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ARTISAN REVIEW
younger than her forty-two years. She sits up straight against the green
vinyl booth, the small of her back as flat as she can make it. She is a
woman who has learned how to sit with discipline, the way she was
taught as a young girl in Prague. When a good-looking woman sits
straight, it is difficult to tell that she is short. That had been the first of
her mother's lessons, boxed in now among other enduring homilies of
childhood. She sits as straight as a birch against the green vinyl of the
booth, aware of how good- looking she is, her head of curly hair so sil–
ver-blond it springs into the air like clusters of Christmas ribbons curled
beneath the polished neon light of the coffee shop. She is the kind of
woman who likes the way she looks in a coffee shop where even the
harsh light flatters her fine skin.
And why shouldn't she like the way she looks? There are many
good- looking women in New York coffee shops, but this particular
good-looking woman is wearing a cherry red ski jacket with a white
rabbit collar, the same jacket she wore when she entered the coffee shop
with the old man forty minutes earlier. Only the jacket is now draped
across her shoulders. Twenty minutes earlier, she had opened the jacket
zipper. But she had not taken the jacket off. She likes to wear the red
ski jacket draped across her shoulders so that the white turtleneck and
her fullness show.
She concentrates now on her coffee, wondering whether anyone in
the almost-empty coffee shop is watching her. She is used to being
watched. Not only is she good-looking but she is a woman who can
hold a cup of coffee inches away from her face, suspended in air in front
of her lips, knowing without the confirmation of a .mirror how appeal–
ing she is in her cherry red ski jacket with the white rabbit collar and the
white turtleneck showing through and the coffee cup in front of her
lipsticked red lips.
"It's peculiar when you think about it."
"You could do that in New York in them days," the old man says
eagerly. "There was trust." Like his eyes and his forehead, the old man's
cheeks are chiseled with lines and ridges, a contour map of flesh. The old
man puckers his cheeks and blows air out in a sigh meant for the benefit
of the good-looking woman. Then the old man wipes his mouth with
the napkin and stares down at his empty cup of coffee. "It was different
back then, Alicia. It was a different city, if you know what I mean."
"I wasn't here, Willie . How can I know what you mean?"
The old man pays no attention to her. He shakes his head, again
blows air from his cheeks into the bright coffee shop. Through the
window, he can see the snow falling on the avenue. But in the coffee
shop it is warm and pleasant. The old man likes sitting in the coffee shop
