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Stories

The Worse Offense

by George Liebermann

As soon as Robert turned her down, pretty Rosalie decided that she hated men. Mathew was kind of like his name, heavy set as a bear from the mountains of Wyoming. When he inherited three thousand acres of fine pine forest, added flatland and a mill, he decided to get married. He wanted no local girl. When he will drive through Jackson in his convertible Cad with his blonde blue-eyed California wife, people in Jackson will stay in line to see her. On a Sunday afternoon he drove his truck to Back Bay in Irvine, California. He took with him a Wall Street, business man he was. First two pelicans got his attention as they flew across the bay, then a stork-like bird amazed him as it stood motionless on one leg for so long that it looked lifeless. He took note of the bird and decided to buy a camera. Out of nowhere a woman appeared on the bench across. A short glance at her returned him to his paper. Another glance forced him to have a longer look at her silky blonde hair and long lashed blue-gray eyes in a triangular but well padded feline face. So much beauty amazed Mathew more than the one legged bird. She looked to be be absorbed by a book. He made enough noise with his newspaper to wake a cat, but she did not budge. Mathew had no inhibition in approaching a girl. He thought he knew them in and out. Those in Jackson, anyhow. “May I ask your permission to join you? I feel rather lonely on this bench,” he said. She did not take her eyes off the book, but accorded him a short glance. “The park is community property, so is the bench,” she replied. It took half an hour and Mathew left with her phone number in his pocket. When he looked back, saw her limp away from the bench. All the illusions cumulated in his mind during those thirty minutes went up the smoke of the cigarette he lit. He threw her phone number in a trashcan. Next Sunday he reappeared with his newly bought camera. He left the journal on the bench, did not have to look for the bird, he was the same place as if cut with scissors of a black paper, gave him enough time to take ten pictures when he saw behind the black one legged silhouette the girl walking toward the same bench. When he approached, she had his paper in her hands. Mathew swallowed in dry, managed to smile and talk himself into being a nice gentleman with good manners when he walked up to her. She looked through him. “I call myself lucky, misplaced your number,” he said. “How stupid of me; did I give you my phone number?” Mathew blushed, thought of how unfair mother nature sometimes is in combining such prettiness with a deformity. He wiped the bench with his handkerchief, sat down and tried to recall the little he read about women. “You are pretty enough to make one ignore such a minor defect. I recalled you many times and tried to find your number,” he said. She laughed at him. “No, you didn't. I learned how men feel about such a minor defect,” she said. Mathew felt hurt, he wanted to show that he was not an accidental male who takes a little detail out of context when the whole is so charming. He told her so, surprised at his own sophistication. “You look like the girl I dreamed to marry. One glance at you caught my heart by surprise, it sped up like a firebird. I will not say that I fell in love with you, but began to occupy a little spot in my heart and the spot grew by the day. I phoned my mom in Wyoming and told her about you. But to be honest when I told her that you...” Mathew coughed a few times. The face of the girl turned mean, like that of an angry cat ready to get her claws into his eyes. “You never called your mother, you never recalled that I existed, not that I give a damn. You look so repulsive to me that if I were alone on an island I favored a chimp if you wanted to know.” No woman ever talked to him like that. He froze and turned so listless with anger that he only came to himself when he saw her graceful silhouette as she departed with a gazelle gait and disappeared from site. He ran after her to make sure that he saw it right. She never looked back.

© 2001 By George Liebermann

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