Advent
[image error]Immanence hissed in her skull. Damaris had overfilled the afternoon with tasks, determined not spend it in a state of anticipation. Now her mascara was clumping lashes that were suddenly too thin. Her lipstick bled into the fine crevices at the edge of her lips. Had they been there yesterday? Her bra felt too tight, her heels too high. Why was she putting herself through this shit?
On the dresser, her mobile buzzed and danced sideways: not a call, just a message. “In a taxi. On my way.” That put an end to the pissing about. There would be no backing out, no out-of-the-blue emergency, no apologetic cancellation. Damaris slipped the phone into her purse, but fatalism pushed her out the door of the flat.
The street was alive. People strolling in the twilight. The old buildings losing the heat of the day to the shadows. Damaris forced herself to slow down as she reached the Alameda and slid into the crowd waiting at the cross-walk. Someone was wearing too much cologne; the kind mothers used to slather on their kids after bath time. To her left, an old man in a pale linen suit rummaged in his pocket, pulled out a handkerchief, and blew his nose noisily. To her right, a twenty-something woman with a bad dye job was jabbering away at an impassive looking boyfriend.
“I told her. Cook your own dinner, bitch! That’s what…” The light changed, the crowd convulsed and Damaris crossed over the four lanes of heat-rippled asphalt.
To Damaris, this city had always been about cycles. Of light and dark, of winds and still air, of noisy morning bustle and sweltering afternoon silences. Heat and reprieve. Heat and reprieve.
It had been scorching the day her train had pulled out of the station and, from the open window of the carriage, she had watched Lena on the platform, waving, growing smaller. For Damaris, youth had been all about leaving. She had not even missed her lover; the world beyond this city had been so big and so distracting. Now she could not comprehend how her heart hadn’t shattered at that parting. Lena, pulling strands of red hair from the corner of her mouth, pale lips pursing at the tartness of wine, skin that smelled like new milk and a cunt that tasted of oranges – those tender morsels of love had followed Damaris to so many cities through the years, survived the pyre of so many subsequent lovers. Keepsakes lodged in the marrow of her bones, remembrances brined in time.
Twilight stole colour from the broad and gaudy shop windows on Calle Larios. The street was crowded with shoppers and people out looking for an evening meal. Of course, the Bar Central had closed years ago – now it was a chain store selling hair accessories. But through the flurry of emails, that’s where they’d agreed to meet, refusing time its due.
She stood just outside the door of the shop, cursing herself now for not choosing a less crowded spot, peering through the pedestrians in both directions, looking for that coppery hair.
“Hi, hi!”
Damaris swiveled at the sing-song Scandinavian voice to face a tall woman with deep creases in her tanned and freckled face and an impossibly broad smile.
“Jesus. Where’s… where’s your hair?”
“It went grey so I got rid of it.” The woman passed a hand over her cap of silver brush. “What? You can’t love me without it?”
“Fuck, of course I can.” Damaris wrapped her arms around Lena and, grinning like a lunatic, pressed her face into the crook of her neck. “I can’t believe you’re here.”
Lena pulled out of the embrace and pointedly gazed down into Damaris’ eyes. “Then kiss me, properly. Just to prove it.”
