So I've sure been abusing the definition of 'weekly', huh? Maybe what I meant is that I guarantee that I'll post no more than once per week...

It took me basically a month to write this story. While I don't necessarily think it was worth waiting a month for, it came out much better than I thought it was going to. When I started writing this, it was weeks before the Fringe started, and I had the idea even further back. Right now we're in the thick of the Fringe Festival in Winnipeg, so I guess it worked out as timely.

The Desert Prince's Proposal is an actual Harlequin romance title.

---

There's Nothing Wrong With Larry's Cheekbones

"There's just something odd about him. I can't put my finger on it," Larry said while wiping his mouth with a napkin.

His coworker, Sara, rolled her eyes. She was still finishing her hotdog. "Yeah, what's weird about old guy in a suit drawing caricatures?"

During the Fringe Festival, the two of them had lunch most days in Old Market Square, usually grabbing hotdogs and cans of pop from one of the carts. They'd listen to the free bands, look at posters for shows and people watch.

"It's not that. It's. I dunno, look."

Sara popped the remainder of the bun into her mouth and considered the old timer while she chewed.

From their building on Albert Street, they could had a view of Old Market Square. From Larry's office -- he'd manoeuvred for three years to get an office with a window -- you could see a narrow slice of the small park, so they knew that the caricature painter showed up each morning before nine, before even the Fringe Festival staff arrived. Sara figured it was so that he could be sure to get his favourite spot every day. He passed under Larry's window on Albert Street every morning, carrying his easel under one arm, and in the other hand, he toted a suitcase with his art supplies.

After he had everything set up, the old man would walk over to one of the nearby coffee shops for his morning tea -- Larry knew it was tea because he could see the string of the tea bag protruding. When he returned, he would sit on his stool and wait for customers. To Larry, he never seemed in any particular hurry to drum up business; even when Old Market Square filled with people, he'd just keep on reading, ignoring most of the passers-by.

Larry couldn't completely make out the cover of the old man's book from the bench they were sitting on, but it looked like it was romance novel.

"He's too well dressed," Sara said, "Who wears a suit and a bow-tie to paint?"

"He's old," Larry responded, "Old people wear suits everywhere."

"Well whatever, I've got a meeting right after lunch so I'm heading back to the office." She dabbed at the corners of her mouth with a napkin, then stood up.

"I'll probably hang around the Square for a while. See you later."

"Remember," Sara said as she turned away, "if you follow him home, you're crossing the line into stalking."

Larry sat and watched the lunch crowd beginning to the thin out a bit. People from Red River College were heading back for afternoon classes, and the folks in business suits were walking to the banks and offices at Portage and Main. He was getting ready to go back to work he saw the old timer put down his paperback and flag down a passing couple.

He struck up a conversation with them; Larry was too far to hear what was said, but the girl threw back her head and laughed at something the old man had said. After chatting a bit, the painter directed the girl's boyfriend to sit on the stool; the girl stood with an arm across his shoulders. The old man took his place behind the easel and began to sketch with a charcoal pencil.

Larry watched him work; quick strokes of the pencil and sometimes he rubbed the canvas with a finger. He had a frown the entire time and only occasionally glanced at the couple.

After they were done, the old artist shook hands with the couple. They talked a little longer, and then parted ways. It took Larry a second to realize that not only had no money exchanged hands, but the couple hadn't taken the canvas with them. Before picked up his paperback again, the artist packed it away in his suitcase, wrapping it his tissue paper.

Larry walked over to the old man, who was again sitting on his stool, reading his novel. He stood there for a moment or two, waiting to be acknowledged, before scuffing his shoe on the sidewalk.

The old man looked up. "May I help you, young man?"

"I would - I'd like my portrait done."

The artist eyed him over the rim of his glasses. "I'm afraid that's not how it works."

"What do you mean? You do caricatures instead of portraits? That'd be okay, too."

"No, no. That's not the problem. Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm not sitting around here, waiting for just any fellow to come along to pay me twenty bucks so I can sketch him with big ears and a giant nose. I'm a bit more discerning in regards to my subjects."

"If you're done for the day, I can come back tomorrow."

"I doubt the situation will look any different in the morning, even with different light."

Larry and the artist stared at each other until Larry finally said, "You're not going to make a living turning away customers."

The old man exhaled loudly and then responded, "I'm sure I'll manage. If it's okay," he held up his book to Larry, "I'm just getting to the good bit."

It really was a romance novel, 'the Desert Prince's Proposal'.

---

Larry spent most of the afternoon stewing at his desk, and sending grumpy instant messages to Sara.

"I'm not just sitting around waiting for anybody to come along, he said to me."

Sara response came back quickly. "Maybe you're just not that artistically interesting. Maybe if you had prominent cheekbones, or a big mole."

"What's wrong with my cheekbones?"

"Nothing. Your cheekbones are fine. They're just not very prominent. Don't take it so seriously. You sound like you got rejected asking someone for a dance."

Larry, who usually gazed out the window when he wasn't really working, saw the old man walking down Albert Street, away from Old Market Square.

He sent one last instant message to Sara: "I'm taking off early today."

---

Larry peered in through the dirty window. He had to resist the urge to wipe off the pane with his sleeve. It would have made too much noise. He'd followed the old man across Main Street, almost all the way to Waterfront Drive. He'd lucked out, though, he could see into the studio without having to lean too far out from the fire escape he was perched on.

The old man took the canvas out of his suitcase and set it up on a larger, less portable easel. For ten or fifteen minutes, he leaned over it and worked away with his charcoal pencil. After that, he stood up straight, stretched, and walked over to desk where he typed on a computer keyboard for a while.

The studio was a jumble of makeshift shelves put together with planks and cinderblocks, the desk, and the easel. The shelves were piled with paperbacks and art supplies, placed in no order that Larry could figure out. Along one wall were a collection of canvases, leaning against each other, stacked three or four deep.

---

"I hope you didn't wait here all night."

Larry was sitting on the front steps of the artist's building, staring at the paper cup of coffee he was holding. He looked up and responded, "All night? Nah. I just didn't know what time you got here at."

The old man looked at his watch. "Six-thirty, apparently."

"I may as well have stayed here. I couldn't sleep last night."

"Someone told me once that valerian root helps with that, although I find a nice glass of rye does the trick nicely."

"So why don't I cut it as a subject? It's a strange thing to hear about yourself, you have to admit."

The artist put his hands in the pants pockets of his suit and exhaled loudly. "I suppose you better come upstairs, if you're that worked up over it. I'm Gilbert, by the way."

Larry got to his feet and they shook hands. He followed Gilbert up three flights of stairs and then down a hallway where Gilbert unlocked the door to his studio. There was no name on the door, just the room number.

Gilbert walked over to his desk, and began riffling through his briefcase. Larry walked over to the canvas from yesterday, still sitting on the easel. It was a simple pencil sketch of the fairly ordinary couple. He hadn't even drawn any of the background.

"You're going to paint over the sketch, I guess?"

Gilbert was looking at a paper and sounded as though he was only half paying attention. "Hmm...yes. But not until after the Fringe. Too busy until then."

"But what's different between these two, and me?"

Gilbert put down the page he was reading and walked over to the canvases lined up against the wall. Larry followed him; he saw the canvases there were finished. They were all portraits. Of the ones he could see, there was not a single landscape, or even any background details. Just the heads and shoulder of various people. Larry saw nothing that might connect them, no shared theme.

The artist pointed to a portrait of a woman who Larry guessed was in her late thirties. She had brown hair streaked with a few grey strands and a purple scarf tied around her neck.

"She and her husband had been trying for years to conceive. Spent thousands of bucks on a reproductive specialist. But a few weeks after I drew her," Gilbert paused and rubbed his chin, "I think I'd set up in Assiniboine Park that day. A few weeks after I drew her, she started getting morning sickness. I remember seeing the story in the Free Press. A miracle they called it. I suppose maybe it might have been, but the word is overused if you ask me."

"That couple," he pointed to an elderly couple. Gilbert's painting style was very realistic; they were smiling broadly and their teeth were beginning to yellow with age. Larry hoped that if someone did his portrait, they'd gloss over details like that. "won the lottery a couple days after I painted them."

"So what are you saying? You grant wishes or something?"

Gilbert held up his hands defensively. "Nothing of the sort! Not long after they claimed their prize, Julius had a stroke and their kids sued their mother thinking they deserved a cut of the prize. The fellow on the next canvas lost his job, went on a bender and killed three people in a car accident. You might have heard about it on the news a few days ago."

He walked up and down the rows of paintings, not saying anything for a little a while. Then he continued, "I just have a -- a knack I suppose you could call it -- of seeing people and sketching them before something big is going to happen in their lives. The road they're going down is going to take a sudden sharp turn."

"Do you warn them?"

"What would I tell them? 'Something's going to happen to you?' 'What's going to happen?' 'I dunno, but something important.' They'd lock me up for being a kook."

"So what you're saying is that nothing interesting is going to happen to me? That's a bit depressing."

"Well on the bright side, nothing really bad is going to happen. And it isn't a pronouncement about the rest of your life. Who knows what'll happen a few months from now? You wanted to know why I didn't want to paint your picture."

"If you can't tell what's going to happen, and you can't warn them, why do you do it?"

"I honestly can't say. I guess I feel like a chronicler. A witness or something. Listen, I have to get down to Old Market Square soon. Don't you need to go to work?"

"I suppose I do."

They shook hands again and parted ways. On the walk over to his office, Larry was lost in thought. So nothing really interesting was going to happen for the foreseeable future. Standing at Main Street, waiting cross and watching cars speed by, a thought occurred to him. What would happen if he shoved the guy in a suit in front of him into traffic? Surely he'd go jail. Wouldn't that count as his life going off sideways?

He his began to sweat a little. He wiped them on his jeans and decided instead to think about what kind of coffee Sara liked; he'd pick some up on the way.

8 responses to "Week #25 - There's Nothing Wrong With Larry's Cheekbones "

Victoria wrote: Monday, 21 Jul 2008 09:36 I like it! It's been a while since I've been reading your stories, and I definitely see an evolution in your writing - this piece is sharper and cleaner, though I still want more in terms of concrete description of the MCs. Nice twist... you really had me curious :) I love the new header sketch! Bunny!

Debs wrote: Saturday, 26 Jul 2008 06:36 Welcome back :) I really enjoyed this one!

Anonymous Reader wrote: Wednesday, 30 Jul 2008 04:21 His coworker, Sara, rolled her eyes. She was still finishing her hotdog. "Yeah, what's weird about (AN) old guy in a suit drawing caricatures?" From their building on Albert Street, they could had (HAVE?) a view of Old Market Square. From Larry's office -- he'd manoeuvred (MANEUVERED) for three years to get an office with a window -- you could see a narrow slice of the small park, so they knew that the caricature painter showed up each morning before nine, before even the Fringe Festival staff arrived. (This is kind of a weird sentence. I would have split it into two.) (WHEN?)He was getting ready to go back to work ( or WHEN) he saw the old timer put down his paperback and flag down a passing couple. (Pick where you'd like to insert the "when." It would work in either location, but the sentence is missing something without one of them or something else.) Before (HE) picked (or PICKING?) up his paperback again, the artist packed it away in his suitcase, wrapping it (IN, possibly remove "HIS") his tissue paper. "(')I'm not just sitting around waiting for anybody to come along,(') he said to me." Sara(s) response came back quickly(,). "Maybe you're just not that artistically interesting. Maybe if you had prominent cheekbones, or a big mole." This was just what I felt like retyping. You need to edit this story. It also has way too many commas, which if I noticed, means you probably have a freaking ton too many commas.

Marie wrote: Wednesday, 30 Jul 2008 04:21 Whoops, sorry. That was me.

Dana wrote: Wednesday, 30 Jul 2008 10:27 It's true. I will probably edit/rewrite it someday, but I was so damn sick of trying to write the damn thing for a month that I gave it a quick reread and posted it.

Sheeple wrote: Friday, 08 Aug 2008 15:30 I liked the story, but I found that the first section was a little hard to read. I thought maybe you described things a little too much and didn't leave anything to the reader's imagination.

Astrid wrote: Wednesday, 27 May 2009 15:50 I liked your story, your interesting plot specifically.

valentines day ideas wrote: Sunday, 07 Feb 2010 08:33 ideas for valentines day

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