expression for someone whose expressions were usually so mobile: and Caroline had been charmed to see it there. But then, as in the park, it would abruptly fall off. And then it would come back and fall off again. Something bothering him, maybe. Maybe it’s been a while since he had a date. Who knows? Though it seemed unbelievable. Such an attractive man. So personable. But maybe there was some other problem. Maybe somebody hurt him, too, once —
Oh, stop projecting your own stuff all over him!
Nonetheless, she kept waiting and watching for that smile. And when she realized she was doing that, Caroline started to become very suspicious of herself, for she never talked like this to people she hadn’t known for a long, long time. What is it about this guy? What gives here?
Am I possibly—
Naah.
But the idea came back to haunt her like a screenful of buggy code.
Am I—falling in—
Naaaaah!
Yet the screen inside her mind filled up with code again. What was it about him? It wasn’t just that Matt was charming. He was. Or that he was cute. He is! Boy, is he. There just seemed to be something else going on. It’s not like he’s desperate. Why would he be desperate, the way he looks, the way he acts? He’s witty. He’s urbane. He even cooks, it sounds like. He’s so… accessible.
That might have been it. As he poured her one more glass of wine when the main course plates went away— see that, he doesn’t even wait for the waiter to do it— Caroline looked across the table, and Matt was smiling at her, and it wasn’t just one of those facial smiles: the eyes were deeply involved.
And inside them, something happened.
This time it was the eyes that changed. Nothing about the expression about them, not a muscle shifted. But suddenly Caroline started to see something hard about them, something strangely chilly that didn’t sort well with the warmth in the face. He started saying something about dessert, and Caroline nodded and kept her smile exactly where it was, while thinking two things.
Is there something funny about the lighting in here all of a sudden? His eyes were brown. Why do they look lighter now? Almost gold.
And when did he last blink?
The dessert menu came along, and Caroline opened it, and made “hmm” noises, and kept on thinking, and smiling. And the thought occurred to her:
How many drinks have I had? There was the Americano, twice. And, what, two glasses of wine? No, this is the third one—
She looked up from the dessert menu, looked across the table.
The eyes were still there, and they still had not blinked. And they were indeed golden. But they were set on either side of the foot-and-a-half wide head of a gigantic snake.
She blinked, as casually as she could. Afterwards, the snake was still there. It was actually rather pretty, as snakes went: scaled in handsome patterns of green and gold, sort of a more attractive version of a rattlesnake’s patterning. But as it opened its jaws to say something about tiramisu, she could see the poison fangs angle forward, each as long as her index finger: and a long pale forked tongue flickered out, tasting the air for her breath.
Oh, no, Caroline thought. Not this. Not now.
***
For quite a long time, when Caroline was younger, she’d wondered why her mother never drank. It was one of those things they’d never discussed until the day she turned eighteen and her mother sat her down “to have a little talk.” Even in this bizarre moment, Caroline still had a momentary flashback of that long-ago moment’s amusement—her idea that she knew what her mom was about to lecture her on. Afterwards she’d wished it was something so mundane as a discussion about the birds and bees, because it had explained things that she’d started noticing while she was in college and had just begun, rather belatedly according to all her friends, to experiment with booze. She had started to “see things”: images that made no sense, odd changes in people.
Oh, stop projecting your own stuff all over him!
Nonetheless, she kept waiting and watching for that smile. And when she realized she was doing that, Caroline started to become very suspicious of herself, for she never talked like this to people she hadn’t known for a long, long time. What is it about this guy? What gives here?
Am I possibly—
Naah.
But the idea came back to haunt her like a screenful of buggy code.
Am I—falling in—
Naaaaah!
Yet the screen inside her mind filled up with code again. What was it about him? It wasn’t just that Matt was charming. He was. Or that he was cute. He is! Boy, is he. There just seemed to be something else going on. It’s not like he’s desperate. Why would he be desperate, the way he looks, the way he acts? He’s witty. He’s urbane. He even cooks, it sounds like. He’s so… accessible.
That might have been it. As he poured her one more glass of wine when the main course plates went away— see that, he doesn’t even wait for the waiter to do it— Caroline looked across the table, and Matt was smiling at her, and it wasn’t just one of those facial smiles: the eyes were deeply involved.
And inside them, something happened.
This time it was the eyes that changed. Nothing about the expression about them, not a muscle shifted. But suddenly Caroline started to see something hard about them, something strangely chilly that didn’t sort well with the warmth in the face. He started saying something about dessert, and Caroline nodded and kept her smile exactly where it was, while thinking two things.
Is there something funny about the lighting in here all of a sudden? His eyes were brown. Why do they look lighter now? Almost gold.
And when did he last blink?
The dessert menu came along, and Caroline opened it, and made “hmm” noises, and kept on thinking, and smiling. And the thought occurred to her:
How many drinks have I had? There was the Americano, twice. And, what, two glasses of wine? No, this is the third one—
She looked up from the dessert menu, looked across the table.
The eyes were still there, and they still had not blinked. And they were indeed golden. But they were set on either side of the foot-and-a-half wide head of a gigantic snake.
She blinked, as casually as she could. Afterwards, the snake was still there. It was actually rather pretty, as snakes went: scaled in handsome patterns of green and gold, sort of a more attractive version of a rattlesnake’s patterning. But as it opened its jaws to say something about tiramisu, she could see the poison fangs angle forward, each as long as her index finger: and a long pale forked tongue flickered out, tasting the air for her breath.
Oh, no, Caroline thought. Not this. Not now.
***
For quite a long time, when Caroline was younger, she’d wondered why her mother never drank. It was one of those things they’d never discussed until the day she turned eighteen and her mother sat her down “to have a little talk.” Even in this bizarre moment, Caroline still had a momentary flashback of that long-ago moment’s amusement—her idea that she knew what her mom was about to lecture her on. Afterwards she’d wished it was something so mundane as a discussion about the birds and bees, because it had explained things that she’d started noticing while she was in college and had just begun, rather belatedly according to all her friends, to experiment with booze. She had started to “see things”: images that made no sense, odd changes in people.
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