The Girlfriend continually reminds me of the fact that I have a crush on the Gallery Guy. Of course I have a crush on him, I’d freely admit that. I like having crushes, it’s so nice to be at the giving end of the infatuation line occasionally. And mind you, I mean Very occasionally only. Any more then that would be simply detrimental to my ego.
Now, all throughout the week I’d been wanting to pay him a visit, but had been feeling far too lazy, and too bogged down by work to do so, but last night saw the perfect excuse come by for me to make a trip down town. It was to procure a copy of this particular China Culture magazine whose editor has emailed me offering me a chance at being
***
The escalator stopped at the floor the gallery was on, and I tried to peek into the office from where I was, trying to see if he was there. I thought I saw him wandering aimlessly around, but I couldn’t be sure. And all this time, a strange, childish feeling was swelling up in me, turning me into something I had not been in a long time.
The unsurity of self had turned me into a coward, and I rode on with the escalator into the store above, too chicken to do what I really wanted to. ‘Later’, I kept on telling myself. Later, when the gallery was about to close. Come by then and ask him if he wanted a drink, and wait for him while he locked up; Yes, Later would make more sense.
But I was illiterate, browsing thought literature I couldn’t understand. All there was were the words chanting in my head, telling me to do what I wanted to. And after a pointless 30 minutes, I gave in and finally tossed the graphic novel I had been mindlessly fanning onto a shelf.
Walking into the gallery always made me feel like I was stepping into private space. Usually it was because every single painting gave me the sense that I was entering the thoughts of someone else. But this time, the awareness of me as a trespasser was more domineering then it usually was.
I felt like I was trespassing onto his space, and for the want of being welcomed, for that, made it all the more difficult to bear.
I stood at the entrance for awhile, pretending to muse over the new exhibits that had been placed up. He was on the phone. I wandered a little deeper. I felt a little like an intruder, and didn’t dare to make too much noise with my heels. There was much wondering about if he knew my presence, but I didn’t dare find out through looking directly into the office, and at him. It was ridiculous. I had managed to come this far, and now all I was doing was hiding behind canvases and make-shift walls. Did I expect him to want to play a childish little game with me, to match my childish little feelings. There was no reason behind it, aside from the fact that I was simply not prepared for anything. But it was just one of those things you can never prepare for, and it was ironic, considering the predictability of human behaviour.
He put down the phone, and there was the clink of
‘Hey Isabella, (he remembered my name. That’s a start! I didn’t even know his) how are you doing?’
La liberté!
The most difficult part is always in bridging the silence after-all, am I not right.
He was across the hall, and when I responded with how fine I simply was, he walked over. I attempted to sustain a conversation about the new exhibits, but the desire to ask him for a drink agitated me, and before I knew it, I’d asked him if he was free tonight.
He looked at me with a slightly surprised smile, perhaps with a pleasantly pleased lilt to the corners, and repeated the suggested time; ‘Tonight?’
‘Well, I was around the area, I thought I’d drop by and ask you out for a drink, I mean, it’s all right if you don’t want to, I..’
‘Oh no, I’m terribly sorry but I’ve a flight to
But I promptly switch the subject. Rejection was always an embarrassing thing, and most certainly something I wasn’t particularly used to. But he did seem sincere in his apology.
‘You see that painting over there?’ He said, gesturing to a canvas awashed in throbbing tones of ocher. ‘It’s by an Iranian artist. The clothes you see on it, they are not real…’
There was a strange discourse over Iranian culture after that, and he apparently shared the same fascination with obscure Middle-Eastern movies.
‘You can distinguish their art. They are all painted in a sort of silent tragedy.’
He looked at me as if he were weighing my thoughts.
‘They suffer a lot, and it shows, I’m sure you can see that. All their art express repressiveness. It’s more terrible when you think how prosperous
‘Hah. Chauvinistic, insecure males you mean.’
He laughed at that.
There was an odd looking coffee table below the painting, with nail varnish spilled into a structured disarray.
‘Modern art.’
‘I know it’s modern art,’ I replied. ‘But I can’t say I know what modern art is. I will never understand it, aside from the fact that it looks great, and that it would make a fantastic centerpiece for an after dinner conversation.’
‘Ah silly, there’s nothing to understand. It’s pretty, I like it. That one over there… ‘ He gestured to a sculpture of a naked African adolescent. ‘I love that one. The artist is a friend of mine.’
I hadn’t noticed the figurine before, but now that I did, I thought it was lovely. Mostly because he said it was. Sculptures normally never caught my attention. And this one was particularly lovely.
‘Because the adolescent form is so seldom captured nude, you know. It’s a pity. It’s one of the most fascinating phrases of human anatomical development, and yet it always passes us by because we’re so afraid of the taboo…’
He nodded his head, smiling and stroking the head of the girl. ‘She’s a Lolita.’
I couldn’t help but laugh.
‘You know, when you get back from
‘Oh no, I’m simply too old.’
‘Nonsense. You just sit around listening to great tunes hand-beaten on drums and dance to reggae and salsa beats. It’s fantastic!’
‘Oh, you salsa? My wife’s a fabulous salsa dancer. But I can’t do it.’
‘That’s insane. Anyone can learn how to salsa, and it should be easier for you, since you already have an accomplished partner.’
The revelation of my disappointment could not have been more then a split second, but it took me awhile to get over the shock. He must have known I was disappointed, I was sure of it. I thought it was obvious, because for the next 5 minutes, the words ‘wife’ and ‘kids’ came out of my mouth quite liberally, although inside me, I knew I was being incredibly stupid.
The conversation had ran it’s course by then, and I’d over-stayed in someone else’s private space. I told him I’d take my leave, and he suggested I emailed him the number of the place I went to dance at (or where I used to anyway, I haven’t had the time recently, and have gotten terribly rusty, and you know how these things are downward spirals to a final degradation), and left me with a name-card.
‘I’m really sorry I had to decline your company tonight, but you know how it is, when you have a family. You’ll know what I meanwhen you do.’
‘The word you’re looking for is responsibility, and I do have a family!’ I laughed.
And I knew it was a genuine laugh. I was disappointed that he turned out to be much older and with more responsibilities then I had previously thought, but all that did not deride what I’d felt previously.
Just before I left the gallery, he stopped me and asked how old I was.
‘Why? Do I look pre-pubescent? My anatomy is nothing like the statue of your Lolita.’
‘Oh no, it’s just that, I think your thoughts are …’ He struggled to find a word. ‘Deep. Advanced?’
‘Matured.
‘Do you really think so? I get that quite often, although I can’t believe people my age can be sillier then me. They are, but I cannot believe it.’
‘You are, and I wouldn’t insult you. It’s really a compliment.
‘But thank you for coming by, I had a pleasant time, and I’m sorry again that I can’t go out with you tonight. But perhaps we could do it sometime in the future, you can email me, or call…’
I look at him.
‘Oh no, you’re the busy one, you should email me sometime, and we’d go out. I’m free quite often anyway.’
‘I couldn’t do that, you’ve been nothing but nice to me.’
Frankly, I didn’t quite understand what he meant, and right now, I’m stuck in a bit of ambivalence. But a red-flag is a red-flag. Remember how I said I didn’t believe in absolutes? Well, there are some absolutes. A wife and kid are absolutes.
I went to Starbucks thereafter for a frothy latte, a wheat spinach bagel and some time out to think about what I felt.
And I felt that I was a perfectly dislocated individual with a hyper-active imagination, and that I knew what being in love was. Of course I did.
He was compassionate and considerate, and that was all that mattered.
xoxox
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