Vicky Swanky Is a Beauty (5 page)

One Healdsburg Taxicab arrived while she put three wide, wide pieces of paper into her waste can. A peculiarly restricted number of flowers had been cast into the vase and Julius Minx is now here and he exceeds our space.

There’s usually a side table in the story—a place to put a vase of flowers—or a potted plant—a clock, a book. A late-blooming flower may show up in the story—a swimming pool, a carefully groomed garden, pheasants touring the grounds (I mean peasants), Bella Donnelly, the Fraser family, one-on-one meetings with people enthusiastic about work, laughter and companionship, the great tragedy inflicted when people go under, the notion that even a woman can thrust herself forward and up and so-to-speak out from under on the first step down.

The fact that she’s backlit makes her look ambitious and she tickles my funny bone.

First I thought that her blue eyes on a pink and yellow background looked a bit purblind, but then their general dimension intrigued me. They have a nice design—glare—and they’re not generous.

It’s hard to slot him in. He seemed novicelike, uncertain of himself, but he was efficient.

She said, “I am Diane Williams.”

They went out to the terrace for a cigarette.

Italy itself is very lovely, but as the brightness of the sun hit
the terrace, the figure of a six-legged star—a sign for sure—was produced on the bluestone.

All six legs of the star were fairly straight. One leg of the star was not exactly the same length as the others. One leg was perfectly straight.

Their housekeeper grabbed at her own leg and at the top side of her foot.

Their cat was yanked up off of the terrace by a bird of prey and then dropped!

For the cat’s recovery there were five thousand dollars worth of veterinarian bills and for the housekeeper—a premonition she’d be hit by a car.

The star! The cross! The square!

A single sign shows the tendency. Can people avoid disaster? Yes. I leave my readers to draw their own conclusions.

Some years ago, I was satisfied.

Stop!

Diane! So many things are clear. Diane was blushing. Her yellow fuzz shows in the sun. She no longer has words of her own and so chooses grunting. Diane! Open! Contribute! Inform! The place!—her brown fuzz, a yellow fuzz over it. The curtains are original. A room contains medical equipment. Diane’s an early type who before arriving in Siena had a day planned for her departure. She had made the arrangements so she’d stay during the spring in Italy as an imaginary character with hope.

The following stories have appeared in
Harper’s
: “If You Ever Get Three or Four Laughing You Weren’t Soon to Forget It,” “As the World Turned Out,” “If Told Correctly It Will Center on Me,” “Woman in Rose Dress,” “Stand,” “One of the Great Drawbacks,” “My First Real Home” (reprinted from
Post Road
), “Protection, Prevention, Gazing, Gratified Desire,” “Human Being,” “I Like the Fringe,” “Broom,” “Rude,” “New Life from Dead Things,” “Mrs. Keable’s Brothers,” “None of This Would Have Been Remotely Feasible,” “Pedestal,” “Between Midnight and 6 AM,” “This Has to Be the Best,” “Lord of the Face,” “Being Stared At,” “Give Them Stuff,” “Expectant Motherhood,” “Glee,” “Chicken Winchell.”

 

These stories first appeared, sometimes in a slightly different form or with a different title, in:
Agriculture Reader
: “Highlights of the Twilight”;
The Brooklyn Rail
: “Cockeyed” (originally “She Could Never Have Found a Better or More Delightful One”);
Conjunctions
: “Ponytail” (originally “Virtue”), “The Newly Made Supper,” “The Use of Fetishes,” “Stop When the Person Becomes Restless or Irritable,” “Weight, Hair, Length”;
Esquire
online: “The Duck”;
Gigantic
: “Mood Which Gripped Me”;
The Lifted Brow
: “Defeat,” “Common Body”;
McSweeney’s
: “A Man, An Animal,” “Arm Under the Soil,” “Death Bed” (originally “For Now I Was Tall”), “Enormously Pleased,” “Hello! Hi! Hello!,” “My Defects,” “Shelter,” “The Strength,” “Tan Bag,” “Vicky Swanky Was a Beauty”;
Post Road
: “My First Real Home”;
Rampike
: “Comfort,” “The Emporium,” “On the Job”;
Sleepingfish
: “Carnegie Nail”;
Triple Canopy
: “Religious Behavior”;
Western Humanities Review
: “The Wedding Mask Door Pull.”

 

“My First Real Home,” was also reprinted in
The Pushcart Prize XXXIV: Best of the Small Presses
, 2010.

Diane Williams is the author of six previous books, and the publisher and founding editor of the literary annual
NOON.
She has taught at Bard College, Syracuse University, and the Center for Fiction. She lives in New York City.

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Copyright © 2012 Diane Williams

 

 

 

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eISBN : 978-1-938-07308-3