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uneven
I met her on a beach on the Oregon coast six years ago. She was sitting on a rock bigger than a Volkswagen bus, knees tucked up to her chest, one arm encircling them, smoking a cigarette with her free hand. Most people who sit on rocks by the ocean want to be alone, but I could tell she was different. For one thing, she spotted me and waved.
I wandered up, my sandals dangling from my fingers, barefoot on the dense, gravelly sand, and she held out the cigarette. I took it, gave it back a few puffs later. She flicked it into the surf.
"This is where I say something innocent and deep about the ocean," she said without a trace of a smile.
"Right," I said. "And I'd wait a few beats, then stick out my hand and say, 'I'm J.'"
"O.," she said, and reached down from the rock and shook my hand.
"The ocean always makes me sad," I said, and we both turned to study the gray water, the dirty sock of a sky hanging over it. I glanced up at her. "That's the sort of thing you would've said to begin with."
"I'm a painter," she said.
"What do you paint?" I asked.
She produced another cigarette, lit it, took a long drag. "Walls," she said, and exhaled. "I paint houses. Walls. Buildings. Boring shit like that." Another puff, then: "What do you do?"
"Wander the beach looking for girls," I said, hoping for another smile. Nothing. "Actually, I'm a painter, too."
"But the real stuff, I'll bet," she said. "You'd paint this, probably." Waved her cigarette at the sea.
"I do terrible water. But yeah, maybe. I'd paint two people talking, maybe. I do really nice people."
"This is the part where I say, 'Would you paint me?'" she said.
"Do you want to be painted?" I asked.
She shook her head. "Not really."
"Then we'll skip that part."
"I'm thinking of going back to Miami," she said, picking up some loose thread of conversation I'd never been a part of. "There's a guy there."
I nod. "I think I'm supposed to say, 'Do what your heart says is right,' or maybe, 'If you love him, you've already made your choice'."
"Yeah. You're good at this, you know." Another drag. "Except I don't love him."
I said that I knew she was going to say that, and she laughed a little, and it was nice, but not the sort of melodic, glorious laugh that'll knock you back a step or two. I wished her the best, told her she was trespassing on private property, and turned to wander back up the beach. When I looked back just before the rock fell out of sight behind the curve of cliff, she was standing up, waving. I waved back, and that was that.
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