Magicicada

She watched her father at the bar. She was about fourteen and already knew more about men than anyone could teach her. He does not talk to the women but he’ll talk to anyone else. Two boys are on the bar-stools beside her, but they do not stare at his glass of beer like she does, they do not count the refills with growing dread. Still she was not broken, only bored. Years later I was reading certain short stories of Guy de Maupassant until the barmaid mentioned that she had never read him. I wrote my name and address inside the book’s cover and handed it over. I paid my bill and said to her “Never let a man tell you that you are a pearl.” She did not understand and I did not understand and I walked home and went to sleep while the thirteen-year cicadas screamed into the night.