twin palms
I am sitting on the balcony of the apartment reading and drinking the dregs of my iced coffee. the ice has mostly melted, leaving coffee-stained rings of foamy milk all down the inside of the ceramic cup.
below me, my landlord’s girlfriend is speaking. quick, annoyed, animated. she has been nothing but unfriendly since we moved in a year and a half ago. granted, we don’t see her very often, but when we do she glares at us with such intensity i am confident that if we were animals on the sahara she would attempt to rip my throat out. her boyfriend, our landlord, is always friendly. i suppose it is in his best interest to be.
i am reading a book called ‘hot milk’ i got from the library a few weeks ago. as i turn the pages the sun slips sideways across my outstretched legs. they burn slightly but it feels good. my pale, bare feet rest atop our silver cafe table. we picked up the mismatched set a year ago from a personal trainer in a highrise on fountain. it looks like it belongs on the sidewalk of a cheap cafe in italy. some small town where the old, golden skin bearded men sit outside and smoke, cursing over one another about the weeks news. i can’t say we take very good care of the table set. the silver is rusting in places and the table top is always coated in dust. everything on the balcony is always coated in black dust. i don’t know where it comes from. perhaps it is smog falling from the sky. perhaps it is from the roof. i haven’t yet figured it out.
to my left, the twin palm trees glitter in the sun. their fronds dance against each other and make a sound like waves. if i close my eyes i can pretend i am back on the caye in belize with tori or at jesse’s abuelas house in puerto rico. that is until a helicopter buzzes by or my neighbor hacks out a cough. the day is perfect and the twin palms look even more perfect against a backdrop of undisturbed baby blue. the twin palms look happy. they tickle eachother. if i zoom my camera all the way into them i can pretend i’m anywhere in the world.
my book takes place in andalusia, spain. it is written in a dreamlike and hazy style that mirrors the slow description of the place. i imagine it like when you smudge sunscreen over your phone lens. despite the confusing and often sparse storyline, it is easy to feel into the shoes of the main character. a girl, tan, mid 20’s. an anthropologist working at a coffee shop. wanting. directionless. confused. the author describes her purple jellyfish sting and the smell of a cortado and the melons for sale in the pickup truck and i am there. a million miles away from here. even though here isn’t bad at all.
my sister is in new york which means i have the apartment to myself. the solitude almost feels like a challenge. what do people do when they are all alone? i asked my boss last week what people do when they wake up early. it is no secret i wake up right before i have to be online. i arrive to every meeting two minutes late, trying to hide my puffy eyes behind thick black framed glasses. nodding and smiling and pretending to take notes. choking down yawns and fighting the urge to gently close my laptop mid sentence and roll back to my bed.
my body, pressing against the hard plastic silver chair, clenches when i think about work tomorrow. i don’t want to think about all the ways in which my job lets me down and i it. i look back at the twin palms. they have stilled for a minute. all of a sudden it is very quiet all around. i love sundays because there is no construction.
the sun has almost escaped the balcony. my legs look tanner but perhaps it’s just a trick of the shade. i’m not sure what to do with the next two hours before i have to leave the house. there are things i should do, but nothing i want to do. i remember i have a book about art history waiting for me at the library. if the library is open perhaps i’ll go collect it.
the twin palms have begun dancing again. i imagine them as best friends. i wonder if they ever fight. i wonder if they’ll ever fall.
