Red’s Book Reviews: We Were the Lucky Ones by Gloria Hunter

I have to be honest I spent so much of this book thinking about the line in the Beatles song “A Day In the Life,” that states “A crowd of people turned away, but I just had to look, having read the book.” This compelling account of a Jewish family in Poland during World War II just creates that feeling in reverse. We’ve all seen the “movie” of this story. The plight of Jewish people under the Nazis and even those under Stalin in Russia is well-documented, so when you read a story like this that provides real characters and narratives it’s easy to be scared to turn the page because the fact is that the stories didn’t end happy for most Jews in this time and place. This is a remarkably well-researched and well-told story, and I’d recommend this to anyone to read.

Up Next: The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

Red’s Book Reviews: The Know-It-All by A.J. Jacobs

The Know-It-All details Jacobs’ educational endeavor of reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica from start to finish. His narrative takes us through the alphabet while relating entries to his own life. He takes up the challenge to recapture the confidence he had as a ten-year-old who felt he was the smartest boy in the world along with conquering a task that his father failed to complete. He has always been intellectually competitive with his father, a lawyer who has a number degrees and written numerous books on law. Driving the story is the pursuit of intelligence, the definition of intelligence, and the way knowledge shapes the relationships each of us make.

I admire the dedication this took, but I won’t lie that at times I felt like the narrative and its lessons were done a bit heavy-handedly. While I am a fan of creative non-fiction, I always grow somewhat uncomfortable with books like this because I spend a lot of the time wondering how much of the writer’s goal was shaped by the idea that he’s going to write about it later. Once that enters my mind, it’s hard to forget, making some of the neat connections between entries and his life seem less genuine because he created the connection to fit his narrative. Still, it’s a fun read and I recommend giving it a chance.

Up next: We Were the Lucky Ones by Gloria Hunter

Red’s Book Reviews: The Pleasure of My Company by Steve Martin

This novella is about a man in his late twenties early thirties – hard to know which because he tells other characters different ages throughout the story – who “suffers” from some sort of personality disorder – likely OCD and perhaps some sort of autism. His life revolves around a bizarre yet strict set of rules such as not stepping off of curbs onto the street. It’s an enlightening glimpse into how seemingly normal people battle mental illness – the main character appropriately wins an essay contest with the theme of persuading the reader that the writer is the most “Average American.” The conflict of the story is can the main character overcome his debilitating issues. The story is written with sincerity, sarcasm and humor all wrapped together. One thing of note is that I struggled to divorce the main character from being Steve Martin. It must because I am more aware of the personality of the writer than in other books. The only other time I’ve encountered a similar issue is when Chuck Klosterman wrote the fiction novel “Downtown Owl.” I’ve read so much of his non-fiction, that I just heard that voice/person in all his characters.

Up next: The Know-It-All by A.J. Jacobs

Red’s Book Review: The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

This is a romance cloaked in the science fiction trope of time traveling. The genre might be perfect for the trope because it allows the author to gloss over some of the icky specifics of how the time travelling occurs. Her approach is to make it a genetic disorder, one the traveler cannot control. The chaos this creates leads to his relationship with Clare. She meets him first, she as a child and him as a man in his thirties and forties. In his linear timeline, he doesn’t meet her until his mid-to-late twenties. This allows for a book in two halves where first he has the advantage of knowing all the things to come in their relationship, and then she reverses that advantage as he experiences her childhood moments while they are married. Eventually this leads to a point – clearly the conclusion. I thought this was an original book, but one that finished with a cliché. That’s where the romance genre probably hurts this for me. Romances often end with a cliché. I was hoping for a little more.

Up next: Pleasure of My Company by Steve Martin

Red’s Book Reviews: Straight Man by Richard Russo

The most impressive thing about Richard Russo is his ability to write serious literature with so much humor. It’s like he’s able to grab real people off the street, turn them into characters for a book, and mix in all the real-life irony with the various personal and professional trails and heartbreak we all confront. Straight Man is the story of a middle-aged creative writing teacher at a middling university. He holds the interim title of Department Chair, a position he neither really wants nor wants to lose. The politics of a department ring true, at least from the professional experience I have dealing with people and power. Of course, it’s higher education so budget issues are part of the issue. Throw in the return of his estranged father – an academic of high regard despite his penchant for sleeping with his students, consoling his grown daughter through marriage problems, being temporary separated from his wife, who is out of town for a job interview, and a handful of other side issues, and Straight Man turns into a hysterical page turner. Oh, he also threatens on Live TV to kill a duck a day until his department receives a budget. Just awesome all over here. Read it. Trust me.

Up next: The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

NYC Midnight: Twelve Floors

Group 74

A Ghost Story

A Stairwell

A Hamburger

Brief Synopsis: After a séance brings back an evil spirit, Darcy must flee down twelve floors as her possessed friend gives chase. Her attempted escape turns into a fight for her sanity

Twelve floors. Darcy was sure that’s how many floors she and Casey climbed just minutes earlier. A lump formed in her throat thinking of her best friend. Until now. Until that damned spirit called back to this world by that witch had scooped out the soul of her friend and claimed the remaining shell as its own.

Bam! Bam! A fist pounded on the door behind Darcy. She stumbled forward, finding the railing in the stairwell despite the only illumination being a strobing red light as if a police cruiser was chasing a speeder somewhere above.

“We’re a little old for hide-and-seek, don’t you think?” Casey shouted. “I like it better when we play doctor! Show me where it hurts, Darc.”

“SHUT UP!” She screamed. “You’re not Casey!”

She descended the concrete stairway before her, knowing that after eight steps she’d reach a landing. There the stairway turned for another eight steps before coming to a landing and a door for the floor below. One hundred and ninety-two steps to freedom.

“That’s not nice. We were married in blood. Don’t you remember your vows?” The door’s hinges creaked as it opened behind her.

“I remember it was rainy and muddy and creepy that day,” she yelled back. His interest in the occult was alluring to her once, but over the last few months she regretted ever indulging his dark fantasies, most of all the pagan wedding. Yet she conceded to his desire to meet the witch in this abandoned high rise for the séance, as if appeasing him this time would save their relationship. She felt like the British in the 1930s, begrudgingly making concessions to the Nazis right up to the point the tanks rolled into Poland.

She reached the first landing, pivoted her weight and continued down the next flight. Her heart raced and her twenty-two-year old lungs burned. Too many smokes.

Casey’s voice called out.

“What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow out of this stony rubbish?”

They shared both an admiration of T.S. Eliot and a history of various psychological maladies, making “The Waste Land” their favorite. The poem served almost as a talisman in their relationship, pulling them back from the brink of every drama.

“Come in under the shadow of this red rock…”

Darcy risked taking two steps at a time, hoping the distance would muffle his voice.

“I will show you fear in a handful of dust.”

“SHUT UP!” she screamed again, as she neared the seventh floor.

“Darcy. That is no way to talk to your friend.”

In the pulsating red light on the landing, her father stood behind a charcoal grill. He wore an old blue cap and a white apron with “Caution Man Cooking” written across it in a font made to resemble flames.

“I hear he wants to play doctor. Don’t blow this, you’re a cute girl, but looks won’t last forever. Better bag him while you still can.” 

“Daddy?” Tears welled in her eyes. She hadn’t seen him since that day twelve years earlier when a Mack truck T-boned his Corvette on his way to pick her up at her friend’s house.

“Hurry up and apologize, your burger is almost done.” He lifted a patty with his spatula, and even from feet away, she could see maggots crawling on the pink beef.

“You’re not real.” She rushed passed him, catching a glimpse of the left side of his face and the mangled soup of muscle, flesh, and bone that remained after the accident.

“You’ve always been a disappointment,” he said. “You know right as that truck hit me, the last thing I thought was that this is all Darcy’s fault.”

Salty tears stung her eyes, and her dad started singing “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.” Casey’s voice interjected with more lines from Eliot. The last six floors were a blur, the sounds mixing with the strobing light. 

She came to the final landing where there was only a door. Silence echoed behind her, she couldn’t even hear Casey’s footfalls descending the stairs. Perhaps, he gave up. She tried the door, but it didn’t budge. Casey had told her only the doors to the floors were locked. She dug into her purse for the key Casey had stored there. He detested carrying things in his pockets. The key fit the lock, the door clicked, and she plunged through.

Her heart plummeted to her stomach. She expected to find the lobby, but instead she was greeted by the twelfth-floor hallway. Two doorways to her left, candlelight flickered into the hallway.

“This isn’t possible.”

Her feet carried her to the open door, and inside, they remained seated in a circle. The demon spirit with horns, a bull’s snout, and blazing red pupils wore Casey’s clothes, and the witch was no longer a gray-haired woman but a giant python with two feeble long arms. Two other grotesque minions were also there.

“Come, Darcy,” Casey said. “Let’s consummate our bond. Waiting will only make this more painful.”

She wailed, her last shreds of sanity spilling out in high octave notes. She retreated back to the stairway, where she ran down and down and down and down.

***

“You think she’s possessed,” said the witch, who was really no more than an old woman named Kara.

“No, but I’m worried,” Casey said. “She’s had episodes before, but never for this long. We should call for help.”

“Shit, if the cops are coming, I need to hide a few things,” Kara struggled to her feet. Casey dug into Darcy’s purse for her cell phone.

Across the room, Darcy kept stomping in eight-step triangles. Her eyes were distant and wild, and she murmured lines of Eliot and fragments of old songs. As Casey dialed, he made out one line.

“I could not speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither living nor dead, and I knew nothing looking into the heart of light, the silence.” 

Red’s Book Review: Emily, Alone by Stewart O’Nan

I finished this book at about 4 A.M. the other day as a cold refused to let me get some sleep. The setting fit the mood of the book, a look into the isolation of the elderly in our society. Emily, a widower, lives alone and is confronting both her own mortality and the solitude created by her ever-diminishing social circle. With this book coming from Emily’s perspective, it provides an accurate depiction of the clash of beliefs and styles between generations. Emily has a contentious relationship with her two children and longs to have a closer relationship with all her grandchildren. I think when you’re young it’s hard to understand that perspective, and it becomes difficult to imagine why a grandparent worries about this or that. I think this book lifts that vale.

Up Next: Straight Man by Richard Russo

Red’s Book Reviews: Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver

With the backdrop of the plight of the Monarch Butterfly, Kingsolver weaves a tale that intermingles the behavior of insects to a changing environment and the behavior of humans reacting to their environment. The main character is Dellarobia, a young wife and mother struggling in her marriage, her career (or lack thereof), and her place within in her husband’s family. A major theme being the role of conversation. The mystery of how Monarch’s communicate with one another to continue and change their yearly migrations. The communication that happens and doesn’t happen within a family and how that influences behavior. The bigger scope conversation between scientists and the public, as one side thumps the climate change narrative to a population that greatly ignores it. It’s hard to sum up a Kingsolver book in so few sentences because she is always so nuanced in making her points. I recommend this one, and recommend pretty much all of her books.

Up next: Emily, Alone by Stewart O’Nan.

NYC Midnight Flash Fiction: Paint Paradise in a Parking Lot

Group - 74 - Romance/An Electric Car Charging Station/A tote bag

Brief Synopsis: Sarah Dowdy hopes painting a parking space will inspire her rural town to think green. As it turns out, it inspires much more than that.

Dairy De-Lite Manager Daisy Farris ordered the installation of the first electric car charging station in Lincoln in the fall of 2014 per company mandate received via an official memo emailed to her company account. By May, the dang thing was placed before the stall next to the handicap spots on the west side of the building

Then no one used it the next three years.

You must remember that in Lincoln the population of full-sized diesel trucks still somehow manages to outnumber the actual population about two to one. Gas mileage and saving the earth are pretty low on the priority list of the average Lincolnite. Way below the weather, which most speculate about in every conversation.

“Dang it, it’s hot! Been pissin’ on my crops to keep them growing.”

“Lordy, when will it stop rainin’? Woke up dis mornin’ and my heifers were doin’ cannonballs in the feed lot.”

“Never been this frosty in May, I say. Still leery of unhitchin’ my snow blade.”  

Connecting the dots between their beloved gas-guzzling four-wheel-drive steeds and absurd weather occurrences was not in the activity book of their minds. That’s how things are in Lincoln, U.S.A. That’s how folks say it around these parts, Lincoln, U.S.A.

Not all of the town was ignorant to the climate change cause. Sarah Dowdy was an exception. Boy, was she ever. Born in 1999, three decades too late for the hippie movement, Ms. Dowdy loved tie-dyed, braiding her straight blonde hair, and walking around with no shoes on, and she lugged a huge tote bag everywhere filled with art supplies, hair ties, and sticks of incense. On the side of the tote in rainbow letters it said, “Recycling Rules!” Sarah Dowdy believed that small statements make big differences.

Ms. Dowdy turned that glorious age of sixteen in June of 2015, and she noticed the charging station when she drove her daddy in his big Chevy to the Dairy De-Lite after passing her driving test. She asked about it and old Ross Dowdy whistled between his clenched teeth.

“Nothing but some tree huggers with silly ideas,” Ross said, wanting more than anything to avoid the conversation and get to his chocolate dip cone. Ross, you see, owns four gasoline stations in the region. Gas efficiency definitely isn’t a priority.

Sarah Dowdy’s interest wasn’t so easily dismissed. By God, Google was made for finding out about things, and before she knew it, she loved electric cars. The charging station, she realized, was a tiny symbol of change in Lincoln. It just needed some help.

“I can make a difference,” she proclaimed one day to her best friend, Sophie, a chubby shy creature with braces. Sophie nodded and shrugged, a gesture as encouraging as it was confusing.

A night later, she snuck out of the house and hoofed it to the Dairy De-Lite parking lot. Late night Lincoln was quiet. A single police car patrolled for an hour or so before parking beside the highway allowing the deputy to nap between the occasional approaching headlights.

Sarah’s bulging tote was filled with spray paint cans. She came alone, Sophie being too timid for such rebellion, and she came determined.

The parking lot had its own set of lights and the charging station was thankfully blocked from the view of passing traffic by the building. She admired her canvas a moment, the rectangle blacktop of the car stall in front of the station while shaking a can of green paint. A muse tickled her imagination and she began painting. First with green. Grass, plants, and such. Then blue for sky, and once the blue dried, yellow for a bold sun and white for a fluffy cloud. Brown. Orange. Purple. She worked so feverishly she didn’t notice the shadow looming over her until it spoke.

“They’ll tan your hide for this.”

She jumped up, swirling to meet her intruder and hatching a plan to spray him in the eyes if rape was on his mind. He stepped back, flicking a cigarette away. Allan Schuld flipped burgers for minimum wage at the Dairy De-Lite during the summer. He was a year older than Sarah, and she remembered him from gym class, awkward with gangly limbs yet surprisingly athletic. He still donned the pink t-shirt and black slacks of the De-Lite uniform spotted with the obligatory stains and sweat spots. Below that was the dictionary definition of an average American boy.

“What are you doing sneaking up on me?”

“I left my jacket inside and they gave me a key this summer, so I walked over. What are you doing?”

“Making a statement.”

“Looks like you’re painting a parking spot.”

“It’s a statement about supporting the earth.”

“Hmm, well I hope it dries before it rains.”

He disappeared into the restaurant, returning a few moments later.

In the meantime, she painted an arrow on the sidewalk toward the charging station and one pointing to the mural in the parking space. Between the arrows were the words, “This saves this!”

“I like it,” he smiled, “Say, how far away do you live?”

“A couple miles, why?”

“Mind if I walk you home.”

She nodded and shrugged, borrowing Sophie’s non-committal gesture. He took it as a yes, and it didn’t take long for her to convince him to support the charging station, almost as fast as it took for him to fall for her.

The rest of the walk was cliché. Shining stars, a dark sky, a cool breeze, an offered jacket. Yes, cliché, but that’s Lincoln, U.S.A.

Love accompanied them from then on and that love inspired change.

Let’s paint the picture. Three years later. An electric car. The same charging station, finally being used. A late summer night. An engagement ring. A kiss. An embrace. A new mural painted by the happy couple to replace the one lost by a lot resurfacing.

The result: three more couples in Lincoln bought electric cars within the next six months.

Sarah Dowdy’s statement made a difference.

Red’s Book Review: The Runaway Jury by John Grisham

The setup for this book is a civil suit against a tobacco company and the ways that both sides of the suit go to extremes to manipulate the jury. This was written in 1996 before big tobacco lost any major suits concerning liability for smoking-related health problems. That alone makes it interesting as we’ve gone nearly two decades since tobacco lost and the myriad changes both legally and socially against smoking since then. It’s easy to forget the concept of a smoking section in restaurants or bars where people could smoke anywhere. I remember having to quarantine bar clothes in college because they reeked of cigarettes that I didn’t even smoke. The other thing to contemplate is the extent that big business goes to maximize their profits even to the extent of harming the public. The tentacles of these companies reach into every part of our society, manipulate it, and, many times, damage it. Something to consider as regulations and regulatory groups are stripped away by the current administration.

Up next: Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver

Red’s Book Reviews: Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt

Such a wonderfully written book that effectively continues to find ways to make the reader feel horrible. This nonfiction account of McCourt’s childhood in an impoverished family living through depression era conditions in Limerick, Ireland. The story makes you angry as his father drinks away his wages time and time again, ultimately never keeping a job long, before abandoning the family. Heartbroken for a mother battling depression after losing at least four children, having an alcoholic husband and four remaining children to feed and clothe. To empathy for Frank, who is staving off starvation and typhoid, interpreting Irish Catholic mores, and dealing with the average issues young people face while growing up. As things get worse and worse, it’s difficult to keep reading, but it is worth it. America becomes the symbol of freedom, prosperity, and hope for McCourt. When he reaches America, he does with a heart already missing Ireland, but embracing the wild hope of the future. It’s a reminder of why for the last few hundred years people from all over the world have traveled here to start new. It’s a reminder of the place we’ve held in this world. It’s a reminder of the symbol America once was, but unfortunately we no longer strive for the values we set when this country was formed.

Up next: Runaway Jury by John Grisham

Red’s Book Reviews: The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman

The premise of this book drew me in when I picked it up at a garage sale. A couple, unable to have children and alone as the lighthouse keepers for a tower on an island near Australia, discover a boat with the body of a man and a living baby washed up on the beach. The moral dilemma becomes should they report the body and baby, or raise the baby as their own.

Of course they choose to keep the baby, but guilt overwhelms the husband once they discover the mother of the child is living in the hometown of the wife.

I really want to say that I liked this book, but at times, it veered too close to being an average romance for my tastes, and the resolution was almost too tidy. These are all personal preference things. It reads fast and the plot motivates the reader to plow through the pages to find out what happens. I guess part of me wanted more, I am not sure what, but a deeper story maybe.

Up next: Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt

Red’s Book Reviews: The World According to Garp by John Irving

One thing that rings true about John Irving books is that you really never know what you are going to get when you crack open the first page. The only thing I knew about this book other than reading the back cover was that it involved high school wrestling in some way. I learned about that in Frank Deford’s sports writing memoir “Over Time” where Deford mentioned that Irving sent complaint letters to Sports Illustrated about its lack of wrestling coverage.

Garp is a book that at times seems preoccupied with sex and other times with the frustration of writing/publishing. Mostly, one seems to interfere with the other. The other jarring thing is the number of lost limbs and appendages. Just off the top of my mind, characters in this story lost: eyes, arms, and a penis (two actually – one bit off, the other by choice), numerous tongues, probably part of a head, and most of the people seem to battle with keeping their minds.

Irving’s books are never dull, and he always takes risks. He blends humor with tragedy brilliantly. He even prints full versions of a short story and a first chapter of a novel written by the fictional Garp. I’ve read two other Irving books and have two more in my to-read stack. I’d place this one above “A Widow for A Year” and below “A Prayer for Owen Meany” in terms of my preference.

Up next: The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman

Red’s Book Reviews: The Likeness by Tana French

Okay, I am going to break the premise of this book down to a couple points.

1.  A female detective recently removed from the Murder squad in Dublin and still recovering from a botched case (read Into the Woods by Tana French) that essentially cost Det. Maddox her partner and best friend, her preferred career, and her identity.

2. A murder victim that in fact passes as Det. Maddox’s doppelganger and even had been assuming one of Det. Maddox’s undercover aliases prior to her death.

3.  Det. Maddox is able to infiltrate the victim’s life and social network by not disclosing the death to anyone and crack the case. In that time, you learn a little about the provincial politics of Ireland that persist through generation.

4.  Det. Maddox survives an identity crisis created by her previous case and catalyzed by taking the identity of her murder victim.

I generally like French’s writing – it’s always a bit haunted and deceptive – but I always find that I struggle to retain what actually happened in the book. I read Into the Woods a few years ago, and I spent half of the time I was reading this one, trying to remember what happened. A week after putting down The Likeness, and I can already feel it slipping away. Still, if you like detective stories, this is a pretty good one. I have one more on the shelf to read from French, and hope to do so before the end of the year.

Up next: The World According to Garp by John Irving

NYC Midnight: Another First Date

Note: This is my second round story for the NYC Midnight contest. We had three days to write a 2,000 word story based on provided prompt. I am in Heat 1: Romantic Comedy, A Garden, A Pregnant Woman. The top three in each heat advance to the final round.

Brief Synopsis: A husband and wife have discovered that the secret to sparking their stale marriage is by going on first dates.

He picked the name Marcus, thinking a Marcus would like art and be able to talk about it in a sophisticated way. Marcus was a socialite, who had inherited his sense of the abstract and a healthy stock portfolio from his mother, a noteworthy patron of the creative arts in the Midwest and the heiress of a mildly successful regional fast food chain. Marcus was a catch.

The hands of his watch pointed to noon as a gray Subaru swerved to the edge of Grand Avenue, rubbing its tires against the curb, stopping sharp, and, for the most part, occupying two parking stalls.  In a blur of motion most reminiscent of a tornado, the engine was killed, and a middle-aged woman shoved the driver’s door open with her large purse flailing about as she exited the vehicle with the grace of a schnauzer on roller skates. She waved to him before stopping at the meter to drop a few coins in the slot. Enough for an hour, he supposed.

She wore a purple skirt and a loose black top that accentuated her ample bosoms, and he noticed her black high heels – totally not sensible for walking around a sculpture garden and clearly not a usual choice of footwear for her. She stumbled slightly as she crossed over from the sidewalk to the grass before collecting herself and adjusting her purse strap.

“Hi, I’m Valerie, but call me Val.” She held out her hand that had fingers that were accentuated by long fake nails painted purple. He noted that the nail on her middle finger was gone.

“Marcus,” he said. “My pleasure.”

“Okay, Mark,” she said, “before we go any farther, let’s give first impressions. If we can’t be honest now, we’ll never be honest later.”

“Well,” he considered how Marcus would answer. Her short brownish hair was imbedded in patches of gray, but Marcus would never mention that. She was a head shorter then him and could insensitively be described as stout. Way too crude for Marcus to say though. He went with a shallow compliment with a hint disdain in his voice.  “You seem to have a wealth of energy.”

“Hah,” she said and snorted. “You charmer. Boy, you are balder than your profile picture shows. You ought to have worn a cap or something. Your noggin is going to burn like toast out here.”

He ran his hand through his thinning hair.

“I didn’t want it to be a secret or something,” he said, not hiding Marcus’s sensitivity to his condition.

“Oh, no matter to me. It’s not like I’m a prize these days. I do like that jacket you’re wearin’. You look hip.”

He’d went with a blue blazer over a checkered shirt and jeans, an outfit approved by his daughter. He chased the thought of his family away. Marcus was a lifelong bachelor. Offering his arm, he shifted his focus toward the sculpture of a barren white oak tree. A tall brick building with broken windows loomed behind. She ignored his arm, bullying forward for a closer look.

“So, what ya make of that?” she asked.

“First blush, it’s bleak and the building behind lends to that feeling of doom, but the more I look at it, I find hope and power, as if to affirm that life and love can penetrate even the most brutal conditions.”

“Holy crap, you’re a smarty,” she winked. “I thought it looked like that tree from that movie with that midget Frodo running around in his bare feet. My boy watched that thing a thousand times.”

“I don’t think midget is the right term,” he said.

“Oh, and these guys are like those ugly creatures,” she moved toward a pair of sculptures that crudely put resembled two thumbs with faces. One had a fiendish grin with two rows of sharp teeth, and the second looked afraid. “Orcs! I can’t believe I remembered that.” She snorted in satisfaction.

They returned to the sidewalk that snaked around the large rectangular garden. Sculptures passed on their left and right, and he paused at the signs that gave details about the art. He mentioned one artist, saying his mother had funded the work. Valerie fidgeted, impatient to keep moving. If he had to guess, her feet were killing her. About half way through the park, she started to rummage through her purse before pulling out a pack of Virginia Slims and a lighter.

“You smoke?”

“I’m sorry. I’m trying to quit, but I am just nervous as hell.”
She inhaled, and then she blew the smoke out of the side of her mouth, turning her head to disguise a cough. Despite the smoke, he admired the day – blue skies, beating sun, slight breeze.  

“I drive by here all the time, but I never stop,” he admitted. “It’s quite wonderful.”

“You know, I like it, too,” she said. “When you suggested here, I figured it’d be lame, but some of these contraptions are a hoot, and you’re kinda cute.”

He smiled. She had an honesty that even a guy of Marcus’s pedigree would appreciate. Maybe she smoked, and maybe her nerves had her tripping over her manners and spouting everything that came to her mind, but he wasn’t going to allow that to stop his good time. Sure, Marcus and Valerie probably weren’t a match, but it was an experience and the thrill was in the discovery of both her and subsequently, the things he learned about himself.

They approached a ring made of tall panes of what he thought could be made of plastic. Each pane was a different shade of the color wheel, forming a majestic circular rainbow. There was opening on one side that they entered.

Inside, a young, frail woman wearing Capri pants and flip flops was playing the violin. Her clearly pregnant belly protruded out from below her tank top. Her skin was tan and her hair dirty, and at her feet a few crinkled bills and dirty coins were scattered inside her open violin case.

“What’s that she’s playing?” Valerie asked.

“Bach, I think,” he answered. The violinist raised her eyebrow. He didn’t really know music, but he knew Marcus would have known.

“Know any Zeppelin?” Valerie joked. “Maybe ‘Free Bird!’”

The violinist’s tune slowed, and before he knew it, they were slow dancing. The sun beat down on his balding crown, and he could feel his skin burning, but he was lost in the moment. They spun slowly, the colors of the sculpture blending and penetrating his senses in concert with the song and the smell of her perfume.  For the first time in forever, he felt filled with emotions. Hope. Joy. Passion. Excitement. All the feelings so recently absent returned and overwhelmed him. She briefly lowered her ear to his chest, hiding the tears welling in her eyes.

When the song ended, he dropped a hundred dollar bill in the violinist’s case, causing an eyebrow raise from Valerie. She didn’t comment though, and she took his arm again as they left the ring. When they were a few feet outside of the ring, the violinist started a new song, and Valerie giggled.

“I think she’s playing ‘Kashmir,’” Valerie said.

He shrugged his shoulders, thinking that Marcus wouldn’t understand the reference.

“What do you suppose will happen to her and the baby?” She asked as they passed by a giant sculpture of a girl who sort of resembled a mixture of a Who from Dr. Seuss and Lucy from The Peanuts.
 
“The violinist?” He asked. “Well, I’m an optimist. I think eventually she’ll start giving music lessons, and she’ll catch on in one of those rich neighborhoods where people don’t mind paying more for things then they are worth. They’ll send her their kids, and she’ll turn them into musicians. And the baby will be a prodigy and play all the big halls before it turns ten.”

“That’s lovely,” Valerie smiled, a hint of remorse touched the corner of her lips. “It won’t be easy for them though, I can tell you that.”

“No, I don’t suspect it will."

The conversation stalled there, and they walked separately and silently, both likely thinking about the hard times of their own lives. Not the lives of Marcus and Valerie. Their real lives. The times with little money. No jobs.  The son that came before they were ready to be parents. The bills. The fights. The coldness. The bitterness.
 
Before long they were back to their starting point before the white tree sculpture and those thoughts faded away. The branches were empty, skeletal, and some were twisted and broken, but he thought he could make out buds on some of the branches near the top. At some point, she had grasped his hand.

“That was fun,” she said, removing her heels, “but my pups are barking.”

“I couldn’t believe you wore those,” he said. “What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that old Val didn’t have the sense to wear flats. Besides, look who’s talking, Mr. Burnt Head. You’ll never get to sleep tonight.”

“Marcus is too classy for a hat.”

“What a snob!” She laughed, and his heart was happy. Not so long ago the two could never find anything to laugh about.

“I about lost it when you pulled out that cigarette.”

“Oh god, I about puked when I smoked it. Plus, do you know how much those damn cancer sticks cost? And I still felt like a criminal buying them, like my father was going to rush in and give me a swat on the rear for buying smokes.”

It was his turn to laugh, and she squeezed his hand a bit harder.

Two neatly dressed professionals passed by, and he supposed they saw two aging fools holding hands and grinning like teenagers, but he didn’t care. Those people didn’t know the joke. For twenty-five years, they had woke up next to each other, went to work, raised kids, and dropped down next to each other in bed every night exhausted. Their love became buried in monotony.
 
It had been their daughter who had suggested these first dates.

“Go somewhere new and be other people,” she said. “Different names and different lives, and listen to each other, like you haven’t known each other forever. Listen like you do when you first meet someone.”
 
They had shrugged it off as silly, but the idea stuck in the back of their minds. The first few tries were awkward, and usually one of them gave it up before the lunch hour was up. Then one date, they both stayed with it to the end, and it was exhilarating. Now, once a week, they met at a different location with surprise characters, and they worked their hardest to outdo the other.
 
“This is working, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she brushed aside her bangs. “It’s like being with someone else without actually being with someone else. Now all I want to do is talk to you about it, and I just know once we get talking, we’ll just keep talking about all kinds of things. Where before…”

“Where before we would have just said the usual old stuff,” he finished her thought.

“Yeah.” She tilted forward on her toes and kissed him lightly on the lips. “I feel like a school girl.”

They embraced before the tree sculpture, loathing to part, knowing that it meant back to work and an afternoon away from each other. When that time eventually came, he walked her to the Subaru.
 
“That was nice of you to tip the violinist that much,” she said.

He looked toward the color ring on the opposite side of the garden, relishing the feelings that had passed over him during their dance.

“I hope it helps.”

“Me too."

“So, where we going next week?”