Clothes

I confess I am a clotheshorse. You are also a clotheshorse, you respond. This is a surprise:

each time I see you, you wear the same Lee jeans. You hand me a bag of clothes from your

closet that you no longer wear. These are too nice to donate, you say. In the bag, long pleated

skirts tumble with padded shoulder jackets. The clothes run extra-large, though I do not. I try

them on to confirm. Yes, enormous, and from another time. I feel small inside them.

Couch

You ask me if I want your couch. I recall your couch as pink with a stripe. I do not like pink. I do

not want your couch. I have recently told you that I am searching for a couch, so I cannot now

think of a good way to telI you: I do not want your couch. Instead, we make a plan for me to

view the couch again, as if I could forget that pink couch with the maroon stripe wandering

across it like scabies.

In your living room, the couch is as previously described. I smile and nod and prepare to try out

some of the sentences I practiced on the drive over - not sure if this couch will fit where we had

planned was one of them - when I hear you say a price. I know then that you expect me to give

your money for the couch, that the couch is not free as I had formerly imagined, and now I can

easily say to you, I do not want your couch.

Concert

You invite us to the concert. It is outdoors, and we will meet you there. We bring a mutual friend:

three meeting two. On the hillside, rain hazes our heads. We look for you, but we do not see

you. We stand under a tree to make a plan. The plan is for one of us to circle the grassy hill in

the rain to find you. We do that. We do not find you.

Our mutual friend has a wicker basket filled with crab cakes. The smell of the crab cakes rising

from the basket is pleasant. We decide to sit on a striped blanket under the tree and eat crab

cakes while we consider our plan. Our fingers are sticky with crab and the red sauce our mutual

friend has thoughtfully provided in a blue plastic container. We open a bottle of wine.

One of us circles the hillside again in the rain. A-ha! We find you! You have planted chairs in

front of the stage. These are chairs with awnings that block out sun and rain. We do not have

chairs with awnings or otherwise. We present the merits of our sweet-smelling tree, but you

counter with proximity to stage. We gather our striped blanket and empty basket and join you

there.

The rain is stopping, and we three with the basket are silly now with wine and full bellies

of crab cake, so we do not mind. Our mutual friend burps on the striped blanket and falls asleep.

You two are not silly. You are quiet under your awnings. You are waiting for the music to start.