“Let’s luxuriate, darling,” she whispers. “For the bay tree is blooming.”
Who am I to argue?
We sit on a blanket.
She’s near.
Her breath. A kiss of whiskey, a splash of raw red onion. She smells warm.
I watch her teal shift shift dangerously in the mild yet strong spring breeze. Her legs and arms; already tanned bronze by the indigo sun that seems moribund.
She tells me she strives to grow large onions.
“Why?”
“I’m like an onion.”
“Layers?” I say.
She shakes her head. Her raven hair like a whirling dervish. But not.
“No, silly. It’s obvious why.”
I’m beguiled.
Out before us, The Plain of Unfulfilled Desires. Distant.
“Tell me why.”
She comes closer.
Next to her on the blanket (a shade of mauve, I believe), there’s a bunch of Tropea Lunga. A rubber band binds the multiple onion stocks in check.
But is strained.
As if the quality of mercy is no longer merciful, but the quantity is still “okay.”
Like the tension between us.
Especially the tension of that shift.
I motion to the Tropea Lunga i.s.o. The Explanation.
She smiles. “This scene would be better in a diner. You know that.”
“You wouldn’t wear that shift. In a diner.”
“Depends on the diner.”
And she pulls out her accordian. “Londonderry Air” fills the aire.
And so the afternoon goes. Bees continue to pollinate, entering the bulging fruit tree blossoms.
And the sun, now a different shade of moribund, starts the climb down from Zenith.
The Tropea Lunga grow limp, which is a shame.
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