“Was that a red flag?” i asked. You, me, and three’s company “so where do we go from here?” I was getting better at sounding my thoughts in my natural voice as opposed to the sound of my internal narrator—which I was certainly a function of, but which, at some point, was more like a radio station than a real person.
We go; it doesn’t matter where—or when. That meant something was about to change: style, subject matter, the way you dress . . . until you were having fun again (doing what you love). I can’t help it! “Forgive this interruption,” Gaugin said. “This is sex on a parapet.” But I knew better than to try and talk to someone that was high on something—like the play things on Tahiti, for example, even if I learned things from his paintings. “Sometimes you learn from the worse,” I said, back to him, in that voice that I heard, so that he could hear my voice, even though I shouldn’t have; you always want to do your best to save souls; but i have to admit: i question Gaugin’s existence.
“You don’t know anything,” I said—my voice sounded a lot like my grandmothers, who represented, for me, the nth degree of greatness (even though my grandmother was a highly disagreeable person).
“Why do I have to know anything? Why can’t we just be friends?”
McCord was egging me on—i could see him in my mind’s eye; but I think Eula, my grandmother, was the one egging me on—McCord was picking up on the radiation that I didn’t know how to process—he was the next available outlet—but when he spoke it was like Alex’s boyfriend was talking to me, which was entirely plausible, given the topics and the subjects we shared.
who’s going to be the president? That was my internal narrator—this function of every future voice composed of the historical voices that my voice depended on. “You.”
But I had this sneaking suspicion that Alex wasn’t going to be the president—seemed to be too good to be true. I’d be disappointed, of course, since i had invested so much time and energy into her rise to power, but I wouldn’t be let down any more than I would be if she never left her boyfriend, if, in fact, my feelings for her were baseless.
Don’t do that again That was Alex; i didn’t know what she was talking about, but i would think about it—perhaps the solution was obvious, or simply a function of sounding out that voice—and replacing it with mine. “You could see,” I projected. She said it first, though.
I was thrilled. Perhaps there was a chance for the both of us—even if it were a little too much like thinking there was a chance that, after death, we’d be found at the center of the universe. No, it’s not that I should point out that others, in slightly different voices, were trying to talk to me—but I remained focused on projecting my natural voice—and AOC’s natural voice; that kept the conversation focused on Alex, for as long as it took (i wanted her to be president) and also on AOC—my artist friend that, apparently, was pretty much my equal.