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THIRTEEN
Our reunion
came in surprising fashion. The sun had
mangled and wrassled its way through our concrete Northwest ceiling for the
first time in weeks, and this had given me the inspiration to crowbar my butt
off the bed, hop onto Maestro’s creaking Schwinn and horsewhip my winter
muscles down the island to the Pegasus.
Even after a twenty-minute forced feeding of cool, light Bainbridge air,
however, I remained under the shadow of a dictatorial scowl, and thus was
thrown that much further out of my rut when I pushed my way into the Pegasus
and found Gabriella’s face at the counter.
“Gabi?”
Gabi gave
me a satisfied Cheshire-cat smile, like she had been expecting me. “Billy! Buongiorno!”
I floated
to the counter on hovercraft tennies and reached across the wide marble counter
to grab her hand and cover it with kisses.
“I can’t
tell you how good it is to see you,” I said.
“Yes you
can.”
“Okay. I’m... I’m...
I’m awfully damned glad to see you, Gabriella.”
“I’m sorry
I couldn’t call you when I got back in town, Billy, but this all happened kind
of quickly. Oh….” She looked past my shoulder to the door,
which had just clanked open with a delivery of seven or eight serious cyclists
in seriously bright Italian racing togs.
“Hey, tell me what you’d like, and I’ll take a little break after this
rush, okay?”
“Oh, um,
okay. How ‘bout a macchiato?”
“Gotcha. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”
I eased out
to the back patio, where I watched pharmaceutical cotton clouds scudding over
the harbor. I must have slipped into a
semi-doze, because I awoke to the feel of Gabriella’s hands on the back of my
neck, the first feathers of a massage.
“Oh,
Guglielmo. I’ve been so worried about
you. I thought of nothing else the whole
time I was gone. I even imagined you
sitting in the audience on New Year’s Eve, with that small steady smile of
yours, and those precious wide-open eyes, drinking in my notes.” She finished
her neckrub and sat down opposite me.
“So here’s the news. Maestro has
decided to take me on as a full-time project, especially now that we’re doing Puccini. He said, ‘TOSCA... will be your breakthrough,
Gabriella. You are ready now. You are READY... to be a prima donna.’“
The
transformation to aging Italiano knocked her train of thought right off the
rails. She ran a hand through her hair
and seemed to find the next station just past her left ear. “So... Oh!
So I’m moving in! I’m moving in
to his guest bedroom, at the back, near the sound. We’re going to be neighbors, Billy!”
“That’s
great! That’ll save you so much time on
the ferry. But... what are you doing
here? I mean, here at the Pegasus.”
“Well,
thanks to you, dear one, we have such a great relationship with the place, and
a few months ago when the owner found out that I was working as a barista in
Seattle, she basically made me a standing offer. When Maestro gave me the invite, then, I
didn’t waste any time, and it turns out Barry had lost one of her best workers
just last week. She’s so great,
too. She said just give me your
rehearsal and performance schedule, and I’ll work you in around it. In return, we’re making Thursdays ‘opera
night’ – little spontaneous recitals featuring me and whoever else I can drag
in here. She’s bringing in a piano from
her house just so we can use it.”
I had to
laugh. “You mean,” I whispered, “you’re
going to reveal your secret identity?”
Gabriella
gave my hand a swat over the tabletop.
“Are you making fun of me?” Then
her eyes drifted off to the high forested hillsides of Eagledale across the
harbor. “Honestly, I think it’s about
time I get over that, Billy. It was all
getting a little complicated, me and my little image preservation
campaign. And I wasn’t all that fond of
Café Trademark, anyway. Except for
meeting present company there, of course.
And who knows? Maybe the Pegasus
series will be good for some cheap publicity.
But enough of that – how are you, amico mio?”
The answer
to that question seemed entirely too complicated, so I decided to leap-frog the
subject.
“What would
you say is the swankiest, snobbiest, most expensive restaurant in Seattle?”
Gabriella
blinked her eyes in thought. “Well? Um, I’d say the Palisade.”
“When would
you like me to take you there?”
“Friday.”
“Done. Steal the best outfit you can from wardrobe,
and I’ll pick you up at... Oh. Where
will I pick you up at?”
“Maestro’s. The guys are moving me in tomorrow.”
“Oh. Do you need help?”
“No no
no. We have sprightly young tenors and
baritones for such things. Don’t you
worry. Whoops! Gotta go.
How’s seven o’clock?”
“Bene. I’ll meet you at your door.” Gabriella kissed
me on the forehead and scurried back into the Pegasus, where a pack of
ravenous, power-walking grandmas had just entered, hunting for scones.
* * *
Instead of
waiting for me to come to the main house, Gabriella appeared in my doorway
wearing a long black frock coat, a burgundy silk scarf, and a top hat! (She told me later it had been used by
Colline, the philosopher from “La Bohème.”)
Her first
words, oddly enough, were, “What the hell are you doing, Billy?” Having cleaned
and suited myself much too early, I had taken up my recent assignment, cutting
out the pathways from a large fabric pattern of the Chartres Cathedral’s
labyrinth so I could etch it onto Maestro’s central deck. When Gabriella broke in on me, I was
literally covered with it, its twenty-foot-square expanse wrapped around both
legs and an arm, like a giant flat squid on the attack.
“Oh,
nothing much,” I said lamely. “It’s
Maestro’s latest thing.”
“Well,
okay, but do you think you could get out of that thing and take me to dinner,
gosh-darn-it? I’m hungry!”
I let out a
mighty harrumph. “You nineteenth century
Frenchmen are so rude!” I then made a
reasonable facsimile of a toreador swipe, thrusting the monstrosity to one
side, patted the scissored leavings from my suit, and straightened up to give
my monsieur a kiss on the cheek.
“You look...
handsome.”
“Merci. I thought it was high time I tried out a
trouser role.”
“C’est
bien. Allons?”
“Uh...
Oui.”
It took a
little while for Escamillo to warm up; compared to last year’s cross-country
ramble, these ferry-boat jaunts were barely enough to get his water pump
going. (I imagine also that he was
jealous, having sniffed out the scent of that rental minivan on my clothing.)
Nonetheless, we hit the ramp at Winslow with magical timing, landing on the auto
deck just as they were closing shop. I
followed the flagman’s cheerleading to a starboard spot with an excellent view
of the southward sound: the eastward reach of Restoration Point, and Vashon
Island in the far distance. Gabriella
felt too Gay Parisienne to expose herself to the passenger deck, so we remained
in the car all the way across as she told me of her time in Vancouver. It was a beautiful city, many times bigger
than Seattle and surrounded by grand green mountains. During her stay she had met a handsome young
law student from Calgary. They went out
a number of times – movies, a hockey game, a couple of dinners – and things
were proceeding quite nicely until one night when Mr. Alberta had outlined for
her his ideal life: a highly domesticated life, as it turned out, composed of kids
and pets, charitable dinners and the Sunday New York Times... and a
stay-at-home wife.
“I would
usually have dismissed it as a fairly innocuous comment,” she said. “Except for the fact that we had both been
feeling the steady stream of hormones all week long, and had shared some pretty
romantic moments – and in fact were about to turn our sails bed-ward, which is
not something I give away at every streetcorner, mon ami. So you see, I think this little performance
had some pretty clear intent to it, some direction. The nerve of that bastard! What does he think, I just came out of the
womb singing Bellini? That it’s really
no big deal? I’m just using this little
opera shtick to catch myself a man, and then it’s off to Niagara Falls and
hello laundry room?! Hello daytime talk
shows?! Hello honey how was your day at
the office?! What horseshit.”
I had both
hands on Escamillo’s steering wheel and imagined I was guiding him over the
water to Seattle – a pretty neat little James Bond kind of delusion. “So,” I said.
“Would it be reasonable for me to assume that this has happened before?”
Gabriella
let out a knife-sharp burst of laughter.
“Hah! It’s a running theme,
pal! Apparently we opera chicks are big
candidates for elbow-dressing in these parts.
If I had a theme song, it would be, ‘Honey, Why Don’t You Give Up La
Scala and Come On Home to Me?’”
“Well,” I
chuckled. “It certainly speeds up the
screening process.”
“You got
that right, Bubba. When F. Lee Scaly took a restroom time-out, ol’ Gabriella
checked herself out of the restaurant and hailed a cab home.”
“Oh,
Gabriella!” I swooned. “You’re such a
diva!”
Gabriella
fetched her top hat from her lap so she could tip it. “Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you so-o-o-o
much.”
I took a
left out of the ferry depot and soon found myself heading north on Alaskan Way, but for some reason thought I
was heading south, so I turned off on Broad Street, near the Seattle Center, to
get my bearings. I immediately spied a
tourist-trap horse-and-buggy perched at the curb, advertising strolls around
town. Gabriella cultivated a curious
expression as I pulled over and parked.
“Billy,
what are you doing?”
“The
Palisade can wait, Oh Abraham. There’s a
stallion ovah yondah with our names on it.”
The driver
was one of those guys who really played the part, having grown a big ol’
mustache and waxed it to turn-of-the-century handlebar splendor to match his
pioneer riding clothes. I asked him if
he had a regular loop we could take, and he nodded yes, about a half-hour’s
worth, so I held Gabriella’s beaverskin and helped her up. We tucked our legs under a wool blanket and
were soon rough-rolling through town, the driver, the horse and two passengers
all letting out vaporous streams of breath.
We were
heading east on Virginia when I spotted a restaurant called Pagliacci’s, and
what more of a sign would you need than that? I knocked on the side of the
carriage with Gabriella’s walking stick, and shouted for the driver to pull
over, then tipped him enormously and helped my diva to the sidewalk.
Gabriella
pulled down on her embroidered vest and smirked. “Well.
It’s obvious that to-night will be largely improvised.”
Pagliacci’s
turned out to be nowhere near as plush as I’m sure the Palisades would have
been, but it had a warm, chatty elegance to it, and gorgeous washes of mango,
Tuscan gold and latte-colored paint over the walls. Gabriella’s outfit made a prime target for
the host, a jolly, fat paisano with a big beefy mustache and comic demeanor to
match.
“Oh-hoh!” He exclaimed with a sweeping bow. “It is the gentlemen of Verona, out for a
night on the town. I will get for you a
table in the corner, from where you may gaze upon all the bellas of
Washington.”
Gabriella
missed not a beat, clapping our host chummily on the shoulder and replying,
“Thank you, good sir! You are a gent, a mighty gent and true.” She leaned
toward his ear and spoke in confidence.
“And please, my good man, if you could do us a great favor, do not
reveal our true identities. Under these
fair garments, you see, I am not a nobleman at all but the poorest wretch of a
student, Gualtier Maldè! And this being to my left, though he look as manly as
any a burly, plaid-coated lumberman of Washington State, he is, in fact, the
governor’s dainty daughter, Cleodora!”
Fully
invested in our little skit, our host eyed me studiously and declared. “Good God, man! What a brilliant disguise!”
We
eventually wrapped up our routine and were shown to a table next to a column of
cappuccino-colored tromp l’oeil marble.
The items on the menu were not near costly enough, but I managed to coax
Gabriella into a decently expensive grilled salmon, while I ordered us an
appetizer of oyster and mussels in garlic sauce and a bottle of ten-year-old
French cabernet, and got myself a bowl of cioppino with lobster that could well
have supplied a week-long camping trip.
We finished up with a dessert of amaretto cheesecake and two
espressos. Still, when the bill came
around, the total was not nearly high enough.
I waved back our waiter, whose name was also Bill, and picked up the
wine list.
“I’m
sorry. Could we add something? Ah, here she is. We’d like two glasses of this tawny Lisbon
port.”
“Certainly,”
said Bill, and raised his eyebrows in appreciation.
When Bill
returned with our libations, I found Gabriella honing her award-winning
squint. I hadn’t seen it for months,
actually, and it seemed like an old friend, come back to town.
“You’ve
been up to something all night, Guillaume.”
I gave no
answer, but lifted my drink, the color of maple syrup as painted by Monet, and
almost as old as I was.
“It’s all
gone, Floria. It’s all... gone.”
Gabriella’s
smile grew as the lights came on inside.
“Congratulations,” she said.
We sipped
the thick, buttersweet liquid and waited for the bill, which this time came to
two hundred sixteen dollars and thirty seven cents. I left three big portraits of Benjamin
Franklin – the final withdrawal from my brother’s account – then we hurried outside
to catch a cab to First Hill, where Gabriella would make her return to Café
Trademark with style.
Photo by MJV
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