Precipitation

DIALOGUE

Clare Gertrude

Patrice Villanueva

Clare      -    I heard a very wonderful news about you, dear Patrice. Is it true?

Patrice    -    True what?

Clare      -    That you’re engaged to Miller? Everyone in town is in craze just hearing rumours about it.

Patrice    -    Well, he is quite the town’s darling, is he not? Sometimes I do not understand truly where my place is.

Clare      -    You will always have a place in mine.

Patrice    -    Clare, thank you, but you know better. I can’t do anything nowadays without people, journalists and the likes, clamouring for it. I’m like a media slut, full frontal nude for every person to see. My life is a difficult mess, love. Sometimes, I wish these times would just pass me by and then disappear all of a sudden. Like a night’s dream. You’re a lucky person, you know that? Having that luxury of freedom to spend when and wherever you want to. I’m no longer that kind of person. I’m something different, and it’s painful, because part of me wants to keep the old self the way it should be, not what it would be. All that is wishful thinking now.

Clare      -    Now, now. Surely you don’t mean those, dear Patrice. Others would kill just to have a slice of your pie, including me even. But you know how much I love you to know that seeing you happy is enough to content my envy. I will reach you one day, too, and together we shall be the most envied women in all of the world.

Patrice    -    Be careful what you wish for, Clare, for it is not heaven that you seek. We are no longer talking about playing and spending an afternoon in the park, lounging with the boys, eating, flirting, dreaming, kidding, fooling around. It’s hard when that instance comes to you and that realisation that you’re already grown-up. I don’t know about you but it hit me unexpectedly like a wall of bricks falling down on me, and then I had to climb up and stare at the sky all different. I can clearly tell that at that moment the sky was about to bring heavy rains, for the clouds were cumulonimbus, and only people with an ounce bit of wisdom would achieve that instinct, because it is an instinct learned over the course of life.

Clare      -    Funny you say that. I learned about clouds when I was eight.

Patrice    -    That’s not the point.