Eat a Peach
Tom and Shirley were in love and in debt. He was an aspiring actor and she, a moon-eyed wannabe ballerina. They lived in a small apartment on Bleecker. He loved the way he could make her laugh or cry. They threw parties. They had plenty of friends. Sometimes at these parties, he wore a cape and mask from an off-off Broadway play he presently co-starred in, a surreal version of Shakespeare's A Midsummer's Night Dream. She served guests exotic parfaits with French names. She bought embroidered doilies from the discount community store in Noho. He did recreational drugs but never before a rehearsal. She was insanely jealous of women with slim hips and feet like feathers. She wanted to know who among the faces in the street could perform a perfect pirouette and not complain of heel spurs.
At night, after they made love, their bellies hummed like two hungry cats. When will we ever strike it rich, she said, sitting up, her arms wrapped around her girlish knees. He lit a joint and said, someday, someday, we'll look back on ourselves and think, love was the greatest booty we hid under our bed. Too many people, he said, make detours and remain impotent savages with civilized smiles. She was now training for her role in The Flamethrowers, a dance by The Martha Graham Company. She was prone to fainting spells precipitated by periods of anxiety. If I land this role, she told him, the world will know me.
And it was always late at night, when she woke and said she had a strange craving for a peach. A ripe juicy peach, like the kind they sold a few blocks down at the Korean deli. Groaning, he wiped his eyes and complied. He felt like an idiot paying the man behind the counter for a paper bag of peaches. Imagine what he thought. Who at this hour eats peaches?
Some months later, she never returned home from a dance practice. He waited and fidgeted, glanced at his watch and paced the room. He called the dance studio; he called their friends. Then he found the note taped to the kitchenette refrigerator: I'm sorry, honey. This isn't working out. Good bye and I hope you find your dreams as mine have changed.
He couldn't sleep at night. He lost interest in shaving and grooming. Weeks passed; he showed up late at rehearsals. He was fired from the off-off Broadway play. At night, he busied himself drawing pictures, pictures that he called her. They were his impressions of her, but not in the sense of Impressionism – Monet and the like. Tom did not use color.
During the day, he wandered the side streets, approached strangers in bistros and cafes sipping on a cafe latte, showed them his drawings. Have you seen her, he asked. They studied the drawings, looked up at him in a long curious gaze. They shook their heads and returned to their mocha coffees with whipped cream.
Years passed. He met her one night at a party given by a co-worker. He was now a successful broker, seducing men with junk bonds and women in the night classes he taught part time on personal finance.
When she first spotted him, she feigned an air of surprise. In fact, for a moment or two, she pretended not to remember him. She told him that now she was married to an accountant, the one talking to a salesman in the corner, a rotund man with a nerdish smile. Sustaining a nervous smile, she kept looking back at him. She had given up dancing long ago, she said. He noticed she had developed a twitch that he never had seen before.
So what ever happened he asked. That time you walked out on me. Couldn't you have least talked things over? A blush spread across her face, and she looked to the floor. Excuse me, she said, my husband wants to ask me something. He noticed her glittering evening gown, and the way her pyramid earrings shone in the light.
My God, he thought, how things change for the better.
He walked up to her, smiled at her husband, introduced himself as an old friend of her family's. Then, he slid his hand into his suit pocket, and handed her what he called a drawing he once made of her. Then, he left, not looking anyone in the face.
She opened the folded piece of paper. It was a drawing, a pencil sketch, of a peach. Two round nubs for the big sad eyes, a curvy cut marking the lips. Underneath, it read: Shirley.
• Kyle Hemmings holds an MFA in creative writing and loves to cook, bake, and often burns whatever he cooks or bakes. He also loves to listen to The Beach Boys sing of an endless summer. He lives and works in New Jersey.
