Author's Note: This is a short story I wrote for NaNo -- it's unrelated to the novel, but the novel isn't going to stretch for 50k words, so I'm throwing in some short stories to get to the finish line. And actually... I'm really proud of this.
Grand Avenue
The word “diner” was one that I always misread as “dinner.”
So it was a tricky issue when I sat down for lunch in a din(n)er on Grand Avenue, which incidentally wasn’t all that grand. The Phoenix valley is a grid – all the major north-south streets intersect the major east-west streets at perfect, 90 degree angles with a Walgreens on almost every corner. It is rare to find any of these intersections without some kind of business on at least one corner. America: Land of the Get-Your-Capitalism-Here.
Grand Avenue, however, ran diagonally across the valley, intersecting at a 45 degree angle and messing up the entire system. A railroad track ran next to it, and during the Japanese interment era of World War II, it had been used as the eastern boundary for the West coast of the country. Now it traced the US Route 60 and caused a headache for many an annoyed driver used to the grid system.
I sat down for lunch in a diner on Grand Avenue in a gridlocked city, waiting for a man that I had never met before. His name was Ivan, a terribly trite and boring name but I could do nothing about it. But his name was pretty much all the information that I had on him. I did not know his face and I did not know what he wore or what he drove or anything. I could see out the window and watch people pull in to the diner’s lot, but none of them looked at me, and none of them looked like a Joe. The waitress asked me if I was ready to order. I ordered a soda and told her I had another person coming. She left without a word.
I watched the flow of traffic on the misnamed Grand Avenue. The cars stopped uniformly at the light and started again in the same fashion. It was funny to me how they all started almost exactly at the same time, and yet as one accelerated faster than the other two lanes of traffic, it pulled away like a horse at the races. Some random formula from my high school physics course floated through my head and I shook it off, suppressing the memories of that class. I had failed it with flying colours. The only thing I was good at in that class was flunking tests.
Had it been legal, I would have pulled out a cigarette and subsequently lit it up at the table. It wasn’t that I actually smoked – it just felt like it would have completed the apathetic college girl mood. Something about archetypes or some other thing that English teachers are always rambling about. It just felt right, but of course I didn’t have cigarettes, and even if I had, I’m sure that the waiters and other patrons would bite my head off.
So I sipped the drink that the waitress brought me and stared out the window, watching the traffic on the not-so-grand Grand Avenue in a diner in a gridlocked city. I turned as the door of the diner opened. A man walked in. He had short red hair and a square chin and a confused look. Somehow, even though I had never seen him before, I knew. This was Ivan. It must have been a result of sharing half my genetics with him. There was something connecting us in an inexplicably powerful way. I paused, my heart beating a steady tattoo against the inside of my rib cage. I thought of the cigarette to regain my composure.
He looked around, looking at a tiny paper square that he held in his hand. I saw him chew nervously on his tongue, his lips slightly parted and his tongue extending slightly past them. He had the same nervous habit I did. He also had the same nose that I did, pointy and prolific.
He saw me. He looked at his tiny paper square. I thought of the cigarette.
Ivan walked over, asked me my name. I told him, in what was arguably one of the most awkward moments of my life. Unnecessarily, he said his name was Ivan. I invited him to sit down.
The silence was like a bubble, cut off from the noise of the restaurant outside of our little booth.
It was a tricky issue when I sat down for lunch in a diner on not-so-grand Grand Avenue in a gridlocked city, sipping my drink with a man I had never met but was, by the wonderful gift of genetics, my father.
“So I’m sorry to hear about your mother,” he said, not meeting my eyes. I shrugged.
“It was her time, I guess,” I said.
“How is school? When do you graduate high school?”
“I graduated two years ago,” I said, trying to hide my shaking hands underneath the table. “I’m in college now. I’m an art major.”
“Oh. Well… that’s nice.”
The silence was even worse than making awkward conversation, but we fell into it again, neither of us meeting the others’ eyes. I stared out at Grand Avenue and he stared at the intricate tile pattern on the table, tracing it with his finger like a child. Both of us looked up when the waitress returned. Ivan ordered a root beer and a meat lover’s pizza with extra cheese. I had a salad with some breadsticks. The waitress wrote it all down and walked away.
I wondered about her for a while. How many life-changing moments does she see in a day? How many people like Ivan and I come in and sit down for a meal and leave changed forever?
I wondered if she felt any kind of connection to phenomena like that. If she enjoyed her job because of it. I wonder if she could use any of our experiences in her own life.
“Waitresses should write books,” I muttered to myself.
“’Scuse me?” Ivan said, looking up, one finger still tracing the outline of a blue diamond.
“Oh, nothing, just an inner monologue making it to the surface.”
Silence came again, and stayed until our food arrived before departing for some other awkward pair that had absolutely nothing to talk about. The kindly waitress smiled at us as she set down our food. I smiled back at her and silently wished her a good day, hoping that she would go home with a healthy pocketful of tips.
“So you… like to draw?” Ivan asked as he pulled a slice off of his pizza. I nodded.
“I’ve been drawing since I was three. I learned to hold a pencil and draw with it before I learned to write my name.”
You would have known this if you hadn’t walked out, I thought scathingly. I bit my tongue. It wasn’t fair of me to say that. And it wouldn’t have helped the fact that we were trying to establish a new relationship in the wake of my mother’s death. Ivan had read the obituary in the paper and hunted me down immediately. He felt that I would need a parent there to hold my hand.
He was right. I did. The awkwardness took my mind off of my mother.
Ivan continued struggling to make small talk, asking me random questions. Did I have a boyfriend, what were my grades like, who were my friends. I answered them all with closed answers. It was like playing ping-pong with a turtle. He’d hit the ball at me but when I hit it back, he would retreat into his shell. Not that he wasn’t trying; it was just that conversation requires two participants. Like ping-pong.
I finished my salad and let my fork swim in the excess dressing, licking it like a spoon after a moment. Mum had told me not to do things like that, but Ivan didn’t seem to mind. He pulled off another slice of pizza and laid it on his plate.
“You can help yourself to some, if you like,” he said, gesturing at the pizza.
“I’m a vegetarian.”
“Oh.”
Ping-pong with a turtle. He retreated into his shell.
He ate two more slices and had the waitress box up the remaining four. He wiped his mouth with a napkin and finished his root beer. I watched him with one eyebrow cocked.
“What?” he said.
“You eat a lot for such a small man,” I said.
“I work out.”
“Play any sports?”
“Not really, just lift weights and jog every now and again.”
“Watching your girlish figure?”
It was a knee-jerk response of mine. I used it to tease my best friend’s roommate, who was always obsessing about his weight. He had given up soda and snacks and worked out every day. Their room constantly smelled of dirty gym socks as a result. They went through soap in the shower very quickly. My obligatory joke Christmas gifts to them were always giant boxes of soap.
The roommate usually rolled his eyes at my response. Ivan, however, found it hysterically funny and started to laugh.
“I guess you could say that,” he said in between chuckles.
“So what do you do for a living?”
“I’m a firefighter.”
“Really?” I said, perking up. He nodded.
“Have been for ten years.”
I counted backwards. He had become a firefighter when I was nine. Mum said he had been jobless when he left just after I was born. He had spent nine years unemployed.
There was a pause.
“Um… Ivan?” I said awkwardly. He glanced up. I didn’t feel comfortable calling him Dad, and I told him as such. He nodded and said it was okay with him.
“Listen… I have a favour to ask of you,” I said hesitantly. “It’s a little weird… but it would help me a lot, and it’d be really easy for you.”
“What is it?”
The waitress handed me the check. I paid it absentmindedly as I told him what I wanted. He looked thoughtful as I talked, and when I finished, he nodded.
I smiled in relief.
+++
“Where do you want me to stand?”
“Just over there. Just enough so that the sun isn’t in your eyes but enough so that I’m not seeing your silhouette. Move a little bit to the left. Perfect. Put your foot up on that rock. Can you put your helmet under your arm and look down, with a tired expression on your face? Mess up your hair a little, helmet hair. Great. Now look out over the city. Keep your face like that as best you can. Now hold that position.”
Ivan was wearing his firefighter’s uniform, and I had thrown on my painting overalls over my jeans. I kept them and a button up work shirt in the trunk of my car at all times. I nestled behind my easel and picked up my painting palette.
We were on a mountain trail overlooking the Phoenix valley in its sprawling grid. I could see Grand Avenue cutting a swath through the otherwise regular checkerboard pattern. The downtown skyline rose up far in the distance.
“I can see my house from here,” Ivan joked. I giggled and flicked paint in his direction.
“I said keep a straight face! That means no lame jokes,” I shot back. He stuck his tongue out at me before letting his face fall back into his haggard expression. I had to admit – he made a great model. He held still as I painted him looking tired in a rumpled firefighter’s uniform, which was a blessing for me. I usually had models that went bad or, if they were human, twitched a lot and messed up my shading. But Ivan held still.
“So what’s this assignment about?” he asked.
“I have to paint a portrait of a life-changing moment,” I said. “When you said you were a firefighter, I thought of the fact that you must save lives all the time. I’d consider that a life-changing moment.”
“I’m flattered,” he said.
“I’ve always liked firefighters,” I rambled. “With the police, when they come, you might be in trouble or they might be there to help you. But firefighters… when a firefighter comes, they’re there to help you, no matter what. You know what you’re getting with a firefighter. It’s a comforting thought, knowing there’s an entire group of people that are there for that one purpose.”
“And the money’s nice, too.”
We both laughed as I started to put the details onto his body. Each stroke of the brush was careful and calculated. You can’t take back brush strokes like you can pencil lines. It’s an entirely different class of care.
Ivan didn’t complain once as I lost myself in my work. He must have been roasting; it was winter and it was cooler than normal, but Phoenix is still a warm place. A Phoenix winter is roughly the equivalent of every other place in America’s summer. And the people who weren’t from the city who were chasing an everlasting summer often came to the city to drive like idiots. Snowbirds can and will be used as a derogatory term by the locals.
It took quite some time, but I finally finished my portrait of Ivan. I looked up, holding the brush between my teeth and comparing my painting to the real thing. His hair was slightly longer than it should have been but it was a trivial mistake at best. I gestured to him – the universal “come hither” gesture. He obeyed, standing at my left and turning to look at the painting.
“My word,” he gasped. “It’s beautiful.”
I smiled.
“Do you get your projects back after you turn them in?” he asked. “I’d like to hang this in my house or in the fire station, if you’d let me.”
“Well, first I have to finish it, but I don’t want to keep you any longer than I have to,” I said. “And yes, I get them back after I get a grade, and yes, you can have it after that.”
He smiled. We looked at each others’ smiling faces.
“Thanks, Dad,” I said.
There were no words as tears sprang to his eyes and he picked me up in a big bear hug, paint splatters and all.
+++
Two weeks later, I sat down for lunch at the same din(n)er on Grand Avenue and waited for Ivan.
This time, laying on its side on the bench next to me, was a covered painting. I patted it and smiled as I waited for Ivan to come in.
I shook my head. He wasn’t Ivan to me anymore. He was Dad. I had to get used to calling him that.
He more or less skipped into the diner and sat down across from me, his face flushed and his smile wide. I smiled back and our conversation sprang up as we ordered, waited for, and consumed our food. Talking to him was no longer like playing ping-pong with a turtle. Now, it was more like playing it with the ping-pong champion of the world. I had been delighted to discover that he had the same snarky sense of humour that I did. It made talking to him all the more easier.
He paid for our meal this time, saying he had nineteen years of dinners to make up for. I told him that it wasn’t necessary. He brushed my comment aside like a speck of dust.
“So, is that the finished portrait?” he said, eyeing the canvas behemoth beside me. I nodded.
“Yep. Painted, graded, and ready to go. Would you like to see it?”
“I’ve only been waiting two weeks to see it, why don’t you hang onto it for another two?”
“Don’t tempt me, mister.”
We both laughed, and I stood up, taking the painting with me. I stood at the side of the table and held it up, my feet supporting the bottom and my hands steadying the upper corners.
“Ready?” I said. He nodded enthusiastically.
I pulled the canvas cover off of the painting.
He blinked, his face unreadable. I chewed my tongue.
“What happened to the portrait of me on the mountain?” he asked. “Did you… did you mess that one up or something?”
“Not exactly,” I said, sitting down next to him and holding the painting up with one hand. “I had a change of heart. The assignment was to paint a life-changing moment. My original plan was to paint you walking away from a burning house with a family in the background. You had saved them from the fire, but hadn’t managed to save their house. It was a nice idea and I might keep it for future references. I still have the original portrait; maybe it’ll resurface at Christmas or something. But for now, this is what I turned in.”
We looked at the painting. A waitress was walking away from a table with two people sitting at it – a young girl and a man approaching middle age. She was smiling, a notepad in her hand. The two people, small and miniscule in the background, looked like they were talking. But they were a relatively insignificant detail. The waitress took up most of the space, the level of detail on her making her look as if she was ready to walk straight off the canvas. She wore black slacks and a grey t-shirt with black rings on the sleeves. She had a name tag pinned to her shirt – it had the diner’s logo and a blurred, eroded name. Her hair was done up in a neat bun behind her head, a few stray black strands pointing whichever direction that they pleased. Her skin was smooth and fair. Her almond-shaped brown eyes showed the very first signs of crow’s feet at the corners. She was lovely in a quaint sense.
“It’s beautiful,” Dad said softly. I smiled.
“What did you get on it?”
“One hundred percent.”
He smiled.
“I expected nothing less from my little girl.”
We embraced while having lunch in a diner on Grand Avenue.
The waitress smiled at us.
*gold starz*