Something Lovely
"Tell me something lovely," she would urge, wide wild eyes smiling up at them, mouth half open and bewitching. Her hands would find theirs, and she would almost smile—letting them in on the fun. She would squeeze their long piano fingers and say it again.
"Tell me something lovely."
They would smile at her, futile and looking at the deep violet sky and the yellow moon and the careless tangle of trees, racking their brains. They would try.
"She walks in beauty like the night," one of them said, "of cloudless climes and starry skies…"
Another tried an original piece.
"Your eyes are like the woods of outer space; there are galaxies in your pupils."
Another became philosophical.
"Man has a hopeless struggle, but in its hopelessness there also lies its sublimity."
And always, after every one, she would smile at them—let her lashes swoop down to her cheeks, let her hands wander back to herself, away from theirs.
"Not that," she would say, to the poet and the original and the philosopher. "Tell me anything but that."
"Tell me something lovely," she urges, turning her eyes up to his. They're standing by her front door, her hands in the pockets of his coat; he looks at her, then at the wide dark with its profusion of pale stars and dark trees and blocky houses. He's got some of the warmest eyes she's ever seen, but he is no poet and he does not say lovely things.
But she likes him, and even though it's hopeless she takes his hand, squeezing it as she says, like a child:
"Tell me something lovely."
He bites his lip, still looking out into the yard. She waits.
"Well," he says at last, quiet and smiling. (The others all looked so serious.) "You see those stars?"
"Yes," she says, glancing at them. (She has seen them so often.)
He points.
"And you see those trees? And that sky? And those roses all tangled and growing by the gate?"
"Yes."
"And that moon?"
"Yes."
He turns to her, grinning right into her eyes.
"Well, all that's a rough draft, you know what I mean? That's all a prototype—a sketch in preparation of you. God made the stars and the sky and the moon and the roses and the trees—but damned if He wasn't, that whole time, just trying to make you."
She doesn't say anything for a long moment—just stands there, staring out into the dark.
"Oh," she says at last. He slips an arm around her, letting her lean into him.
"Tell me something lovely," he murmurs.
She flushes pink against the dark. The light has caught the thin gold frame of his glasses.
"I-I think I'm a little in love with you."
He doesn't say a word—his breathing catches for a moment in his throat, and he swallows. He's warm and calm and close to her, but she can feel the sputter of his heart.
Without a word, he stoops to kiss the top of her head.
"You win," he whispers.