"Young, have you ever been in love before?" Benny turned up her face to glare at the flickering light, as if willing it in her glance to turn out completely, or shine on brightly to illuminate her words that sat on the thick midnight air of the diner. Seeing no effect on the light, she turned her eyes to Young, impatiently waiting his thoughful response. Why did he always keep her waiting for him?
"I have... but I don't know how much it matters." Young thought back to the beauty, the pain, the love of long ago dreams and in an instant they were gone and his vision cleared. He watched Benny raise her coffee cup to her lips and noticed somethign that in all their friendship he had never seen before.
Benny's lips appeared to him, carressing the coffee cup with a pillowy soft fullness. Out of some far off corner in his mind, Young remembered a dream he had had- something about loving her. Something about taking her up in his arms and holding her close for a midnight kiss. As instantly as his mind removed the slide show of past loves, hurts and follies, Young was suddenly finding the smallest things about Benny to cherish.
The flush of her pink cheek stuck out in his mind. Had she been a painting in motion, a perfect pastel Renoir, floating before him all this time? Had her eyes always glittered back from her smooth complexion, sending a sparkling glimmer over the upper half of her face? Had her lips always seemed so perfectly tinted, turned just so as they were in a thoughtful smile?
"Yes Benny, I was very in love with a girl once who broke my heart." Could it be that in her soft natural beauty, Benny had tamed Young John? Was she holding reins that belonged to her all this time?
"You know, Young, I think that is the very first time you have ever told me what was on your heart."
I would tell you every thought I ever owned if you would just let me hold your plump sweet lips in a perfect kiss long enough for my soul to escape my body and capture the embrace on the canvas of my mind, in a carefree impressionistic way.
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