She sat by the window which was where she had told him she’d be sitting, and by that he spotted her right away. She was smiling broadly as she also said she would be. “It’s half-affectation, half how I really feel,” she said. Her questions were mostly about his painting. How had he developed his unique sense of color? What size canvas made him most comfortable? Who in history did he feel was the closest comparison? When was it first clear to him that he was famous? Did it feel strange to be sixty? Toward the end, only after she had given herself assurances regarding certain facts of the matter (he was not only shorter than her but shorter than she had expected; he was tentative in choosing words but confident about what they meant once they were spoken; his shoes were not shabby by accident but were an integrated part of his aesthetic) did she ask him out on a date. “Dinner,” she said. “And we’ll see where it goes from there.” He excused himself to use the restroom and she stayed on her notes, circling some words, underlining others, drawing her own face and its broad smile, making loops around the parts that belonged to the half that she really felt.
©2021 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas
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