Chapter 24 #3
She said it in good humor. And Theo, realizing she wanted to be there at least a little while longer, took a chance on real conversation.
“Ellen, do you have a favorite color?”
“Yes, I do. Blonde. Like a little girl’s hair.”
“Ah, yes, that is a beautiful color. Have you noticed sometimes the sunrise is blonde, and the dogwood blossoms are blonde? And the fellow who plays his guitar on the sidewalk? Mr. Basil, I think. Would you say his guitar is blonde? A blonde guitar?”
His voice softened. “I know a special little girl with blonde hair. I told her once upon a time that she spread gold dust into the air every time she brushed her hair.” He paused. “Yes, blonde is a beautiful color.”
Ellen listened as if in a spell, her face turned ever so faintly toward him.
At one point she pulled a necklace from beneath the collar of her dress, unclasped it, and held it in her free hand. She was silent for a matter of seconds. There was something akin to peacefulness, at least for a moment, in her face.
And then Theo asked a simple question. “Ellen, did you grow up here in Golden?”
As if he had touched a lit match to a fuse, Ellen’s face grew tense and agitated. The fragile peacefulness that “blonde” had ushered in was suddenly and inexplicably gone. Ellen had stepped on some mental landmine that triggered an avalanche of incoherent thought.
She looked over her shoulder with short, convulsive movements, as if dodging bullets, and clenched the tip of her tongue between her teeth.
Her lip bent into a snarl, and her eyes blinked in spastic fits and starts as she launched into a rambling, disjointed narrative of short, incomplete sentences.
Her fingers fidgeted and pulled at the fabric of her dress.
Her voice took on the frightened tone of a victim recounting a crime, dry-mouthed and breathless.
She never answered Theo’s question, but she made reference, in no discernible order, to the war in Vietnam, a grandmother who was a fortune teller, a policeman, a nurse who gave her an Easter basket, Carson McCullers, the price of housing insulation, someone named William, and the goons from Columbia.
Her stream of consciousness had taken only a couple of minutes, but by the time Ellen finally went silent, it felt as if the air around the Fedder had been entirely depleted.
Spittle had gathered at the corners of her mouth.
Her tongue moved aimlessly over her lips as if seeking a place to rest. She stared into the middle distance.
An uncomfortable silence followed. Theo had no idea how to safely resume their conversation, but finally, he spoke.
“Ellen, my dear. I know it must be hard to talk about.”
“Yes it is, actually, and if I were you, I certainly wouldn’t enlist. But if you do, don’t tell them your real name.”
More silence followed. Ellen’s hands quivered, and her head made small involuntary jerks — aftershocks — until, like a vehicle running out of fuel, she coasted slowly into stillness.
The episode of sudden derangement — whatever it was — had left her winded and pale.
She took a deep breath and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
Theo said nothing, in hopes that her excited thoughts would dissipate if disturbed no further.
Perhaps it was time to conclude their first conversation. And yet, Ellen seemed in no hurry to leave.
Theo wondered what he might say or do to draw her back to the present moment. Speaking barely above a whisper, he directed her attention to the portrait.
“Ellen, I think the artist did an excellent job of drawing your eyes.”
She removed the portrait from the plastic bag and looked again at her face in the frame. The avalanche appeared to be under control. Ellen’s head trembled involuntarily one last time, like a faintly disturbed bobblehead doll. She tapped the frame with her finger.
“I’ve seen a lot through those eyes. A thousand stories are in those eyes. Yours too.”
She looked at Theo sideways. “One time, those eyes saw a little boy fall into this fountain. He had on a blue shirt, and he wanted some money. So, he leaned over, but his legs were too short, and he fell in. He cried and didn’t even get any money.
His mommy and daddy were with him. And when they pulled him out, they laughed and were so sweet to him.
I went in the water and got him two quarters.
And we all laughed. Except the little boy. ”
The fog in Ellen’s mind continued to lift as she told the story, and an awkward, lethargic grin lightened her countenance. Her hands rested on the portrait.
“Ellen, you’re a good storyteller. You know, I like to sit at places like this and think about all the people who’ve walked and sat and talked here. There must be lots of stories about Broadway. People everywhere seem to like fountains.”
Theo was thinking Paris and Rome, Central Park and Rio. Ellen looked at the ground around her feet.
“Mr. Theo, do you think I’m nice? Am I making a good first impression? Mrs. Ocie Van Blarcum has been helping me with that. She helped me pick out this dress.” Ellen patted the blonde fabric.
She felt Theo’s smile without even looking his way.
“I do indeed. You are very nice to sit with an old man like me.” He meant it.
Ellen’s gaze returned to the portrait. “Do you think my nose is a little crooked? Be honest.”
“I think your nose is just right. And noses that are crooked can be much more interesting than straight ones anyway. Crooked noses have stories.”
“Kind of like crooked people,” Ellen quipped.
She laughed at her play on words. Theo was struck by her profundity and chuckled along with her.
He searched his mind for a question that would gain entrance to hers without setting off the rockslide again.
He imagined a sensitive set of scales in her psyche that could shift from tenuous sanity to utter disorder in a second.
He decided to take a chance.
“Ellen, the story of the little boy is a happy story. Could you tell me another one? Or maybe this: could you tell me about… the happiest day of your life?”