floating in a tin can

jewsinspace
spaceodyssey

Leah doesn’t live that far from the Lower East Side, it’s nearly in her backyard, but she’s only here intermittently. Usually to stop by a bakery or a deli or something, and then she leaves. Most of her friends live in the East Village, or in the Village, or in Chelsea still. And then Michael works in Midtown, so sometimes she makes the voyage all the way there to see him at work. But she’s here now, feeling acutely out of place. People stare at her anywhere she goes, she’s over six feet tall for God’s sake, but it doesn’t help that she looks like a hippie. Like people expect her to pay for things with pocket change. Or not pay at all. She’d thought about dressing up, but then she realised that she’s married. She doesn’t have to please him. So she’s wearing a dress that’s too short and her legs are too bare and she has her long hair loose and unstyled like Janis wore it. She’s already had two strange men try to sit across from her. ‘I’m married’ never works. ‘I’m waiting for someone’ only sometimes does.

She’s watching the door, so she sees him come in, though she doesn’t recognise him immediately. She only really met him once and then they never spoke again. He didn’t even come to the wedding. Should she stand up? Probably, but she came of age in a time when all the social rules started to change. So she doesn’t. She waits for him to sit down before she puts out the stub of her cigarette in the ash tray, then immediately lights a new one. She needs something to do with her hands. She doesn’t know why she’s nervous. Why does she care about this man’s opinion. He certainly doesn’t care about hers.

“I wasn’t really expecting you to come,” she says.

( repair of the world; construction for eternity )