Rhonda calls on Friday night: do I want to go for a beer.
Except she just missed me. She calls twice on Saturday, but I was out by the
lake and too achy to make a second trip into the world. We hook up finally on
Sunday morning and think Nookies sounds good, but arrive later than usual and
the waiting line’s extreme. “You talk to the guy,” Rhonda says. “He hates me.”
So funny. We all adore Rhonda except the ones who hate her, mostly guys whose
standards fall short of hers.
Rhonda talks real loud so the Nookies guy was sure to hear.
“Let’s go to Club Louis. They have a great breakfast menu.” Club Louis is just
two blocks south and has no waiting line for breakfast. We sit by a window in
the dining area and Rhonda raises the grimy and dusty blind to look out on
Clark Street and Lincoln Park. A shapely waitress with shocking blue eyes
brings coffee then claims the bartender told her to lower the blinds. Rhonda
protests, why block a cheery view, but the waitress is armed with a polished
excuse. “He says the color scheme for all the franchise restaurants has to be
uniform.” She shrugs with, “Not my
choice.”
The food’s surprisingly good and we decide this is our new
Sunday morning hangout. Then Jack enters with his longtime lady friend, an
older woman somehow involved with Burton Place. They see us but don’t speak, and
cross to a distant table. “I heard bad things about her,” Rhonda whispers. I
hold up a hand in the stop gesture. “Please, I’m so sick of mama-drama.” She
only shrugs. “Not from the building, but from people in the neighborhood.”
“Whatever,” I shrug. “Jack had a blow up at Paul; crazy
accusations like was Paul growing pot in your old studio. He made Paul open the
studio so he could see. He threatened to call the cops and all kinda
off-the-wall stuff.”
“Jack’s crazy, I told you,” Rhonda agrees. “He asked last
year, when we were neighbors, if I knew who was invading his apartment to use
his iron.” She nodded with an all-knowing look. “His iron?” I ask
unbelievingly.
“He said the culprit must be Paul since he wears sports
jackets.” We both burst out laughing. Paul’s grooming habits are dismal; he
would NEVER iron a sports jacket. “Should we tell her?” I ask. “Shall we give Jack’s
lady friend the lowdown? Save her some grief.” Rhonda stares across the way to
where they are ordering breakfast, then turns back. “Water seeks its own
level.”
Somehow we get into discussions of old lovers again. Rhonda’s
stories are the best. Apparently, when she was a stewardess she dated a
sculptor who had a studio in Pilsen. Oh, yeah; that’s how we start with this.
The relative value of living in an artist’s studio. Or was it more remorse since the lawyer left to seek a
child-bearer who’s a good conversationalist?
So the sculptor’s name is E---, a local guy of some renown,
and living in a sizable studio where he used metal working equipment to
assemble his artworks. “You can Google him,” she cheerfully offers. “He’s a big
muscular guy and with a masculine occupation, but he wrote poetry for me.
Beautiful and explicit. I still have the poems but, at the time, I didn’t know
what to think. Maybe I was overwhelmed by the intensity.”
“I wasn’t ready for a commitment or to meet his needs,” she
adds. “You should read this poetry, though. Ah… oh, yeah. I said I liked his hands. Big, capable hands.
So that was in the poem. ‘You said you liked my hands and want me to put them
on you. I touch you and put them inside you and press your backbone.’”
“Jeez Louise,” I say and take another bite of eggs benedict.
Rhonda describes a sculpture in San Francisco on a hilltop with larger and
smaller rotating wheels that circle each other. “Only long after it was
installed and critiqued and famous did he realize it was a tribute to his
father.”
I asked is she ever sees him now. “Sure, a couple times at
events,” she says. “He married a South American woman not four months after we
broke up. I actually like her, and she manages his media appearances and all.
E---’s rude to me, though.”
“You heart breaker. Use them and lose them, huh?” Rhonda’s
eyes are glassy, lost in the memory. “I really loved him. I just wasn’t ready
for what he wanted from me.”
So I have the camera with me and we stop during the stroll
back to North Avenue to view the shots on the small screen. The pictures lose
their impact when you need to squint and stare for detail. Rhonda makes over
the shots, though; she’s so generous. “I like them so much. Everybody will like them. You have an
eye,” she claims.
Ever cheerful, that’s my girl. “They’re just neighborhood
scenes,” I say. “I only click on light and shadow.”
“Did you see The Interpreter?” she asks. “The Nicole Kidman
character is from South Africa and works at the UN. Her apartment has photos on
the wall and wooden masks make by natives. They’re the same as everyday photos
in that country, children playing and the like, but in a different context they
become unique and valued. So send some images by email. I’ll print them at work
and put them up for display.” I agree but don’t get around to the exercise. I
know she’s just chatting me up because there’s so little in my life that
matches her adventures.
Mostly Rhonda calls just before she heads out and I get
added into the shopping trip or Sunday breakfast. But I call her this time and
suggest the Joffrey Ballet. This is before I learn about big expenses for the
rental I own. We negotiate the best calendar night and what we’re willing to
spend on tickets. While I’m on the phone, Paul comes by and I make him wait
while we settle the itinerary. He stands stiff and judging, but I don’t invite
him into our date. He couldn’t afford the ticket anyhow.
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