Olivia and River don't (shootempolitely) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-05-21 19:53:00 |
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Entry tags: | zoe washburne |
Who: Olivia Landon
What: Past calling.
When: Recently!
Warnings: None!
It was a voice on the telephone. Like, Olivia supposed - with the sudden snow-blindness of those blindswept, a sheet of white where once there had been pieces to distinguish, a world on canvas and easily discerned - any other.
There was no wild sweep of New York through her apartment, no trammel of subway systems and the achingly grey dirty building-sides. No sensation-memory unloaded itself over desert-dry heat, the peculiar unpleasantness of silk shirt clinging stickily to the back of her neck. She answered, ‘hello?’ as she kicked off her shoes, a satisfying smack of leather against the nearest door, and she was smiling - a moment, please, for those seconds we are still more than who we have grown up to be - at the next, and the smile slid, like vodka drunk from the bottle, like Olivia herself as she sat and the creases ironed themselves into her suit skirt.
She was blank agreement, ‘mms’ and ‘yes, oh I see’, business without the board-room into the empty room and the coffee mug lingering on the table from the morning, scattered things, abandoned.
Of course she understood. No time at all. West Coast to East was very much a trip, given - Olivia felt the astonishing desire to laugh rise like a bubble in her throat, cloying-thick - given that she was, after all highly religious. Olivia hadn’t thought much of religion, given through-the-stairs glimpses of the woman who had been - legally - her mother. Dramatic, perhaps. Drunk, almost certainly. Overly fond of red lipstick and declamations, absolutely. Religious? It was like a malformed lock with a poorly made key, the tumblers refused to line up, roll over and click into place.
She hung up.
There was nothing to throw. There was nothing - at all, in fact - to say. No one, after all, to say it too.
There was, however, gin. Gin could be poured quite swiftly, and gin could be crystalline-sharp and absolute, and when one glass of gin was drunk (quickly, with the severity of medicine) wine might well follow.
It was the third glass, that sent her to the box in the hall. Above the coats. The box, dark-colored rose-wood and softly polished. Dust-laden, of course. She unpacked it, hands and knees and silk-wool skirt suit half-way to ruined but the last time she’d packed it, there hadn’t been any such suits at all.
She had had taste, at least. Olivia knew that. The brushes were expensive, soft. The paint had dried out - of course, her favorites were - but she had bought herself myriad back-ups, had painted until three, had painted until she was nearly drunk and the birds were singing and paint buying wasn’t an expedition to be conducted. There was paint, in the box. New paint. Old paint. Paint from stores long since closed.
She dragged the box out, and she took her glass of wine and she sat on her floor and ignored her suit as she dug through.