Chapter 14

We sat, and looked south over the plaza, with the gazebo and the replicas of Civil War cannon. There were a few cars trying to go where cars ought not to go, and plenty of people wandering around. Behind us in the church building I figured there were tourists looking around, and perhaps a few people praying, for San Felipe Neri is a fully functioning Catholic parish. The building itself is the oldest in the country that's still in use for church services.

I looked over at Cecelia. She'd crossed her legs at the knee in that way women and executives can and I can't, not without feeling like I'm turning into a pretzel, and I could see just a touch of chocolate skin between the hem of her skirt and the top of her boot. Her arms were as thin as they've always been, but in the sheer fabric of her blouse they looked so enticing, so touchable. I did touch her, reaching out a finger and tracing her bicep – as hard inside the sleeve as I knew it would be. The softening was just a visual effect.

"You said you wanted to discuss what you saw."

"I do," she said. "I am 42 years old, Darvin, and I am familiar with men glancing at me, and then away, as though I am no more attractive than a workmanlike chair. But today men were staring at me."

One was walking by just then, and doing exactly that. I grinned as his girlfriend – somehow I got the impression she was a girlfriend rather than a wife – jerked his arm to get his attention. "Yeah, they're staring at you today. It's how you're dressed."

She looked down at herself. "I realize that my clothing is unusual for me – closer to fitting my form, and more revealing in a way. But why that should draw stares perplexes me."

"It's 'cause you're beautiful, C."

"Darvin, I have mirrors, and am competent in their use. I am fit, I am spare, I am indeed what you once thought me – hatchet-faced. I have the attractiveness of a good knife – my edges are sharp and the workmanship is superb, as indeed it ought to be, for God's hand made me. But just as a knife is not a work of art in itself, not if it is fit for any real use, so I am not beautiful."

"You do run on and on and on," I said, only partly joking. "Look, Cecelia, maybe you can't see it, but I can. Inside what you see you are beautiful."

"Inside being the operative word." She swung her foot, once. "If I possess any virtues, they are interior; my external appearance is mediocre at best, and I am not always at my best."

I've known Cecelia long enough that I sometimes know when I'm only going to hurt my head batting it against a wall. I decided to take another approach. "Look, you of all people ought to know that clothes can create different effects."

"Assuredly. Take that specimen," she said, nodding at a young lady who, if she were on Central under a street light in the night, I would assume was looking for someone who would give her money in exchange for nastiness. "She has a fine figure – somewhat flabby, perhaps, but not overly so, and well proportioned. If she were to wear something that concealed her shoulders, and didn't fit her belly so closely, she would be quite attractive. Yet in what she is wearing, she looks fatter than she is, and far trashier than any woman ought to look."

"Exactly my thought – though I didn't think it so fancy."

"Nor, apparently, did you think it in anything approaching proper English." I saw her grinning, though she was looking out over the plaza.

"Why should I change now?" I leaned closer, and put my arm across her thin shoulders. "If you can see the difference clothes would make in that woman's appearance, why can't you see the difference it's made in yours?"

Now she turned her head to look at me. "Does the alteration my clothing has made render me more attractive to you?"

"Shoot, C, you'd be beautiful to me was you in a burlap bag. I know what you look like in all sorts of clothes, and even..." I stopped, for I felt myself turning dark with what I'd been about to say. "You can't hide what you are from me, no matter what you wear – and what you usually wear is elegant and gorgeous and I love it to death. But I ain't the guys been starin' at you today. It's them." I nodded at the crowd generally.

"And they find that my change of style – though they have no idea what I usually wear – has rendered me attractive?"

"Yeah, you could say that. Though judging by some of the stares, I'd say 'attractive' is, for some of those guys anyway, an understatement. Some of 'em are thinking thoughts."

"Darvin!" She looked at me with a shocked expression – the first time, I think, that I'd ever done that to her. "They're thinking ... that?"

"I can't read their minds, Cecelia, but probably some of 'em are."

"About me?"

I laughed at the absolute disbelief in her voice. "Yep."

"Surely you jest."

"Surely you wrong."

Cecelia giggled ... and then spluttered ... and then began to laugh ... and then had to physically cover her mouth with her hands to hold it in. I pulled her toward me, and she buried her face in my chest as she fought to control herself. I think that if I hadn't been there, she'd have fallen off the banco, she was laughing so hard. I've seen her go into a hilarity fit like that only three or four times in all the years we've been married, and it always surprises both of us.