Beautiful Man

Beautiful Man

The relationship began because Caroline Hefner was, on that single afternoon, utterly and unexpectedly at a loss as to what to do. The fault was her own. Exceptionally organized, she had somehow ignored the reality that, a few last minute details to sort out aside, there was in fact no reason for her to go into work at all. She did, though, blaming force of habit and dedication to her job as the reasons. Even as she drove into the basement parking deck, even as she shook her head at her own folly, taking the stairs to her space.

The relationship began because, a short hour later, she was standing very near the exact center of Market Square and was embarrassed by this pointless loitering. Her entire department at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, the meeting rooms and banquet facilities, even her own office, was being updated in that August of 2008. Business was traditionally at its slowest then, and state-of-the-art IT and video conference equipment could be installed with minimal loss. Caroline herself had pushed for the upgrades. She had emphasized to Stephen Kingsolver, the General Manager, that she could not compete in bookings without these now necessary offerings.

“One week,” she actually said out loud that day, standing there. It had taken less than an hour to sort out a few emails, make a few calls. Leaving the hotel then, and with no idea of doing anything, she had crossed the avenue. And stood. “One week.” Then she pursed her lips and admitted to the more likely reality: “Two. Maybe three.” The few people in the Square were too distant to hear her, or even see her face move in speaking.

Two servers suddenly flew behind her, excited and happy, cutting a quick path from La Costa directly across to the Preservation Pub. They've been cut from the lunch shift, Caroline deduced. She knew the ways of restaurants, having worked so closely with Mahogany's at her hotel.

Lucky them, she thought. Then: why not? For over three years she had worked literally across the street from this expanse, but could not actually recall visiting it more than once or twice. She took her lunches in the hotel, sometime in meetings, or she brought yogurts and sandwiches from home. But she had heard of all these places around her, of course. It was an odd sensation, like being a tourist in a famous old city. One just across the street, always.

The dark alone of the bar was cooling, and Caroline stood just inside the door for a moment, her eyes adjusting. Shadows took on shape and meaning: a dog lounging to her left on an old carpet, a narrow room before her like a wide hall which must, she reasoned, stretch to Gay Street beyond. The bar to her right was largely unoccupied, and a plasma television hung behind it appeared incongruous, and loud and garish.

Why not? One soda or drink, and enough time would pass and she could pretend it had been a half-day. She took a stool, and ordered a weak gin and tonic from a young girl with serpents tattooed on both bare arms. Thirty-four, brunette, rather tall and with a long and ordinary oval of a face like a cameo, Caroline crossed a leg, sat back, and took a careful sip of her drink.

“Rachel. Rachel? So, did you get out to the lake like you wanted?”

This from an older, stout man far down at the end of the bar, and Caroline did not need to see the mildly exasperated face of the bartender to understand. The regular, the one who thinks he is especially welcome when he is a nuisance and a source of weary jokes to the staff. She knew of these hospitality dynamics as well. She had heard the waiters at Mahogany's deride regulars. She knew when the hotel's servers hated her for taking a table in the restaurant after closing, to talk to a client. Even when she requested nothing from them.

The bartender did not actually turn. “No. No, Russell. Couldn't make it after all.” And she rolled her eyes at Caroline, biting her lower lip as well. The annoying regular, Caroline, and the two servers still giddy and drinking from frosted mugs, were the only people present. The dog. Either the bartender's or the annoying man's, probably the girl's.

What Caroline had not taken in was the cell phone and the set of keys on the bar, two stools to her left. These things did not register as anything at all until she turned to see Stephen Kingsolver emerge from the back of the place, from the men's room, and slowly make his way directly to them, and to her. He was grinning in a clearly delighted way.

Caroline was pleased as well but said nothing; there was something in the boyish look of his grin which indicated that he, taking his seat, would be the one to speak first. As though all the jokes came to him as soon as he saw her there, and he had been tossing them around in his mind on the stroll over. But he said nothing for a moment, nothing at all. He motioned to the girl for another drink, the smile still curled in the corners of his mouth. He is playing with me, Caroline thought, actually charmed. But he was always an exceptionally charming man.

“Well,” he finally said, still not looking directly at her. “You're busted, Caroline. No – wait. I'm busted, too.” It was not much of a joke but the youthful slang gave it appeal. Stephen could get away with that, she felt. More than get away with it, it suited him, suited that childlike quality in his handsome face. Even the creases at the corners of his eyes enhanced this boyishness.

“Let's keep each other's secrets, then,” Caroline said, feeling rather sophisticated and raising her glass. It was perfect. It was wonderfully right, their meeting up like that, sharing a drink and idle work gossip for an hour. She felt it as it happened. Judiciously, fairly, she would believe it a year later, when some of the reality was suspected by her.