Blogopera #11 - His Place
Friday, June 20, 2008
This is #11 i
n a series, to read in succession, begin with #1
Blogopers #1
Blogopera #2
Blogopera #3
Blogopera #4
Blogopera #5
Blogopera #6
Blogopera #7
Blogopera #8
Blogopera #9
Blogopera #10
On the drive over I wondered what his house would be like. Would I find a sleek bachelor’s love nest or disheveled, dirty surroundings of a man living alone. Did bikes, computer equipment and guitars rest where furniture should be with a beer fridge in the bedroom as a makeshift nightstand or would he sport the kind of neatness and order that raises suspicion in a single man.
“Here we are,” he announced as we pulled in to a long driveway next to a stately two-story Craftsmen Bungalow.
The house was massive and I was beginning to think that either coffee was more lucrative than I thought or this paramour of mine had a side job when the long driveway dead ended to a modest cottage house, almost a miniature of the front house. He shut off the car and I followed behind him. He found the key, pushed open the door and flicked on an overhead light.
I looked around me and took it all in. An overstuffed, saddle leather couch worn soft at the seats shared the front room with a large, square coffee table with a solid hard wood slab top, sides inlaid with an intricate herringbone pattern. A small unfinished writer’s desk was pushed into an open corner, spilling over with stacks of papers, sketches and books. A simple coat rack with curved wood sides and big iron fittings stood just inside the door, a zippered sweatshirt and knapsack hanging on one of the hooks.
It was a masculine space devoid of evidence of a female presence but still warm, inviting and peppered with favorite objects.
“This is home,” he said as he walked into the adjacent kitchen and turned on more lights.
The kitchen was relatively spacious but a massive wooden table filled up most of the room save for the galley area nestled between the refrigerator and stove. The table was a long rectangle, three unbroken planks about two feet wide each comprised the top, long benches flanking either side.
He set his things down, “I’m going to change, I’ll be back in a minute. There’s water in the fridge if you’re thirsty and I can open up some wine if you like.”
“Go get dressed, I’ll wait for you.”
While he dressed I looked around the living room trying to gather more information about this man I knew very little about. Only a handful pictures were scattered around the room. A frame on the table contained what must have been a picture of his family. The children were very small. His mother wore a bright floral shift with white patent leather mary janes, her thick blonde hair gathered into a ponytail with a scarf tied in it, her lips rimmed in frosty pink.
She held what must have been Dylan, mouth open and eyes wide in curiosity. Dylan’s older brother clung to her leg, looking away from the camera. His father looked much like Dylan but with darker hair, a moustache and thick, tinted eyeglasses. He wore a thin white shirt with a wide collar and narrow fitting seersucker pants. They looked happy and normal, though most families did in pictures.
There was a picture of Dylan, maybe six or seven, already tall, with an old man, a pipe jutting from his pursed lips, no smile but eyes lit up to where you knew how he felt about the boy. The old man rested a hand on his shoulder and Dylan held up a large fish and I recognized the grin so wide it took over the whole bottom half of his face. There were other pictures, pictures of him at maybe twelve with boys his age, laughing, long tanned legs hanging off a pier as they fished.
1 comments:
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Hi Chris! Love #11, (of course, I actually logged in thinking, ooh surely she has posted the next installment, and there it was!)
Have a fabulous weekend girlie~
Melis