I was more frustrated than I expected. She kept getting in front of me. She had an explosion of bushy hair. It was the size of a beachball. I was trying to see the exhibit. I wanted to pick out the details. The guide kept talking about various details. The paintings were not particularly small ones. And yet those details were fairly small. I tried to lean in to see. But every time, there she was again. Her and that beachball-sized hair mass. I wanted to grab handfuls of it. And I yearned to pull it out.
That was before she started back suddenly. I got a faceful of her hair. It smelled of Head and Shoulders shampoo. My ex used that brand of shampoo. I always hated the smell of it. And now it was up my nose.
I yelped just as she too yelped. I had not given into the temptation. I had not tugged at her hair. What the hell was she yelling about? The guide looked over at us questioningly. “Is there something wrong?” he asked politely.
“Bug!” she squealed, pointing at the painting.
“Well, yes,” the guide said, smiling calmly. “Brueghel often included a bug or two. Usually butterflies and bees, but not always.”
“This one isn’t painted!” Big Hair declared. “It moved so it must be real!”
“Are you completely sure?” the guide asked. He leaned in to see more clearly. “There’s a painted cricket here,” he said. He pointed without actually touching the painting. “And I’ve always particularly liked this wasp.” Again he indicated one of the details. This time I was able to look. Big Hair had edged back behind me. There were the cricket and the wasp. They were very lifelike but didn’t move.
“I saw a bug!” Big Hair insisted. “And I know I saw it move.”
“There must have been a fly there.” Another tour member was trying to help. “You would have scared it away, Angie. It flew away when you jumped back. That must be what happened,” he said.
“You saw it?” Angie Big Hair demanded. She seemed determined to be proved right. She was sure there was a bug. Somebody else had to have seen it. Nothing less than confirmation would satisfy her.
The fly theorist had known her name. They were, presumably, on the tour together. She looked to him for that confirmation. But he could only shake his head. He had not actually seen any fly. “Didn’t anybody else see it?” Angie demanded.
But of course nobody had seen it. Nobody else had seen anything up close. Angie’s beachball-sized hair had prevented it. She’d always managed to be up front.
I think I heard it later, though. At any rate I heard faint buzzing. The sound followed our tour group around. I don’t know for sure, of course. But I think it was a fly. A fly trapped in Angie’s untamed hair. I was more pleased than I expected.
Never
I never wear pink. Except for my “I Stand with Planned Parenthood” tee shirt. And the
tee shirt one of my sisters had made up with photos printed on it of all six of us as little girls. I must be about seven in that photo, and my bangs are crooked because my mother had cut them. The tee shirt is too big, but I wear it to yoga class sometimes.
Oh, and there’s the tee shirt that L.L. Bean called “faded red,” but that my husband calls pink, commenting every time I wear it that, “You don’t usually wear pink.” And over several years of washing it’s gotten more and more faded, so even I can no longer deny that it’s pink. But last time I folded it out of the dryer, I noticed that the neckline is starting to fray, so I can go back to never wearing pink, except when I do.
I never send greeting cards with verses inside. That one’s an absolute. Never.
I never watch horror movies. Except when I went to see this Italian movie at MoMA thinking it was a murder mystery. It turned out to be an Italian horror movie, very gory. Several people walked out, but the lead actor was actually English, and he pronounced his Italian very slowly and clearly, so that I could understand him without the subtitles, so I stayed. But I did close my eyes or look away several times because I never watch horror movies. Except when I do.
I never eat sea urchin, because I’ve tried it twice, once raw in a Japanese restaurant and once cooked in an Italian restaurant, and I didn’t like it either way. Twice in a lifetime was enough. Never again.
I never look up old boyfriends on the internet. But then I never look up any old friends on the internet.
I never make fun of other peoples’ hair styles, religious beliefs, or families. At least not out loud. Well, not in their hearing anyway.
I never treat my adult children as if they were still little kids. And they’re never correct when they think I still do.
And I would never state definitively that there are things I would never do, because you just never know. Except for never sending cards with verses inside. That one’s an absolute. Never.