Shall We Dance?

His crossed arms answered her before he spoke.  Already she knew that whatever his verdict, once rendered it would be as inflexible as hardened cement.

She’d posed the question five minutes earlier.  It had to be asked.  The wedding was less than a month away.

“Should we call the whole thing off?”

He frowned.  Deep creases formed above his brow, and his demeanor suggested a teacher on the brink of patience exhausted, trying to enlighten an imbecile.

“Unless you’re willing to come around to my way of thinking,  I don’t see any other course of action.”

She appraised his appearance-the crisp crease in his wool gabardine trousers, the precisely folded square of silk in his breast pocket and his flawlessly shined shoes.  A paradox of her own wrinkled rayon frock and haphazardly upswept hair that threatened to escape from its pins.

His arms were still crossed.  A barricade to compromise that exposed the lower edges of his shirt sleeves, and she noted his cuff links.  Not the simple brass monogrammed fasteners she’d given him, but the smart gold and mother of pearl cuff links he’d purchased for himself. 

There was nothing sentimental about cement.

She violently stamped her foot, loosening a brown sugar strand from the nest atop her head.

“Now Ginger!  Control yourself!”

“Tomato!” 

Her face wore the color of conviction as she turned to leave the room-and him.

“TOE-MAY-TOE!”

 

You like potato and I like potahto,
You like tomato and I like tomahto,
Potato, potahto, tomato, tomahto!
Let's call the whole thing off!

-Fred Astaire

On to the one-word weekly challenge where we ask for a 33-333 word response to the third definition of a given word.  If you need a refresher, click here for more information on how to play.  Be sure to check that you've used the correct definition this week!

color (noun)
1a : a phenomenon of light (as red, brown, pink, or gray) or visual perception that enables one to differentiate otherwise identical objects
  b (1) : the aspect of the appearance of objects and light sources that may be described in terms of hue, lightness, and saturation for objects and hue, brightness, and saturation for light sources

     (2) : a color other than and as contrasted with black, white, or gray
2a : an outward often deceptive show : appearance <his story has the color of truth>
  b : a legal claim to or appearance of a right, authority, or office
  c : a pretense offered as justification : pretext <she could have drawn from the Versailles treaty the color of legality for any action she chose — Yale Review>
  d : an appearance of authenticity : plausibility <lending color to this notion>
3: complexion tint:

a : the tint characteristic of good health

b : blush

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