29. Affaire de Cœur

The last time he had seen her, her hair had been long. She'd had a love for heels and skirts and lipstick, carefully applied in bathroom mirrors. He remembered how she'd stand on tiptoe, her nose nearly touching the mirror, and she'd apply lipstick with one hand and search for a kleenex with the other. Thinking back on all those long drunken nights when he was the only one left awake, he could remember the bright line of her mouth, a smear of color in the dark and how he would always find a spot of pinkish color on the back of his coat after carrying her home.

Now her hair is shorn, straight and fine and the color of honey, brushing her thin shoulders. Her mouth is small and unadorned and she wears plain blue jeans under her thick brown apron.

When he first sees her again after years of separation, he almost doesn't recognize her. She is on the front stoop of a small pottery shop, elbows-deep in clay, stooped over the spinning table, and there is a smudge of dirt on her cheek. Her eyes are narrowed and he can see the back of her neck through the part of her hair as it falls forward. He could count the smooth knobs of her spine if he wanted to.

He lights a cigarette.

She pauses, wipes the sweat from her face with her forearm. A noise makes her turn and then she spots him and he isn't sure what to say.

--

"So what happened?"

She leans on one elbow and stares out the window. "It just didn't work, is all. We tried, but in the end it was all heartaches and hurt and we realized that it wasn't worth it. He's in Sapporo now."

He peers at her through the smoke of the bar. Her focus shifts back to him, lingering somewhere near the collar of his beige coat. "And you?"

He brings his cigarette to his mouth and inhales deeply, thinking.

When he stirs and opens his mouth to reply, she is gone.

He stubs out his cigarette in the ashtray, and the butt smolders for a moment more. The smoke curls up to the ceiling but never makes it.

--

When he passes by the pottery shop the next day, she isn't there.