A selected story from “Thirteen
Views” (Senior Honors Thesis)
The first time
he came to my flat, he needed to borrow some eggs.
“I was going to
make breakfast,” he said. “I guess I need to go to the store.”
I promise you,
that’s how it happened. I’d seen him with his girlfriend moving onto the first
floor a few months before. We’d never met. He said his name was Alex.
When I reached the
door, my hand rested on the knob for a split second before I opened it. And in
that moment, I told myself that you’d be on the other side. I don’t believe in
ghosts. I knew it was irrational. Of course, it wasn’t you.
“Alex or
Alexander?” I asked, slipping my engagement ring on and off my finger – that
nervous twitch you hated so much.
“Alex,” he said.
“Always Alex unless I’m in trouble with my girlfriend.”
He said it like
this had happened many times before.
“Commander of
the People,” I said, and he frowned.
You know how I
like to play that funny game – memorizing the meanings of names and spurting
them out like a dictionary. It’s one of those quirks you always liked about me.
“Your name: it means ‘commander
of the people,’” I said.
“And what’s your
name?” he asked.
“Rose – Rosalind
– but Rose.”
“Rosalind, like
in Shakespeare? Very English.”
“I’m American,”
I said looking up at him and then quickly back down.
“Me too,” he
smiled. “So, Rose, how about those eggs?”
I led him into the kitchen. But,
as you know, the word “kitchen” is really an exaggeration. With just enough
space to lean over the stove without butting the cabinets, it hardly constitutes a whole room.
I grabbed my
sketches from the counter. “It’s a bit of a mess,” I said. “You can tell I
don’t use it much.”
“You’re an
artist?” he asked, peering over my shoulder at the drawings.
“When I have the
time,” I shrugged. Actually, I haven’t painted anything for about a year now,
since I’ve had the flat to myself. Instead I added, “But I don’t make any money
doing it.”
“Definitely an
artist, then,” he smiled.
I shook my head
but even so I was imagining how I would draw him. Tall with broad forearms,
Alex took up much of the small space. I imagined painting him in my kitchen
with all the windows open and the light dancing off the blue tile. But he’d
cover much of the canvass – brown eyes flecked with gold, lips parted slightly,
torso hunched over the stove.
“Can I ask you a
strange question?” he asked.
I nodded.
“I really hate
eating by myself and my girlfriend is teaching abroad for the semester, so–”
“If this ends in
you cooking for me, then yes,” I said.
“Good,” he
smiled and rummaged through the fridge.
“Top shelf, next
to the milk,” I said, but he’d already found the eggs.
He moved
effortlessly around the kitchen, as if he already knew where everything was
kept. It took almost a year, even after we were engaged and had moved in
together, for you to find the frying pan – a fact that, looking back, I somehow
find endearing but at the time was really quite annoying.
“Lived in London
long?” Alex asked, cracking an egg over the rim of the bowl.
“I moved over
here after I graduated college,” I said. “It’s been a couple of years. How
about you? When did you cross the pond?”
The eggs hissed
as they hit the skillet and expanded in warbled globes. Their translucent outer
rings bubbled and turned white, then golden at the edges.
“My girlfriend
and I moved for real just a few months ago,” he said. “But we’d been going back
and forth for a while before then. She’s British.”
He slid two
fried eggs over toast, the weak yolks bursting.
“Yeah, I moved
for a Brit, too,” I smiled.
“And now?”
“Well, he’s not
leaving,” I said. “And, besides, it’s a hard city to get away from.”
He studied my
expression carefully, and I wondered how much he’d guessed, how much you should
tell a stranger cooking in your kitchen.
“Coffee?” I
asked and poured us each a cup from the French Press your mother gave us.
We took the
plates into the living room. I moved more sketches from the table, tossing them
on the couch behind us. We sat down.
“Some of these
still lifes are really good,” he said, turning to study them.
His eyes flitted
over each of the drawings and settled on the one I drew of you when we were
visiting your parents. It was of a bowl of fruit – apples, pears, a nice round
grapefruit.
“It’s not a
still life,” I said. “It’s a portrait.”
“It’s a bowl of
fruit.”
“A bowl of fruit
can be a portrait,” I said. “Portraits don’t have to be of faces and arms.”
I could never
draw you right with your blue eyes ringed in gold, pointed nose and upturned
mouth like you were always about to laugh at a good joke that only you could
properly appreciate. So I’d drawn your breakfast instead.
“Well, I’m just
glad the fruit isn’t rotten,” Alex said. “Too many paintings have rotting
fruit.”
“That’s just the
first draft. I never draw them rotting in the first draft.”
“And the
second?”
“Not until I add
paint.”
He turned back
to the table, folded the toast over and bit into it like a sandwich, the yolk
running onto his fingers.
When I think of
our last morning together, I think about how it should have been. I should have
gotten up from my seat by the window where I was drawing your portrait, and I
should have kissed you goodbye. We would have leaned in the doorway, my arms
wrapped around your neck, and I would have whispered, “Don’t go.”
And you would
have laughed and said silly things like, “But I have to go to work.”
And I would have
been spontaneous – though I was never very spontaneous when you were around –
and I would have said, “Let’s play hooky.”
And you would
have lifted your eyebrows and laughed – and because this is what should have happened – you would have
said, “Why not?” and dropped your suitcase.
And I can think
of lots of things we could have done after that. But that’s only what should
have happened.
Instead, I
didn’t even look away from the canvas. I was so intent on getting the lighting
right, I’m not sure if I even said, ‘Goodbye.’
When I think
back on that moment, I imagine that you turned at the door and watched me. And
I wonder if your last thought of me before the accident was of me hunched over
your portrait. And maybe you hoped that at least I’d finish it.
Since it was
just breakfast, I figured Alex’s visits weren’t doing any harm. Besides, there
was something – an intangible quality – about him. Maybe it was that he was
safe – nothing could happen while we each had somebody else. So after a while,
I started leaving the door of my apartment unlocked. Not so much as a direct
invitation. More like an open suggestion. And he came of course. I knew he
would.
“I brought the
goods,” he said one morning, letting himself in.
He held up a
grocery bag and walked into the kitchen.
“I just think
you should know that I’m engaged,” I said all in a rush. I’d been thinking
about how I should tell him this since our first meeting and planning just how
I would broach the subject. You would say that I completely botched it, that I
always botch subtlety, which, of course, is true.
“I guessed as
much,” he said, pointing to my ring.
The small square
cut diamond caught the light from the kitchen window and flashed.
“Yes, well, I
just thought you should know,” I said, helping him un-bag the groceries. “He’s
never home, so some people don’t realize.”
“How long have
you been engaged?” he asked.
“Over a year.”
“Mmmhmm.” But
his eyes narrowed, and he looked at me that half-second longer than usual, like
he knew otherwise. “So I have a question,” he said. “Is that portrait you drew
of him?”
I nodded.
“And you haven’t
finished it because – ?”
“I need the
subject in front of me,” I said.
“You mean you
need a bowl of fruit? Because I can get that to you right now. I’ll just go
downstairs and –.”
“No, I mean –”
“I know what you
mean,” he said. “Where is he exactly?”
My eyes widened.
I wasn’t used to his direct questions. “He went to work,” I said. “Long hours.”
“Really long
hours,” he shook his head. “I don’t think he’s come home once since I moved
in.”
I shrugged.
“It’s complicated.”
“It’s
complicated,” he repeated. “Ok, so he’s off and you’re, what, left waiting?”
“No, I’m left
fielding questions from people like you.”
There was an
infinitesimal moment where I felt the direction of things could go one of two
ways. I gave him that look you know so well: that look that says ‘not any
further.’ Only I think this time it was more pleading than that. ‘Let me win’
was more like it.
He let me win.
“Complicated,
huh?” he asked. “Well, you know what ‘they’ say: most everything good always
is.”
“Mmmm… right,
‘they.’ Who’s that again?”
We laughed.
“Fine, not
‘they,’ me,” he said. “But I think
some things are worth finishing.”
“Like a painting
of a fruit bowl?”
“Like a
portrait,” he said. “Just think about it.”
After that we
stopped referring to you altogether. Skipping over the subject of you was just
another part of our routine. He made the omelets, I fixed the coffee, he harped
on how I should paint something, and I showed him a new sketch I’d been working
on of just his arms stretched over the skillet.
“This isn’t the
same portrait,” he laughed. “Is this one of me?”
He seemed pleased.
I shrugged.
“Look, I even
have arms,” and he raised his in mock celebration.
We both laughed.
We laughed long after it ceased to be funny.
It wasn’t until
he left that I realized I hadn’t once thought of you the entire morning. Not
when I poured the coffee from your mother’s French Press. Not when we talked
about my artwork. Not when Alex ducked out for work.
The thought hit
me – or more like smacked me – as I was washing my coffee cup. I didn’t want to
think of what that might mean. I ran my finger around the rim of the mug and
let the water run.
The last time he
came over, his grocery bag was bulkier than usual.
“I thought I’d
make omelets today to celebrate,” he said.
“What are we
celebrating?”
“My girlfriend’s
coming home.”
I was surprised
that spring had passed so quickly. He popped a bottle of champagne, and I
grabbed glasses even as I protested that it was 11 in the morning.
“We’ll close the
blinds,” he said. “And turn out the lights so it’ll seem later.”
We hung towels
over the blinds for greater effect.
I brought out
candles. “Because it’s so dark,” I said, in way of explanation.
“Of course.”
We toasted our
glasses and drank deeply but even so it felt more like a funeral than a
celebration. We drank two glasses before we started the omelets.
He cracked eggs
over a bowl and whirred the golden centers into a frothy blur.
I diced tomatoes,
onions and green pepper.
He dished the
omelets onto plates and carried them into the living room. He glanced over at
my portrait of you. He seemed irresistibly drawn to it – like it was a problem
to solve.
“When did you
draw this?” he asked.
“About a year
ago,” I said.
I cut into the
omelet, the egg falling away from the knife and the vegetables spilling out. We
ate in silence, talking only after we’d pushed back our plates and poured more
champagne.
“I think you
should finish it,” he said.
“Actually, I
have done a little work on it,” I said.
He frowned at
the untouched sketch on the couch.
“No, not that
one,” I said. “A newer version. I added paint.”
He smiled. “And
where is this newer version?”
I grabbed a
package off the mantel. “Open it later,” I said.
“I hate
waiting,” he said. “Come on, let me open it now.”
I shook my head.
“You should say, ‘thank you,’” I said. “It’s a gift. That’s what people
normally do in situations like these.”
“But why this
one?” he smiled. “Why not the one of that fine looking man frying eggs?”
I laughed. “I’m
keeping that one,” I said. “Take what you’re given.”
“And happily,”
he said. “I look forward to meeting your fiancé.” He raised his eyebrows and
grinned.
“It’s a bowl of
fruit,” I said. “It will look good in your kitchen.”
I carried the
dishes to the sink. I took my engagement ring off and placed it on the ledge
above the faucet. I ran warm water and slid my hands over the plates. After
rinsing, I toweled them dry. Alex put everything back in the cupboard.
When the ring
fell, it made the tiniest little clinking sound. I could hear it clanging as it
went down the pipe. I saw the whole thing, even though I don’t know how it
happened. I’ve always taken my ring off to do dishes, but this time it was like
the ring jumped off the shelf of its own accord. I saw it flash as it fell, so
very slowly I could have almost caught it, but I didn’t. I just watched it
plunk into the suds.
I screamed and
turned off the water, but I wasn’t as upset as maybe I should have been and
that upset me more. You always said I shouldn’t take it off to do dishes, and
you were right of course. You were almost always right, which I almost always
hated.
Alex came up
behind me. “Do you have a plumber’s wrench?” he asked.
“I don’t know,”
I said, grabbing your tool set from the bottom shelf.
Alex rummaged
through it and held up a bright orange wrench with an adjustable metal top.
“Plumber’s wrench,” he said and ducked underneath the sink.
I bent down
beside him, our arms touching. He clamped the wrench around the U-shaped drain
and twisted. The pipe came off in his hands.
“I’d move back
if I were you,” he said and tapped the drain trap on the counter.
A water-logged
mesh of hair and food scraps fell out. “You think it’s in there?” I asked.
He shrugged and
fingered through the mess, emerging with the ring. A little egg was on it, and
he rinsed it off. He watched me closely as he handed it to me. I didn’t put it
back on.
Instead I walked
with Alex back to the table, and he poured us each what was left of the
champagne. The champagne was almost flat, but we drank it anyway, the
engagement ring between us. We took slow sips, stretching time.
“Are you picking
her up from the airport?” I asked.
He shook his
head. “She should be back soon.”
Silence lengthened
and enveloped us. I watched him over the rim of my glass.
After a while,
he rose from the table.
“This was – ” he
started, but I put my finger over his mouth.
“Don’t,” I said.
I followed him
to the door. “Goodbye,” I said.
He waved from
the staircase.
I returned to the
table. He hadn’t finished his glass of champagne. I drank it slowly, letting
the froth settle over my tongue before swallowing. I played with my ring,
spinning it on the table with my finger.
“Wait,” I cried
and ran back to the door.
He was still on
the staircase. He looked up expectantly.
“You forgot your
coat,” I said.
It was hanging on
a peg in the living room. I handed it to him. He draped it over his arm and
patted it thoughtfully, then left again.
I watched him
walk down the stairs. Leaning against the doorframe, I imagined him returning
to his room and opening the package. He’d unwrap it and find the painting just
as he’d wished: a beautiful basket with fresh fruit, none of it rotting. He
would hang it immediately. And I smiled as I turned from the door.
