From Dr. Varga and the Lady, By Alton Miller page 3
Excerpt from Dr. Varga and the Lady
By Alton Miller
And anyway, I found this out later much later when I was no longer a young man that Dianna was not the simple serene moonchild I had made her out to be, had in fact created for my own reassurance, for reinforcement of my presumptions and prejudices and predilections, was in fact as amiably inconstant as the moon itself, which hung behind her now in the fading dusklight, she the skilled and shameless huntress Dianna, down in the depths of my soul where she had made her burrow, had dug herself in, and anyway she was there that midsummer night with the moon hanging low and slow airplanes floating across on their final approach to Washington National, when all the kids were flicking their frisbees or flexing their pecs, the fairies and the jocks and families with their stollers, there on the grassy slopes that tilted into Rock Creek down below P Street, prance street, strut your stuff street, she in her widebrimmed black strawhat, a black halo for a pagan saint, setting off the crisp white blouse she wore, open now and unbuttoned in the summerheat, her breasts freely, frankly flashing around, tanned and white and pink where they peeked through, purple even, even at a distance where I picked her out of the crowd, attracted by her suddenly, with a jolt, as if of a sudden swept into the riptide under the surface over which she was moving like a wave, in the glory of that summernight her gravity irresisible, even at thirty meters, the dark navy heavy denim wraparound skirt that advertised her essential deepdown nakedness, one pull of a strap and the girl is unwrapped in the evening shadows under the salmoncolored skies with their silver moon, one good sneeze and what's left of her blouse's cling will vanish in a whisper and one toss of her strong head strong as a mare's head will send her black halo hopping with the frisbees and release the goddess in all her naked glory and anyway she was wrapped tight as we used to say, needing no makeup, the white crisp, the navy in place, the hat framing a head straight out of a Renaissance panel, arm-in-arm with the man I would be, myself, twenty years hence but it was not twenty years or thirty years into the future it was now and I was young and foolish and furious and frustrated and full of myself and so unable to see past the blinding breasts, her ravishing, regal frame-filling glory, as she smiled her old man a genuine smile, a smile for a friend, as knowing as the wink of a secret lover, as embracing as a mother's welcome, and then she waved to me across the field past the murmur of summernight lovers, past the peals of laughter that exploded like little bombs in a minefield of private pleasures, past the pouting whines of a small child losing her ice cream, my Dianna on the arm of an old man carelessly including me with her casual wave, her interlocked arm unmoving, smooth, secure in his tolerant possession, he wearing her so casually on his left arm, his light summer suit the perfect foil for her bold white and black-blue, his head of white hair setting off his tanned face, in perfect contrast with her face, a second moon, in its black circle frame, her wide full-lipped smile the warm center of the night, and anyway, the summernight pressed in like a carnival on all sides, the moon dogged me overhead, keeping tabs on me, watching my suffering with a nasty grin, and the noise of the conversations I was trying in my head or anyway in my heart, pounding in its cage like a frantic injured squirrel, the jangling of screamed advice and another quietly desperate voice that told me to get away, get out, take flight, flee the scene but anyway where could we run, my heart and my noise and I, where would we get another turn at bat still if there had been anybody at all any soul who could have salvaged my pride, salved the pain, stuffed the hole she had left, if any of those sudden peals of laughter had held any joy for me, if I could even have invented an imaginary sudden someone, pantomimed a pull of obligation and disappeared into the wings with a regretful wave, if I could have changed my name on the spot, jumped out of my skin, I would have, I would have done it but they closed the distance and now there materialized a path between us, a visible virtual connection, a way to close the gap, an evaporation of distance and it would not be possible, would not be, be possible to avoid, and all I could do on that summernight in the moon's tide in the light of her black halo with halloo and hey bro and happy vibes racketing across the crowd, the goodwill washing me like salty waves over battered seaweed, like a bare survivor, was smile and say Dianna how's it going.