John Moncure Wetterau

“ He walked out on the front porch. Jackson was throwing a Frisbee to a border collie—honey colored, white at the throat—scrambling and leaping against a background of blue gray water, boats, and a distant wooded shore. Joe could remember nothing in his life as assured and as photogenic. He was happy for Kate and Jackson. This weekend was a parent's reward; he accepted it gratefully. Yet it was hard to relax. He had social duties, and, besides, he was increasingly something other or more than a parent. ”

“ The Depresso was mostly empty. He ordered vegetarian chili, cornbread, and a Heineken. "Thanks, Eve." She smiled enigmatically, her mind elsewhere. She, too, was from Michigan, like Sue and Claude, an odd coincidence. Patrick had never been in Michigan, but he imagined deep woods. Eve swayed like a tall pine as she walked.
She was older than Willow. She had three children. Patrick had seen one in her arms and the others swarming up her legs, outside on the patio. She seemed to pace herself—energy for the kids, energy for the customers—somehow remaining beautiful and ready for more. ”

“ There was Morgan with a new haircut, looking somewhat larger than life in a short sleeved shirt, wearing chinos rather than jeans, striding along with a small blonde woman. She saw Joe approach and flashed a thousand watt smile. "Aloha," Joe said, hanging leis around their necks.
"Aloha," Morgan said. "Edie, this is Joe."
"Edie Rowantree," she said through the dazzle, extending her hand.
"Joe Burke. How was the flight?"
"I hate flying," she said. "We encountered turbulence in the middle of the ocean. I asked Morgan if there was any hope. 'There is always hope,"' she imitated. ”

“ She smiled as if she had known him deeply in another life, and then she swayed away into the kitchen. The Go player remained immersed in study, an air of relief emanating from his face. Perhaps he was recovering from the attentions of dark beauties with trust funds. Don't be jealous, Patrick told himself. When the gods want a good laugh, they give you what you want. ”

“ Willow poured the last of the coffee into their cups. Amber wasn't really awake, Willow knew. At ten or eleven, her eyes would open the rest of the way, slightly startled, slightly pleased to have survived the transition. Amber's eyes were a dark Mediterranean brown. If I were gay, Willow thought, I could go for Amber. She's so fierce underneath that easy chameleon surface; she knows what she wants, and she gets it. Amber stretched and went back into her room, emerging when Art honked the horn in his pickup. ”

“ Ingrid had declared impatiently. Joe smiled. She was free of his taste in music now—had been for a year and a half.
At Brattleboro, he turned off the highway, rented a motel room, and walked into town. He found a brew pub where he sat at a corner table with a pint of ruby brown ale—cool and fresh, the malt veiled with lacy astringent hops. He had another and watched the bartender talk on the telephone, her elbows and breasts on the bar, a vertical worry line dropping between her eyes. She was about his daughter Kate's age. ”

“ They sat on a wooden porch and looked across the humpy patched blacktop road to a steep hillside, densely green and silent. "Happiness," Joe said, touching Mo's glass with his. "By some accounts, Hawaii is the most isolated land mass in the world. Kauai is the farthest out of the inhabited islands, and here we are at the end of the road. It stops right over there, can't make it around the Na Pali coast." He drank his beer and waved at the view. "Isn't it great, Mo? End of the road. Can't go any farther. How relaxing can you get? Nowhere to go but back—when we feel like it." ”

“ The green of the mountains was so fresh, empty as one of the new canvases stacked against Hendrik's studio wall. The first people had done well, really; they deserved a celebration. It was a righteous Fourth. Martin was there at first. Where had he gone? Patrick wanted to know more about him. The music was great. And then those cops—they were really the losers, the ones left out or behind. Why did that have to be?
"Officer Allen, ha, ha, ha." Patrick turned and saw Billy put an arm around one of the cops who had been on the mountain, the larger one. "Gotta smoke? I'm innocent." ”

“ Dylan's intensity, the smell of curry, Amber's perfect body next to Art's shoulders, and her own unnamed passion coalesced into another moment she would never forget. "Too much," she said when the piece ended. "Want some wine?" She busied herself with dinner. Earlier, with the chickadee on her shoulder, she was a child of the universe. Now, she felt reborn as an adult. It was so lonely and sad, so—terminal.
She looked at Amber and Art. They did not appear to be in crisis. Art was lighting up a joint. Willow took a few hits out of politeness. ”

“ If you are a long term investor, on the other hand, you must know that the company is sound. Joe failed to follow through on his investigation of the CEO. He had been too cheap to go to the annual shareholder's meeting where he would not have found the qualities he looked for in management.
He had been neither trader nor investor. He had been a loser. Not only that, he had spent months staring into his monitor, living on the Internet, reading the Wall St. Journal every day and Barrons every weekend, and dreaming about how he would invest $450,000. ”

“ Joe sat on the last beach before Diamond Head, a place where he and Sally and Kate had often come on weekends. An older man—the age Joe was now—used to park his car and carry a rubber raft to the water. His dog would jump into the raft, and the man would push it out, swimming slowly, until they were a hundred yards offshore. He would climb into the raft and write in a notebook while his dog rested and kept watch. The deeply tanned man and the black raft floated up and down, a dark silhouette on the glinty ocean. Occasionally the man paddled to keep from drifting too far down the beach. ”

“ Van Slyke—and he showed me his studio."
"Modest Hendrik."
"He was modest, in a frustrated way. He showed me a painting that he's been working on all year. Said he couldn't get it. He said that art had to be true."
"He didn't!" Willow clapped her hand over her mouth.
Patrick looked at her. "You think I'm a moron." She took her hand away. "I am. But I'm a persistent moron." He took a swallow of beer. "True," he said. "I know about true. In science, what is true can be verified. What is true, is true for everybody. But Hendrik's true is only true for Hendrik." ”

“ Willow's indignation carried her to the top of the last hill before AhnRee's driveway. She got off her bike and waited for Amber. They walked up the bumpy dirt road, one on each side of the grass strip in the middle. As they passed the main house, they got on their bikes and pedaled to the studio along the edge of a small steep hay field rich in clover and wildflowers, surrounded by trees. The studio was made of dark weathered wood. It had a deep glow to Willow, perhaps because it was the first time she had lived anywhere other than home or the university. ”

“ Joe and Rhiannon crossed the boulevard at the Ewa end of Ala Moana park and walked toward the beach. The weather was warm and overcast, for a change. Rhiannon chattered about her upcoming trip to see her father in Connecticut. Joe made his standard suggestion to pack only one carry-on bag. He offered the use of his Filson, but she wanted her own, and, besides, she wasn't sure when she was coming back. They were relaxed with each other—Joe from habit, and Rhiannon from instinct. Sometimes love is easy, he thought. It's just a given, just there. ”

“ That's one method I can't use."
"I should have eaten breakfast," she said. "What is the damned Internet anyway?"
"Mo, I have to warn you—the last ten people that asked me questions like that are lying face down."
"I can take it," she said.
"It's a way of moving information around," Joe said, "that doesn't require a dedicated phone line. The telephone system works like a string stretched between tin cans. Two people monopolize the string until they're done. The Internet is different. Info is coded and split into small packets. ”

“ Deer Isle is out between Penobscot Bay and Jericho Bay. It's a romantic place, softer than the rest of Maine. The light is warmer. Probably that was what attracted his father, Joe thought. He took the fast route through Augusta and Belfast. Three and a half hours later, the Deer Isle Bridge came suddenly into view, high, too thin, an arrow shot gracefully over Eggemoggin Reach. Joe could not drive over it without remembering that its sister bridge in Tacoma shook itself to pieces. ”

“ I like to write about things."
"Aha," she said.
"How do you get by?" he asked.
"I do all right with photography, commercial work. I teach a couple of courses. When I get the chance, I do my own stuff; I have a show every couple of years if I can."
"The only photographer besides Ansel Adams and Cartier-Bresson that I can remember is the Hungarian guy, Kertesz." Mo looked at him sharply. "His pictures of New York are so still," Joe said, "like etchings, but they're awake. There is always something—tracks in the snow, a falling leaf, something that echoes time." ”

“ The Edgewater Hotel bar has floor to ceiling windows on the water. Joe ate a sandwich and watched huge ferries slide through the night, brilliant against the black water. They made the Portland, Maine ferries look like life boats. Joe went to bed early, slept fitfully, and spent the next day walking, reading, and exercising. His back wasn't what it was—too many years in front of a computer monitor. If he kept at the yoga exercises, it didn't bother him, but a real day's work would be the end. For a long time he could do whatever the kids could, and then he couldn't. ”

“ The Park Diner was on the way out of Kingston, heading towards Woodstock. When Patrick was upset, he ate to settle himself down. He had a steak sandwich, apple pie, and coffee. He was still in shock. How could someone be running around one day and then be totaled the next? Probably she was older than she looked. Damn. There was nothing to do but go home and call her niece.
Climbing the hill to the village green, Patrick had an urge to drive to Willow's, but he decided against it. He had to call Gert's niece, and it wasn't his truck. ”

“ It's like this, Patrick: an artist needs to make a picture that expresses how he feels about something or someone or some place. Since every artist is different, good paintings, true paintings, are original."
"True?"
"Yeah, true to the artist's feelings," Hendrik said.
"True," Patrick said, turning the word over in his mind.
"It's not so easy. What the hell, I'll show you." Hendrik got up and led Patrick to his studio.
"Look there," he said, pointing at a wall covered with charcoal drawings of a nude Julie Van Slyke, fifteen years younger. "Those are studies I made before I did the painting. ”

“ Rhiannon said abruptly.
"What's wrong with that?"
"Oh, nothing. We're not getting along right now. I don't like her boyfriend."
"Uh, oh. That's hard," Joe said.
"He's such a creep. I'd get my own apartment but I'm leaving. I've never had an apartment."
"It's fun," Joe said. "Do what you want. But you have to buy a lot of stuff—beds and toasters and things. Actually, I don't even have a bed. I sleep on a camping mattress."
"I wouldn't mind that," Rhiannon said. "Would you show me your place some time?"
"Sure."
"People should do what they want to," she said fiercely. ”

“ He wanted a woman. He was just as good as Joe Burke or Gino Canzoni. They had women. Beauties. They were citizens or writers or artists or whatever they were. Who was he?
Patrick couldn't answer that question. He just knew that he was as good as they were. That meant that somehow, someday, he would show up at a party with someone like Amber and make jokes and have fun. This was a cheerful thought. But, in the meantime, he had to learn more science. And art—what the hell was art all about? ”

“ Joe put on his new belt and went down to the hotel bar. He ordered an ale and watched a boxing match on a large TV. Pit Bull Salvatori was wearing down a fighter named Fanatuua. He was sagging, his body blotchy. The bell rang and Fanatuua collapsed back against a padded corner post. A trainer squirted something into his mouth and rubbed his chest while his manager talked in his ear. Fanatuua nodded once.
The bell rang again, and Pit Bull was on him, lefts, rights, uppercuts, trying to end it. At some point in life, Joe thought, how people lose becomes more interesting than how they win. ”

“ They said goodbye to the cat, and Mo drove them back to Lihue where Joe had no trouble changing his flight.
"Fun day," he said as they parted in Honolulu.
"Bye, Joe." She smiled.
"I'll call you."
She lifted a hand in acknowledgment. Thanks for the warmth and commitment, he thought.
He had given up chasing women some time after Sally and before Ingrid. A kind woman had taken him in hand after a heartbreak and explained: "Joe, you can't earn love. Love is free. Someone loves you or they don't . . . God knows why." ”