The lounge chairs were huddled in groups circling the low and large pool of water with the giant golden ball seemingly floating or rolling in the center. They were deep bucket seats with a reclined back that bid you watch the clouds, forcing your head to hang too far back. The lad with smokes slid slowly and stiffly into the seat, hesitant to turn his belly up leaning back, and smacked the pack of cigarettes against his palm, turning the box and smacking the opposite end in nervous time. He had, because of his sunglasses, the impression of the gold ball being rather pink and he eased a bit in his seat, grateful for the protection not from the sun (which was in fact not a threat today), but from the terror of accidental eye contact with these strange people who walk in gardens in afternoons. He could watch safely the old man crooked in a constant bow shuffling his slippers (the man was wearing slippers!) across the dirt. Pigeons at his feet huddling like conspirators. A loneliness overcomes the boy, the weight and doom of time having bent this old man and he shifts his gaze back to the large pink ball to try recovering the easiness it gave him just a few moments ago. No avail; he is crushed and panics. Whipping his head round now, he's sat up straight and is ready to run, wants to scream. He opens his mouth, on his toes. The adventuress stutters a "bonjour!"
Stunned, he melts as if tranquilized back into the lounge chair despite how ill-proportioned it is to his height. He nods, weak.
"donc, uh.. ... Ca va!?" she tries hopeful, blind to his nausea. Nothing. Not nothing; another nod, and she smiles, screeching another metal disequilibrial chair against the sand and poises herself with one hand on the opposite knee, and one hand holding her chin. Feeling herself lubberly, she repeats to herself "What lovely company I am!" but having spent the morning talking with herself she unfortunately mouths the words silent as they were. Dammit.
Strange, he thinks, and glances through his eyeshades. She looks pink.
"Ca va." he says the two words separately, like two blocks brought up by coughing in his mouth, shyly. Plucking a cigarette from the pack sufficiently smacked, he tips the box toward her and thinks of sneaking his eyes over the glasses but thinks better of it; let her be pink..
The tobacco stink startles her, it seems wanting to burn. Violent, no? It occurs to her that she has smoked before seeing the comfort of her fingers as they pinch the filter. Leaning towards a light with mouth invariably pursed, saying, "if you please," with eyes glancing up, it seems difficult to retain grace or dignity. "Merci," and the smoke hurries up her nose, into the eyes, she winces, coughs, smiles. Dammit.
Hearing the word, he sighs, another stranger! He mentally beats himself on the back with a birch branch for not recognizing her sooner! Yes. She is like himself, strange, clumsy, here, and asks her name. "Al. Can I call you Betty?" She is not surprised at being found out, not surprised at his words and their language, she is not honestly surprised by anything. He shrinks, and nods, shy again though not as before.
She knocks the ash from the end of the smoke and watches herself as if she were the pink, or gold ball. The round surface spreads her wide, erases the details of her skin, the texture of her scarf, the discomfort of the chair, but magnifies one eye, the cigarette and it's smoke. Fascinated, she stares at herself this way. Seeing herself large, looming, deformed, unsurprised. She sees thus behind her a funeral procession. Squeezed onto the north pole of the golden ball, it is stretched thin and wide, the wheels of the hearse huge, the casket on shoulders thin like Italian meats. Her breath catches suddenly as she sucks the stub of cigarette burning fast and strong, the smoke more confidently now runs into her nose. Burns her eyes. Someone sings carols like dust from their mouths in the cold air and she remembers. Suddenly so, so sad.
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