November 2, 2002:
She shows endless kindness to each of her tables, regardless of what rude or stupid behavior they offer in return. With her vibrance and grace and perfect white teeth, and her bouncing blond pony tail.
A neighborhood pizzeria.
A neighborhood pizzeria. The usual Mediterranean mural and plastic-looking wine bottles.Mark is eating salad at the corner table.<look mark>
Otto is in the kitchen, cooking.
Fortyish, graying temples, friendly, but intent on his reading.Mark wears black denim pants on his legs.<look otto>
Mark wears a black cotton t-shirt on his body.
Mark wears a pair of comfortable running shoes on his feet.
Mark wears tortoise-shell reading glasses on his face.
Mark holds a purple felt pen.
Mark wields a salad fork.
Small man with an excitable face. Whistles, now and then breaks into snatches of song in high-pitched Portuguese, like a friendly mouse. "I'm Italian," he tells people, rightly guessing they wouldn't know Brazil from bowling shoes.Otto wears blue jeans on his legs.Mr. Twenty-Something shrugs in from the south.
Otto wears a white t-shirt on his body.
Otto wears a pair of comfortable running shoes on his feet.
Otto wears a white chef's apron over all.
Otto wields a carving knife.
<look mr twenty-something>
No distinguishing characteristics. Clone-boy, with the usual clone-boy goatee like the '50s and the usual clone-boy wide sideburns like the '70s, thus combining the fads of his grandfather and his father into a unified statement of unoriginality.Mr. Twenty-Something wears baggy blue denim pants on his legs.Mr. Twenty-Something looks around the room.
Mr. Twenty-Something wears a tight green t-shirt on his body.
Mr. Twenty-Something wears a backward baseball cap on his head.
Mr. Twenty-Something wears a pair of comfortable running shoes on his feet.
Mr. Twenty-Something looks confused.
Mr. Twenty-Something tells Otto, "Hey...uh...Otto. Is Gina here?"
Otto looks around the room.
Mark looks around the room.
<look room>
A neighborhood pizzeria.
A neighborhood pizzeria. The usual Mediterranean mural and plastic-looking wine bottles.Mark is eating salad at the corner table.
Otto is in the kitchen, cooking.
Mr. Twenty-Something is standing here.Otto tells Mr. Twenty-Something, "Uh...no...she's not."
Mr. Twenty-Something pauses for thought.
Mr. Twenty-Something looks around the room.
Mr. Twenty-Something looks confused.
Mr. Twenty-Something tells Otto, "Oh. Well. Is Theresa here?"
Otto looks confused.
Otto looks around the room.
Mark looks confused.
Mark looks around the room.
<confused>
You look confused.
<look room>
A neighborhood pizzeria.
A neighborhood pizzeria. The usual Mediterranean mural and plastic-looking wine bottles.Mark is eating salad at the corner table.
Otto is in the kitchen, cooking.
Mr. Twenty-Something is standing here.Otto tells Mr. Twenty-Something, "Uh...no...she's not."
Mr. Twenty-Something pauses for thought.
Mr. Twenty-Something looks around the room.
Mr. Twenty-Something looks confused.
Mr. Twenty-Something pauses for thought.
Mr. Twenty-Something looks around the room.
Mr. Twenty-Something looks confused.
Mr. Twenty-Something tells Otto, "Oh. Well. Is Lisa here?"
Otto ignores Mr. Twenty-Something.
Otto breaks into song.
She skips in with her mother in tow. She's all vibrance and grace and perfect white teeth, and a bouncing blond pony tail. "Hi Mark!," she says, planting her open palm and fingers flat on my chest, as if she wanted to feel my heart beat for a moment. It does. Skips off to say hello to Otto in the kitchen.
There was another day when she followed me to the door as I tried to leave in a flustered hurry. To say she's moving away in four weeks. Sense of urgency in her lovely young-woman voice. She sings each phrase like a sweet fragment of song. She smells like surf wax, and Ivory soap. I run away awkwardly.