Felt
Her hair was a weeping willow in the parlor light, pulled back and dangling like a stray bunch of autumn color. There were marks of gentle age in her face, a sign that time didn’t mind her legacy. And something in the way she flipped the cards, the snap and smack of quick shuffling - it resounded like a steady rhythm of utmost confidence. The Queen of Hearts. I made myself believe that her beauty was predetermined. Of course, she never understood the things I felt before. Not for women. Or my changing belief about the meaninglessness of card playing.
My eyes weren’t fixed on the draw that evening. I found them wandering to the nape of her neck, where strands of red curls grazed her skin like a vine.
She sipped liquor and tossed a new hand my way.
“You don’t play much anymore. Or so I’m told.” The smell of alcohol trailed her words.
“Well, you know such things can’t last forever, Rose. At least not trivialities like paper pictures on a felt surface.”
There were reasons I hadn’t kept up with the gambling.
Chance gave me anxiety now. I couldn’t reasonably explain why. Not fully.
From the moment I’d given up vice, specters haunted my nights.
It is true that lonely old men don’t meet their maker peacefully. The celestial judges wanted me running, confused, riled up with self-loathing so the last few years of my life could sit stagnant in a pool of regret.
These weren’t voices or illusions. But thoughts. Expressions. Things I felt out of place somewhere in the midst of my dreaming and restless reality. I’d force myself to get up and wander the rooms of my home, peek into my study and sift through old spoils of victories I didn’t consider fair.
Each one made my chest hurt. Sometimes the ache would pierce.
Many mornings I woke without a lingering trace of fear - like I’d gone mad in my isolation, a surreal sensation that I’d dreamed all that shuffling about the halls. Yet the phantoms curiously lingered.
Curled in the corners of my pain were mistakes obscured with time, choices that caused suffering far into the future of a life willed to be fast. Alone. And on most every level, missing pieces like the chess set in my lounge.
I believed that quitting cards could mend the holes. Or if not completely repair, then create an exile profound enough to impose harsh introspection - what I now consider the worst part of being left to your devices. Reflections of a rich man are shallower than his tendencies to gamble…and much more synthetic than the lack of intimacy with a spouse.
It is foolish to even admit I invited Rose with the intention of filling such voids. We knew each other for an extended period, long before my country estate had been handed down from my deceased parents. As teenagers, we fooled around in the wine cellars, chasing one another and spilling fine spirits as we stumbled through the passages. On a particular August afternoon we kissed. And every moment since then, I’d been a complacent adolescent. Never growing old, never committing to warmth.
I was searching for her lips all the while.
Rose stared at the tall clock behind my seat. It was nearing eleven, and we’d barely spoken since her arrival.
“Can I get you something to drink, then? Should we retire to the study?”
She shut her eyes and placed one hand under her cheek, resting her head and slouching onto the table. Her body communicated unease. The air was ripe for change.
“You haven’t felt in a long time.”
Her voice was a razor in the silence.
“What?”
“You haven’t felt anything but this table in forever, have you, Alan?”
I watched her tight frown morph into a smile. She pushed her arm outward, stretching across the width of the table and brushing each card, chip, and glass onto the wooden floor.
It’s crash was beautiful mess.
“Alan…cards, and wine, and this house…they don’t hold grudges. You know that. That’s why you quit. They control but never enable someone else to have it.”
She paused.
Rose stood up from her chair and slowly tread toward me. I could hear the click of her heels as she inched forward.
“The only ghost in here is you. I can see the fright all over your face.” She clasped my hand, looking me straight in the face. I could smell her breath as she moved close.
“But you’ve got to learn that age isn’t the wrath of God. That mistakes and squandered time aren’t all you’ve got to show to the other players. The gambler, in the end, has to make his own odds, Alan.”
She surprised me with a kiss. For the first time in decades, I tasted that summer on my lips.
Rose pulled away and folded her hands, awaiting an answer.
“We aren’t children anymore, Rose. I can’t expect myself to make dreams come true. You’re widowed, alone, but content in all you’ve done. I’m none of the above. A King Of Diamonds. Nothing more. And well beyond the worth of your graces.”
I abruptly rose and walked toward the room’s south exit.
Turning back for a moment, I saw all of life’s goodness written in her posture -a staunch expression that wouldn’t budge - a woman in need of proving that her beauty, the beauty of all that is possible in love, is predetermined.
“If you’re the King of Diamonds, Alan….I’m the Queen of Hearts.”
Even though she meant it, I never felt it was deserved.
She followed me upstairs. And into the lifetime thereafter.
***
When he's not writing, Jon likes to waste his time in front of
countless movies, video games, comic books, and other delightful atrocities of
pop culture on a regular basis. He is a native of Staten Island, New York and
is an alumnus of Wagner College. His writing has been previously seen in SI
View Magazine, The Staten Island Advance, and 365Tomorrows.com.
