THE FAREWELL

Her heels clicked on the damp cobblestones as she hurried to reach the book store. It was only eleven in the morning, but the sky was already gray. Rain drops scattered with reluctant softness on the jackets of the pedestrians. Cumbersome journey, they must’ve have thought before they started. Like she had thought, before she had stepped out.

Was she really comparing herself to stubborn drops of rain? Is this what they called mid-life crisis? She; a very successful columnist of the bold metropolitan weekly “The Sensuous Woman”, was heading towards that point in life, which everybody avoided. Her pace quickened of its own accord and her angry footsteps kicked at the cold and invisible wind around them.

She had spent the past six years writing about how every woman could be stellar if she wanted to. In bed and otherwise. She had written about how ‘attractive’ was just a preconceived notion, subject to change at the drop of a hat. Yet, as she stood and eyed her thirty three year old face in the mirror, she had failed to convince herself that she was in any way ‘attractive.’

A man who had just stepped out of the bakery looked at her and smiled. He was not unattractive. She returned his smile and quickened her step. He wasn’t following her. He was headed in the other direction.

Bookstores were forever inviting her to a reading of her very own column. “Its good publicity!” her editor had insisted. And so she had attended courses on voice modulation and agreed to her first ever book reading. The bookstore was filled with women who had read her column and had come to check whether the author of the scintillating “Viva Secrets” actually merited their admiration. By the time she had finished reading, the three hundred female faces were radiant. Like she had just helped them achieve the perfect orgasmic climax. Maybe she had. She would always write about how voice and tone were imperative for the perfect pleasure.

Laughter resonated from somewhere within the café. She so wanted to pause for some coffee herself. But she was running late for the reading. You should never keep an expecting audience waiting, they begin to lose faith in your goodness. Just another block to go and she would be at ‘Pages.’

Her readings had become so popular that bookstores now sold passes to women to attend those. Posters were put up a week before the event. Maybe the success had gotten to her head and maybe her work had really lost its touch. But she didn’t want that rubbed in her face by her editor. She was being fired from her job. Someone new with a fresh perspective was being recruited. Yes, the editor’s niece definitely had a fresh perspective.

As she neared the bookstore, the rain began to fall harder, urging her to step inside quickly. She was greeted warmly by the store staff and handed a warm cup of coffee. She had five minutes before her reading commenced. All night she had thought about turning this reading into her farewell speech. Should she be sweet and nice? No, she decided as she downed the coffee. “Viva Secrets” was about the secretive woman, the one which she keeps hidden from the world at large. She would do justice to her column, by revealing her darkest secret. That would be her true farewell.

“Hi!,” she said into the mike as she took her place behind the pedestal. “I am Mag Stewart, 36 years old and a virgin. I have never had a single boyfriend and I have never been kissed. “Viva Secrets” is about me. About everything I ever wanted to be. It is not about being you. It is about being a woman…”