leg?
The toymaker ran out of lead.
It seemed kind of stupid. How the soldier fell in love with the ballerina because he thought she had one leg, too.
He could see only one of her legs. The other was raised up behind her.
But wouldnât he have known that? Hadnât he ever seen a ballerina before?
Maybe he hadnât. Or maybe it was wishful thinking. If you had just one leg, wouldnât you want to meet other people like you?
It doesnât make sense.
What doesnât?
The soldier falls out a window, some bad boys put him in a boat made of newspaper, and he sails down a storm drain.
That seems like it makes sense, to me.
But then he gets swallowed by a fish and the fish is bought by the same familyâs cook and when she cuts it open, the soldierâs inside.
Why didnât you like that?
Uh, because it was stupid?
It was about destiny. Do you know what âdestinyâ means?
Yes.
The soldier and the ballerina couldnât be kept apart. Thatâs destiny.
I know what it means. Itâs still stupid.
Maybe we could think of another word â¦
Then the little boy threw the soldier into the fireplace. For no reason. After the soldier came back, in the fish. The boy threw him into the fire.
A demon put a spell on the boy.
Thereâs no such thing as demons.
Agreed. All right, letâs say he didnât like it that the soldier was different.
You always say âdifferentâ when thereâs something wrong with somebody.
Iâm not crazy about a phrase like âsomething wrong with somebody.â
And then. You know whatâs really stupid? That the ballerina blows into the fireplace, too.
Could we talk about what âdestinyâ actually means?
The ballerina had both legs. The ballerina was up there on a shelf. The ballerina wasnât âdifferent.â
But she loved somebody who was.
Whatâs the big deal, about being different? You make it sound like some kind of prize.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
The marriage takes its turn on their twentieth anniversary, when the boat catches fire.
It occurs during the first vacation theyâve taken as a couple since the kids were born. Trevor is a freshman at Haverford, Beth is a junior in high schoolâtheyâre pretty much grown up by now. And, according to the real estate agent, with the kitchen so meticulously redone, they could get a fortune for the house.
All their reasons are evaporating on them. Theyâre taking the sort of save-the-marriage vacation that generally means the marriage is already lost.
The chartered sailboat, with its ten passengers and three-man crew, explodes in flames just off the Dalmatian Coast. Theyâll learn later about the drunken deckhand, the Zippo, the leak in a propane tank.
At one moment, theyâre sunning on the deck. Sheâs noticed a cloud that looks like FDRâs profile and is pointing it out to him, thinking this is what happy couples do; hoping that the impersonation of happiness will evolve into the genuine article. It helps, it seems to help, that theyâre spending two weeks in close quarters with eleven strangers; that they heard Eva Balderston say to her sister Carrie, âWhat a lovely couple,â as they got up from dinner last night; that there are believers.
Heâs trying to make out FDRâs profile in the cloud. Sheâs trying not to mind that he canât seem to see it, when itâs so obviously right there. Sheâs striving not to think about all he fails to notice in the world. Heâs fighting off his own burgeoning panic over letting her down again. Heâs about to say, âOh, yeah, right, thatâs amazing,â when in fact he sees only ordinary clouds â¦
The next moment, sheâs in the water. She knows thereâs been thunder, she knows thereâs been hot and blinding brilliance, but that reaches her as memory. She immediately inhabits a new impossibility, and for a
Legs McNeil, Jennifer Osborne, Peter Pavia