White Apples

Chocolate- Covered God Patience never wants Wonder to enter the house: because Wonder is a wretched guest. It uses all of you but is not careful with what is most fragile or irreplaceable. If it breaks you, it shrugs and moves on. Without asking, Wonder often brings along dubious friends: doubt, jealousy, greed. Together they take over; rearrange the furniture in every one of your rooms for their own comfort. They speak odd languages but make no attempt to translate for you. They cook strange meals in your heart that leave odd tastes and smells. When they finally go are you happy or miserable? Patience is always left holding the broom. * * * She liked candles in the bedroom. As far as Ettrich was concerned, candles were for churches, power outages, and the tops of birthday cakes. But he never said that to her, not even as a joke. She was very sensitiveshe took whatever he said seriously. Soon after they met he realized he could hurt her easily, too easily. One nasty word or sarcastic phrase was enough to knock her flat. She confessed she had only recently gone beyond the point of feeling she had to please the whole world. She said things like that. "I did drugs even though I hate them. But I wanted my boyfriend to love me so I took drugs with him. I was a terrible coward." She admitted to mistakes. Early on, she was willing to tell him some of her most revealing secrets. It was thrilling and disconcerting at the same time. He loved her a little. One day while walking through town he passed the store. When it came to women, Vincent Ettrich's eyes were the most voracious part of his body. Even when he wasn't fully aware of it, his eyes saw everything that had to do with women: what they wore, how they smoked, the size of their feet, the way they pushed their hair, the shape of their purses, the color of their fingernails. Sometimes it took a second for him to realize something had already registered in his minda detail, a sound, awisp. Then he would look again. Invariably his unconscious sensors had been correctthe sheen of sunlight off a green silk blouse pulled taut over a great pair of breasts. Or a hand on a table, a rough stubby hand, surprisingly connected to a chic woman. Or unusual almond-shaped eyes reading a French sport newspaper. Or just the radiance of a plain woman's smile that transformed her face completely. The day they met, Ettrich walked by her small store. He'd passed it many times before on his way to work but never looked in the window. Or if he had he didn't remember what he saw. Part of the daily scenery, his life's backdrop. Today he looked and there she was, staring at him. What did he notice first? Later he tried remembering that moment but came up blank. The full-length glass door to the shop was closed. She stared through it straight at him. Small. Maybe that's what struck him first. She was small and had the thin carnal face of a naughty angel. The kind of minor cherub lost in the corner of a fresco in an Italian country church. One with a holy expression, but something else is in that look, something wanton. It says the model for this heavenly spirit was probably the artist's mistress. She wore a short blue summer dress that fell to just above the knees. Her looks didn't overwhelm him as some women's did, but he slowed and then did something strange. Ettrich stopped and waved at her. A small wave, his hand rose to about chest height. At the end of the gesture he thought why am I doing this? Am I nuts? The air around him suddenly filled with the smell of hot pizza. He turned slightly and saw a guy walking nearby carrying a large white and red pizza box. When Ettrich turned back, the woman behind the glass door was waving back at him. For an instant, a second and a half,Carroll, Jonathan is the author of 'White Apples', published 2003 under ISBN 9780765304018 and ISBN 0765304015.