"Her Paris" by Katherine Gleason
Originally published in Women in REDzine (December 2011)
Senior year, after my last class of the day, I often parked myself under this little orange tree overlooking the school grounds. I watched teachers and classmates, in groups and pairs, head to the gym, the coffee house, or home. Half an hour after the final bell, Ms Muza, my Creative Arts teacher, would stroll from the building. I don’t remember how it started, but some days she’d climb the rise—I wouldn’t call it a hill—and sit with me under the only fruit tree in our desert town. Sometimes we’d smoke. But usually we observed. She’d point out raptors, woodpeckers, the cactus wren—our Arizona state bird. Indoors her light brown hair seemed dull, mousey, but outside, in sunlight, it glimmered copper and gold. She was an intern, an art student at a local college. She’d stay with me a while, then hop on her bike and pedal off to campus.
We’d been sitting like that for weeks. She encouraged me to draw, snuck me a set of oil pastels from the supply cabinet, gave me pointers on the rendering of birds. One day, in class she asked us to draw a map. “Not necessarily a realistic map,” she said. It could be a town we wanted to live in or a snapshot of our ideal existence. She wanted to glimpse our future. I had no ideas. As my classmates worked, filling pages, their chatter and giggles circled round me.
“Amy?” she crouched near my chair. Her concern made me want to stomp from the room, slam doors. I remained still, and the gray of the cheap paper filled my mind. Another student called her, and she moved away. As soon as the period ended, I bolted. I had a bunch of classes after that—math, history, gym. By the end of the day, I’d forgotten the assignment. When she appeared under the tree, though, my body remembered. My heart rattled against my breastbone, breath came in dry sips. She sat next to me, and she started talking. Talking and talking about Paris. She’d never been, but dreamed it. She described the Gare de Nord, outfits of fashionable women on the street, the claxon of horns and pompan of an ambulance. The coffees she’d drink, the pear sorbet she’d enjoy, the many cheeses at the farmers’ market. The tiny iridescent birds in cages by the Seine. “The Paris in my mind,” she said. I rested my chin in my hands. “You know,” she said, “if you don’t turn something in, I’ll have to give you a failing grade.” I nodded. “You have until Friday,” and then she was gone. I sat under that tree and, as the sun faded, I drew. Her Paris. When the light got too dim, I ran home, drew through the night, breaking only to snack and brew tea.
The next day in art class, I held the drawing as if it would fly away—an eagle, a dream, a ghost. The minutes stalled and stuttered. Embarrassment pinned me to my seat. Finally the bell rang, and I charged, swooping by her desk, dropping my assignment, her map, and stumbling out the door.
“Amy,” she called, “wait,” but I kept moving, zigzagging down the hall.
Later that week, I snuck back for my last class of the day. The art room swam with light. I tottered to a seat, slumped, gazed into my notebook as if transfixed. Ten minutes into class, I peeked at her and saw it. Over her desk, my drawing, her Paris hung in a frame. I thought to flee, but didn’t move, hid my burning joy deep in a fort of books. At the final bell, I told myself to run, run home. I followed the crowd out. I could tag along to the cafe, join a basketball scrimmage, but I let my feet lead me. Back to my spot under the orange tree. I stood, leaning against the trunk, neither coming nor going. Soon she emerged from the building in a golden haze, hair dancing in the wind. She bounded to me.
“Thank you,” she said and looked up at me from under her bangs and then she was in my arms and I tipped my face down and our lips moved together—soft, soft—and then with growing pressure. I wanted to inhale her, pull her inside me, keep her close, a secret. Mine. A late orange fell from the tree, and I jumped. We parted, but I still tasted her—sweet and salty like chèvre, a note of bitterness like the espresso she’d drink in Paris, a whiff of turpentine, sun-warmed skin, cucumber. I floated home awash in her world. I told myself, I’d paint another map, a better map, more vibrant and detailed. Our next art class we had a substitute and the class after that also. The sub made us clean paint brushes. I wanted to ask someone where Ms Muza was. Was she ill? But March faded into April and then May, and I never got around to it. I graduated, and sometime over the summer Bill Dawes, my lab partner, asked me out, and I said sure, and by the end of the summer we were engaged.
*****
Sunday morning I don my usual work clothes—a dark suit and pumps, slip into the car. I could stay home with Bill, relax, but my spreadsheets want attention. Once in Phoenix, I hit traffic, a parade. I park in a lot, walk a few blocks, cross the parade route, reach my office building. On the gray stone steps, I think I hear my name, but I keep climbing. Someone runs up behind me, and I turn to a familiar face.
“Ms. Muza,” I say.
“It’s Gail,” she says. Her hair is shorter and, like me, she’s ten years older, but she still sparkles.
“Oh, Amy,” she says, touching my arm. “I—my advisor—I still have your map.”
I grin idiotically and don’t say anything. I’m afraid to breathe. Turpentine, cucumber.
“And I’ve been to Paris,” she says.
“Of course,” I say. Goat cheese and good coffee.
“And what about you?” she asks.
I shrug and point up the stairs to my office.
“Come with us,” she says, gesturing to her colorful friends on the street.
“I have work,” I say.
She slips her card into my breast pocket and says: “In case you change your mind.” She and her friends sashay along the street.
Standing on the steps, I slip off my jacket, dig her card from the pocket. “Gail Muza, painter, decorator, consultant.” The image of a roadrunner, just like the ones I used to draw, peers from behind the type. Her card close to my face, I inhale—oranges and paint.
Across the street in the empty lot, a barrel cactus is opening its star-like blooms. I untuck my blouse, unfasten the top buttons, and roll the sleeves. A bird sings, and I step down, away from habit, into the world of music and light.
Katherine Gleason’s short stories have appeared in Derelict Lit, Gone Lawn, Juked, Jellyfish Review, and Southeast Review. She won first prize in the River Styx/Schlafly Beer Micro-Fiction Contest, garnered an honorable mention from Glimmer Train, and has published a number of nonfiction books.
Twitter: @KGleasonWriter