“‘From air to air, like an empty net,’” said Yolande, in her deep, impressive tones, and with a slight accent, “ ‘dredging through streets and ambient atmosphere, I came / lavish, at autumn’s coronation…’”
Laura listened, and some variety of truth seemed to be present there.
After a time she reached out and their fingertips touched, gently.
Yolande told her of her girlhood in a kibbutz, and of her broken marriage. She told her of her life after that thing, and of the suffering attendant thereto.
Laura cried, hearing of this misery. She felt badly for days thereafter.
Yet these were not days to Carl Manos, who also had cause to feel badly. He met a girl whose company he enjoyed, until she said that she loved him. He dropped her like poison sumac and hot potatoes. After all, Time—their friend/their enemy—had a deal going with Laura and Carl. There was no room for intruders in this fated ménage a trois.
He cursed, paid his bills, and figured ways to make Time even more amenable to his bidding.
But suddenly he was in pain. He knew nothing of Pablo Neruda, or this Pasternak, Lorca, Yevtushenko, Alan Dugan, Yeats, Brooke, Daniels—any of them—and Laura spoke of them constantly these days. As he had no replies for this sort of thing, he just nodded. He kept on nodding. Time after time…
“You’re happy with the present arrangement?” he finally asked.
“Oh, yes! Of course,” she replied. “Yolande is wonderful. I’m so glad that you invited her.”
“Good. That’s something, anyway.”
“What do you mean—?”
“Yolande!” he cried out, suddenly. “‘How are you?”
Yolande Loeb emerged from the screened-off section of the apartment to which she discreetly retired during his visits. She nodded to him and smiled faintly.
“I am quite well, Mr. Manos. Thank you. And yourself?” There was a brief catch in her voice as she moved toward him, and realizing that her eyes were fixed on his beard, he chuckled within it, saying, “I’m beginning to feel a trifle like a premature patriarch.” She smiled, and his tone was light, but he felt pain, again.