Lost in Fantasy

...and when I heave-uh, well you know I'm gonna be/ I'm gonna be the man that's heaveling to you.....

It's a horror of a day for riding in any un-airconditioned car, which mine is, unless it is a convertible, which mine is not. I wear a Nothing of a dress, and pretend I am driving to the Beach.

My first outing is early, and smutty haze smears across the world, waiting to be chewed away by insistent sun. Haze hangs just this way in my beach memories. My brief shopping trip, one I've been on countless times in early morning, pre-sand hours, becomes part of my fantasy. Though silky panties were not on my list, they find their way into my cart. I think this problem may require professional help.

I sing along to Oldies as we drive- where else?- to the Beach, which in this case, is the home of a Brunchday Party to celebrate my friend turning fourty.

I do not intend to turn fourty.

I haven't followed directions well, and need to phone. No matter, for one beloved voice hands me over to another, more beloved voice, and he coaches me through the unfamiliar city until I find my navigational feet.

I see beautiful faces of people I haven't seen for months, did not realize I'd been missing. I meet a beautiful new face, uncovered (for now) by clown makeup. I hope I see it again, sooner rather than later. I drink a tiny Mimosa before piling my entourage back into the car, to pretend I am driving to the Beach some more. Sun slides over skin like a burning hand, and wind breathes hot across neck and shoulders.

We arrive late for the show, having gotten lost, missing an interesting part, just in time for boring bits, fidgeting restless until intermission. I catch glimpses of the Most Beautiful Face, the one we are here to see.

I am startled at intermission: one of my MotionFest friends, who is here with his sister, watching his niece in the show. No surprise there, the cast is comprised of seventy two souls. And I thought Watergate! was big. Fairy Girl is there, a sweet, fierce-fragile doll of a person, full of imagination and love for her daughter, who is featured in the performance. Fairy Girl's father greets me warmly, for once not cranky and sweaty but pleased by circumstances and a full house.

And then there is a surprise. A Beautiful Face that I wasn't prepared to see, hadn't expected to see, perhaps did not want to see. Beautiful gaze slides over, past me, eyes glacial where they once were warm. The conversation is brief, and I walk away, more wounded by ice than I could have imagined.

The second act is more exuberant and entertaining than the first, and has quite a lot of a Reubenesque redhead of whom I am particularly fond. And then, there he is: The Most Beautiful Face, in his debut onstage, looking for all the world like a seasoned showman, which, though he's never taken a role, he is, he IS. His blonde locks shorn short, he is still the embodiment of physical perfection, and, when the show ends, nearly as glad to see me as I am to see him.

Impatient to be on the road again, the children hurry me to the car. I pretend I'm driving to the Beach, my left foot resting near the side-view mirror, all the way home.

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Concrete hot beneath my feet, air all around warmer than the shower steam I've stepped from. My neighbors sleep, or so the darkened eyes of orderly crackerboxes suggests. Who will notice if I remove my robe?

The streetlamp glares at me, harshly incandescent. Had it been the moon, I might have.