Décrocher les étoiles

*

Over a long dinner of fish lips, abalone and mango hearts, she recognized that faint glimmer of desire in another man's eyes.

She'd seen it so rarely, that whenever she received such a gaze, it always surprised her out of complacency. Sometimes it came from passing garbage truck drivers, their fetid load as disgusting as their catcalls: "Ang sarap mong kainin!", "Miss, pwede ka bang mauwi?" Also, there were the professors, who, taking a break from their books, saw in her the flesh-and-blood heroine of their tortured imaginations. Then there was that bald, boisterous restaurant proprietor, looking very much like King Mongkut, who'd asked her if he could take her to Paris. She'd actually considered it. Why not? She'd never been there, she'd always wanted to go, and this King really wasn't all that repulsive. Yet in one of the crushing moments of clarity she was known for, she told him that she would never sleep with him because (1) he was too old, and (2) she was in love with someone else. The Eiffel Tower, baguettes and rude waiters would have to wait.

Who was that someone else? Was it Tom? He was holding her hand now, asking her to slice his duck for him. He'd taken her to the prom. He was a good enough dancer when he tried, and he always tried for her. He liked sushi and peeled grapes. He'd tutored her in advanced calculus in college. His family called her "the daughter they never had". Soon, he was going to ask her to marry him. It would probably even be tonight.

Would she say yes? Why Yes, then? Why not, which was what she'd thought when she saw that glimmer, why not No?

She shook the No off. It was a bug, a virus that she will have to eliminate. She'd been described by others, some of them friends, as a solid woman, hard, logical, earthy, practical. And what is a marriage but the commitment of two similar minds?

It was going to be easy, she thought. It was going to easy, this agreeing.

*This is one of the stories. I'll try to follow Ray Bradbury's time and finish it in half a day.