A Harsh Edged Sparkle

A Story by CourtniRenee

A young woman and an old man have a conversation on what it means to love someone, and how sometimes life doesn't go as we plan.

He never touched her when they finished. He would release his grip and let her fall back on wrinkled sheets and then roll away, leaving her alone in the air filled with the scent of their sweat and her day-old perfume. She would curl into the heat of him, pressing herself into his back, but his patience would dwindle before she ever felt held and he would pull away.

She thought on these things and drew her foot out across the floor. She took a deep breath and cleared her mind. The violins swelled, and she spun across the hardwood, dust and loose baby powder rising in the air and catching the fading sunlight.

“One. Two. Three. Step. Sweep. Bow,” she counted slowly and matched her movement to the beats of her own voice.

He never spoke to her when he turned away. She would whisper an endearment, ask for part of the blankets. He never responded other than the measured, even breathing that dried the words on her tongue and stitched her lips closed.

She sighed and leaned her head back to stare out the skylights. The glowing backlit colors of the sunset streaked over the clouds and she paused, her back arched and arms curved over her head.

“Miss?” The voice broke through the music and startled her so she twisted on her knee, gracefully bringing herself to the floor.

“Mr. Macovich?” She rubbed her knee and glared at the mess of baby powder she had stepped in.

The older man hurried over to her and offered a hand, gently pulling her to her feet. “Are you all right? Did you hurt yourself?”

He stepped away and looked at her with concern, one hand threading through a thick white beard.

She shook her head and brushed the powder off her black leotard, frowning when it smeared. “No, I’m fine, just slipped.”

He nodded, relief smoothing the lines on his wrinkled forehead. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I thought you heard me come in.” His pale face blushed under the shock of his white hair. “I was um… singing. But… I guess your music is loud enough… I had headphones...” he trailed off and gestured to the janitorial cart propping the studio open.

She saw an old Walkman dangling from the handlebars and could hear tinny music still beating from the headphones.

She smiled and began to stretch out her leg. “My fault. Do you need me to get out of your way?”

She was there after hours using the key the studio director trusted her with. The key was supposed to be used to open the studio every morning for beginning classes, not provide her with a private floor in the evenings, but she always figured what he didn’t know wouldn’t cause a problem.

The man frowned and shook his head emphatically. “No, of course not. You just keep doing what you’re doing, I can work around you for now.”

He shuffled back to the cart and pushed it over to the floor to ceiling windows that stretched across the far wall, his short stature causing him to appear like a child behind the vehicle.

“Thank you,” she murmured and began counting in her head once again, listening to the piano match pace with the violins and the winds joining in the layering melody.

She pulled her foot to the opposite calf and pressed it into the pink leg warmer.

He never brought her flowers. Never a piece of jewelry or a dinner out. A black dress hung in her closet that she had never been given the chance to wear.

She put her hands to her head and dug her fingers into her newly cropped hair. Closing her eyes tightly she listened to the gentle overlay of the piano.

But they had wonderful conversation. Those moments when they walked under streetlights and made bets on which ones would flicker out first. Arguing about favorite books and underlying messages in the top forty hits. How many olives belonged in a Martini and how to ensure children get the best benefits from a healthcare system that doesn’t cater to the impoverished. They bartered religion for politics and measured out memories to find who was older because years were deceptive.

“Mr. Macovich?” she asked suddenly, realizing she hadn’t been dancing since he entered the room.

The older man paused in cleaning and looked over at her curiously. “Please, call me Ron. Everything okay?”

She nodded and looked around herself, beating her fists together loosely.

“Ron. All right. Ron. Everything’s fine, I just… are you married?”

The hand holding the Windex-soaked rag spasmed and he looked away. “I was. My Cheryl died about three years ago.”

She winced and clasped her fingers together. “I’m sorry.”

Ron stared out the window for a beat of the music before he sighed and faced her again. “It’s all right honey. Why do you ask?”

She opened her mouth, then hesitated. She had lost her grandmother a couple years ago and remained sensitive to this day, she couldn’t imagine the pain of losing a spouse.

“Miss?” he prompted.

“Why are you letting me stay in here? I’m not supposed to be,” she said instead.

Ron smiled at her, his white beard rising with his cheeks. “You’re not bothering me, why should I make you leave?” He paused a moment and turned back to the window. “You thinking about getting married?”

And that was the big question wasn’t it? Marriage. What everyone wanted. Maybe not that exact word or idea, but what’s hidden beneath. The idea someone would protect and care about you. Someone with your best interests at heart. Someone who fit all your missing pieces like when she played the ukulele and he the clarinet and they somehow found a harmony.

She ducked her head. “I don’t think I know much about marriage. I guess I’m just trying to understand. Why did you marry...Cheryl? What made you get married?”

Ron swung his arm out in long sweeps, the damp rag streaking the window. “If you don’t mind me asking why are you so curious about it?”

She paced over to the window and stared out at the twilight. The sun was finally vanishing over the horizon and the lights of the city were starting to appear, skyscrapers and streetlights glowing in the dusk and shadows growing long. She shrugged and didn’t answer. Her black hair cut over one eye so she didn’t have to look directly at him. It brushed over her cheeks and refused to stay behind her ears as she slipped her fingers through it.

“Okay. Why do you think people get married?” Ron asked.

She shifted her weight, moving from her toes to the balls of her feet and back again.

“People marry because… because they can’t live without the other person. Because having them makes it worth it. Because they need something… someone, I mean.”

She tilted her head and saw his eyes were hidden in the dim light. He nodded slowly and turned to look out the window as well.

“That sounds about right. Just add a bit about trust and faithfulness and devotion. Understanding and compromise.”

“Compromise,” she whispered.

He always said she wanted too much. That she expected more than he could give. Those nights he would come home late, smelling strange and looking through her, he would ask her what she was after, if she even knew.

Silence filled the room as they both stood and watched the fading colors darken the coast. The violins in the background settled to a quiet accompaniment to the piano.

“Cheryl and I were married forty years.”

She glanced down at him but Ron didn’t look to her, he continued to stare out the glass though his reflection came in clearer than any of the city.

“We fought about everything. Money, kids, the dog. Decaffeinated coffee and Jonah and the whale.”

“The Bible story?”

He lifted his shoulders in resignation and smiled. “She found the story unsettling. I like fishing.”

She laughed and leaned her forehead against the window pane, her left hand splayed across the glass.

“No matter what we fought about though, we came back together and settled it. We found our balance.”

“Really?”

He began wiping the window once more, drawing the cloth over the tiny fingerprints the early learners class inevitably left behind. “No.”

She pulled away from the window but the small man didn’t look at her, didn’t do anything but wipe repetitive circles on the streaking pane.

“We would scream and holler, and I would spend more nights sleeping on the couch than my own bed.” He looked out over the city, his eyes glazed over. She wasn’t sure if he was even speaking to her anymore.

“But you loved each other. You both always knew that you loved each other. Right?” She asked.

There was a beat of silence and she knew that if she spoke again, they would both consider her question unasked, and could move on. Talk about the weather and their jobs and other pleasantries that normal people did. All she would have to do is say something, anything, else.

“I cheated on her. Three times I cheated on her,” he said, his hand moving mechanically over the glass.

“Mr. Macovich-”

“It’s not what you wanted to hear. But you asked and it doesn’t matter to me anymore. But it obviously does to you,” he said looking pointedly at the pale line circling her ring finger.

She drew her arm close to her chest and heat flooded her cheeks.

Ron stepped away from the window and nodded. He loaded the supplies back to the cart then removed a broom and started to sweep the baby powder she had slipped on earlier.

It had been raining when he dropped to his knees. Told her he didn’t know how to breathe without her. Pressed the ring on her finger before she answered and pulled her down next to him. They had laid in the rain, and she had felt his heartbeat in her fingertips when she touched him. The ring weighed her hand down and she had rested it on his cheek. But then he had stood and they had left and she still hadn’t said yes.

“Cheryl and I stayed together, but we weren’t happy. Not all marriages are. Some people stay together for the children, some because the other person is familiar. And others just shouldn’t. Cheryl and I… we were friends but we never should have been anything more.”

Ron leaned on his broom. Dust stained his jeans and his button up shirt was straining at the seams. His fingers pleated through his beard and there was no guilt. “Sometimes things happen. People do things for no reason at all and every reason they have and there isn’t an explanation for it more than that.”

Sometimes when they lay in bed, before they came together, he would say things like that. He would mention that people do bad things with good intentions and that’s how they got where they are. Sometimes people got so lost in what they wanted versus what they needed that they couldn’t find the way back.

She looked away from him. She tried to study the skyscrapers and the traffic but all she could see was her own face staring back to her.

“Did Cheryl know about the other women?”

“I suspect she did. She never brought it up. But then again neither did I.”

She stared at him in the window.

“What?”

His reflection met her eyes.

“She started it.”

He stashed the broom and and pushed the cart out the door. “Goodnight miss.”

She said nothing. She stared out the glass and tried to focus on the glittering lights but all she could see was the harsh edged sparkle of the diamond waiting on her dresser.