I didn't look up, kept raking--needed time to put on my public face.
There was no signage on campus to speak of. Which I liked. I mean, what neck of Eden needs signage? Hell, Adam and Eve had no signage and they'd found their way. What I didn't like was how the lack of signage turned this keeper of Eden into the information kiosk.
My nice face on, I looked up to give directions. Shocked, I quit the nice, got back to raking. No, we old souls weren't the kind to jump just because some beautiful woman barked.
"You must be Anton," the woman said, pulling up.
"I am," I said, taking no notice of her sweater--a couple of tablespoons if I ever lifted any. "How do you know my name?"
"I'm Fern. Ezra's friend. He pitched you as an interesting guy."
"Oh," I said, raking air, "you must be the baby doctor."
Fern didn't say anything.
"I don't know what a baby doctor could possibly find interesting in a groundskeeper, ha, ha."
"Ezra says you write. What are you working on presently?"
I stopped raking air. "Fiction. A short story about this stockgirl who portrays herself as a lesbian to keep jerks from . . . say, it's freezing out here." I dropped my rake. "Come on, let's go into The Center. I'll buy you a cup of coffee."
"I'd like that."
We sat at the counter, all warm. I looked out the window. The blue light coming in the window made me feel sorry for those who had to work out in the cold for a living. Fern looked in her cup. Who knows what she saw in there, but by her face, I suspected it had something to do with our future. Odd, too, seeing how the steam coming out of Fern's cup smelled like the buttermilk Grandma V drank every morning to "jump-start her economy," as grandma put it.
After asking about my stockgirl story, Fern took a sip of her creamed coffee, worked her tongue as if she were attending a wine tasting. After telling my stockgirl story, I took a sip of my black coffee, licked my teeth as if I were testing for loss of enamel. Fern had liked my story, but thought the Bob character unbelievable.
"Ya, but, see, Bob's for real--a real guy I know. The stockgirl's real too. You should have seen her; really nailed that lesbian role."
"Interesting," Fern said, stirring more cream into her coffee. "So, it's not, in fact, fiction you write."
"Writer's license," I said, sticking my spoon in my battery acid. "I mean, fact, fiction, where exactly is the line?" I laughed.
Fern didn't, seemed more interested in her coffee than my license.
"The point is," I said, examining my spoon for corrosion, "that story's only to teach Bob a lesson. That it's just not right, taking a girl for all she's got."
"This coffee, " Fern said, "it's decidedly the best coffee I've ever had. Where do I inquire about the blend?"
"Maybe Jane knows--at the Front Desk."
Fern returned, asked about my life as Writer/Groundskeeper. I touched on the polarity of the professions; one required grounding, the other, leaps of faith. Which reminded the writer-in-me what time it was--time to take this baby doctor for all she's got. "Ezra says you've got a horse."
"No, I haven't a horse. Though I do ride a horse on occasion."
"Oh, well, see, I'm interested in persons who love horses, because--"
Fern banged the table, cutting me off. "I said I ride a horse. I didn't say I love horses."
I didn't say anything.
"Did Ezra say I love horses?"
I looked around. Though Ezra wouldn't have been on campus on a Sunday, two of his students, Simone and Sabina, were sitting at a table nearby.
Fern banged the table, again. "That Ezra; incapable of listening. OK, so the professor needn't listen in the classroom. Needn't listen to what those sophomore girls have knocking about in their so-called brains. But when he attends a dinner party--with adults--he needs to listen."
Hiding behind my hand, I said, "When I listen, I try to--"
Bang! "Male profs. Do you know why they're incapable of listening? I'll tell you why. Because they all have throbbing obstructions in their ears."
I could see Fern wanted me to say something here. But my ears were far too unobstructed to say anything here.
"I hate horses," Fern said, taking a bolt of coffee as if it were scotch. "I only ride horses because my therapist advised me to."
I pulled out my pad and pen.
Fern took another bolt. "It was after a patient of mine died that I had my first miscarriage. Because I felt as if I were losing control, my therapist advised me to take control--he suggested horse riding. So I ride a horse on occasion. Does it help? I suppose there are . . ."
With Fern going on about horse riding, I cursed my empty pad. Here I'd hoped to score the second paragraph to my Great Work. But, no, it was all pull-the-tail this way, post-the-saddle that way. The kind of English horsing around no mountain man protagonist would be caught dead doing to his horse tied to his pine at the end of the Oregon Trail.
When a writer realizes the girl he's invited in for coffee, isn't going to write his horse paragraph for him, he looks to see how else she may serve him.
I lifted my spoon.
With Fern talking hunt-seat this, show-hunter that, I escaped inside my head, made as if I were a sex therapist teaching a classroom of Bobs how to work their spoons. "Hold it on the level now, Bob. And use your fingers. This is fine dining, not changing a tire. Chuck's got it right. Only, Chuck, you want to set the little finger free. Yes, now that's gentlemanly-like. No, Darrell. Don't go for the breast just yet. First you want to dip your spoon in your coffee, warm it up. Class, listen up; a breast is the dough you want to raise, not the bread you want to freeze."
****
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