Goodman - The Chalk Artist

H er long hair curtained her face as she sat marking papers. Drunk graduate students surrounded her, but she didnt even look up. Rock pounding, dishes clattering, this was Grendels in winter, the old Cambridge dive, loud, warm, and subterranean, half a flight down from Winthrop Street. A green lamp lit every table, a hundred mirrors hung on paneled walls. Collin watched her reflection from every angle. She looked so elegant and out of place.

She came on Tuesday nights, and sometimes Thursdays too. She would order a Mediterranean salad and start grading papers. She was slender, fair, her eyes dark and shining, as though she knew some secretshe alone. Whenever he got close enough, he looked over her shoulder. Her handwriting was precise, her pen purple, extra fine. Once she glanced up and nearly smiled. You realize, he told her silently, if I drop something its your fault. If I break a plate, its all because of you.

He saw guys leering, even if she didnt. Everybodys looking at her, he told Samantha, the bartender.

Sam said, Yeah, but mostly you.

Collin was twenty-three, bright, artistic, and unhappy. He had just left college for the second time, and although he had good reasons, his mother was upset with him. His ex-girlfriend Noelle was out of patience. His father was in the navy; he had not seen or even heard from the man in seven years. Collin had thought of enlisting, mostly to travel, but he had grown up on a street where signs in the front yards read WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER . He never did enlist. He didnt go anywhere.

He worked at a bar and went out drinking afterward. Even if hed enjoyed college and respected his instructors, even if he had excelled at Web design and programming, he didnt have time to go to class. He was busy collecting tips and partying, waking up in other peoples beds. Sometimes he despised himself; not often. Sometimes he decided to get serious, but he kept working nights and sleeping in, and hanging with his high school friends, and all of this became a full-time job; youth itself was his vocation.

For this reason, the girls diligence fascinated him. She sat for hours grading at her table, and she was so youngway too young to be a teacher. She should have known better than to sit alone down there. Few came to work at Grendels, and those who tried, didnt get much done. They would open their computers and close them gratefully when drinks arrived. This girl did not respond to guys circling her table. She looked royal in her cardigans and trailing scarves and calfskin boots. He sketched her on his order pad. The princess of solitude, with a crown.

One Tuesday, when she started packing up, her coat slipped off the back of her chair, and Collin ran to catch it for her. She stood to go, and he realized how tall she was, almost his height. He was close enough to see the gold flecks in her eyes, the freckles dusting her face. He held his breath as she slipped her arms into the sleeves. Then she thanked him, and rushed off.

Nice, teased a waitress named Kayte. Could you catch my coat too? Before it touches the ground?

Collin watched for the girl on Thursday while he carried out chicken wings and plates of stuffed potato skins. He served foaming Guinness, caught bits of conversation: Seriously? How much did that cost? I feel guilty butThe Who pounding. Students wailing, The exodus is here. Busy night and no free time, but Collin kept watching until Sam started flicking ice at him from behind the bar. Whore you waiting for?

Shut up.

So you admit it. Sam was tiny but in your face. She was compiling a book of vintage cocktails.

Im not admitting anything.

True, Collin wondered about the teacher. He speculated about her at Broadway Bicycle School, where he taught wheel changing, tire patchingbasic repair. She had sounded American, but he decided that she came from Paris. Or London. He said, Inflate the tube and listen. Maybe Barcelona.

On Monday he colored backdrops for the theater company he had founded with his roommate, Darius. Working with wet chalk on old-fashioned rolling blackboards, he drew slender trunks and arching branches, layered cherry blossoms, white and pink. The edge of his chalk crumbled. He rubbed white and red together with his thumb, and he thought and thought about her. Sometimes she glanced up and she was looking at him, he was sure of it. The next second he would think, No, that cant be true. Daydreaming about her, he felt lighthearted, amused. His fantasies were so chaste and so persistent. She was always sitting at her table, just out of reach, and he liked her therealthough he was intensely curious. What was she doing all alone? A girl like that would have a boyfriend. There had to be some story. A long-distance relationshipbut she didnt look lonely. He wanted to know her. Or at least to hear her name.