Discover more from Soaring Twenties
This, my friends, is what the STSC is all about. Beautiful, exquisitely crafted, masterfully executed, proper short fiction.
The fact that the likes of
aren’t much more widely known and lauded is an injustice but we are doing what we can to right that wrong.Hopefully you’ll agree with this assessment and feel compelled to spread the news after you have read this.
Enjoy.
TJB.
Christopher Howard was a moderately handsome young man in his mid-twenties just getting his start in the world. He had a fashionable apartment in River North. How that particular area of Chicago got its name is a bit of a mystery but it may have something to do with the relative locations of the area and the Chicago River.
Christopher, (he went by Christopher, not Chris), worked at a large Chicago bank that naturally pursued large investment deals and also dabbled in insider trading from time to time. I don’t know which one exactly but was one of the big banks with lots of floors and lots of busy people doing things utterly inscrutable to the layperson with computers and telephones and cellphones and fax machines and pagers and typewriters and Xerox machines and slide rules and there was even someone in the basement that everyone had forgotten about who still read stock prices off a ticker-tape machine. His name was Reginald and Reginald would read the stock prices, record them on a little pad of paper, and when the page was full he would tear off the page, ball up the ticker tape in the paper, and throw the whole thing in the incinerator. For doing this job Reginald collected $73,529, before taxes, each year and no one knew that he was still down there.
However, this story is not about Reginald so, back to Christopher.
Christopher worked in the Accounting and Finance department and his best friend David Flanagan also worked there.
I know what you’re going to say, ‘Isn’t the whole thing one big Accounting department?’
No, actually. There’s Accounting and Finance, Credit and Lending, Investment Banking, Addition and Subtraction, Multiplication and Division, Small Numbers (which handles all decimals), Large Numbers (which handles all numbers in the ones, tens, and hundreds), Extra Large Numbers (thousands and higher), Human Resources, and the Fraud department which, as the name suggests, cooks the books and sees to it that the bank doesn’t pay any taxes.
Anyway, while Christopher was of average height and moderately handsome his friend David was of above average height and very handsome and women tended to flock to him everywhere he went.
Christopher, however, had no such luck. He just couldn’t talk to women. Whenever a nice girl showed interest, or even stopped and asked to borrow his stapler, Christopher’s tongue turned to a block of wood and his teeth glued themselves together and his cheeks burst into flames and Niagara Falls descended from his forehead.
One bright Friday in June when the sun was giving the thousand florescent lights in the office a run for their money, Christopher was at his desk among the sea of desks on the fourteenth floor when a woman he didn’t know passed by his desk.
This wasn’t an out of the ordinary occurrence. There were lots of people at the bank that Christopher didn’t know, more that he didn’t than he did so naturally, chances were that he didn’t know this person.
No, the extraordinary part was that when he saw her and looked, really looked when she stopped a few desks away to talk to its occupant, it was as if Christopher had seen the sun and the moon and all the stars in human form.
She was tall, probably the same height as Christopher, with long brown hair done up in a tight bun, smartly dressed, and, needless to say, extraordinarily pretty, an air of quiet confidence about her.
Christopher whispered to David at the desk next to him. “Who’s that?”
“Huh?”
“Who is she?”
“I don’t know. Gorgeous though.”
“No kidding,” Christopher said. “I have to meet her. Look, she’s leaving. She was talking to Charles. Go ask him who she is.”
“Why don’t you ask him? You don’t have a problem talking to guys.”
“I don’t want it getting around I’m interested.”
“Jeez, alright. You gotta get over these hangups one day.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
David was back in a moment.
“Her name’s Lisa Galva. She’s in Investment Banking.”
Christopher leaned back and pondered this new information, elbows resting on the arms of the chair, fingers touching at the tips.
“You have to talk to her for me?”
“What’re we in high school?”
“David, you see what happens when I talk to women and they don’t just throw themselves at me like they do with you. You have to talk to her for me.”
“You make it sound like I’m dodging women wherever I go, that I can’t move for women grabbing me around the legs and trying to bring me to the ground.”
Christopher leveled a half-lidded look at David. “You make it sound terrible.”
“And what do I tell her? That I’m just the messenger and here’s a list of things my friend would like to say to you but can’t oh and by the way he’s a really good guy but just at a bit of a loss when it comes to women so do you mind if I just pretend to be him?”
Christopher frowned. “You don’t have to tell her all that.”
“So lie to her?”
“No, just maybe ask her out for coffee or something and then kind of talk me up. Tell her I’m a good guy and all that, which is true of course, and I’m just a bit nervous about meeting her, which is also true, but if she’d like to maybe go to a movie or to the Art Institute or something I’d love to take her.”
David shook his head. “This is ridiculous. Just talk to her. It won’t kill you.”
“David, are we friends or not?”
“Yes.”
“Did we or did we not go to school together?”
“We did.”
“And have I always been a good friend?”
“Sure.”
“Okay, so help me out here.”
“Fine, but you have to do something for me.”
“Naturally. What?”
“My sister Anne just graduated from college and is in town visiting. She gets on my nerves if we spend too much time together. You know how siblings are. I want you to take her out this weekend and show her around. Do whatever, I don’t care.”
“Annoying, is she?”
“Very, to me. But I’m her brother.”
“Yeah, okay. I guess I can do that.”
“It’s a deal then. I’ll talk to Lisa about you, somehow,” he said the last word to himself, “and you take Anne out on the town.”
**********
David was feeling a little vexed as he made his way to Investment Banking on the tenth floor.
He’d known Christopher since the early days of college and he’d always been terrible with women. Just couldn’t pull himself together, loosen his tongue, and talk. It was certainly understandable, in a way, but nevertheless a problem that he needed to get over if he was ever going to get a date, much less settle down, though marriage was far from their minds.
He wondered what his opening was going to be, trying to plan his remarks toward a woman who was by all accounts gorgeous and probably got propositions for marriage left right and center.
Come to think of it, was she even single?
He asked around on the tenth floor and found her office at the far end of the building, not in the corner but with a window, marking her as someone who was somewhat important in the department.
He knocked and a light, tinkling voice said, “Come in.”
Lisa was seated in the corner behind a desk facing the window at an angle. Her straight nose and wide-set eyes were framed by her shiny dark hair, which looked almost black.
“What is it?” she said without looking up.
David found himself with a sudden itch on the back of his neck. “Hi, Lisa. I’m David. I’m up in accounting—”
“Did Charles send you? Do you have the paperwork?”
“Uh, no, actually. I came, well because, you see, well—would you like to get coffee sometime?”
David’s words came across rather ham-handed but, surprisingly, seemed to have the desired effect.
“Coffee? Sure.” Again without looking up. “Large oat milk latte, half decaf, half regular, two sugars—Stevia, of course—non-dairy whipped cream, cinnamon on top.”
The impossible order, and the apparent misunderstanding, hung in the air.
Lisa reached for her purse and held out a ten dollar bill, looking at David for the first time.
“Let me know if that’s not enough. Always depends where you go.”
“Sure, yeah. Of course. Thing is,” David said, taking the ten, “I was wondering if you wanted to go get coffee, like sit down somewhere, with me. Maybe when you have a break later?”
Lisa stared at him for a moment then burst out laughing. “Why didn’t you say so?”
David thought that he had but didn’t say so.
She checked her watch. “Um, yeah. Now good?”
“Yes, that works for me.”
When David and Lisa got to the counter of the coffee shop on the first floor of the building David ordered a regular coffee for himself and started to order for Lisa but trailed off after ‘large oat milk latte’ and looked at her questioningly.
She seemed to take it to mean that he was apologizing for having been impertinent enough to presume to order for her and he wasn’t sure if that was preferable to admitting that he hadn’t been able to remember her ridiculously complicated order.
“Thanks for the coffee,” she said and turned to go.
“Did you want to sit?”
“Oh, okay,” she said as if it hadn’t even occurred to her as a possibility.
They sat away from the window so as not to bask directly in the hot June sun which was going strong as it rose.
Lisa sipped her concoction and looked expectantly at David.
“So, investment banking,” he said lamely. “How long have you been there, or here?”
“I started here just two months ago. I was at Northeastern before that. I started in investment banking there. I like the challenge.”
She said this almost as a challenge in itself as if to say, ‘How do you like that?’
“How about you?”
“I’ve been here a couple years now, since graduating college. Been in accounting the whole time. Me and my best friend Christopher actually got hired at the same time and we work together. I don’t know if you’ve met him.”
She shook her head.
“I actually wanted to talk to you about him.” Here goes nothing, he thought. God, I never get nervous like this.
Lisa arched a perfectly rounded eyebrow.
“He’s quite, ah, taken with you but he’s a bit shy, a bit nervous to talk to you and he wanted me to sort of put in a good word for him and see if you might be interested.”
She pursed her lips. “So you’re not interested?”
“No! Yes, I am, certainly, I mean, you’re very attractive but he’s my best friend. I wouldn’t do that to him, you know, when I’m helping him out.”
“I don’t think I’ve heard one like this since high school.”
“That’s what I told him but he has a hard time talking to women.”
“Well, this is all very nice of you. You’re a good friend but you could have told me straight away so I could turn you—him—both of you down.”
She made to leave.
“Oh come on, he’s a good guy.”
She rolled her eyes. “Aren’t they all? Who is he?”
“Christopher. Christopher Gladwell. Works with me in accounting.”
“Don’t know him.” She thought for a moment. “So do you come on the date with us and translate for him? And if things get serious, do I sleep with him or you?”
David felt his cheeks grow warm but played it off with a laugh. “Well, I don’t think he really thought that far ahead.”
Lisa checked her watch. “I have to get back to work. Thanks for the coffee.”
“So, what do you say?”
“I’ll think about it,” she said and left, her heels clicking on the terrazzo.
**********
Christopher had been disheartened when David related his encounter with Lisa to him but the opening was there and he didn’t lose hope completely.
He took the ‘L’ home from the Loop, the heart of downtown Chicago and the home of the financial district, thinking about Lisa and work and the White Sox as the train rattled along full of bankers in suits like Christopher and mid-level managers in polos and khakis and tech workers in t-shirts and jeans.
He got home, an apartment on the third floor of a three-storey walk-up, changed his clothes for jeans and a casual shirt, and headed over to David’s apartment. Although they did a lot together, they had thought it best to get separate apartments and their salaries at the bank more than provided for the privilege.
Viewing the forthcoming interview as something of a necessary chore he steeled himself as he approached David’s apartment building, a more modern affair twenty or so storeys tall. He got off the elevator on the seventh floor, the hall of which was full of the standard builders’ go-to short pale-blue carpet.
Arriving just after the appointed time of 7pm, Christopher knocked and David opened the door.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
After this effusive greeting, David raised his chin to motion Christopher inside.
“Anne? Where’d you go? Anne, this is Christopher. Christopher, my little sister, Anne.”
Sitting on the black leather couch in the living room was a short brunette with large eyes and a mischievous elfin face wearing slacks and a beige top. Judging from family photos Christopher had seen, while David looked more like his father, Anne clearly took after their mother.
“Hi, Anne,” Christopher said with a smile.
“Hi,” she said, crossing her arms. “David, why can’t we go out?”
“We’ve gone out every night this week. Besides, I have a date,” he said, with a wink to Christopher.
“Yeah?” Christopher said.
David nodded.
“Good luck. Put in a good word for me.”
“Oh, I will. Keep her out of trouble too. And you,” David said to Anne with a knowing look, “be good, please.”
She grinned. “Of course.”
Outside Chrisotpher hailed a cab.
“Ever been to the Art Institute?”
“No, what’s that? A psych ward for artists?”
“Ha ha, no, it’s the art museum.”
The taxi deposited Anne and Christopher in front of the Art Institute, a neoclassical structure the broad front steps of which were flanked by two enormous bronze lions.
“Ooh! Will you take my picture?”
Anne scampered over to the lion and before Christopher could so much as blink she had scaled the lion’s plinth and was on top of its back.
“Hey, get down,” Christopher said, looking around nervously.
“Take the picture!”
Christopher snapped the pictures with his phone, several, in fact, for good measure.
“Alright, now get down.”
Anne stepped off the lion’s back onto the plinth and catapulted into space.
Christopher ran with arms outstretched to try to catch her but before he got within range Anne had spun in the air in a somersault and landed neatly on her feet.
“Jesus Christ, you could have warned me.”
Anne threw back her head laughing. “And missed the look on your face. Not a chance.”
“Hey, you!”
A portly security guard in a gray uniform with a belt full of jangling keys was tearing down the front steps (as in running, not demolishing them) in their direction.
“Run!” Anne said and sped off toward the back of the building.
Christopher stood rooted to the spot for a second then took after her, catching up in a few seconds.
“Great, now they’ll never let us in. What’re you a gymnast?”
“Yeah,” Ann said, not sounding out of breath at all. “Come on, that guy’s got flat feet. We’ll go all the way around and be in the front door before he knows where we’ve gone.”
Christopher wanted to object to the plan but decided her logic was fairly sound.
Running around the back of the building, which was also around the block, they emerged from the garden that flanked the front steps and merged with a group going up.
Trying to play it cool, Christopher started talking: “Do you see how the front of the building is in two halves, like the layers of a cake, with the triangle bit on the top?”
Anne nodded.
“The bottom layer, with the exaggerated lines between the stones, that’s called rustication. It sort of mimics ancient buildings that had large blocky stones for a base. The second layer, the top one, is made of neater square blocks with the columns of course and that layer and the roof, so to speak, the triangle part, are meant to look like a Roman temple.”
“You study a lot of architecture?”
“I took a few classes in college. I think facades are really interesting but art history doesn’t really pay the bills.”
Anne laughed along with him. She had a pretty smile. Her hair was done up in a loose bun and he watched the whisps of hair bob up and down.
They walked straight in the front doors past the partner of the guard who was presumably still chasing them.
Christopher wiped the drops of sweat from his temples and smiled at Anne who grinned back. She was not sweating in the least but her face was flushed with triumph at the minor coup they had pulled off.
“Told you we could get away.”
“You certainly did. Though we wouldn’t have needed to run if you handn’t climbed on the lion.”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
Christopher bought two tickets and handed one to her.
They walked through the vestibule which was gloriously decorated in marble and granite with terrazzo floors. At the far end from them stood a double-sided staircase.
“Where to?” she said.
“What kind of art do you like?”
She chewed on her lip, a tic Christopher took particular notice of.
“Impressionism for sure.”
Christopher looked surprised.
“I’m minoring in Art History.”
Christopher laughed. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“You didn’t ask.”
“What’s your major?”
“Pre-med.” She shrugged. “We’ll see. I’m looking at grad schools for art history though.” She stuck out her tongue slightly as if to say, ‘Silly me.’ “My parents don’t know.”
“They want you to be a doctor?”
“Ahuh.”
They turned a corner and entered a room with blue walls, parquet floors, and numerous paintings; a room full of gently tapping heels and hushed voices. It was pleasant, like a library without the threat of a librarian looming.
They stopped in front of The Races at Longchamp, 1866, by Édouard Manet. Six jockeys on horseback thundered toward the viewer between stands thronged by a crowd all beneath green windswept hills and a cloudy sky.
“Why Impressionism?” Christopher said.
“I like the blurriness of it. Like earlier art, Romantic, Baroque, whatever, it means to show something definite, even to say something. Unlike modern art, of course which tries so hard to say something profound without being in the least bit intelligible. If you can’t tell if the piece is upside down, you have a problem.
“But unlike more precise painting, or say, photography, it’s a bit unclear. Looking at an Impressionist painting is like trying to remember something that you can’t quite picture clearly. It’s inexact. There’s a certain straining involved. An effort. You feel like you’re actually getting a glimpse of a moment, of someone else’s memory of that moment, instead of a perfect snapshot. I like that.”
Christopher, standing next to her, turned his head slightly to get a good look at her, the way you need to look at someone to really listen.
“You’re amazing. I couldn’t agree more.”
Anne giggled. “I’ve picked up a few things in class.”
“But that’s not something you’re repeating from a book or a lecture. It’s what you believe.”
“Yeah, it is.”
They moved on to another painting: Cliff Walk at Pourville, 1882, Claude Monet. Two women stood at the top of a cliff. In the foreground, a field of wildflowers in a thousand colors. In the background, a turquoise sea dotted with white sails and above a brilliant blue sky filled with cumulonimbus.
“What do you think?” Anne said.
Christopher thought for a moment. “Two fashionable ladies enjoying the wildflowers and the view of the sea. But see,” he pointed, “the cliff is dark, forbidding even, dominating the middle of the painting, the perspective, forcing your eye there. It says, ‘Sure, it looks nice. But watch out.’ It’s death always present.”
Anne nodded. “So what’s up with my brother? Why’s he putting in a good word for you?”
Christopher wondered if Anne could smell his sweaty discomfort over the perfectly controlled recycled air. He looked at the ground, as if the answer were there.
“Are you going to make fun of me?”
“Probably not but I can’t promise anything.”
Christopher sighed, looking up at the ceiling then back at the floor. “Well, there’s a girl—woman—at work that I’m interested in though I haven’t met her and I have a hard time sort of introducing myself and talking to and being around and doing anything at all with women so I asked David if he would sort of break the ice for me.”
He winced and looked slowly up at Anne.
Her face bore a gently amused and understanding smile. “Aw, that’s adorable.”
“You said you wouldn’t make fun.”
“I said I probably wouldn’t and I don’t call that making fun. It’s cute.”
“Yeah, well. We’ll see what happens.”
They looked back at the painting.
“You really have trouble talking to women?” Anne said.
“Yeah, I do.”
“Huh. You haven’t had a problem talking to me.”
Christopher stopped cold. He wasn’t moving but that comment brought him up short mentally. His mind whirled reliving the evening like he was watching a movie. He thought that this was what Edward Norton’s character in Fight Club must have felt like when he realized that he was Tyler Durden and he’d just been talking to himself, in a manner of speaking, for the duration of the movie.
“You! Stop!”
The portly security guard was barreling toward them as fast as his legs, and caution for the priceless art in the room, would allow.
“Run!”
Christopher was sure that there was a joke about déjà vu and Impressionism in there somewhere but he didn’t have the time or the mental capacity to figure it out as he ran after Anne who was cackling madly.
The entire museum became an Impressionistic art installation as it became a blur all around them. They passed Arts of Europe: Design, Arts of Europe: Medieval and Renaissance, Arms and Armor, (where Christopher wondered if he might make use of a basket-hilted broadsword dating from circa 1750 or a pair of ivory-inlaid flintlock pistols, though he decided against it as he had no powder or shot), Arts of the Americas: 1860-1950, then down the stairs to Arts of the Americas: 1650-1910, through Arts of the Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Worlds, through Film and Media then Photography and Media and finally out a side door.
The whole time Christopher swore someone had put Yakety Sax on the intercom.
They dashed across Monroe St and didn’t stop running until they were across and into Millennium Park.
Anne burst out laughing and Christopher couldn’t help doing the same.
When he caught his breath he said, “Why are we running? What was he going to do? Arrest you?”
Anne giggled. “Maybe. It’s just fun.”
Christopher shook his head. “Want to walk through the park?”
“Sure.”
“Ever seen The Bean?”
“Everyone’s seen The Bean.”
“Alright, we’ll just walk then.”
**********
Seated at the bar at Christopher and David’s usual hole-in-the-wall dive, conveniently located between their apartments and named, aptly, The Hole In The Wall, Christopher and Anne washed down their expensive sushi dinner with a $1.50 bottle of Lone Star each while Anne joked about the look on Christopher’s face each time she yelled ‘Run!’ that night and Christopher teased Anne about her habit of carefully rolling each piece of pickled ginger before dipping one end in soy sauce and popping it in her mouth.
As they talked they didn’t mind the loud conversations around them or the random songs selected on the jukebox or the vague smell of sweat and the definite smell of beer.
The door slammed open and a hunched bedraggled world-weary character slouched into the place and sat down, of all places, next to Christopher.
Christopher watched Anne staring past him.
“David? You look awful.”
Christopher whipped around.
“Oh, hey guys,” David said, his voice breaking. “How’s it going?”
“Are you okay?” Anne said.
“Oh, yeah, fantastic.” He signaled to the bartender. “Whisky. Uh, whatever’s in the well. Yeah. Leave the bottle.”
“How did it go with Lisa?” Christopher said.
“Lisa? Oh, great. She’s great. We had a great time.”
“You sure? You don’t look so great.”
“Oh, yeah. Fine, fine.”
“Thanks for putting a word in for me but actually, if it’s alright, you know, we don’t have all the details figured out but Anne and I are going out. Dating. We’re together, as in, a couple.”
Christopher smiled at Anne.
David, however, seemed not to hear. His eyes, glazed over, seemed fixed on a point twelve inches to his right (on the y axis), ten inches above the bar (on the z axis), and six inches in front of Christopher (on the x axis).
“Oh, great, yeah, we had a great time. Couldn’t have been better. I tried to put in a word for you but it was sometimes a bit hard to get a word in edgewise.”
Christopher listened in growing horror and disbelief, as did Anne judging from the expression on her face, as David proceeded to describe what was just shy of being the worst date ever, if only because it didn’t end in murder.
David stopped speaking, although he was still sort of panting. He gulped down air and said, “She ordered dinner for me! Who does that? And after dinner, well—”
“Looks like I dodged a bullet. Sorry, bud. So not seeing her again, huh?” Christopher said with a laugh.
“Oh, no. I will be. We’re getting married.”
Christopher’s jaw fell open with such force and violence it almost put a hole through the bartop. He looked around to check Anne was still conscious.
“You’re what?!” Christopher and Anne said in unison.
“Yep, getting married. Tying the knot. Saying the vows. Buying the farm. Huh? Oh, yeah, she asked me,” David said in answer to the gurgling sounds coming from Anne’s mouth.
“And you said yes?” Anne said.
“I did. I did,” he said wistfully. “So you two together, huh? Lifted the curse? Slayed the dragon? Good for you, buddy. All’s well that ends well.”
“Is it?” Christopher said. “You’re really going through with this?”
“Ho yeah.” David got a faraway look in his eyes. “You should have been there. Christ, what a woman.”
He grabbed the bottle, slipped off the stool, and tottered out the door.
Anne waved absently to the bartender, her eyes still on her brother’s back. “What the hell did she do to him?” she said.
“I don’t know.” Christopher paused. “There but for the grace of God…”
“I’ll drink to that,” she said and handed him another beer.
Great, thank you! This has all kinds of P. J. Wodehouse vibes.
Great read. Lots of fun and romantic too.