A man remembers an old lover and makes a new discovery.
Gretchen was a beautiful woman. Still is today. I’ve seen her pictures on Facebook. We broke up in August of ninety-seven. To this day, I remember every word of that phone conversation. Toward the end she asked: “Don’t you have anything to say?”
I didn’t; she hung up.
Around then, in the new post-Gretchen world, I began taking trips by myself. I would drive up and over the Cascades from Richland, Washington to Seattle. No GPS in those days, an unfolded map on the passenger’s seat, my route highlighted in yellow magic marker. The drive itself seemed to tell a story. On the Eastern side, up the unending, bare, rocky cliffs to the summit. Coming down the other side was like dropping into a fairy tale area of green farms, sparkling ponds, and dense evergreen forest.
The time, the four-hour journey, made it seem like one of significance. Popular perception has Seattle as a city of constant rain and clouds. I found it to be sunny, and green, and vibrant, all of those things that Eastern Washington was not. Technically, any place with less than twelve inches of rain per year is considered a desert. In Richland, we averaged eight inches per year.
My desperately needed job was there. But I longed to carve out a place for myself in a city like Seattle, where it rained, where not everyone was obsessed with holding onto their job, where people wearing nice clothes were not seen as a novelty.
As the trips continued, my routine upon getting to the Red Lion on 5th became more codified. Check in, unpack, then don a white shirt and tie and a suit appropriate for the season. I would hustle down to the ground floor and across the busy Fifth avenue to the Appaloosa. It was a restaurant on the second floor of the Seattle Center, a class restaurant for sure, lots of glass and brass, the epitome of late nineties chic.
Having made a reservation the night before, I would immediately be seated. Usually, I could get one of the glass tables near the railing. I would order, then look over that railing to watch the mid-day crowd milling from shop to shop on the floor of the city-center mall. Most of the women were in business suits with skirts. Almost all the men wore black suits, with a thin black tie, even in the summer. It was Seattle. And it was the nineties, after all.
The cute young waitresses apparently followed the trend, in black pants and white blouses with black string ties. “Your lunch will be right out,” they would smile while handing me a frosted glass of beer.
On one occasion in the early spring, a single realization struck me. I realized that when I took that first sip of cold beer, I had reached the summit, the pinnacle of satisfaction.
I would finish my meal and walk the colorful streets of the Emerald City. The store windows vying with each other for my attention were filled with stylish clothes, ornate cakes, and pastries. In some, with elegantly arranged furniture and accoutrements. It felt like Seattle was entering the twenty-first century as a young city. The young men hurried, looking purposeful and intent. The young women were well dressed, smiling. They seemed happy with the life around them.
The remainder of the two days would be fine. I would drive home feeling renewed and relaxed. Still, nothing would match that single, fleeting, good-as-it-gets moment. Perhaps that was a silly thought. Perhaps it was shallow and self-absorbed. But it was eye-opening. That realization was my personal revelation.
I believe Gretchen would have liked that thought.
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