Conversation Two: Three Words, a Dog and a Muse
“Describe me in three words,” Stephanie says, and here’s what I tell her: Curious. Mischievous. Optimistic.
Stephanie seems satisfied. We walk along the beach together. It’s January, but she holds her shoes in her hand and walks through the surf, scampers sideways whenever the waves go higher than her ankles. There’s not another soul in sight.
“Someone called me bossy the other day. Do you think I’m bossy?” she asks.
I take a moment to consider. “No, I wouldn’t say you’re bossy.”
“There’s a ‘but’ in there, somewhere.”
“But I think you have a strange way of getting people to do what you want.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“I didn’t say there was anything wrong with that. You could be called worse things. Some people call me arrogant. Do you think I’m arrogant?”
“Yes." No hesitation.
“What!? Why?”
“Well, maybe arrogant is the wrong word. You’re really intelligent.”
“So what? So are you. What the hell does that have to do with being arrogant?”
“The difference between you and me is that you seem to take a lot of pleasure in being intelligent. And sometimes that comes through, particularly to those people who aren’t as smart or witty as you.”
“You think I’m witty?”
“You have your moments." She hands me her shoes. "Hold these. I don’t want to carry them anymore.” I take them obediently. I don’t know why.
“You don’t have to carry them,” I say. “You could—oh, I don’t know—wear them. It’s ten degrees outside.”
“I don’t want to get sand in them. Besides, I’m not ready to stop feeling the ocean just yet.”
We’re silent for a while. I watch her. Behind her glasses, her eyes roam the sand, picking things out, searching, noting.
“The prettiest things wash up on the beach,” she says.
“Some of the most disgusting, too.”
“Pretty rocks, seashells, smooth glass…”
“Fish skeletons, dead seals, stinky seaweed…”
The tide comes in and Stephanie kicks water in my direction. “You make me tired.”
I smirk. We walk for a while, listening to the waves.
“You know,” Stephanie says, “I think my problem is that I’m much more loyal to my friends than to the people I start relationships with.”
“Why is that a problem?”
“People I’m close to don’t always understand or accept that. It takes a lot to be my friend.”
“A lot of what? Patience? Tolerance? Masochism?”
Stephanie ignores me. “I need to know you. I know that sounds kind of obvious, but I mean I need to really know you. To know who you are. To know what you’re about. To feel that if I needed you nothing in the world would keep you from my side. That, to me, is a friend.”
“Do I make the cut?”
“Nobody knows you.”
The wind between us is a cold wall, suddenly. Farther down the beach a man comes into view, struggling with a big dog on a leash. I turn up my collar and thrust my free hand deeper into my pocket.
“Once I can call you my friend, though,” she continues, “I would do almost anything for you.”
“So if I’m your friend, I can show up on your doorstep at 3 a.m. with a gun that’s been recently fired and say here, hold this?”
“Depends on how good a friend you are.” She looks sideways at me and smiles. “You? No.”
“And you don’t feel that way about the people you love?”
“Love is a big word,” Stephanie says, “and not one I use often.”
We let that hang in the air for a while.
“Anyway, did you buy that hat yet?” she asks.
“Huh?”
Stephanie leaps in front of me, points at me like Uncle Sam. “Ha! I knew it! I’ve been thinking about your little hat story, and you know what? I think it’s complete bullshit.”
I stop short. “It is not.”
“No? Did you buy that hat yet?”
“Sort of.”
“How can you sort of buy a hat?”
“If you mean did I literally buy a hat, then yes I did. If you mean did I buy a hat in the sense that buying a hat is a euphemism for me writing something, then sort of. I’ve been working on some stuff for the past couple of weeks. I’m feeling pretty good about it.”
“Back up. You really bought a hat? You’re going to look like a dork!”
The dog— a Saint Bernard—comes running up to us, all fur and slobber. I consider giving him Stephanie’s shoes. I don’t. I glare at her instead.
“Did you just hear what I said? I just told you I’m writing something.”
“Big deal,” she says, squatting down to pet the dog. “I’ll believe it when I read it.”
The dog’s owner shows up, winded from the chase. He calls out to the Saint Bernard, but I can’t hear the dog’s name over the wind. It trots over to him after giving Stephanie’s face a lick. The owner gives an apologetic wave and takes off, the dog following behind.
Stephanie sits back on the sand. I drop her shoes next to her and watch while she puts them on. “So much for not getting sand in these.”
She holds out her hand. I pull her up. We stare at each other wordlessly for a moment.
“Know what?” she says. “I’ve decided I’m going to be your inspiration.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah. Your—what’s the word—your Muse.”
“That’s terrific. I’ve always wanted one of those.”
“Why don’t you write about some of the stuff we talk about?”
“Wish I thought of that.”
“See? That’s why I’m here,” she says.