Wilfair
Chapter: Did You Hear About Our Secret Hotel-Motel Passage?
Montgomery
Overbove #1 and I stood in silence, likely both thinking about how we were both
standing in silence. I realized how much I valued Monty to beMonty things up at
times like this. And “times like this” were happening pretty much all the time,
‘round the clock, over the last day. When I'm in an awkward silent moment, that's usually my first thought: It's so quiet! Also, Monty's knack for beMontying things up continues on its robust upward trajectory in "Redwoodian" and "Stay Awhile." I can't and won't stop him.
Then, a loud sound, sort of a steely
thurp, thurped near the counter. Gomery and I jumped and turned to see an
old-fashioned chrome appliance next to the dish rack ejecting two pieces of
toast, with force. After gaining some impressive air, the two squares fell to
the counter, one partially on top of the other. Crumbs skittered and settled in
their bready wake. How do crumbs move? Skittering worked, though some might say they slide.
We glanced around the empty
restaurant. I stood on tiptoe and peered behind the counter into quiet kitchen.
The only other person in the diner walked to the room’s lobby entrance, hands
on hips, and peeked around the corner. When he finally turned to look at me, I
shrugged. He shrugged back. The kitchen of the Motel Fairwil diner is quite petite. When I do little future stories for the blog one day -- oh, and I will -- I can see visiting this spot on occasion. And the motelier's and hotelier's shrugs here are something I rather like. Friends who can easily talk in shrug are well on their way to full-on conversations spoken in Look.
“Butter?”
“Yes, please.” Gomery doesn't feel the need to dissect every weirdness. He has a habit of jumping a little along, to get to where the action is. So rather than saying "wow, that was odd" he's like, "well, now we have toast. Maybe Fair wants some."
He went behind the counter and
liberally buttered both pieces of bread. I didn’t move.
“Jam?”
“Yes, please.”
“Let’s see,” he muffled from beneath
the counter. “We have an assortment. An impressive assortment, I might add.
Hold on. Don’t tell me.” I picture him being a little embarrassed at using the word "assortment," which is kind of fancy-pants, and when he says "impressive assortment" he's just thinking to himself "stop that."
The sudden chef tucked his tie into
his shirt and took his pen from behind his ear, clipping it onto the top part
of his tie. Next he put the cherry jam jar on the counter, and then the grape,
and unscrewed both lids. Then he cherry’d a slice, put it on a plain white
plate, circled the counter, and handed it to me. True fact: Gomery tucking his tie into his shirt is a part of "Wilfair" -- heck, any of the books -- that I'm sweet on. I don't know why, exactly, except I like the little movements people do without thinking, and the tie-tucking is something he's done numerous times over the years. Also? Him cherrying a slice. Yesssss! Also? He didn't just put the plate on the counter for Fair to walk forward and retrieve, which would have been just fine, but not at all Gomeryesque. He's a counter-circler-plate-hander, not a come-and-get-it-plunker-of-plates.
He then walked behind to the counter
once more, returned the cherry to the small refrigerator, got a fresh knife,
stood for a moment, screwed the lid back on the grape, and returned it, and
arose again with the cherry. The clean knife was stowed, and he slathered
cherry jam with the knife that had been conveniently pre-cherry-jam’d. In his own subtle way, he's telling Fair he's in her camp here. Same jam=same side. That's how I see it, anyway. That "stood for a moment" is him deciding if his next move'll be too obvious. He opts not to care if it is.
Gomery stood behind the counter,
eating his toast, and I stood in the same spot I’d been in for several minutes,
eating mine, and several thoughts bumped around my bread-chewing head. I
wondered why he had invited me back to watch Prior Yates, a notorious
nightclub-hanger-outer. Then I thought again of what he said, to Monty, in
reference to the Motel Fairwil’s prized club sandwich: “Once she gets her hands
on that particular secret we’ll never see her again.” May I remind Fair Finley of a line she hasn't yet spoken? "I live in the world of my head. I really, really do." This is all Exhibit A. Classic.
Was a movie star
the attractive bait to get me to come back over? I watched the non-movie-star,
non-nightclub-hanger-outer chew his toast, and I suddenly wanted to say
everything to him. And everything about that urge surprised me. I'm interested in the moment that particular urge flips from "I have to protect myself from this person" to "I want this person to know an awful lot about me."
Because I wasn’t
sure what everything contained, how long it would take to say, or where it even
began. Plus, I felt like my version of everything wasn’t everything, anyway. What does everything begin with, anyway? Yes, "e" is the simple answer, but there could be more to it. Oh, Fair.
And anyway, what
was the first word when you wanted to say everything? Where did you even start?
I suspected “I,” but I wasn’t going to say that. Not right now you won't. But you haven't slid around on the ice outside The Redwoodian, yet, or shared an omelet.
So I looked back
through the trees, into the 500 Dip Bar, and thought about what everything
might be comprised of. Then I thought about what was real, and about optical
illusions, and why the motel boys could see into our restaurant when we couldn’t
see into theirs, and what happens when a real hotel manager playing fake movie
star meets a real movie star making a fake detective show at a real motel.
Sakes. do dah is a fan of "sakes." I remember when readers tell me they like stuff! Hi, do dah.
Shaking the
sakes, I faced the counter. Guilty -- I like words that sound alike.
“Gomeryff,” I
full-mouthed. “Is this the breadff youff use in your club ffandwich?” I
realized that although I’d said his name aloud in my room, and I’d said it to Sutton
and my parents, I had never, ever said the name to the name’s namesake. Which
made the fact that I uttered it in a crumb-spraying fashion especially notable,
unforgettable, and mortifyable, too. It's one of the running bits of "Wilfair" -- how many times Fair thinks she has said Gomery's name. That the first time she says it to him should be messy and crumb-packed makes my heart happy. Although I'm not sure she has kept perfect count. She has been over to the motel to complain a lot in her life, and surely she let a "Gomery" slip now and then. She is paying attention now to the name count because something has clicked between them. Just my opinion!
He held up a
finger, and finished chewing. He wasn’t in a rush, and, after a few moments, he
set his plate on the counter, pulled a napkin out of the shiny holder, wiped
butter off his fingers, and took a long sip of water. Then he spoke. “You will
get our swimming pool before I tell you what’s in the club sandwich.” It wasn’t
meanly stated, but it was factual. Everything he said seemed to have an air of
“look it up if you like”-ness about it, and this last statement was no
different. Gomery is a deeply unrushed human. He's rarely checking his phone and he's inside whatever moment he's occupying. He likes Fair, but he's going to finish chewing, because by his calculations things are going pretty well with her and they'll have a lot of time to come to talk. Also? Him saying that -- "you will get our swimming pool before I tell you what's in the club sandwich" -- has now come to pass. He was completely correct. Spoiler alert!
The keeper of
the sandwich secret collected my plate and began to clear the last of the
coffee cups from a nearby table. He headed into the lobby, smoothing his tie of
any toastly stragglers. Tie-smoothing, as mentioned in a post below, is a base for me in the books. Also? I still rather like "toastly stragglers" though I can appreciate that some readers might think of a word pairing like that as Wilfair-flavored quirky.
“Do you want
me—?” I started.
He stepped back
into the diner from the lobby. “Do I want you—?” Yeah. If you read this and thought "is AGP going for innocent saucepottery here, as in flirty-flirty double-meaning, you. Are. Absolutely. Right.
“—to take your
pool?” I finished.
Hoo.
The saying of
everything might not start with “I.” But I’m pretty sure “Do you want me to
take your pool?” is not an appropriate second choice. Wellll. I don't know about that. The corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue is kind of its own universe on what is appropriate to say or not.
I’d always told
myself that every time I uttered something frilly and non-direct, which
happened dozens of times each day, I would put the directness and frankness
that had gone untapped into an account. I’d even thought of it as my own
“direct” deposit, ready to be dipped into when I finally figured out how to be
direct, and moreover, brave. But I’d never predicted that I’d go to the bank
and clean out my entire savings via eight hastily delivered words. And I did it
without fluttering or flustering or absently fluffing my corsage, or worse, all
three things at once. Gosh darn it but yep, here it is: The "Wilfair" books are about being direct. AND forearms. And some other things, like missed opportunities and taking chances and friendship and getting over crap, but DIRECTNESS. Delivered kindly. Holler!
The
club-sandwich-making future physicist stood in the lobby entrance and stared
not at me, but the toaster. “This would one hundred percent be the ideal moment
for two random pieces of toast to fly out of that toaster. Much more ideal than
three minutes ago. However, I was very recently over there, and I happen to
know that toaster is totally devoid of toast. Which is unfortunate. There are
some studies that say any two highly charged occurrences that happen extremely
close together can be reworked. Outcomes and such.” He put a hand on the back
of his neck. “But results aren’t very advanced in that arena. We might nudge
the unnoticeable elements effectively. Say, the pattern of the crumbs scattered
on the counter, or how sticky the top of the jam jar happens to be. But we’d
have to repeat what we’ve just done, over and over, to goose even the smallest
transformation, and I doubt anyone should eat a thousand pieces of toast,
simply to change something that was asked. And really, we could stand here and
eat an infinite number of pieces of toast, and altering what was said, or
implied, or thought, or wanted, would be totally unachievable At least at this
point. In various studies. There’s an order to things, ultimately.” He sighed a
shoulder-dropping sigh, and walked into the lobby. And then he stepped back
into the diner. “All of that shouldn’t imply that toast can’t change things.
Even premature toast. Especially premature toast.” Gomery is brainy, for sure, and maybe slightly annoying in these long, idea-stuffed speeches, but all of us gotta fly our flag. And these science-y, vaguely philosophical think-throughs are GXO flying his flag high.
And with that,
he departed once more, and did not return.
I figured that if I grabbed hold of
the words “especially premature toast” and climbed back up through what he
said, I’d be as successful as an uncoordinated kid going hand-over-hand up the
rope on the first day of gym class. I’d probably never reach the top of
Gomery’s speech. And, when I got there, would I have gathered the right clues
to interpret his answer to my question? Gomery, to me, answered her question here. Actually, he answers two of Fair's questions, in my mind, including one she didn't ask. "(W)e could stand here and eat an infinite number of pieces of toast" and "smallest transformation" and "totally unachievable" are likely veiled thoughts he's working through about his neighbor. There are also some nice, juicy love words in there: two, close together, advanced, nudge, sticky, goose, wanted. Not to look too deeply, of course. :)
And did I even want that answer, if
he indeed gave one?
I am toast.
You are not toast, Fair Finley."Toast" implies a warm breadstuff, but you'll be quite cold, for various snow-ice-pool water reasons, in the days ahead. Hang tight!
I like these little commentaries because I get to go back and tell the characters not to worry. Or to worry. Or to shape up and stop fussing. Do they listen, though? Do they???
Sakes.
cr: Shoshanah
