Prime rib, rib roast, or is it silver tip? For years I have been an ovolacto vegetarian, but this morning I stand on a line that snakes around three blocks, securing my right of passage into Fernando & Sons Meat Emporium—this being Fernando’s widely advertised yearly blow-out sale. I’m startled when two ruddy-faced workers, in a noisy pickup, hoot and honk, then brake to survey the selection as if we, the women on this line, are the beef in the offering: a curvy leg, perhaps, a lean shoulder or nice rack of ribs. But no one bats a curly lash to acknowledge them. Instead we concentrate through icy eyes, daring someone, anyone, to snag a spot in line.
Hurrying from the house, after the girls boarded the camp bus, I noticed how the freshly cut grass shimmered with dew, as if gift-wrapped in cellophane. A lazy moth struggled on the cold stone path, its wings heavy with moisture. And once again, I ached for that time: The cool, fragrant air stinging my cheeks, my heart pounding as I struggled uphill to Old Main and art class. Some days, I’d stop to dally among the morning shadows before the sun leapt through branches, capturing me in its honeyed light. True, I was alone then, but never lonely. Now I stand, chin to skull, with nearly a hundred women waiting, all waiting, for this golden opportunity: the chance to save, to stockpile for next winter—provisions made from acts of slaughter. Am I the only one watching the floating sky, streaked like the inside of a conch shell, or the hydrangeas across the road weighing on their branches—violet balloons about to burst?
I mumble aloud, desperate to memorize the varied cuts of beef, needing to be prepared when it’s my turn to enter Fernando’s. My stomach churns as before final exams, any exam. I will not ask my friend, Rona, no never, and see that flutter of sympathy in her eyes, that downcast look bordering on pity—a look capable of turning me mute. How can I so easily distinguish each Modigliani, a Manet from a Monet, but remain pathetically lost on chuck roast, tenderloin, and filet?