Page 6 - Asheville NC Revised2

Marilyn Monroe sing-song.
“Sure sure,” I said. “Make fun of me doing the job that no other secretary will
do.” I stuffed in more documents.
“You do write don’t you?”
“Yes. Well I used to. But only for a newspaper they give away. And only one
book for a vanity press in which I tried to morally joust with Billy Graham, the most sacred man in the land.”
“They let you just wander around down there in Admissions?” I asked, turning off the machine.
“Whoa Silver,” she replied. “Let me be the judge of your earth-bound literary eloquence. Either way, sacred God and holy Billy Graham smile at your creative efforts.” She thought a moment. “Perhaps my look displeases you? I’m just wearing some old rags today.”
I glanced up at her soft brown eyes. She had a smoldering darkness lightened by a perky enunciation. Think Sophia Loren crossed with Gidget, but without Sophia’s gaminess. I drastically changed my attitude.
“No, you’re more than fine,” I said. “That chiffon blends with your eyes and hair like Vogue’s finest. Which I’m sure you know. But I’m not interested in clothes anyway. Take away all that and I still have your face, which would have saved Gauguin a trip to the South Seas.”
“Oh! One of those,” she said.
“One of what?”
“What men really want is a fantasy underneath them. In the end it’s always the
face that dominates their view.”
Frozen for a moment, I mechanically turned the shredder back on and shoved
in some transcripts. I also began worrying that some of my many bosses would see me goofing off with this marvelous creature and fire me. Again!
On the other hand was this lady talking about making love five minutes into our first conversation? My loins notified my brain that here was a more than acceptable candidate for my next in a series of monogamies. Maybe even for a happy ever after.
“You’re not referring too ...” I said over the grinding wine of the machine. Then turned it off.
“Enough on the subject,” she declared, unfurling her arms like a time-lapsed photograph of a fern opening.
I tried to pour mental cold water on my lap. It steamed into fantasy vapors of she and me rolling in the flowered meadows of springtime on the Blue Ridge Parkway. My sweet little Admissions petunia.