Marie 1


"... start conversations in the middle, it drives me kray-see!"

It was strange to hear that cute Quebecois accent carrying so much rage and venom. Her brow furrowed and her eyes, usually such a charming leaf green, became the color of ashes. Her hair swarmed in a cloud of silver curls that was much longer than I remembered it being.

"You expect me - " She pushed me so hard and so unexpectedly that I fell. " - to be able to read your mind, know what you - " I lay there motionless, my hands under my hips, and looked up at her, astonished. She pouted and gestured, seeming to try to pull the next words out of the air. It was still for just a second, and I shifted my weight; she snapped back to attention. "All I ask of you is a little - " She drew a deep and ragged breath, opened her mouth to shout, and suddenly, instantly was calm. I blinked, and although her eyes were now the pale green of apples, streaks and dots of silver seemed to writhe in her irises. Her hair, dark with glints of red, hung down straight, barely past her chin.

I felt little pricklies on my forearms and on the nape of my neck. Was I losing touch with reality? Did I really just see her appearance change? Her hair and eyes, I thought, but not her face. Her stature was the same, her demeanor, her accent, usually barely detectable, had gotten thick enough that someone overhearing her would have thought Canuck instantly. Before I could think much about this, she reached down and pulled me to my feet. "I am needing to take my mother shopping tonight, are you going out? When will you be home?" Her accent had subsided, and she was so calm now that I decided that I would treat what had just transpired as though it had not happened; if I thought about it at all, it would be as though it had been a dream that I was having trouble remembering.

She stood close, patiently looking up into my eyes, waiting for an answer. I realized from her tone that she had decided that I was going out. I wondered if I had any choice, after all, I had had no plans to do so.

I waggled my left hand vaguely and glanced at the ceiling. "I, uh ..."

"You should call that very tall friend you have, I think you have much fun with him." She reached a silver fingernail to flick at my chin. A speck of lint? "He frightens me in a way I do not like, but I think he will not hurt you." Why did she say that? "I will see you when the sun comes up."

She threw her arms around me, squeezed hard and kissed me with an intensity that always astonished me, and instantly disengaged. One second she was standing a foot away from me, the next I tasted mint and something like coconut, the next she was fifteen feet away, the door half open, the knob in her hand.

Her lips pleated briefly and she raised her free hand to point at me. Did her hair lighten and lengthen? Did her eyes lose their color? I blinked and she was as always, pixie-like, dark, sassy, short hair, glowing green eyes, very slightly overfull lips that now were lifted at the edges and showed teeth that were so white that from here they looked like they were lit from inside. The pointing hand now waved cheerily.

"Au revoir, mon ami" she called, and suddenly I was alone.

I turned and dropped at the recliner, not trusting myself to take the single step that would have allowed me to sit down properly. I caught the edge of the chair and slid to the floor. Ah well, at least I'd be able to lean my back against it.

I sat and tried not to think too much. Marie was becoming less known to me even as I spent more time with her. I had never encountered anyone as mercurial. Her moods - or at least their outward manifestations - changed so abruptly that I was beginning to think that I was imagining the changes. Perhaps she was just a little different from most folks, and I simply was not yet equipped to read her signals properly. After all, I thought, everyone else acts pretty much as I would predict, based on what I already think I know about them. So, hallucinations are out - replaced by misunderstanding.

Anyway, I mused, she seems happy as can be. Her mention of seeing me when the sun comes up meant that she would come over after her shift at the lab. These episodes of rage or madness or whatever don't seem to have any permanence. She gets mad, she deals with it, it's over and life goes on. Maybe she's healthier that the rest of us that way. But she changed. I saw her.

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I was working legs that day and was exhausted after an hour and a half under the squat rack; overtraining as usual; showing off as usual. Most gym rats work just their chests and arms, and wear baggy pants to hide their skinny legs. I gloried in legwork, and thrilled at the way it put meat on my thighs and calves, and at the jealous looks it drew from most of the club regulars with their top-heavy, asymmetrical bodies. I remember one of the fellows that I talked to between sets had dubbed me Quadzilla - a reference to the large four-headed quadriceps muscle on the front of the thigh, which on me had grown so massive.

Once he asked me why I spent so much time on legs. There was an aerobics class taking place just then and the dancefloor was next to the weightroom. "Let's go get a drink of water," I suggested and began to lead him along the walkway past the thirty or so jumping women. As we walked, I whispered to him, "watch their eyes." He looked a question at me, and I responded by giving a headjerk at the aerobics floor. Some new wave industrial piece was blaring, and a somewhat chunky instructrix in a too-small leotard was shrieking to be heard over it. At her order, the class turned in our direction for about six beats, before making another clockwise shift past us. In that second and a half, about two thirds of the women noticed us in our walk. They ranged in age from perhaps sixteen to almost seventy, I would guess. Almost without exception, their eyes would slide past my companion's big upper body and lock onto my legs. When they made the next turn, half of them were still looking.

We drank and returned to the weightroom. "So when can we start working legs together?" was all he said.

(******************************************************)

Anyhow, on the day I met her I was tired but elated. I'd been doing strength work and had managed to lock out seven plates, and I was about as pleased with myself as I could be.

(******************************************************)

Perhaps I should explain what the first part of the last sentence means? In powerlifting, one of the movements is called the deadlift. In it, one stands with a weighted bar in front of him and lifts it using only the strength of his legs. The bar is gripped with the bare hands, one palm toward the lifter's body, one turned away. The bar is about eight inches from the floor and an inch and a quarter thick. The bar is knurled, but applying chalk dust to one's hands improves the feeling of control. The most popular way to address the bar is with feet planted the width of one's shoulders apart, the tops of one's thigh just below parallel (to the floor), the back held as close to vertical as possible, and the hands just outboard of the knees. Then all y' do is straighten your legs. If everything goes well, the lifter ends up standing with arms straight down, holding a heavy barbell against his thighs, back arched slightly. In a successful lift, the knees are unbent, and the weight is said to have been locked out. At this point, if the lifter is near his lifting capacity, he simply opens his hands and steps back from the bouncing barbell. In a bad lift, the legs may not straighten, the back may be bent, and the lifter can seriously injure himself - although this is rare. Because of the potential for injury and the amount of weight that may be getting dropped on the floor - not to mention the blow to the egos of the non-participant observers - heavy deadlifts are strictly forbidden in almost every spa type gym - which generally don't attract the serious muscleheads anyway. The plates weigh forty five pounds apiece and are counted by pairs (two plates means two plates on each end of the barbell), the bar itself also weighs forty five pounds. Thus, when the narrator says he locked out seven plates, he means that he lifted six hundred seventy five pounds from the ground to a point about a foot above his knees. While this is pretty impressive, it is not incredible. In any large metropolitan area, there are probably two hundred men that could do this, two thirds of them pro or college athletes. The official record in competition is around eleven hundred pounds.]

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I was standing, leaning against some machine that came to about shoulder height. Behind me was a full wall mirror. I stood head down, looking back down along my side at my reflection. My right calf trailed behind me and I tried to "crack the glass," flexing this hard-to-develop muscle group for whoever might be watching. The relaxed ball o f yarn tightened into a pair of hot air balloons tugging at their rigging. It impressed even me. I looked to the righthand wall - which was also a mirror - and saw the reflection of a startlingly pretty woman. She was tall and busty with short dark hair, a thin nose, and a slightly square chin - very clean Breton good looks, I thought. Her appearance reminded me of Tinkerbelle. At that instant, she looked in my direction, glanced at my - what now seemed to me childish and ridiculous - posing and slid past it to look through the far mirror at my face. A trick of the light flashed her eyes at me, pale, metallic green, like the eyes of a cat, startled at night by the beam of a flashlight. Daunted, I looked away and immediately turned and straightened, away from the mirror, and looked in her actual direction. She wasn't there.

A trick of the mirror? Had I seen the reflection of a reflection? That's how once I discovered that I was losing hair. The top of my head was becoming bald, but the front looked okay in the mirror over my bathroom sink. My hair loss was invisible to me. Then one day in some gym, I was resting between sets of squats, leaning against the rack when I looked up at the ceiling and saw the reflection of some guy facing away from me. Because so few people have well-developed legs, the size of his calves caught my eye, and I thought - now that sumbitch has got himself some impressive legs, it's a shame the poor bastard is bald on top. I turned around to see who the guy with the big legs and the bald spot was, and nobody was there. Bewildered, I spun around and saw that as I turned back to the other fellow's reflection, he was in the process of looking away from me. I was amazed. I was the man who wasn't there. And not a single damn person had told me that I had no hair on top!

So I slowly scanned the room, not getting panicky. She still wasn't there. Oh well. It was time to go anyhow. I walked to the fountain, drank. As I straightened, I saw her practically next to where I stood. She was on a legpress machine, moving a mass that would have been impressive for a man half again as big as she. Her eyes were closed, her face relaxed. Her forehead shimmered with perspiration, but her breathing was shallow. She moved smoothly, every part of the motion taking place at exactly the same speed; her every breath exactly as deep as the last. I realized I was staring and I really did not want her to embarrass me with a glance twice in five minutes. I left before she was finished, before she opened her eyes. On my way to the locker room, one of the trainer/drones that worked the club stopped me to try to get me to convince people that I knew that they should come to buy a membership at this particular club. While I was rebuffing this sales effort, an aerobics class broke up, and the walkway became crowded with departing club members. When the salesman finally allowed me to disengage, I took a step back and started to turn. I felt something soft pressed against the back of my right shoulder. I stopped and turned my head to apologize, looking back across my shoulder. It was her.

We stood there for an eternal instant. Her irises wiggled and spun, green and pale with silver spots and lines . . . and I couldn't move, I couldn't look away. The stars grew old and went out. And I stood with my head twisted back like an owl's, staring into the remarkable eyes of a strange woman whose breasts were crushed into my back. The universe grew cold and dark and I imagined a voice somewhere mumbling something about - okay, maybe that light thing wasn't such a good idea. And I didn't know if I could ever move again, but what did it matter, time has ended, there was no point in considering anything, ever again. And then, with grace and no slightest hint of discomposure, she slowly pulled back, breaking our contact, and stepped away from me.

I turned toward her without looking away from those amazing eyes. I felt idiotic, but at least now my eyes and body were facing the same way. And there was still motion in her irises. She glanced over my shoulder and I looked after. The salesman was still thanking me. I turned back to her. Not only had the instant not been eternal, no time at all had passed.

"Oh. I am so sawREE." Oh my God, a French Accent. I felt a twinge in my loins. I also felt a foreboding that I quickly banished, but it would be back. I had to say something right away.

"I'm confused - why do you waste your time here," I blurted. Her eyes narrowed, and I could see that she was preparing to be offended. Storm clouds gathered on her brow. My throat went tight and I made a clumsy gesture with my left hand. "I mean." I looked her up and down. "You're already perfect."

Aw Christ! I thought. That has got to be the clumsiest, most banal crap I've ever uttered or even heard. I expected her expression to remain frozen, and for her to just push right past me to end this encounter.

But the sun came out from behind the clouds, and her smile banished my dread. And for reasons that I don't understand and almost certainly will not be able to explain adequately, from that moment on, we seem to have become joined at the hip. In many ways, she acts as though we've always been together, as though we were an old married couple.

I am still constantly astonished that a woman so attractive and (as I soon discovered to my grateful surprise) so intelligent would so quickly absorb me into her life and stay interested. But the way reality distorts when we're together troubles me, and I wonder how long this can last. Is it the start of a love across the ages, or something that fifteen years from now I start to write about in order to relive it? . . . to try to understand how things could possibly have gone so wrong?



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