An Aversion to Ladders 9

THE DANCING STAR, Part One

The painter needed to pass by his house on way to the coffeehouse and pick up his journal. He was necessarily upset by Brae’s disappearance, and the idea he could write anything was unthinkable. Still, habit and ritual were deep-wired to him, if not always finding substance in them. He was suddenly torn between two females in his otherwise barren life, yet was fated to act on only one. He took his car to speed his arrival at the coffeehouse.

Bean and Nothingness seemed slow for a school day. Michael was automatically gravitating to a table he had sat at twice before, by osmosis. On moving up to order his drink, he saw her at the counter before she spotted him. The beautiful brunette looked none the worse for wear from their night together, although her blue-green eyes conveyed only subdued recognition. A whirlwind had transpired between them, yet the abruptness of this second encounter so soon after the first was, in Michael’s estimation, the awkward first date missed the first go-round.

Sober, he opened his mouth to babble. “Ah-h-h. Lattes… I mean—do you have lattes? A large one?”

Her smile was hard to gauge.

Michael blurted the first thing that came to mind. “You’re not wearing your glasses.”

“I only wear them when I want to appear older,” she said.

He fished in a pocket for his wallet. “How old are you?”

“I just turned twenty-four.”

There was always a disconnection when he was brought face-to-face with the numbers. He grinned in an amble as she began to prepare his drink.

Michael wanted to see the graduate student as a child, like Brae. But with her back momentarily turned, he could not help taking inventory of all her attributes that were decidedly not child-like. Even allowing for her flat sandals, he guessed her to be about five-ten. Her bones and height prevented her from being delicate, although her chiseled line and long legs made her resemble expensive Lalique art glass. Her ensemble, an ashen grey cardigan sweater over a simple indigo blue dress, aspired to modest maturity, and perhaps such trappings had made him only too eager to be taken in by her wiles. Yet the presentation the night before had been so deft and dazzling that any man susceptible to the flattery of a pretty girl could be forgiven for temporarily forgetting age. The line separating daughters from prospective lovers (in a man’s mind, anyway) is never wider than a single thin strand of DNA.

The young woman finally shot back a stare to meet his dissecting gaze, forcing him to guiltily redirect his attention to a stain on the counter. On setting his drink in front of him, she ventured her own evaluation. “You are quieter than I remember.”

Michael volunteered some of his feelings. “I’m afraid it’s not a good day. My neighbor’s little girl has gone missing.”

“That’s terrible.” Pained by her intrusion, the drink was pushed toward him with an easier expression. “It’s on the house today. Compliments of me.”

He was pulled halfway out of his mood. "Thank you."

“My name is Emma,” she said. “Emma Breton.”

“Michael," he replied. "Michael West.”

With names properly exchanged, the patron moved away to make room for the next customer.

The coffee was consumed without his customary calculation, while his most steadfast companion, self-pity, tugged him down through the chair to the scuffed floor. Had he married years ago he would not be forming designs on young women. He knew he could not encourage himself in his foolhardy infatuation, yet in spite of this better judgment he was unable to stop staring at Emma. Every minute he indulged himself the more he knew he would be lost to all prudence. Mercifully she had no time to notice his gawking since she was hard at work. Her look was one of averted gazes and unreadable deadpan. Maybe she bore him no true feeling. In which case, it would be for the best. He was already a regular at the coffeehouse (this would not change), although any subsequent attempt to engage the graduate student would be anticipated with a degree of anxiety. Given this, he decided, in a magnanimous turn, he would not further the acquaintance. She would be his muse, but only distantly. He would come here to write or sketch in his journal each day, and then return home to throw his unrequited feeling into his painting. It was a proven formula that worked, and only too well to his admitted detriment. His “worshiping women from afar” was more than a lifelong practice. It was an incurable habit. In this painful instance, at least, it would be merciful deliverance. Whether she would be flattered by his attention, or simply indifferent to it, he hoped she would not lump him in with the other older men who undoubtedly came into the coffeehouse to leer at her. His attraction would not be so crude or intrusive. Nor would it be calculating or ingratiating. He would admire her with the quiet reverence of an aging man who needed more than wanted her.

Shortly, a group of young bohemian-types came in to chat with the barista; Michael was familiar with their ilk from his erstwhile incarnation as an MFA student. He pegged them as slummers: marginally talented offspring from moneyed East Coast families who move to the heartland to slum it in art school for a few years. Beyond their Brie crust of culture, these artisans had acquired a painterly craft, but with nothing more to paint than views out their shabby chic student apartment windows. When not defacing perfectly good canvases, they splattered paint on their black clothing like stigmata. Even all these years later, the seasoned painter still could not shake his inferiority complex around this alpha group. He was and always would be (by their estimation, he thought) a commuter college parvenu with something to prove. This outsider status had always been the motivating spur under Michael’s saddle, and it allowed him to heroically portray himself as the provincial Cezanne among his Parisian betters.

The trio (two males and a female) soon left the building to smoke, and Emma, who apparently did not smoke, took a break to go outside and keep them company. He watched her interact with the young men through the window and knew full well only one of them would have to do.

The breathing space permitted him a moment to remember his earlier state of mind: his mournful pining for the other female in his life. This purer, more fatherly attachment for the missing child was something no one could fault him on. His melancholy inspired him to open his journal and begin writing. The words were quickly taking the ill-advised form of a poem, though he kept it in the most general terms by addressing it to his idée fixe.

Emma continued to ignore him on her return to the counter, and so the die was cast. The episode between them had been merely a drunken flirtation that, in the light of sobriety, was put into proper perspective. Still, in keeping with his stoic fatalism, the patron stayed dutifully through the rest of the barista’s shift. She went into the bathroom with a sack containing a change of clothes and traded out the indigo frock for a more striking Sixties cocktail dress of black and white geometric design. She blew by his table on the way out the door without making eye contact, obviously to dampen any expectation he may have formed. Once she was safely off the premises, the poet glanced once more over his opus. He had not written a dedication. His first impulse was to write the child’s name, but he wrote Emma, instead. He was immediately remiss on setting down the pen, so tore out the page with the thought of throwing it away once he got home. As the last of it ripped free of the spine, he looked up to see the young woman abruptly hovering over him. Startled, he crumpled the page and slipped it into his jacket pocket.

“Are you busy?” she asked.

“No.”

“Do you feel like eating a late lunch or early dinner with me?”

He exhaled. “Both."

Chapter Nine, Section Two/ Back/ Contents Page