I landed hard in gravel on the other side and took off immediately. I had scoped out the grounds of the observatory a few days before so I had some idea of where I was going. The Saint-Jacques Metro station was close. As I ran I stripped off my gloves, my hat, and my black hoodie, casting them aside. The garden behind the observatory was silent and dark. My footsteps were loud on the gravel path. Plaintive sirens sounding in the distance, I left the grounds, hurried across Rue de Faubourg Saint-Jacques, and took the empty stairs two at a time down into the Metro station. There were about ten people on the platform. I stood with them, trying my best to look like a waiter just off work and going home. I had worn a white button up shirt under my hoodie and black pants. A train mercifully pulled into the station after only two minutes of waiting. I boarded it, not knowing what direction it was headed and not caring.
Chapter 2
A Lunch Date and a Dinner Date
June 15-16: San Francisco
I sat back in my roof lounge chair, savoring the superb, complex flavors of Carlu Ortoli’s purloined Bordeaux and thinking of Gabrielle as I watched the summer fog roll in. When I had returned to Nice after visiting Petru Ortoli, Gabrielle and I spent several days talking without reaching any understanding. My position was that I wanted to spend half the year in my own home. Hers was that a part time partner might not be what she wanted in her life and she was too busy running her gallery to spend half the year away from it. We talked in circles until we were exasperated and finally decided to take a break.
Looking out toward the downtown skyline, I considered the things that kept me tied to San Francisco. My house, such as it was—the second floor of an industrial building in the Dogpatch neighborhood south of downtown. I owned the building and rented the downstairs to a garment manufacturing business. It was where I made my art—large welded sculptures that sold reasonably well but were not and would never be my main source of income. The network of friends I had built over the years was a diaspora now. No longer able to afford the cost of living in San Francisco, they had moved away to Oakland, Los Angeles, Portland, Austin, Detroit, Berlin. Ashna was one of the only holdouts, able to afford the city because of her job as a senior software engineer and her less official pursuits as my partner. It wasn’t friends who kept me there anymore. It was the city itself—changed almost beyond recognition by the growth of the tech industry, the money, the influx of young, entitled tech workers—but still hanging on to fragments of its old glory. There was still the fog, the bay, the ocean. Patches of the gritty, unrestrained city I had loved from the moment I arrived still remained. I wasn’t ready to leave it behind for a quiet life with Gabrielle in Nice.
A cargo ship chugged down the channel, heading for the port of Oakland. I watched it slide silently by in the gathering dark. It felt good to be home, despite the mixed feelings. It had been a week and my jet-lag had faded. My suitcase, however, was still not unpacked. Some part of me hadn’t settled in. I had a strong need to inhabit my own space but also felt a pull toward the sun drenched, easy life with Gabrielle. The two urges would not be easy to reconcile. I took another sip of Ortoli’s wine and let my heavy eyelids close for just a moment before being jolted back to consciousness by my phone buzzing with an incoming text. It was Valerie of all people. I hadn’t seen her or spoken to her in months.
—Are you in town? Need to see you.—
I stared at the screen for a moment then replied.
—Yes. When?—
—Lunch tomorrow?—
—OK. Where?—
—Neiman Marcus café. 11:30.—
—Fine. See you then.—
—Thx.—
I put down my phone. Text message exchanges with Valerie were always rapid fire and immersive. The Neiman Marcus café was one of her favorite places. It was close to her gallery, quick, and had decent food. There was another, fancier restaurant at Neiman Marcus in the rotunda but she only made a reservation there when she wanted to impress somebody. I wondered what was up. No way to know with Valerie. I would just have to wait and see.
****
The next morning I rose early, drank a quick cup of coffee, and then yanked the tarp off the half-finished piece I had left behind when I went to France—a commission for the lobby of a software company’s headquarters in Palo Alto. It was just a beginning but I was more pleased with it than I thought I would be. The balance was good. I wheeled my welding rig over and got everything set up. As soon as the raw arc of electricity ignited between the rod and the steel, I was sucked in—immersed in the flow state of my work.
I stopped at eleven A.M., cleaned up quickly, and carried my bike downstairs. The ladies who worked in the sewing and cutting rooms below my flat were all on break, standing around outside and drinking hot tea or lemon water from thermoses. I waved to them, hopped on, and started cranking. It wasn’t far but I had only left myself fifteen minutes. Valerie was punctual to a fault.
I pedaled hard down Third Street, weaving in and out of the stream of cars gridlocked near the baseball park. A crowd of tourists crossed the street from SFMOMA toward Yerba Buena. I maneuvered carefully through them and then kicked back into gear, bolting across Market and up toward Union Square. At Neiman Marcus, I locked my bike up to
