Joe Burke's Last Stand Part 29

"A lot of work," she said into the middle distance. "But . . ." she shrugged and smiled. "Can't wait to read your story."

They split the bill and left Hee Hing's, promising to get together soon. Joe went straight to the Moana.

"Gilbert, I've got trouble."

"What's her name?"

Good old Gilbert.

Joe was upset. He had thought of Mo as a possible partner, or lover. He had leaned on her without realizing it. It wasn't to be. Wilc.o.x. Was it always about money? No, that wasn't fair. He had another drink and began to feel freer. "We're all grown up, here," he said in the direction of the beach. He ordered one for the road and toasted, "Your problem now, Wilc.o.x." To h.e.l.l with it. He declared the day over and ambled up Kalakaua Avenue smiling at strangers.

When he got home, he found a letter with three British stamps and a London return address. It was from Sarah, the girl who had stuck to her story about Mike, the cat burglar. She had married a Brit and had two children of her own. "I read your letter to my daughters and told them that parents sometimes make mistakes. I can remember it as clearly as if it were yesterday," she wrote. "I hope Mike has found another way to make a living. Please do thank him for being nice, if you should see him." The thought of Sarah reading his words to her children filled Joe with pleasure. He immediately wrote to Alison, thanking her for encouraging him to write and deliver the story.

A week later, a square envelope arrived from Madison, Wisconsin. It was a wedding announcement.

Oh Joe, how nice to hear from you! I was just thinking about you. I am marrying another Joe, Joe Jurgens, next month. He is a wonderful man who lost his wife two years ago. He has a fourteen year old son and a twelve year old daughter, so I have a lot to do. I think of you often.

Keep writing. You have a lot to do, too. Love, Alison.

Well! Joe knocked on his wooden table top and wished her luck. He sent her a lavish congratulations card.

A month later Joe finished his last school a.s.signment. "We're on our own, Batman," he said, carrying the packet for Roland out the door. He kept writing and submitted stories to The Paris Review, Manoa, Ploughshares, and The New Yorker. Things happened in each of them. He was making progress, but he wasn't satisfied. The stories were rejected with form letters, sometimes not even form letters, form sc.r.a.ps.

Fortunately, there was more in the mail than rejection slips. Kate and Jackson found a house in the Ballard section of Seattle. Mo sent an invitation to an opening party for her new business. Max sent pictures of Stone Man watching over the valley. Joe taped the pictures on the wall near his father's painting.

His steel company stock fell to .50, down by a third of his original investment. Buy more, he thought. But he was afraid of running out of money and being forced to sell at a loss. He kicked himself for buying so much at .75. If he'd bought half as much, he could have picked up some of these bargain shares. Remember that, he told himself, you don't have to buy it all at once.

Joe settled more deeply into his routine. One morning in a coffee shop, he looked up and realized that a young woman was watching him from a corner table. He had seen her before, sitting in the same corner, sketching. She was in her late teens, slightly built. Her hair was shoulder length, a fresh mahogany brushed back from her face. She had artist's eyes, open and steady, similar in color to her hair but lighter. She caught him looking and smiled--a knowing smile for someone so young. Her teeth were so white and her look was so proud and gentle, so female, that he felt a sharp pain. It was like being pierced by a thin hot wire. He smiled back as best he could and left quickly.

The next morning, the young woman looked at him calmly from her usual seat in the corner of the coffee shop. "I did a drawing of you. Would you like it?"

"Sure." Joe rose from his table and walked over. She handed him a pencil drawing that showed him sitting, head forward, looking down. The lines were simplified but intense. His head was like a hatchet about to strike. It embarra.s.sed Joe to realize that this maniacal stranger was him, or her perception of him. There was life in it.

"It isn't very good," she said.

"I like it . . . Thanks. I'll trade; I'll give you some writing." She seemed pleased. She had signed the drawing in one corner. "Rhiannon, that's a beautiful name. I've never heard it before."

"It's Welsh."

"Oh. I'm Joe Burke--Irish." He meant it as a joke, but it sounded in his ears like a warning or an acknowledgment of kinship. "So, you work around here?"

"Club 21, the clothing boutique on the corner. I don't start until ten, but I like to get up early, get out of the apartment." That explained her stylish outfits. She put her sketch book, her pencils, and her CD player into a backpack and waved goodbye.

The next day he gave her four poems, handwritten on heavy stock that he bought in the art store next to the coffee shop. "Awesome," she said, putting them carefully in her pack.

"I'm starting a novel," he said.

"I could never write a book."

"Do you live around here?"

"My mother has a place on Wilder Avenue."

"Not far from me--on Liholiho." She smiled her unsettling smile and began drawing. Their conversations were short; each felt the other's need for privacy. The back tables of the coffee shop became their studio for an hour or two nearly every morning. Gradually, Joe saw that Rhiannon was beautiful. She had no spectacular features; it was the whole combo working together that was beautiful--hair, eyes, mouth, clear skin, proud compact walk. Feeling flickered on her face like firelight. She was stubborn; Joe could see that. But, at the same time, she laughed at herself. They were a lot alike, and she knew it. That was why her smile troubled him--to deny her was to deny himself.

The coffee shop was cheerful in the early morning. Many of the customers were young and worked in the surrounding shops. Rhiannon joked with them but maintained a friendly distance. Once, a young man came over to her table and said, "I've been watching you draw." He was important about it, as though he were a well-known judge of drawing.

"Yes," she said.

"Hobby? Or are you a student or a professional or something?"

"Hobby," she said and went back to work. The judge bent over her table.

"Nice," he said.

Rhiannon said nothing, and he retreated. Joe avoided her eyes. He could feel her glance, and he was starting to grin.

One morning she asked for the bathroom key. The gal behind the counter tossed the key toward the bathroom door. It was attached to a large key ring and crashed loudly on the floor. "One of your most valued customers," Rhiannon protested, bending over for the key. When she emerged from the bathroom, she drew herself up to her full five foot three and threw the key back on the floor. Joe couldn't help laughing--she was so intense and funny about it.

She had said "Her mother had a place," so he guessed that her father wasn't around. Her parents were probably divorced, maybe not so long ago. She was too self possessed not to have been well loved as a child.

On the day of Mo's business opening, Rhiannon announced that she had the afternoon off. Joe had the invitation to the opening in his shoulder bag and showed it to her. "She's a terrific photographer," he said. "Want to go?"

Rhiannon looked down at her black cotton pants and touched her T-shirt.

"I'll have to change."

"It's not until four o'clock. She's a working gal; it won't be fancy."

Rhiannon looked at him as though he were r.e.t.a.r.ded and agreed to meet him there at four-thirty. Later, Joe went home and changed into one of his better aloha shirts. He waited for Rhiannon at the bus stop nearest to Mo's, but she surprised him by getting out of a Charley's cab in front of the door.

"Yo, Rhiannon." He trotted up. "I thought you might come on the bus.

G.o.d, you look great." She was wearing white linen slacks, huaraches, and a close fitting top with three quarter sleeves and a high neckline.

The top was silk, purple with subtle golds and browns. Flat, black, oblong earrings hung partially obscured by her hair. Lip gloss and touches of eye shadow sent the "I know how" message. "You should be standing in a gondola, holding flowers," Joe said.

"Thank you."

They walked into the store and were greeted immediately by Mo. She gave Joe a quick hug, saying, "How nice of you to come." She stepped back and he introduced Rhiannon. Mo's eyebrows lifted as she looked down at her. "I'm glad you could come," she said, extending her hand. "I hope you find some things you like." She indicated the photographs hanging on the walls. "There are more in the next room. Rob?" She beckoned to a portly man with rimless gla.s.ses. "Rob, you must meet Joe and--his friend, Rhiannon. Joe and I are old buddies."

"How do you do." They shook hands.

"So," Joe said to them both, "this is where you're going to make a stand--gallery and print shop?"

"And cla.s.ses," Rob said. His smile broadened as he considered Rhiannon.

"Help yourselves to wine and goodies."

"Hi, Wendell," Mo said. They stepped away from the door. Joe recognized the gallery owner from Mo's show the previous year. People began arriving in numbers. He and Rhiannon made their way to the pupu table where he poured them wine.

"I'm going to look around," she said.

"Good, good. See you later." Joe stayed close to the kim chee and the shrimp. There was a platter of spanakopita, veggies, watercress and sour cream dip . . . Mo appeared. "Art can wait," he mumbled around a mouthful of sourdough roll.