Eye Contact
September 2008
Dave stares into his plate, this enormous plate bigger than his head covered in penne pasta. He fills and refills his fork, piling more food on it than Julia could imagine him fitting into his mouth, but he always succeeds in getting every morsel in. The image of a snake opening its jaw in order to eat a mouse pops into Julia’s mind. The thought of gay male porn occurs to her, but she doesn’t follow this train of thought because nearly as soon as it occurs to her, Dave starts talking. There is a slight sensation of relief buzzing through Julia’s head.
“So Carl, this dealer we know, sweetest guy you’ll ever meet shows up at this little low-key party we are having.”
She always thought, in moments like this, with low restaurant lighting, alcohol clouding her judgment, good food heavy on her stomach, of saying the worst possible things, the most awkward and damaging. He’ll reach across the table at any moment, she thought. He’ll rub my hand and stop his story to tell me that I look beautiful and I’ll blurt out that the first guy I slept with looked like a model, but I like it better now that I date normal looking guys.
“Carl is real connected, you know, one of those guys that you just really don’t screw with no matter what. But it doesn’t matter because we love him and he usually doesn’t get us in any trouble we wouldn’t get ourselves in. And he comes in saying ‘Who wants to go to Mexico with me?’”
Tonight she had held her own for the most part, sipped quietly on her drink while he talked, providing nods and uh-huhs in the appropriate places. She didn’t complain about the drink, hid the disgust she felt when the clash of flavors hit her tongue- cheap chocolate sauce and gin. She held her neck strong and refused to let her jaw shiver when she swallowed. She was always doing things like that, complaining about the drinks he bought her, always ordering something new in hopes that it would be delicious and become her signature drink. It never was.
She was nearly done with the drink. It got thicker as she got to the bottom, the chocolate syrup lining the martini glass heavily. She lifted it at a sharp angle to finish drinking. While she drank, she stared at the walls. It was one of those restaurants with bad art. Every inch was covered. Frogs playing pianos. Oil paintings of baseball players. A male nude. Mexican mariachi players with real beads stuck to the canvas. Iridescent fish. With a plop that was more audible than she would have expected over the noise of forks on plates, teeth on food, a cherry that was weighted down with a coating of chocolate slid out of the gin and hit her in the nose. At the sound, Dave brought his face from the food to look at Julia’s face, a splotch of chocolate on her nose, the cherry landed in her lap.
“I hate looking people in the eye,” she said, bleating it out like a sheep without even taking a second to think before it escaped her mouth.
“Aw, but you have pretty eyes.” His eyes are on the splotch but she makes no move to remove it.
“That isn’t the point though. I’m not looking in my own eyes, am I?”
“No…” For a moment, Julia thinks that she can see the gears working in his head, trying to understand her.
“I’m looking at yours or my uncle’s or the waitress’, right? And I’m stuck staring at faces.”
“What’s wrong with that? I love looking at your face.”
“What’s wrong with that is what’s wrong with faces. They are okay to glance at, that’s not a problem, but…”
“But what?”
“But you don’t want to stare because then you see too much. Like right now I’m supposed to be staring lovingly into your face, but I’m staring at the glob of sleep you have in your right eye.”
His hand flies immediately to his right eye, gropes at its corner.
“Did I get it?”
“No, my right, sorry.”
“Now?”
“You’re good. And it’s not just that, not just food on your chin or snot under your nose. It’s the soft spots.”
A sigh from Dave, a soft one, but not one filled with endearment. There is exasperation underneath it.
“What are you talking about?”
“You know the skin under your eyes, how it’s all sunk in and damp, darker than the rest of your face? I look at it and it grows deeper, softer, darker. It becomes all I can see on your face until I hate looking at you so much I never want to look at you again. It disgusts me.”
He blinks, breaks the eye contact and returns his focus to the plate. He raises his fork, gesticulates, pointing to the bathroom. “You’ve got some chocolate on your face.” His fork stops, flips, stabs into a mound of penne.
Copyright 2008 Jessa Marsh
Read Comments
Posted on 09-23-08 8:34am by Andrew
Another good one
Good job, I like the ending! Haha.