The Babes and the Wolf

Character Assassination I

She’s a 55 year old Caucasian-American woman of Cuban descent with warm brown hair that falls in tendrils, brushing her rounded shoulders, brown eyes of a similar hue, light skin with a hint of crème. A long hooked nose – long features in general – and a softly drawn, age worn face. She’s 5’5” at a plush 169.49 lbs with shoulders carved into a habitual slouch. Her cream colored, ¾ sleeve blouse is spotted with burgundy ink blotches strongly resembling hearts. Green khaki shorts. Her eyes wear a perpetual look of faint worry.

He is a tall, thin, almost stately looking 50 year old man who moved to the US at age 19 with his family (now dead). If it wasn’t for the shocks of silver creeping back through his jet black hair from his temples, people might mistake him for a man in his late thirties/early forties – probably with a stressful job. He holds his entire body very straight: hands folded neatly across his stomach with the last two inches of his heart printed tie laced loosely between his thumb and palm. Back straight, shoulders squared, face guarded but not hyper alert or hostile, his posture is discreet and self-contained. There is a sense that the space around him is immutable, deceptively placid like the moonlit surface of a shaded lake nestled deep within a forest. Meanwhile, not fifty feet away, headlights fly down the interstate.

She leans into him: arm nestled halfway under his as if seeking to hide; hand tucked carefully into his thigh; legs resting gently against him. Their spaces do not bleed into one another’s. But like once distinct roots, have grown into a fit - interlocking pieces of a puzzle. Her space does not compromise his and his does not overtake hers – yet they overlap perfectly.

She sits forward, eyes alert – a sudden jerky motion – body etched in a hunch while he barely moves, even as she taps her fingers absentmindedly, one by one, and repositions them on his thigh. Reassured by some observation, she softens slightly.

Some long moments later, she leans in an inch or two, preoccupied eyes darting generally toward him, then toward the window, and back in brief and repeated intervals. Her lips shape rapid words. Then, a reaction: his bottomless eyes, suffused momentarily with a warmth that seems foreign amid the deep seeded neutrality of his face, lock squarely onto hers, neck shifting almost imperceptibly toward her. He responds, face unreadable. And yet she seems to find, between her furtive glances, some confirmation there. The two slip comfortably back into silence, until finally the woman jerks once more forward in her seat, squeezing his thigh. His eyes return to attention as he follows her onto the train platform.