It did something for her. It
was a little voice. A little kiss. A little upside down pool of light
without a spill. A little of herself up there in that beyond--that
little napkin of beyond that her eyes had the lift to see.
* * * * *
Who are you, whose neck has never ached from nine hours a day, six days
a week, of bending over the blue-denim pleat that goes down the front
of men's shirts, to quiver a supersensitive, supercilious, and superior
nose over what, I grant you, may appear on the surface to be the omelet
of vulgarities fried up for you on the gladdest, maddest strip of
carnival in the world?
But it is simpler to take on the cold glaze of sophistication than to
remain simple. When the eyelids become weary, it is as if little
red dancing shoes were being wrapped away forever, or a very tight
heartstring had suddenly sagged, and when plucked at could no longer
plong.
To Marylin, whose neck very often ached clear down into her shoulder
blade and up into a bandeau around her brow, and to whom city walls
were sometimes like slaps confronting her whichever way she turned, her
enjoyment of Coney Island was as uncomplex as A B C.
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