"I see."
Quiet words again,
but not unconscionably stupid as most such
utterances of those words were. They usually revealed
the exact opposite to me.
She seemed to be considering within her espresso
whatever it was my word had revealed to her.
A fleeting ghostly frisson just touched me
as I was struck by the thought that she could see
far down and into things more murky than espresso,
like me, my family, knowing secrets and natures
without probing, just knowing,
and all from my word of emphatic denial.
It might have been the light reflected up from the table, but the quality
of her skin affected me; it disturbed me, sharply, in an unfamiliar way, so that I
shifted in my chair.
It was not fine, or translucent, the skin of her face,
not ruddy either; I don't know what it was, but it reminded me of
something, perhaps it was of some wood though I couldn't think then
what. Only more ivory than my cafe au lait, her arm, too, was that color,
and smooth, hairless.
She was slender, moving at times with a quick litheness which seemed so
contrary now to her almost lazy pose, her repose in that awkward chair
which was not awkward with her sitting in it.
I was two or three inches taller. Her shoulders were straight. Mine
were so also, but there was a squareness to my straightness, in all
of me, and my strength was never in doubt. I could see Adonie's but
I suspected she would surprise a number of people. I guessed her ten
or fifteen years older than myself.