{"id":2024,"date":"2015-08-24T13:43:04","date_gmt":"2015-08-24T17:43:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nezbar.com\/?p=2024"},"modified":"2015-08-24T13:47:13","modified_gmt":"2015-08-24T17:47:13","slug":"waiting-to-inhale-the-american-magazine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nezbar.com\/waiting-to-inhale-the-american-magazine\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Waiting to Inhale’, The American Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"
He moved in his own lane, undeterred by the faces and colors around him, as if the world had frozen into a blur and she was all he could see.<\/p>\n
He planted a strong palm on her face and kissed her cheek hello.<\/p>\n
They ordered a bottle of wine and watched as most of it sat untouched in glasses that sweat in the late afternoon sun. They ordered dinner, and it too remained mostly on its plates. Their conversation flowed and she felt the heat rising behind her cheeks.<\/p>\n
Every once in a while their bare knees \u2014 it was summer \u2014 would brush or bump under the table. She delighted in this first discovery of warm skin and the soft spray of hair.<\/p>\n
He kept his glasses in a front pocket and pulled them out only occasionally, for emphasis during a conversation or to more closely inspect the dessert menu, or the tops of her hands, which he described as possessing vintage femininity. Something about the softness and understated care of her short, pale pink fingernails brought to mind a pin-up girl or bygone starlet.<\/p>\n
She watched his eyes glint from green to golden brown and decided she could settle for dark eyes as long as they sparkle. The red bumps on his chin betrayed his attempt at a clean-shaven aspect in a way that caused her to wonder how he might look with a beard at varying stages of growth. This set her to thinking of his look throughout the seasons. Autumn in plaid, maybe? Would he wear a wool coat and scarf or was he the sportier type? For a second she pictured them arm-in-arm trudging trough a snowfall. She could hear the crunch of compacted snow under their boots and imagine their rush to enter her warm apartment, to toss their clothes on kitchen chairs and run to warm themselves between flannel sheets. She liked the look of him in winter.<\/p>\n
Midway into their second bottle of wine he noticed a slight slur to her speech. It wasn’t so much inebriation, but rather it seemed she was allowing just the right words the time to find themselves. He found this charming.<\/p>\n