Nancy Rommelmann is a long-form journalist, book reviewer for The Oregonian, novelist, and essayist. Her work has appeared in in LA Weekly, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Reason, and Byliner. Her first novel, The Bad Mother was published by Dymaxicon in 2011. "Maybe You Can Save Me"—written in a powerful, stream-of-consciousness style—is one of two works of fiction by Nancy Rommelmann appearing in the Summer 2012 issue of 113 Crickets.
I saw you the instant I came through the door, Mary, I meant to find you and there you were, alone and radiant amid the artificial light and the music, I watched you from the doorway, and thought, I can go over there and sit quietly and she will understand, Mary, won’t that be something, to sit quietly while everyone shouts and sways and the girls throw back their heads and show their throats, they’re here to have a good time, I shouldn’t deny them that, Mary, we can dance, too, if you’d like, after all they’re playing the real thing, the real swing, you don’t hear it as much as before, now it’s more moonlight stuff, the Flamingos, I like them, I do, but I suspect I’m sentimental, I have a soft spot for Dorsey and those boys, if you know what I mean, Mary, if you’d like to dance I’m happy to, though I can only see you from the waist up, such a tiny waist tapering below the tablecloth, you look as though you’d be light on your feet, but I’m being coy, Mary, I’ve seen you dance, it was four nights ago, I saw you here, you were dancing with a big yellow-haired fellow, his arm looked like a leg of lamb against your small back, the silk of your dress, you were wearing a dress like the one you have on now only it wasn’t coral-colored but jade, I can see it’s real silk, did you know we couldn’t get silk here for years, Mary, your hair, too, looks like silk, like black mercury, I imagine it would slip through my fingers, not that I’m going to do that, no, I’m not going to touch your hair, I mean, not now, no, Mary, I’d never let you slip, if that’s what you thought I was saying, safe-guarding you means a great deal to me, and yet the way you sit here, all alone, your friend off in the powder room, you barely look as though you need my protection, up close your face is inscrutable, I can’t tell if you’re looking at me, Mary, can you hear me above the noise, I’m saying you don’t appear fragile, you look as though you have a protective skin, like that of an almond, something crucial and inseparable, Mary, I’d like to make it plain I understand, I think it’s right and necessary that you protect yourself, and if you don’t mind my saying so, I think your people had to develop resistance, had to endure so very much, the way it all ended and the devastation, it’s a tragedy, a tragedy of cataclysmic proportions...
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