Eyes gazed out the window, “It hasn’t stopped raining since I got here” I tell him.
“Well, I’d like to blame you miss for all this lovely weather, but I’m afraid this is as good as it gets in England” Tony smirks.
“I like this picture” I direct his gaze upon a framed picture on his wall…the only picture he has hanging up in his small barely furnished studio apartment. It’s a picture of him with another person I do not recognize. A young, roguishly handsome Tony, dressed in an expensive dark suit with slicked back hair. He is standing amidst a stage of some sort with painted backdrop and thick maroon curtains draped either side. Tony is staring coyly at his partner in the photograph, arms outstretched, brimming a smile ear to ear.
“I was in the stage production of Chicago” He chuckles boastfully.
“I'm fond of this picture because it shows that…if you smile enough…” he lowers his voice to nothing more than a dulcet whisper, lowering his head closer to my ear “…no one's going to notice that you don’t know what the hell you’re doing” I turn to face him, in surprised by what he had just revealed. This was a man that, during his peek was revered for his talent, wit and charisma.
I laugh…a giddy childish sort of laugh. I’m reminded of why it was that I had admired him so. I’ll admit that I didn’t whole-heartedly expect him to still have “it”. He turned away and wondered aimlessly around his bare apartment “Ahh…yes!” he retrieves a chair and places it near the foot of his bed. He motions for me to take a seat…“Please”. He sits himself on his own bed. He had an unmistakably English charm about him, polite and well spoken. I sat on the rickety old wooden chair and the floorboards creaked under my weight.
“I’m sorry about the furnishings, or lack thereof…I’m not one for clutter” I nod as I take another look at his surroundings. It was unbelievably bare, but he kept it quite neat. The books that were sitting on his mantle were all arranged smallest to largest and his shoes were each aligned perfectly one next to the other by the door.
“You live here by yourself?” I ask.
“Ahh… Yes, I live here on my lonesome. Have been for nearly 20 years now. Right next to the Thames and all… there’s just something about waking up to the dense smog and rain, the smell of rotting sewage in the morning, it just can’t be beat” I laugh politely at his response and he grins contently at me.
“What about you? Tell me about yourself miss Adams…I hardly know anything about you, but here I am inviting a total stranger into my home. Albeit, a very beautiful, leggy stranger…but a stranger nonetheless” He spoke rather nervously and fast, mumbling some of it under his breath.
“I can’t imagine that I could scare a man such as yourself, Mr. Derwitt”
“Please, call my Tony… and you have no idea just how much, after all you are of the femaleular variety…” he leans in closer to me and whispers “…I hear they have fangs”
“No…” I laugh “…just claws” he takes a moment before realizing I had made a joke. He let out an admirable chuckle.
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