The Impressionist (F)

A book of human and animal skulls, the only book on Arlene’s coffee table, piqued my interest.

The first time we were together outside the workplace was with the Sunday women’s section editor having a late dinner at a cozy little bistro a block off Market Street. Most of the conversation went back and forth on topics like pot holders—Arlene makes her own—and salads—of those, she is a connoisseur. She was not aloof, but her part in the conversation never ventured beyond the present, and she didn’t ask any personal questions of me.

That I would ever be sitting in her apartment, a second floor walk-up at the corner of Alexander and Chapel, seemed at best unlikely. But I had lunch at Tangiers with my niece, and on our way out the door we stepped right into the path of Arlene. After hurried introductions and a bit of idle chat, I blurted out another invitation to dinner. Just the two of us.

Arlene, who is 28, is the receptionist from one to nine at the newspaper building where I work. In her first two weeks on the job, a number of the single male reporters, the married city editor, and the state editor asked her out. I of course was aware of the talk of the new hire, a brunette and slender and soft-spoken, and everyone mentioned at least once how she always keeps her eyes fixed on whomever is speaking to her. 

The best way to describe the effect, while somewhat out of fashion to say so, is to say they were smitten. While I was curious when I on impulse asked her to meet with the women’s editor and me at Rudy’s for a late supper, my intentions were without design. And, she did accept.

My niece’s first observation, after we had walked for a block back toward her apartment, came without prompting. “She’s not your type.” When I shrugged my shoulders, she followed with “She seems nice, probably she’s nice.” The phrase my type is an interesting attempt to categorize. To be honest, my niece has the mistaken impression I am still the younger version of a self who covered the first Gulf war and who lived for two years in Buenos Aires. 

But, life moves on, doesn’t it?

I stood when Arlene came back into the living room. She no longer wore a pink satin robe, but instead she was in what I later learned to be a bandage dress of a shade much more sophisticated than the word green suggests.  Her hair that had been down below her shoulders was now pulled up and back into a loose bun so that her eyes became even more compelling to look at.

“Interesting book, the skulls,” I observed.

Her eyes met mine. “Oh, yes. I use the illustrations for my sketching exercises.”

“You draw? You paint?”

“I did. I do. I just started drawing again. Just a little.”

“Again, you said. When, before?”

“Oh, I studied in Paris and Barcelona. I stopped when I saw Picasso’s student work at the Museu Picasso. When I saw his pencil sketches, I lost my nerve.”

“When was that?”

“Last year. I came here because my sister and brother-in-law thought I would like living here.”

“And do you?”

“I don’t know yet.”

I hesitated. “Okay. Well, then, shall we go to dinner?”

“That would be lovely.”  Ladson 2013