Evening Page #5

We've got to talk her out of it.

I guess we would be the ones.

Ann, come here.

Oh!

Buddy, Buddy. How about sitting down?

Yeah. Maybe that's a good idea.

No, no, no.

Hey, beauties.

Buddy.

Why do I feel like he's been this way

since he was about 10?

He didn't actually start drinking

until he was 12.

He's a total disaster, really.

And yet, I seem to love him.

Yeah, I love him, too.

Okay, he's all tucked in.

You've been doing this a long time,

haven't you?

Before he settled down he showed me

the star he picked out for you.

Oh, that.

It's a nice little star.

It is. It's very nice.

It's one of the Seven Sisters.

See? There she is, right there.

This isn't too personal, is it?

No. No, not really.

I met Buddy in college,

and within three weeks

he'd picked me out a star,

he'd declared my flower to be the peony,

my bird to be the swift,

my tree to be the sycamore,

the list goes on.

He was in love with you.

No. No, he was

my best friend's little brother.

But as we would walk around campus

and he'd go on

about how the swift was my bird,

the onyx was my stone,

I finally asked him why he kept doing that

and do you know what he said?

He said he did it

so that I would remember him

whenever I saw peonies and swifts

and sycamores and all that.

As if he just thought

he would disappear one day.

Isn't that sad?

See that star over there?

Where?

The medium-sized,

right there, the one near Orion.

Yes.

Hey.

That's our star.

It's the one we were looking at

when you were a beautiful young girl

kissed by some strange older guy

who had no right to kiss you.

And then after the weekend,

you never saw him again.

I'm supposed to slap you, you know.

Go ahead. You should.

You have such hopes.

But you wear the wrong clothes,

you say the wrong things.

Before you know it,

you can't tell what was your life

and what were your mistakes.

You start to feel

like you're made of wrongness.

What if there were no such thing

as a mistake?

You wouldn't say that

if you'd met my husbands.

I have met them.

Well, you wouldn't say that

if you'd seen me in a maxi skirt.

I have seen you in a maxi skirt.

Who are you?

I'm the night nurse.

You're dressed rather strangely for a nurse,

if you don't mind my saying so.

I don't mind in the slightest.

But you're a real nurse?

I mean, have you had training?

Oh, my, yes. I can do just about anything

you need me to.

Can you tell me where my life went?

I can tell you that your star is Alcyone.

Your stone is the amethyst.

Your bird is the thrush.

No, my bird is the swift.

I'm afraid that's not accurate.

Uh-huh.

Really?

Yes.

Really.

Come in.

You're up.

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