Lisa… and Marc
by Asha Iman Veal
Part four. Read part three. Read part two. Read part one.
Lisa
Perfect girl Lisa
Lower lip plumps, light pink
Polly Pocket’s black friend, Jackie Pocket
Wears a fuchsia puff coat upon the onset of fall, all the way through to spring
A countenance caught somewhere between a Sesame Muppet, daytime drama actress, and saint.
Lisa now spends her days alone in the 1,300-square-foot apartment paid for by Isabella and Donald. Brilliant and floundering, Lisa completed a Master of Fine Arts program for aspirant writers seven months ago and left her young-adult home of New York. Sadly, she suffered a dagger to the creative libido, as most saintly characters do in the coliseum environment of professional writing school, and now remains, though enthused by the idea of a smart sentence, limp for actual execution.
Lisa recognizes, so therefore may be forgiven for, a mild self-importance characteristic of all aspirant writers, honors students, and only children.
She is also cognizant, and thus may be spared ridicule over, her romantic history’s penchant for un-muscular men, as ninety-nine percent of New Yorkers, male and female, because of space constraints and cerebral exertions all are pseudo athletic and enviably thin. Plus, seven years ago, at the curious age of nineteen, Lisa held on with soft hands and firm calves to the perspiring back of a twenty seven-year-old Frenchman whom to this day remains a tie with Donald for the oldest male she’s intimately known.
But Lisa has thought about Marc. At the gym while her disproportionately long legs peddle in angled circles on a stationary bike. On aisle seven of the food market, where she shops for Donald and Isabella’s favorite red wine and yellow cheese.
She’s imagined the both of them—herself and the slightly awkward Marc—sweaty and boiling, a free life together in the Tropics. Like one of those old movies where a white man hero—probably not Jewish—lords over fierce river current, short angry natives, and Pocahontas’ inner thigh. He is attractive, in a laid back way, with forearm underside muscles tight. That certain sexiness women of her age have been trained to appreciate in tall, thin boys that play guitar.
But Lisa does not actually sweat, being perfect and all. Her perspiration may be categorized as more of a glow.
