Finding Parker (6 page)

And I became a little more comfortable.

“Well, I went to the bookstore in Old Town. The two-story Barnes and Noble we discussed. I met a few girls, and I have a date with one of them Friday,” I paused, waiting for his praise.

“Her name? The one you’re taking on a date, that is,” he asked.

“Katelyn.”

He nodded his head slowly as he took the name into consideration.

“That’s a good name. Is she in school? Does she work?” he asked.

I thought of what Katelyn and I had discussed. We had talked about love, sex, her hatred of most men, and her whore sister, Christi.

“I’m not certain, we didn’t discuss it,” I responded.

“So,” he hesitated and lifted his chin from his hand.

“You’re going on a date with someone you virtually know nothing about?” he asked as he stood from his chair.

“Well, she has four sisters, one of which she perceives as being a whore. She believes in fucking, but no so much in love. She’s leery of men, and thinks they are deceptive and untruthful. Her parents have been together since…” I paused and thought as Kenton walked toward the window.

“Well, I’m not sure how long, but for a long time. She believes they’re in love. She said she believed in love, just that most men were more interested in sex than love. She said they threw the
word
love around in an effort to obtain sex.”

“So, you’re going on a date with someone you know virtually nothing about?” he asked again.

With his hands in the pockets of his shorts, he turned from facing the ocean and stared at me over his shoulder.

“I, uhhm. I suppose that’s accurate. I know very little about her. She was, however, attractive,” I responded.

“Was she? What about her was attractive?” he asked as he turned around completely.

I thought about her walking up the stairs while I waited for my coffee.

“She was very thin, but muscular. Her skin was smooth and olive colored. She had beautiful hair and equally beautiful features. Possibly the most attractive female I have ever spent time talking to,” I grinned, pleased at the fact that Katelyn was as beautiful as she was.

“It’s all too easy for us to become attracted to someone’s
appearance
. We’re then forever blind to
whom
they actually are. Ask yourself this, Parker. If you had not actually had an opportunity to see her, and had spoken to her as she sat behind a mirrored glass, what would be your thought of her?” he lowered himself into the chair and sat in wait for my response.

I considered what he had asked. I tried to eliminate my thoughts of her beauty. Had I truly walked into an empty room and had a conversation with her, but not seen her, what would I think? My recollection of what she spoke of – her sisters, thoughts regarding love, and her take on sex was fairly clear. I began to recall what she said regarding sex.

I’m all for getting laid. But don’t tell me you love me so you can just fuck me. Be truthful; tell me you want to fuck me. Don’t cheapen the sex by calling it love. Call it what it is. It’s entertainment. It’s exciting. It’s a great way to kill an afternoon, evening, or night, but it’s not love. It’s like going to the beach, hiking, or learning how to ride a scooter. It’s an event. Love is forever. Fucking is entertainment.

I started to grin.

“Well, we wouldn’t be going on a date, that’s for sure,” I responded, still grinning.

I was becoming a student of Kenton Ward.

“How easily we become distracted by beauty. It’s quite sad. If only we could close our eyes and become attracted to what’s on the inside,” he said flatly.

Quietly, Kenton looked around as if he expected some form of response or answer from within the room. He didn’t appear to be frustrated with me, but the fact that he had stopped speaking made me wonder what he was thinking.

“Friday?” he asked blankly as he turned to face me again.

“Friday,” I responded, half ashamed of my having asked Katelyn on a date.

“Well, I have some errands to get done today; I should probably start pretty soon. If you’re in the neighborhood and she’s bored, stop by Friday. With Katelyn, that is. I’ll be here. Actually, I’m anxious to meet her,” he said as he stood from the chair.

“I’ll plan on it,” I responded as I placed my hands on my knees.

“In the event you do come here, we’re
friends
. No need to muddy the waters with explanations of employment. Agreed?” he paused, waiting for my approval.

“Agreed,” I responded as I stood.

I rose from the overstuffed chair I had been buried in for the length of our conversation. During my visit, Kenton had asked little of me, yet offered considerable wisdom in the form of advice. He wasn’t the person I expected him to be. I remained quite nervous in his presence, and reserved hope this would change in time. As the cleats of his golf shoes echoed down the hallway toward the front door, I followed anxiously.

“You should live every day,” Kenton paused as he reached for the door handle, “as if you’re going to die at midnight.”

Leisurely, he pulled the door open.

“Ask yourself throughout the course of each day,
if this were my last day on this earth, would I do anything different?
”

“I’ve been saying that since I was in college. Only in the last decade did I truly start applying it. Have a nice afternoon, Parker. I hope to see you Friday,” he said as he extended his right hand.

I shook his hand and nodded, thinking about what he said.
If this were my last day on this earth, would I do anything different?
At a loss for words, I stepped onto the porch, turned to face him, and thought. 

“Yes,” I said.

And, as Kenton Ward’s mouth slowly formed itself into a grin of accomplishment, I quietly turned and walked to my car.

PARKER.
Having a job that wasn’t necessarily a conventional one left me considerable time to think. Thinking, for me, hasn’t always been a healthy thing. I tend to think, rethink, and overthink issues if left with enough time. Being decisive is not one of my strengths. Through the course of the morning, I had changed my mind no less than four times regarding Katelyn and our date.

Although I couldn’t be certain, I began to wonder if some of my indecisiveness was a result of a desire to please Kenton. I desperately wanted acceptance from him, and couldn’t convince myself he was pleased with my decision to take Katelyn on a date. He had, however, asked that I bring her to his home on Friday. This, in itself, was enough to cause me to second guess my second guessing.

Sitting in the kitchen and staring out into the courtyard, I tried to relax and think of things other than Katelyn and Kenton. My mind became a scrambled mess of thoughts as I sipped my cup of coffee and gazed out the window at what must have been one of San Diego’s tallest palm trees. Half way into my mental efforts to guess the height of the tree, I decided to give up. Left wondering and somewhat frustrated, I stood and walked to the bathroom.

I suspect I pluck my eyebrows more than most people. I will never actually know if it actually provides me any form of real relaxation or a means of solving problems, but I like to think it provides
something
. During a few of my college exams, I plucked my eyebrows into nothingness. Generally, I perform the task while I am making decisions. Or thinking. Or thinking about making a decision.

Standing in front of the mirror, tweezers in hand, I attempted to resolve the issue of the palm tree.

If a telephone pole is typically forty feet tall, and they are buried ten percent of the length plus two feet, that would leave thirty-four feet of the pole exposed.

Pluck. Pluck.

The tree is thirty three percent taller than the pole.

Pluck. Pluck. Pluck.

If the pole beside the tree is typical, the tree is forty three feet tall. That would be if the pole is typical.

Pluck.

Assuming typical length for the pole, my math is correct. Forty-three feet.

Pluck. Pluck. Pluck.

Pluck.

Too many variables. Far too many.

Pluck. Pluck.

What if Kenton really wants me to step aside and not take Katelyn on a date?

Surely he would have expressed his concerns. If nothing else he would have spent some time discussing it.

He did not.

Pluck. Pluck. Pluck. Pluck.

He wants me to take her to meet him. That’s the reason he hired me.

He wants me to do what is right. Regardless of who Katelyn is and why we’re on a date, the right thing to do is to proceed with the plan.

Pluck.

I need to do what is right.

Pluck.

Yet.

I need to know when to fold my hand.

Pluck. Pluck. Pluck.

When to forfeit.

Pluck.

Now is not the time.

I need to continue, proceed, move forward. If there is a lesson to learn, I will learn it. I won’t make the same mistake twice.

I looked at my reflection in the mirror. I rotated my head slowly and focused on my eyebrows. The light above the mirror provided sufficient illumination to support what I already assumed.

Eyebrow perfection.

PARKER.
The passage of time has always been something I have found fascinating. Seconds. Minutes. Hours. Days. Weeks. Months. Seasons. Years. Decades. Lifetimes.

Through the course of college, time passed at various speeds. Generally speaking, it was all too quickly. There never appeared to be enough time to get the work completed that was before me. After I had graduated, it seemed as if it was no more than a year ago when I started.

Time passes at a constant rate. It never changes. A second is always a second. Sixty of them make a minute, and sixty minutes make one hour.

Always.

Our perception of the passage of time, however, changes. I believe when I am anxious of the arrival of a particular event, time seems to pass very slowly. If I allow myself to become consumed by smaller events preceding the larger event, time seems to pass more quickly.

In short, I have concluded thinking - or reasoning - creates the illusion of time passing slowly. Mindlessness allows us to fly through the days and nights as if they never existed. One may stand to reason, and I certainly do, that a thoughtful person lives a lifetime equal to three or four of that of a mindless couch potato.

Fascinating.

“Oh my God, It seems like this day just
appeared
. You know, it was here like…well,
boom
!” Katelyn tossed her hands in the air to demonstrate the explosion.

“I sure arrived quickly, didn’t it?” I turned my head and smiled, knowing it seemed like an eternity.

I turned the corner onto Camino De La Costa. As I proceeded up the street, Katelyn’s jaw noticeably dropped. Sitting in the passenger seat with her mouth open, staring at the homes along the road, she spoke.

“Oh. My. God.”

6201. Here we are.

Slowly, I turned into the entrance of Kenton’s home.

“Breathtaking, aren’t they?” I said as I came to a stop beside the stone post.

The gate slowly began to open.

“Good evening Mr. Bale,” a familiar voice came from the speaker.

“
Mr. Bale?”
Just who the hell are you?” Katelyn asked.

“Just a friend,” I responded, smiling.

Katelyn continued to gawk at the front of the home as I drove up the drive toward the fountain. It was almost dark, and it appeared every light in the home was illuminated. The front of the home was not only well lit from the inside, the outside had a considerable amount of landscape and architectural lighting on the surface of the exterior walls. Every irregular surface cast a long shadow upward, creating an illusion of depth and distance.

As the car came to a stop at beside the fountain, Downes stepped onto the porch.

“What’s your last name?” I whispered as I reached for the door handle.

“Excuse me?” she asked.

“Your last name, what is it?” I asked as I held the door handle and waited to open the door.

“Uhhm. Moss,” she responded.

I nodded as I opened the door. As I walked around the front of the car toward Katelyn’s door, Downes nodded his head and smiled. When Katelyn stepped from the car, I slowly began walking toward the porch.

Staring up toward the large windows, Katelyn stumbled on the drive as she walked beside me. As she stumbled, I caught her arm in my hand, steadying her stance.

“Downes,” I paused.

“Miss Katelyn Moss,” I continued as I stepped onto the bottom step.

“The pleasure is mine, Miss Moss. Please, follow me. Mr. Ward is perfecting his ability to putt,” Downes said as he turned to face the front door.

“Oh my God,” Katelyn whispered as she stepped into the hallway.