My Most Impressively Articulate –
Cerise of the Plentiful Hair –
Sish (sp?) –
Cerise, Owing Nothing to My Corporeality, and Less to My Soul –
T
he sun wasn’t yet down, though it’d covered its head up behind the clouds; it was dark enough to be night. Fitting, he’d thought, for the last three days to be blazing with the winter sun, the sky a crisp and vivid blue. The brook of clouds had rolled in just after breakfast, and he’d heard the first hammering of thunder over his second cup of watery Pendulum kofi.
By the time he’d wandered to the balcony doors and drawn aside the heavy drapes, the rain had been slanting sideways, and all he’d seen in the grey glass was the ghost of Anatole, mussy-haired and wrapped in a robe. He’d scowled at it, finished the dregs in his mug, and gone for a third cup.
She’d timed it well enough he didn’t know if she’d get a letter, by the time he had it stamped and sent, at least not by the time of meeting her. Getting it late seemed something like shouting the last word of an argument at a kov’s back. And he wasn’t sure he could do much better than generative force, though it’d made him feel rather like washing his hands a few times.
The benches weren’t much to sit on; the rain was driving steadily, and anywhere you liked to step or sit was drenched. The hem of Anatole’s long dark coat was a shade darker than the rest, and his shoes were dewy-glistening.
The ducks, at least, were having a caoja. There were a handful waddling through the grass, honking and preening at slick tousled feathers. Somebody had left a bit of bread and cheese and meat and greasy newspaper by the side of the path, now drenched to slush, and a tawny-feathered creature was nudging at it with a greedy bill.
There was a gazebo, at least, nearby the pond; a few young redhead ladies with puffed white sleeves were sitting at a wrought-iron table, umbrellas leaned up against the railing and drying under the generous wooden roof.
Save for the odd professional-coated golly walking briskly by in the rain, he was just about the only kov over the age of twenty-one in the quadrangle. As he creaked up the wooden steps and shook out his umbrella, the lasses watched him, two pairs of gold eyes and one bluish-green. Tucking his umbrella under his arms, he wandered over to lean on the edge of the railing, looking out over the criss-cross walkways for a familiar-unfamiliar face.
“Incumbent?”
He half-turned. “Oh,” he said, blinking; he fit a politician’s smile to his damp face posthaste. “Miss – er – Batteux.” He felt a curious caprise of perceptive mona. One of them stood and bowed deeply; the eldest stifled a laugh. He bowed back. “What a dreadful day to see you ladies out.”
“We’d been planning a picnic, before the rain started.” Batteux smiled sheepishly, indicating a wet-looking bag sitting near the umbrellas. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance it will stop soon.”
“I’m not a static conversationalist, but it seems rather steady to me, unfortunately,” he drawled. He started to turn back.
“She was telling us about shadowing you on the seven,” said one, gold-eyed and freckled.
“A pleasant experience, I hope.” He glanced between the girls, then over his shoulder at the park. Several ducks were investigating the dissolved sandwich.
He tried to ease back, tried to loosen some of the tension in his back. “Oh, very.” Miss Batteux had sat back down; he’d hoped the ladies would return to their chattering, but she was still smiling at him. “I had a – well, a question –”
“Oh?” He half-turned, scanning the rainy tableau. A silhouette was headed up the path, an umbrella over its shoulder; there were more silhouettes scattered about, all of them walking quickly. If Cerise with the Hair stood him up today, he thought – well, he reckoned Anatole would’ve deserved as much.