‘My goodness, you’re tall’, he said while reaching across the table length for a cocktail napkin. ‘I mean tall in a good way, I mean’. He faltered slightly. ‘Thank you’, she replied. ‘I work hard at it’. He looked at her. ‘Work hard at what?’ He seemed puzzled. ‘At being tall’, she countered, reaching for her own napkin. ‘I work hard at being tall’.
He looked down at his plate and spent what felt to him to be an inordinate amount of time working out the pattern of food spread in front of him. Dip, chips, mini-sandwich, over priced cracker, glob of cheese spread; looking up sheepishly, he tried again. ‘So, what do you do?’ She turned slightly to the left of him and glanced out over his shoulder at nothing. She shrugged. ‘I work at being tall’ she said. ‘I work very hard’.
‘Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can’t, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it’…he mumbled quietly to himself. She looked at him. ‘Yes. The poet Robert Frost, I believe. You’re quoting Robert Frost’.
It was the sort of conversation which at the root found itself far down the twisting rabbit trail of ‘I’d rather be anywhere else’ and ‘perhaps today would be the day to learn to fly or to spin sugar webs’. She opted for flight, and in her mind she was already gone. She picked up her plate, nodded politely and drifted cautiously away…
690 Saint Paul 