it wasn’t the same as seeing her, holding her, and hearing her sensuous or mischievous laugh in his ear.
The washing machine needed a part; he’d found the problem and now held it, a rusting valve, in his hand. He called to ask Orelia if she’d like to go into town with him to fetch it, but she was at the kitchen table busy with some drawings.
Spread out all around her were sketches of a house showing different angles, with lots of cutaways, so you could see where a new room, window or greenhouse could be joined. This particular house was an old Berkeley brown shingle in the flats, and the owner wanted to add a space off the second floor that would permit something of a view.
“It will be strictly an illusion,” Orelia said when she first showed the sketches to John. “But a nice one. His view will actually be of a long row of his neighbors’ backyards, but the addition will be from the one angle that will make them seem to be an uninterrupted garden.”
Finding these special angles for her clients was a great satisfaction to her, and also to those who sought her services—more and more as time went on—for when you entered an Orelia Moonsun redesigned house, no matter where you were, youhad the instant illusion of being someplace better. Someplace greener, more spacious, more airy and free.
She herself could never live, really live, in the city, but for those who could or must, hers was the eye to show them how it might be done. She could create a forest out of one tree, a mountain out of a hill, and a meadow out of a handful of flowers and a bush. It was because she needed to leave the city and find a place in the country that she’d gone off on the consulting job. She hated to travel, but the amount of money offered was just enough to make a down payment on some land they’d seen that supported a small house. It had been hard for her to leave him, John remembered, as he drove off to the hardware store; they had both cried.
They’d cried only partly because they would miss each other. They cried because it was so good between them finally: good friends, good sex, good companionship, even good food (they were cooking more together and going out less); they felt the risk the long separation might mean. But she had gone off, because she felt she had to, by train—she refused quite utterly to fly except when she had to cross the ocean—and he had waved after her as the bright blue-and-white Amtrak train left the station.
Then he had returned to her apartment, to her bed, where he had been so happy, where so many discoveries of various kinds had been made, and he had thought, as he often did, of the rather curious way they had met. She’d had cramps. She’d said she had cramps. Anyway, it was the lifetime ago when he was a hostile pre-law student at Columbia (hostile because the very books he must read oppressed his spirit, they were so dully exacting) and he was sitting on a bench in the sun. Orelia had come reeling down the walk, wearing a heavy gray coat, vaguelyRussian, buttoned to the chin; the color, herself, of ashes. She fell onto the bench.
There were few black students at Columbia, and none, he had thought, as beautiful as she, but she carried the books, wore the jeans, the leather Frye boots, that were the insignia of Columbiana. On closer look he noticed she was perspiring and that her hands were trembling.
“You okay?” he’d asked.
And with a directness that would never cease to amaze him, no matter how long he knew her, she said, “I have cramps, and I’m starving to death.”
“Why,” he’d said, “that’s great news; the cramps, I mean.” It was every month to the girls he dated.
She looked at him as if he were a fool.
“It isn’t great news?”
She said nothing. Her head had slumped into his side.
By the time she came to, John and one of his classmates had lugged her upstairs to John’s room and she was stretched out on the sofa.
“Where am I?” she asked,
The washing machine needed a part; he’d found the problem and now held it, a rusting valve, in his hand. He called to ask Orelia if she’d like to go into town with him to fetch it, but she was at the kitchen table busy with some drawings.
Spread out all around her were sketches of a house showing different angles, with lots of cutaways, so you could see where a new room, window or greenhouse could be joined. This particular house was an old Berkeley brown shingle in the flats, and the owner wanted to add a space off the second floor that would permit something of a view.
“It will be strictly an illusion,” Orelia said when she first showed the sketches to John. “But a nice one. His view will actually be of a long row of his neighbors’ backyards, but the addition will be from the one angle that will make them seem to be an uninterrupted garden.”
Finding these special angles for her clients was a great satisfaction to her, and also to those who sought her services—more and more as time went on—for when you entered an Orelia Moonsun redesigned house, no matter where you were, youhad the instant illusion of being someplace better. Someplace greener, more spacious, more airy and free.
She herself could never live, really live, in the city, but for those who could or must, hers was the eye to show them how it might be done. She could create a forest out of one tree, a mountain out of a hill, and a meadow out of a handful of flowers and a bush. It was because she needed to leave the city and find a place in the country that she’d gone off on the consulting job. She hated to travel, but the amount of money offered was just enough to make a down payment on some land they’d seen that supported a small house. It had been hard for her to leave him, John remembered, as he drove off to the hardware store; they had both cried.
They’d cried only partly because they would miss each other. They cried because it was so good between them finally: good friends, good sex, good companionship, even good food (they were cooking more together and going out less); they felt the risk the long separation might mean. But she had gone off, because she felt she had to, by train—she refused quite utterly to fly except when she had to cross the ocean—and he had waved after her as the bright blue-and-white Amtrak train left the station.
Then he had returned to her apartment, to her bed, where he had been so happy, where so many discoveries of various kinds had been made, and he had thought, as he often did, of the rather curious way they had met. She’d had cramps. She’d said she had cramps. Anyway, it was the lifetime ago when he was a hostile pre-law student at Columbia (hostile because the very books he must read oppressed his spirit, they were so dully exacting) and he was sitting on a bench in the sun. Orelia had come reeling down the walk, wearing a heavy gray coat, vaguelyRussian, buttoned to the chin; the color, herself, of ashes. She fell onto the bench.
There were few black students at Columbia, and none, he had thought, as beautiful as she, but she carried the books, wore the jeans, the leather Frye boots, that were the insignia of Columbiana. On closer look he noticed she was perspiring and that her hands were trembling.
“You okay?” he’d asked.
And with a directness that would never cease to amaze him, no matter how long he knew her, she said, “I have cramps, and I’m starving to death.”
“Why,” he’d said, “that’s great news; the cramps, I mean.” It was every month to the girls he dated.
She looked at him as if he were a fool.
“It isn’t great news?”
She said nothing. Her head had slumped into his side.
By the time she came to, John and one of his classmates had lugged her upstairs to John’s room and she was stretched out on the sofa.
“Where am I?” she asked,
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