Seattle Press on Line - Sound View, Part Two

Sound View, Part Two

By lon mckinney

Apr 13, 2001 -- The rest of the week moved methodically. Jonathan made it a point to rise early, give his partner a peck on her sleeping cheek, and take his brisk speedwalk around the lake near his house. He was on-again/off-again with his exercise program. It had been one of those usually ill-fated New Year's resolutions: To Get In Shape. He was determined to keep his foolish heart at the proper elevated rate at least once a day. He'd pondered joining a health club but the twenty-somethings who frequented those places were too buff for their own damn good. He could just imagine one of their meaningful conversations:

"Lookin' good, Tawny, nice work on the abs. And the glutes are lookin' great."

"For sure, Tab, and your belly is really gettin' washboard. You pressin' two-fifty yet?"

Ad nauseam.

His friend, Winnie, had started jogging and was encouraging him to do the same. She'd even gotten him a subscription to Runner's World for his birthday. The big five-oh, gawd. At least he could look at the pictures and dream he was a gazelle bounding over golden hills with those other lithe gorgeous groundgainers. Gazelle, my ass, he thought.

Sunday night he had trouble sleeping. He kept moving in and out of consciousness to the point where it was difficult to discern the dreams from the drone of the freezer down the hall. He skipped his early walk and, after planning his appointments a bit later into the morning, he made a fast drive down to the Sound View.

The cafe was crowded. They must serve up a helluva breakfast. His mouth watered for eggs and fried spuds, but his conscience told him to do fruit and granola. He decided to dither on this dilemma with a cup of coffee. He kept both hands on the cup to assure himself of no more dropsy embarrassment. He had something else to face up to as well. His corner table by the stairs was empty but so were a few of the stools by the bar at the windows. There were even two empty stools next to each other. Still the shy guy, he opted for the corner table.

He let the warm pungent brew fill his insides. Today the music was Satie, the Second Gymnopedie, he thought. The rest of the breakfast crowd had kind of a French look today as well. A European eclecticism. Two middle-aged men wore berets. Their female counterparts wore black turtle-necks. In fact, a lot of people were wearing black. Even Jonathan had put on a long-sleeved black tee shirt under his jeans jacket. Funeral chic was in these days. He even thought, for a moment, that he detected the slightly guttural nasal tones of French being spoken in the room. Just a coincidence? The feeling of Renoir he'd sensed last week seemed to have returned but it was in a transcendence toward a more Toulouse-Lautrec mood.

He decided to order. His stomach overruled his good intentions and recent commitments. He went for scrambled eggs, little pigs, roasted red potatoes, and wheat toast. That wheat toast was healthy, wasn't it? He paid the cashier and went back to his safe corner. His order arrived in just a few minutes. He pushed his notebooks aside to take a heady plunge into the steaming plate of comfort food.

He'd taken one sumptuous mouthful when he noticed the young woman had come down the stairs into the cafe. She wore faded black jeans, a black parka, and black high-top Jack Purcells. More Seattle black. This was quite a change, however, from last week's outfit. Hmmm. A chameleon as well. But something else was different about her that caused him to rub his eyes and blink hard. She seemed noticeably shorter, less slender, more--what was the best word? Voluptuous? No, that sounded like pulp romance. She just looked, well, just better. Her shoulder-length black hair had been transformed into a short feathered bob. She actually looked really great.

She walked halfway across the cafe and stopped, turning her head toward his safe corner. He was not mistaken. It was the same sly smile, those blue eyes, the flush of recognition. She smiled at him and walked right up to his table. Her transformation had caused the painting to take a definite surrealist turn.

"Hey, good to see you again," she said. "It was last week, right?"

"Uh, yeah, last week, right?" God, he sounded like a parrot. "You were doing sketches over by the window, right?"

"Right. Oh, my name's Amanda. Yours?" She extended her hand and he reached up slowly to take it, being sure to avoid the cutlery and crockery on the way. He took her hand in a careful grip.

"Sorry, I mean, Jonathan. Say, Amanda,"--he liked the name very much-- "don't think I'm being presumptuous or weird or anything but wasn't your hair longer and didn't you used to be, uh, taller and, um thinner?" His face was turning red.

"What an odd thing to say in a first encounter," she said with a little laugh. She must have forgotten last week already. Was she put off by his comment and trying not to show how she really felt? Or was it no big deal?

"I can't forget your smile," he said apologetically, "'cause you looked this way a couple of times and you said have a nice day when you left, so I'm sure it was you. Is it just my imagination or have my powers of recollection gone on vacation?"

"Could be," she immediately responded with a smile.

Could be what? He was in a mild panic.

"I did get a haircut last Friday. And quite an exciting haircut it was."

"Uh, did they, like, cut a lot?" he asked sheepishly.

"Like, yes they did," she said in mock facetiousness. "I was getting tired of the time it took to primp."

"And, uh, did you have some strange surgery to get shorter and thinner?"

"Right. You are perceptive and perverse," she said laughing. "No, but I was wearing boots that have quite a high stack heel on them. I hate the things, really, but they're all I have to go with my long skirt." She pointed at her sneaker-clad feet, put her toes together and clicked the backs of her feet as if she were about to break into a Charleston.

"And, it's cold out today," she said. "I don't have the best circulation so I'm wearing a heavy tee shirt under my favorite bulky knit under my parka. I guess I must look a little like a polar bear, all in black. How's that for a fashion wrap-up? Any other questions about my wardrobe? I like your boots. Red wings?"

"Yeah," he said with a smile. He couldn't picture a black polar bear but that was okay. And he was embarrassed about the question he'd asked and the response it had brought about.

He was uncertain as to where to take this small talk. After all, when she'd given him just one friendly look he'd fantasized of becoming a table-dancing John Travolta. What would happen now that he'd actually had what could really be called a conversation.

"Uh, would you like to join me?" he said. He got up, taking care not to spill his coffee or knock his eggs onto the floor. She stood about shoulder high to him. Perfect.

She hesitated, but only for a moment, glancing at the counter and the view. No one else sat now at the row of stools. Today the fog was gone and the view was spectacular.

"I really would like to talk. I mean it," she said in what seemed earnest, "but I wanted to do some sketching. The light is great and it's clear."

Artistic temperament. He could deal with it.

"I came in early and took some extra time at lunch today just to draw. I want to keep the momentum going. You do understand?"

"Sure, Amanda, I write. In fact I've been working on a couple of stories myself," he lied. He'd been in a block for two weeks. "Maybe another time, if we happen to run into each other."

"Fantastic," she said, "then when we've both worked through our stuff we can, you know, kind of compare notes, okay?"

"Okay, uh, sure," he said to her, with what he thought might have been a somewhat goofy look. Still, he thought he'd given the appropriate response. He liked to think of himself as a gentleman. It was an echo from his past: the ghostly voice of his parents whispering in his ear at awkward moments; the Hollywood leading men of the forties. He loved them, especially Bogart, Henreid, and Astair. Consummate gentlemen.

Besides, he wasn't in hot pursuit mode at this time in his life. That had ended quite a few years ago, hadn't it?

"You look disappointed," she said, feigning a frown.

"Well, uh, it would be nice to talk. You know, about, uh, art. But I'm pretty busy with my stuff right now too," he lied again. At that moment he was a bigger fibber than Clarence Thomas at the Hill hearings.

"I'll tell you what," she said, looking directly at him, leaning over the table, her face closer to his than before. She smelled like cucumber soap and sunlight. "How about sometime next week, if you're down this way?"

"I don't know, uh, my schedule, I mean, next week...?"

"Could you pencil me in, Jonathan?" She laughed at his daytimer antics.

"Uh, sure. Yeah, I could do that. I mean, whatever works for you, you know?" Jesus. He sounded like a total dweeb. He was a writer, for christ's sake. He wrote. He wrote words. He had a vocabulary. It had gone on vacation for the last few minutes.

"Let's meet here for breakfast next Tuesday, okay? I could come in early, before work. I'm up the street in that building over Gallery Mack. Do you know it?"

"Yeah, I mean, Yes, I know the gallery. It's a neat gallery." Jesus. Neat? He sounded like Beaver Cleaver.

"It would work great for me," she said.

He put out his hand. She took it once again in a firm grip. He was unable to determine if it was a firm shake-hands-with-a-guy grip, if she worked out, or if it was a liberated-Ellen-DeGeneres kind of grip. Anyway, she was no wimp.

"It's Jonathan Damon," he said with tremendous poise and cool while still maintaining a hint of his usual reticence.

"Amanda Beckman," she said without hesitation. "So next Tuesday. Say, eight?"

"Eight is great."

"See you then," she said back over her shoulder as she moved toward the window.

He waved and smiled. He felt stupid sitting there, facing her, pretending to write. So he wolfed down most of his cold eggs and spuds. He left the pigs and toast and unfinished coffee and made a quick quiet exit, getting lost in the crowd of tourists and gawkers.

The painting had lost a bit of its surrealism and seemed to moving back toward the impressionist edge, but with enough abstractness to keep the rhythm and motion interesting.

You know, it's like when you sit in front of that one painting you've really been taken with at a gallery, and you find yourself sitting in front of it for an hour or more. They make the announcement that the gallery is closing for the day and you know you have to get home to your life and your responsibilities and your errands and all that shit but you are absolutely certain that you'll be at the door the next morning to listen to the key scraping in the lock. To watch the gallery door swing open. To be welcomed by some security guard with a phony smile. To push past him with a purpose. To walk with confidence, with an uncanny sense of direction back into that room and sit on the embroidered bench directly in front of that painting. The painting may look finished to the casual gallery-goer but you can see there is more to come.

Don't ever finish that sketch, Amanda, he thought. You have to keep coming back here to work on it. Polish it to perfection. Keep interpreting the changing light and scene. I want to learn all about your art.

His thoughts were consumed by these feelings about this day as he walked along the main Market row of stalls. The winter fruits and vegetables were carefully arranged to attract attention, but he didn't even see them. It had been a long time since he'd enjoyed the unanticipated serendipity of total surprise.

Next Tuesday. Eight o'clock. Breakfast. Art. It had a timely tempting wonderful synchronicity. The painting had melded into a complexity of styles and a song was being played by one of the Market musicians. It was "Love The One You're With." The tune kept running around inside Jonathan's head. He hadn't heard the song in years. Now, here it was and here he was. Just walking along. And it didn't really matter if he talked with Amanda again. It would be nice, of course, but he felt great just by himself. It was going to be a good day. A great day. So, what the hell, he thought.

And he began to whistle the tune. And head-shake to the beat.

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