Continuing the Saturday Saga, I am sitting in Plum Island
Coffee Roasters Café in Newburyport, working on my thesis, hanging with a
dedicated writing partner who keeps me honest, and we have successfully
out-smarted Wicked Creepy Napkin Guy. The
only thing that will make this session a complete success is if we can snag the
piano table. The piano table is what's
left of (or an exact replica of) a baby grand piano with chairs around it. It is the perfect writing table in height, shape,
and inspiration.
Two young gents are at the table, sitting opposite each
other, date-close, close enough to play footsie under the piano, but they are
not together. Not-Date-Guy #1 is working
away on his computer, and Not-Date-Guy #2 is plugged in to his own laptop, ear
buds pressed so far into his ear canals that whatever he is listening to is
surely fusing with his hippocampus.
My thesis partner's daughter and her friend are sitting on
the couch in a makeshift seating area behind the piano table. Another young man is seated near them in a
leather chair, animatedly interacting with his MacBook. The girls, who have been quietly putting
their heads together in camaraderie, are startled when all of a sudden Leather
Chair Guy bursts out laughing. Actually,
"laughing" may not be the appropriate word here. Leather Chair Guy starts guffawing. Since the café is tiny, he disturbs and
distracts us all. Even Not-Date-Guy #2
turns to look at the transgressor, proving my theory that Leather Chair Guy's
outburst is even louder than hippocampus-fusing ear-bud music. Leather Chair Guy decides to show
Not-Date-Guy #2 something that he seems to think is ridiculously hilarious, and
this causes Not-Date-Guy #2 to pull one of the ear buds away from his
head. Apparently these gents are together, making Leather Chair Guy
into Not-Date-Guy #3. Why they are all
plugged in and disconnected from each other while sitting in a Bermuda Triangle
formation around the fireplace seems to be a mystery.
I still wish they would abandon the piano table.
This is also when my choice of tables becomes a boon. An older couple enters the café, and they
stand near our table. The white-haired
man and the gray-haired lady are looking at the framed photographs that are on
display around the café. In the three
times that my friend and I have come here to work, we have been semi-distracted
by the artwork hanging around us on the walls.
The first week there were some interesting paintings of food, including
a disturbing derriere pear painting. The
second time we met here, there were some interesting paintings that bore strong
resemblances to Spirograph drawings.
Although fascinating and certainly superior to anything I've ever
attempted to draw or paint, I am not a fan of either display.
Today, though, there is a multitude of framed color
photographs: boats, buildings, and birds.
There isn't a bad photo in the batch, and I would gladly buy them all if
I had the money. I watch the older
couple as they attach another chain behind one of the frames.
"Are you adding to the display?" I ask them,
partially to make conversation and partially because I truly want to know.
They are indeed adding a new picture, a framed photo of a
snowy owl, a close-up of its face and one of its eyes as it looks off into the
distance.
"Oh, that's beautiful," I say when I see the
finished piece. A light bulb goes off in
my brain. "Are you the
artist?"
Turns out the older woman is the photographer, the gentleman
hanging up the new framed picture is her husband, and the snowy owl in the
photo is their part-time resident. All
these bird pictures remind me of another friend and Cat TV, which occurs any
time we can sit outside while her cats watch the patio bird feeder from the
glassed-in safety of the den. Cat TV is
a seasonal activity for humans, where we set chairs out and interact with the
birds and cats as a kind of nature-sensitive buffer: the cats cannot get
outside to attack the birds, and the birds cannot taunt the cats because we are
in their attack zone. Pulling me out of
my summer Cat TV reverie and back to frozen-over Newburyport, the woman hands
me her business card.
Suddenly, awkwardly, in the midst of my summer dreaming, a
song comes through the muzak-spewing speakers.
Usually the music here is boss.
Right now, though, I want to smack the employees. The sound system is playing a Christmas tune,
"We Three Kings/God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" by the Barenaked
Ladies. Summer was right there, within
my grasp, in my brain, at eye level, even, and now… now it's ruined. Thanks, café staff, thanks. It's not enough that the temperature outside
is 7 degrees with wind chill, you have to go backtracking two months, reminding
us all how bloody long this winter feels.
My thesis partner doesn't feel well. She sounds like she has a terrible cold, and
I worry that she is overextending herself.
We decide to pack it in about forty-five minutes early. I take one last look at the photographs on
the walls, the pictures of the beach and the boats and birds and sunshine and
warmth. I wait until my thesis partner
and her daughter and guest are safely out of the parking lot before I pull
out. I do not want them to see me. I do not want them to know that I am not
heading west to go home lest they think I am insane.
I am not going cross-town to the back roads and
civilization. I am crossing the bridge
to Salisbury. I am going north, along
the coast, to the beach. I am searching
for summer.
(Part III to come.)
