Shorthands present you. I am exposed. It's not personal, you say, it's art. It's defence I say. I'll put on my clothes. -"Cursive" (1998)
It's the ultimate form of irony that you never know how to say the things you want to say to me.
I know exactly what I want to say to you, I just take time in resolving how I wish to say them.
So much time in fact that you often end up never saying anything.
He smiled.
You've changed.
You haven't.
Is that a compliment? Because if so it's not a very good one.
He paused and looked away from her for a moment.
Dave works for NASA now you know.
She shifted in her seat. Yes, I heard.
I'm Claudia she'd said swivelling around and stretching her naked arm through the gap in the seats to shake his hand.
Yes he'd reply. Yes, you are.
CJ for short she'd add with a puzzled frown. For Claudia Jean.
Unbuckling her seatbelt she clambered into the back. All elbows and legs everywhere.
Are you vegetarian? She asked, leaning into the boot and rummaging though bags. David's laugh boomed from the front.
No Toby is just pale because he doesn't get out much.
CJ turned her face to smile at him sympathetically through the natural waves of honey hair that fell over her face as he tried to hide his own with a book.
Do you want a sandwich? I made far too many.
I'm fine thanks.
David felt like the older brother as the more commanding of the two. He always won at sports and at mostly everything else too. He wasn't one of those people that used his physical prowess to excel. David was brilliant in all areas. His natural skill meant Toby forever felt the failed brother. Not wanting to attempt teaching him anything, knowing that in the end David would learn faster and be better at whatever it was, putting the teacher to shame and claiming the new talent as his own. But his weakness was how he revealed in the popularity and acceptance that sports brought him. Toby, consequently decided the best area to claim as his own, was one with little celebrity attached. A quiet, isolated area that he could excel in silently and revel in by himself. Something that would always be all his own.
Toby wants to be a writer, hollered Dave over the radio and the gush of the traffic through his open window.
What do you want to write? She asked through her sandwich, sitting to face him, one leg bent up beside her on the seat, leaning against the opposite passenger door.
I don't know yet. He replied, I just love words.
He loves words came the repeated phrase from the front. Clearly unable to hear the conversation unfolding behind.
She smiled and tilted her head to lean a cheek against the backseat, watching him as he smiled back.
I love words too she said wistfully, but I love the ocean more. Don't you just love the ocean? I'm crazy-go-nuts for the colour blue.
That summer she was crazy-go-nuts for everything. She claimed that holidays at home were torturous as her elder brothers had failed to grow out of the younger-sister-teasing phase that she called 'simply unbearable' in boys their age. However, one reference to how she hated tickling fights had Dave on top of her in their lounge tickling her all over. Her shrieking and giggling filled the house and Toby could do nothing but laugh out loud at the vision of her from the doorway twisting and turning beneath his brother, reaching across the floor in an attempt to drag herself away.
Toby save me! She shrieked through giggles as Dave grabbed her by the ankles and began tickling her feet.
All his holiday memories of her were full of laughter and smiles and energy. She was never conventionally beautiful and consequently not Dave's usual type, but her athletic physic and intelligence drew his brother to her and made her his first serious girlfriend. She had a presence that befitted his own and together they occupied every room they entered. She of course slept in the spare room when she stayed in the Ziegler household, but Toby would remain half awake on purpose most nights to listen to her delicate steps down the hallway and the muted giggles through the walls from his brother's room. He imagined her smile at the sound of her laughter. It filled him with visions of open spaces. Of empty pages floating in blue water, words seeping onto them.
When she left that Easter she hugged him goodbye and reminded him in whispers that he was to dedicate his first book to her. He felt guilty of how she lingered in his mind. He was close with his brother and the way she flooded his thoughts felt deceitful. He tried to pass it off through his late teens by entering into a string of awkward and short-lived relationships with girls he never brought home. But everything he wrote that summer, and for a long time after, was for her.
Dave broke up with her in the month of August. She never returned to the Ziegler family household and Dave had someone new by October.