Leigh Clement was not an attractive woman. She never turned heads--not even when she was twenty and at the peak of health, fair and smooth-browed. She supposed that the men in her life chased her for the only reason boys ever chased girls: the scar left in her trousers from where a girl's future happiness was cut from her in the womb. Leigh took herself for what she was and never told herself lies. It made things easier when Seymour, Daniel, Barnaby, and Ritchie left her. Her truth made things easier to break off with Joseph, Nigel, and Christopher. She held it close to her. She said it to herself as she faced the mirror. "I am not an attractive woman." She said it when men tried to pick her up in bars. She said it when women looked at her enviously. She said it when her father complimented her appearance at Christmas. She said it when her mother questioned the viability of a single woman living alone.
What Leigh never recognized was that her hair was beautiful, despite mistreatment. Her legs were sensuous, despite covering. Her waist was apparent, despite jacketing. Her voice was soft, despite confidence. her hands were delicate, despite misuse. What Leigh never noticed was that she really was quite beautiful. So, when anyone paid her a compliment, she would repeat again "I am not an attractive woman" as if to make it an impenetrable shell through which no arrow could ever pierce.
This morning, Leigh Clement broke the heart of another man. She finished with him in the small restaurant around the corner from the park where the two had first met. Tristan was five feet and ten inches in height yet carried himself as if six inches taller. They hadn't quite fallen in love, but were at the awkward almost stage in which the man has decided his commitment but the woman, fearful, holds back the true depth of her soul for fear that she'll drown herself. Leigh had never drowned; she took snorkeling lessons most summers at a beach near her summer home. Tristan was nothing if not sweet to her during the whole of their relationship, but she felt herself suffocated by his constant attention and doting. When Leigh pulled out her own chair and sat down to announce quite plainly that she did not see a future in their relationship, thank you, and she felt that all this business of friendship was propped up on the back of an ill-begotten sexual desire, long ago forgotten by both parties, and seeing as how a friendship with no basis in reality cannot survive, she had thought it best if neither of them met anymore, don't you think, at that moment Tristan looked every inch of his not inconsiderable five feet and ten inches of height, yet was somehow greatly diminished. Leigh moved to stand, and instead Tristan grasped her hand quite urgently and finally sat opposite her.
He said, quite slowly, "Everyone is beautiful in their own way. Few people are the most beautiful in their own way, and very few are the most beautiful in quite so many ways as you."
Leigh allowed his proverb to run its course, then lifted her sunhat from the table, stood, and whispered "I am not an attractive woman."
She left, and hoped that the next man would fight her more when she said it.
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This feels like an echo.
ReplyDeleteThat is also enigmatic. Congratulations.
ReplyDeleteThank you; thank you very much.
ReplyDeleteI . . . hmm. There are layers, and most of it would probably annoy you.
Okay, well, maybe I'll just say this one other thing. Leigh Clement reminds me of pretty much every woman I've gotten to know well. I think you've managed to capture something with which almost every (if not every) woman struggles.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I suppose that's safe enough.
Yes. I figured at least that much out, anyway. It's a terrible, terrible truth, isn't it? Ugh. WELL anyway.
ReplyDeleteThe alternative is worse: the girl is pretty and she knows it, and nothing you can ever do for her will ever measure up. But those women are a little too too if you know what I mean, which you probably don't.
Well, I thought I knew what you meant until you said I didn't, so there's that.
ReplyDeleteIt is and isn't a terrible truth. I think, anyway.
I don't think that's the only alternative, but that's neither here nor there. I am reminded, however, of what Haluska said in explanation for "the good ones are always taken."
The good ones are only taken periodically. When you edge in and steal them between periods, they're usually not good ones anymore.
ReplyDeleteSad truth.
That's sad.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if this is more or less sad, but Haluska said that the good ones are always taken because they are good because they are taken.
I've always wondered about that.