Sorry for the many typos and other proofreading errors.
Funny story. Mitchell and I were meeting at a cafe with outdoor seating, and he arrived early and found all the tables full of students. The tables were cast iron, black, and their thin circular tops had decorative perforations- by the way, in case you're interested. Mitchell knows I am as an artist, so he likes telling me details like that. Light shot through the tiny holes, he said. Ping, ping ping. They covered the ground, shadow beneath, with bright circles.
(I've been there too, so I knew what kind of furniture the restaurant had and the rest, but he reminded me, setting the scene).
He found a chair- also black cast iron lightweight- and took it, sitting outside the main cluster of tables.
It hurt his back, his tail bone. Not a comfortable chair but it fit the ambiance and you don't complain when making an impression.
More scene setting. The cafe is on an especially quiet corner, one where cars don't come, and looks a little European. Projecting from the facade is a green and white striped canvas awning that casts the front in deep shadow so that the window glass looks almost black (the effect of contrast with strong sun), and in the near distance across the street (grey and gravel-strewn and curved like an elbow) rises a soft yellow, melon-colored wall with a faded billboard on which you can just make out cursive letters written long ago and traces of an image- a face, hand holding a cigarette toward it? All that's left are black lines now turned to grey. They look as if they were drawn by pen and ink because almost all the other colors are gone. Are those two concentric curved lines smoke wafting upward from the end of a cigarette held by an elegant hand? A poised person? A thinker? Once upon a time? Was there a cigarette holder? How many decades in the past was that illustration, advertisement drawn? The style is so different from now, the connection so faint.
Mitchell was the only one alone. Everyone else sat in groups. I guess he appeared out of place on his own in that sociable setting. The others didn't know that somebody- I- was coming to meet him. Also, he was older than the student crowd. He just looked different. And he'd taken only a chair, not a table (waiting for one to open before I arrived), which made him all the more conspicuous, a figure that might attract idle attention of those seeking distraction, as some would on a sunny day. College students get restless this time of year, Mitchell says and added he didn't feel self-conscious in a bad way; students stare at him all the time. It goes with his job. College teacher. Respected man, except not to himself sometimes! I wish I could help more but people are who they are.
One woman at a nearby table, with friends but on his side, the closest to Mitchell of anyone in her group, looked his way with amusement at first and then friendly interest. He said he almost wished I wouldn't come so he could see what happened between him and her.
Maybe it sounds strange he told me that, but he knew I'd understand. He said the sunlight penetrating the tiny holes in the cast iron table, falling like so much rain, drew his eye to her legs and that something in the way she regarded him, a combination of amusement- curiosity she didn't hide, a cold regard- and friendliness (coming gradually) interested him. I did understand.
I really really like the picture you sent, by the way. And I feel the same combination from you, regard that's detached, cool, even cruel, along with warm affection. Two that seem impossible together. It's what Mitchell saw in that woman's expression and drew him to her and drives me to you.
Mitchell talked about his own students: he's not surprised anymore by how easily they get bored, their need for the diversion phones provide. This seemed a digression, but he returned to the point, explaining that among twenty-year olds he meets there are always a few special people who look beyond their screens to the real world for discovery and that he reserves special attention for those independent types and that she was one of them.
Young blond, rough-haired, Mitchell described her, free, a student with friends, "independent type and bright." She sat on the outside of the group at the table, seemed both part of and separate from the circle, looked around, as curious about things happening in the area as in their conversation, which was probably the usual college stuff. Her eyes fell on Mitchell.
He told me she had nice legs, honey-colored, and wore a khaki skirt that gave her a conventional look, "preppy," Mitchell said, though she didn't seem that sort, was instead rebellious. In the same way, anyone meeting me would probably guess at first that I'm conservative, until they know better, as you do.
She was gone, anyway, by the time I arrived with apologies for the too-long wait, which is what makes this a story, something told to me that I am telling you.
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