“And what do you do in your spare time?”
The lamp on the table made her eyes silvery, full of liquid light. Even the pearl at her earlobe looked alive, like a drop of water that a touch might destroy.
“I—”
Should she tell her she usually worked on her stage models? Sketched and painted sometimes, carved things like cats’ heads and tiny figures to go in her ballet sets, but that she liked best to take long walks practically anywhere, liked best simply to dream? Therese felt she did not have to tell her. She felt the woman’s eyes could not look at anything without understanding completely.
Therese took some more of her drink
liking it, though it was like the woman to swallow, she thought, terrifying, and strong.
The woman nodded to the waiter, and two more drinks arrived.
“I like this.”
“What?” Therese asked.
“I like it that someone sent me a card, someone I didn’t know. It’s the way things should be at Christmas. And this year I like it especially.”
“I’m glad.” Therese smiled,
wondering if she were serious.
“You’re a very pretty girl,” she said.
“And very sensitive, too, aren’t you?”
She might have been speaking of a doll, Therese thought, so casually had she told her she was pretty.
“I think you are magnificent,” Therese said with the courage of the second drink, not caring how it might sound, because she knew the woman knew anyway.
Text from Carol, or The Price of Salt, by Patricia Highsmith.