Elegance

So after that fiasco, I’m now reminiscing with a woman I don’t know and with whom I have no discernible connection. 

She drinks mimosas for two hours spinning a yarn of events spanning a 2001prom to a terroristic threat arrest only 3 months ago. In rhythmic succession, she removes four bobby pins from her hair, checks her appearance in the reflection on her cigarette case and unbuttons the next two buttons on her blouse. I can see the seam riding the curve of her bra. I estimate her breasts a full size smaller than the garment conveys. Her tongue touches her lips at the end of coy questions or overstated references to her independence as a woman. I ask her if she drove and might I catch a ride uptown? We share a moment where we might both offer the fact that she is too drunk to work a wheel but it passes in the westward path of the vibratory jangle of her keychain as she extracts it, her arm a tiny silly crane lifting the spangle and chrome initials from a lizard-skinned vessel filled with makeup and crepe gum wrappers. In the parking lot she disarms the alarm and winks, works the keys into my hand and slips into the passenger seat of the BMW with a clumsy landing. Her house is huge and elegant but no more huge or elegant than any of the others.