Black Silk (26 page)

“Shelley give me a light. Never mind.” In her rush for gratification, Darla had stepped to the bar and grabbed a book of matches,
but before she could tear off a singular catalyst, She was there with a light. Darla drew back slightly at the sudden flame
before her then leaned in and pushed her hair back all in one perfectly timed motion.

Darla cocked her head to one side. “I thank you kindly.” She said it with a smile that would melt granite. She returned a
slight smile and nodded in deference to the lady and turned to face the pool table again.

Darla stepped back to the jukebox and bumped Shelley with her hip. Shelley’s eyes were still on the evening’s soundtrack choices
numbered before her, but she knew what had happened. She didn’t have to look.

“We got one more song. You want to pick it?” She did not respond to what was happening either. She would keep Darla out of
physical danger but the rest was up to her. Darla’s path was her own and Shelley could not interfere or encourage. Darla punched
in 3507, the number for Hendrix’s “Who Knows,” and turned around to catch up on the table action.

“Dusty!” a large mama-looking woman called out from the board next to the pool table. There was no obvious response from the
melee of conversation and movement that was Pat’s place. “Dusty going once! Dusty going—”

“I’m coming, I’m coming.” She still had the hint of smile around her lips as she fished quarters out of the pocket of her
snug black jeans. She had a slight round in her back and a small bend in her knees as she reached deep into her pocket.

Men’s jeans,
Darla thought.
Women’s jeans don’t have pockets that deep.
Darla was taking smaller sips now, wanting to maintain her loose plateau instead of ascending to falling apart.

Darla watched lips and bodies and the two women shook hands and exchanged names. “Bar rules?” Dusty questioned from her squatting
position as she retrieved the balls to rack. Pearl nodded.

“Shelley, what are bar rules?”

“The rules you already know, honey. All the rules you need to know, if you ask me.”

Darla wanted to know more about the latter part of this trailing-off answer but was more interested in Dusty’s game. Dusty
was a persistent challenge for Pearl whose friends interrupted the flow of euchre to harass her like they would a sibling.
“What was that shot, girlfriend?”

Later Pearl would still be annoyed and her friends would have to say “Aw you know we were just joking.” Then tomorrow things
would appear to be the same again, but appearances are not everything. Darla brought her focus back to the moment at hand
in time to see Dusty polish off the eight-ball with a certain grace that made her existence seem like slow motion.

“Do you want to play first?” Shelley had been off to Darla’s side watching the watcher and the watched.

“No you go ahead. You’re up first.” Darla swallowed hard. She was not ready to move from silent to active participant.

“Shelley!” Dusty was calling out from the board as she wiped her own name off and slide-slapped the chalk from her hands.

“Right here.” Shelley had a similar molasses quality. It was not bothersome or too slow but rather the way things were supposed
to be it seemed. Darla decided that it was a peace they had with time—like they were actually experiencing life.

Shelley had racked the balls. They shook hands, laughing about something, then Dusty drew back to break. The comfortable precision,
the effortless beauty of the execution—the motion, speed, and texture of body, cue, and ball—made Darla draw a breath then
sigh as the worn white ball spread its target in multiple trajectories.
Break
seemed such a simple word.

Darla took in the shape and sinew of Dusty’s forearm as she chalked the cue stick and watched the five-ball drop into the
side pocket. The sun falling off a pre-Galileo earth. Sizing up her next shot, Dusty bent her knees, one hand spread on the
ledge of the table the other wrapped around her stick. She wore a thick silver band on the middle finger of her right hand
and a watch with a black leather strap on her left wrist. She bent farther and leaned over to shoot. Her ass fit perfectly
in her jeans.