In the Bag (5 page)
Coco Sprinkle
I liked girls who were polite and sort of stiff like this. I could tell without even seeing her that the gypsy blouse was all wrong for her.
I also liked that she thought that I was a mister. Had she really not looked inside my bag and seen that I was a teenager? It didn’t seem possible.
I wiped the potato chip grease from my hands onto my jeans and fired off a response.
Fr: Webbn@com
To: CocoChi@com
Subject: Re: Re: Your bag
Attached: Keyboard conversion download
Okay, Mizz Sprinkle. Fess up. Have you really not examined the contents of my bag closely enough to realize I’m not a Mr.? Or are you just being polite?
For the record, I’m 17 years old. I live in St. Louis. I’m an Aquarius.
My name, you ask? It’s my sadistic dad’s tribute to his favorite songwriter, Jimmy Webb. Need I tell you what my nickname was in elementary school? Charlotte.
(And if you think my first name’s bad, my middle name’s even worse: Gaudí. My dad’s favorite architect is Antoni Gaudí.)
But back to the business at hand: $2800 for a missing bag? Cool. And no wonder all the airlines are going broke. A person more evil than I (or me?) might suggest we file claims for stolen bags, pocket the money, and then exchange the bags when we get home by UPS or FedEx—whichever’s cheaper.
It’d sorta be like Strangers on a Train. Have you ever seen that movie? Two guys who don’t know each other meet on a train. (You probably could’ve figured that out from the title.) Anyway, they start talking about how they have these difficult people in their lives. And one guy (who turns out to be a crackpot) suggests they kill each other’s problem person because no one would suspect a guy of killing someone he didn’t know. It gets better from there.
Of course I’m not a crackpot. Or a murderer. Or a bag thief. How ’bout you?
Webb
P.S. Sounds like you’re using a European-Arabic keyboard. I’ll attach a keyboard conversion file for your convenience.
P.P.S. For the record, I’m cell free this week, too. Left it in my locker on Friday.
M
om was giving me the skunk eye from the sidewalk, so I had to write fast:
Fr: CocoChi@com
To: Webbn@com
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Your bag
Webb,
Thanks for that converter file. I can now ask questions with a?b?a?n?d?o?n.
I can’t believe you’ve seen Strangers on a Train. I wrote a paper on that book/movie for my Art of Film class last year. It’s such an elegantly crafted story. Did you know Patricia Highsmith also wrote the Talented Mr. Ripley books, which were made into movies? Totally worth seeing, if you haven’t already.
As for Walden, we read that last year in English. I liked it a lot until I learned that li’l Henry went home to his mother’s house for lunch most days. And didn’t his aunt have to bail his butt out of jail? Hmm.
Now, about your idea of “stealing” each other’s bags: You are one clever lad. And I hate to sound like a total drip, but . . . I’m trying to get into an honors college program, and I need a luggage-stealing charge on my record like I need herpes. So what do you think about just finding a way to exchange bags when we get home? I live in Chicago (that’s the CHI in my e-mail). My mom and I fly back on Saturday. (That’s this coming Saturday, six days from now.)
In the meantime, I’m all for taking the $500. You should, too. This IS an inconvenience, after all. (No offense to you or your clothes.)
Gotta go. Never heard of Antoni Gaudí. I’ll Google him when I have more time. Right now my mom’s standing on the sidewalk, tapping her foot, and glaring at me. Roll on, graduation. . . .
Euros truly,
Coco (We could talk at length about sadistic parents and how they name their children) Sprinkle
P.S. Almost forgot: I only peeked in your bag long enough to know it wasn’t mine!
P.P.S. Hey, the left-the-cell-in-my-locker line is cute. But how do I know you’re not really some creepy 50-year-old international playboy trying to chat up a high school girl? Answer at your leisure. I probly won’t be able to check e-mail till tmw.
T
he exhibit was at the Palacio de Cristal, also known as the Crystal Palace, in the center of Retiro Park. The building itself was gorgeous. Built in 1887 to showcase exotic flora and fauna from the Philippines, then a Spanish colony, the Crystal Palace still felt like an imperial greenhouse with a fanciful domed roof.
But all that natural light made it the exact
wrong
place to stage a postmodern exhibit that relied heavily on darkness. How were visitors supposed to see the digital images on the screens and monitors? Plus, someone had neglected to notice that the Crystal Palace wasn’t exactly rainproof. The roof included several spans of mesh screen for air circulation. Fortunately, it didn’t look like rain. But it was one more thing to worry about.
I was never invited to serve on site selection committees. My job always began after a venue, usually the wrong venue, had been chosen. My challenge, then, was to design temporary rooms—walls, ceilings, lighting grids—to display a particular exhibit to its best advantage.
For this show I’d designed a dome within the already domed Crystal Palace to create a more intimate space. Even with that, I’d still had to devise a system of electronic blinds for the windows that would block out the exterior light.
Much of my job was monkey work. I always subcontracted out anything that involved running cables or hanging drywall. But I saved for myself the job of placing art. To my mind, that was the most important part of any job. If I had any talent at all, it was knowing where to put things.
It was an instinct, I guess, this ability to know where something belonged, how it fit in with the whole, why it belonged in one place and not another. I suppose that’s why I’d felt compelled to hide the note in Ms. 6B’s bag. It belonged there.
I
belonged with her.
Okay, so maybe I didn’t. Maybe that’s why she hadn’t responded to my invitation to strike up an e-acquaintance. I was still trying to shake off her rejection as I walked through Retiro Park.
When I finally arrived at the Crystal Palace, I saw a dozen grim-faced men in coveralls, marching in and out of the building with armloads of cables and power tools. Solange was standing inside, dead center in the middle of the antiquated greenhouse.
She was a small woman—I bet she didn’t weigh a hundred pounds—but feisty as hell. She was close to sixty years old and still the most sought-after freelance curator in Europe. Museum boards paid her hefty sums to put together temporary shows intended to generate a lot of revenue and good publicity. We’d worked together on several shows. I respected her enormously—and liked her, too, except when she was on a tear, which she clearly was when I arrived.
Instead of the traditional kiss on both cheeks, Solange welcomed me with a barrage of complaints.
“The electronic window shades are stuck,” she began, clicking a remote device repeatedly as if to demonstrate its futility. “You said they would go up and down. Up at night when it is dark outside. Down during the day so people can see the exhibits. They are not working.”
“We can fix that,” I said, rubbing my neck. I was sore from the hours I’d spent on the plane, craning my neck to see Ms. 6B.
“And the circuits,
pouf!
They keep blowing,” Solange continued with her signature staccato delivery.
“I’ll take a look at—” I started to say.
“And the caterer called,” she went on. “His father died.”
“That’s terrible.”
“He cannot make food for the opening reception. Oh, and there is a bad smell in the lavatories. And—”
It was no use. Solange didn’t want to discuss the situation. She wanted to vent. At me. So I let her, making sure to nod from time to time. The song “Wichita Lineman” started to play in my head.
I am a lineman for the county and I drive the main road
Searchin’ in the sun for another overload.
I hear you singin’ in the wire, I can hear you through the whine
And the Wichita Lineman is still on the line.
I know I need a small vacation but it don’t look like rain.
And if it snows that stretch down south won’t ever stand the strain.
And I need you more than want you, and I want you for all time.
And the Wichita Lineman is still on the line.
I’d always loved that Jimmy Webb song. The image of a guy driving down a county road, longing for someone, had always resonated with me. And the line about needing more than wanting? It never failed to break my heart, even though I wasn’t exactly sure what it meant.
Truth was, I’d never fully understood the song. Who was he listening to? Why was he still on the line? I’d never known. But to me this song represented art. It begged questions. It packed an emotional punch. There was a tension between the parts of the song I understood and the parts I didn’t. Plus, there was the necessary touch of sadness that all true art demanded. The ache of living and the comfort of love: that’s what I heard in “Wichita Lineman.”
As Solange talked, I looked around at the postdigital nonsense trying to pass itself off as art. The most prominent installation was called
Spin the Cell Phone.
The artist had created an interactive obstacle course designed to replicate the art of finding love via texting
.
Who were these artists? Had they ever been in love?
These were people who would prefer to sit in front of a computer rather than under a tree with another human being. People who had no idea what it meant to drive along a county road, yearning for someone. People, I hated to admit, very much like my own son.
Solange had stopped talking.
“Are you even
listening
?” she asked, her balled fists wedged against her bony hips.
“Yes,” I said. “We should . . . um . . . We should maybe consider . . .”
“What?” she inquired. “What should we consider?”
“We should consider sending flowers to the caterer,” I said. “For his father’s funeral. Let’s do that. And then we’ll get this other stuff sorted out.”
“Listen to me,” she said, shaking a skinny finger in my face. “The opening reception is in two days. I am not telling you how to do your job. I am simply telling you what your job
is
. And that is to have everything
à la perfection
when the doors open on Tuesday night.”
And with that, she marched off.
M
aybe it was the lunch. Or the thought of a five-hundred-dollar shopping spree. Or the fact that she’d had a chance to connect with her friends in the Internet café. I didn’t know, and I didn’t have to know. I was just glad to see Coco grinning when she joined me on the sidewalk.
“Thanks for waiting,” she said. “Oh, Mom. Look!”
We were standing in front of Cour du Commerce Saint-André, a lovely cobblestone passageway. It was at number 9 that Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin allegedly perfected the decapitating device.
“Believe it or not, Dr. Guillotin was opposed to the death penalty,” I told Coco. “He hoped the guillotine, which he didn’t invent by the way, would replace more gruesome forms of execution, like hanging. And that it might be the first step to abolishing executions altogether.”
Coco stared at the building. “Actually, I would love a picture of that. I wish I had my camera. Or my phone.”
I could feel my chest tightening. Were we
actually
going to spend the whole week lamenting every missed photo op? If so, I would need an appointment with Dr. Guillotin.
“But it’s not like this is the
only
time I’ll ever be on this street in my whole life,” she countered, as if reading my mind. “I should write about it. Or sketch it—with colored pencils. I bet I’d get extra credit in French class.”