”
“Love is always interesting,” she says. “Love is our biggest adventure.”
I don’t say anything to that. I’m not sure what there is to say. I suppose being in love does feel like being lost in a big fucking scary jungle somewhere but I’m not sure what kind of adventure that is.
“I’ve loved a lot of men, Lazarus. You may not know it, but I was quite the looker in my day. I had them eating out of the palm of my hand. I had many, many lovers. I broke many hearts. And many of them broke my heart. And it was all part of the adventure. That’s how you have to look at it, you know. Nothing to be afraid of.”
