Coincidence (Part I)

There's an element to the story that, for a number of reasons, is one of the few things I actually remember with a great deal of clarity from the first couple of weeks. And, for a number of different reasons, I've been wavering on whether or not to write about it.

It's not an integral part of the story. It doesn't advance the plot. It doesn't necessarily add any new insights into my character. Speaking of characters, it does introduce a new one. There is a significant amount of coincidence in play here, a strange twist of fate that has me just beginning to realize how tiring it's going to be explaining everything to complete strangers only to chance into meeting a fairly good friend from the previous summer.

Okay. Maybe she wasn't exactly a good friend, but she was pretty damn cute. No, cute's not even close to being the right word.

The summer of 1989 was something of a whirlwind for me. Most of my days were spent bussing tables at a Mexican restaurant (then Casa Lupita, now, if it still exists, probably something different) with weekends and evenings a vain attempt at saving money for my trip to England. There were lots of movies and dates and parties and maybe just a smidge of underage beverage consumption.

Near the end of the summer, there was a road trip down the length of I-5 with Scott, Jeff, and Jason in Scott's beat up (but always faithful) Plymouth Horizon, including a brief night or two to visit a girl I'd met at a debate tournament in high school years prior, and who I'd somehow kept in touch with after she started at USC. Then onto San Diego to stay with old friends of Scott's family and the requisite trip to Tijuana.

Like I said, it was quite the summer.

But I seriously digress.

Kris Redding was a cocktail waitress at Casa Lupita. I'm not exactly sure how old she was. At least two years older than me (otherwise she wouldn't be serving booze) but more likely five or six. So she most definitely was not cute.

She was a goddess.

She was this gorgeous, absolutely unattainable thing, which made the flirting all the more enjoyable and memorable. She was dating one of the bartenders, so nothing, clearly, was ever going to come of it. As it happened, I dated a few different girls that summer, all much closer to my age, all equally attractive. That's the way it works: boys date girls. But there's absolutely nothing wrong about holding out hope that maybe someday, somehow, that gorgeous, way-out-of-your-reach cocktail waitress -- an older woman would fall desperately, madly in love with you.

Near the end of the summer, she quit working at the restaurant. Time for her to move onto bigger and better things, starting a career she hoped would allow her some opportunity to travel.

Maybe you can see where this is going.

She became a flight attendant for TWA. She wasn't working on that long flight back from London, but she was on board. I forget what they call it, when you've been working for awhile out of one city (London) and you're heading back to another (Seattle) so you just grab one of the extra seats. Whatever the case, I absolutely was not expecting to bump into anybody I knew on that flight, let alone somebody who still, at that point, had the ability to have almost instantaneous effect on my body chemistry.

Except for the fact that nothing every came of it. After I explained to her why I was flying home, and why I had a bed instead of a seat (and what little I knew of what was coming in the months ahead) we exchanged phone numbers and promised to keep in touch. To her credit, she did call me later that summer. We scheduled a date during one of the weeks when I would be out of the hospital, recovering from the chemo, and her bartender boyfriend picked me up so the three of us could take in a Mariner game. The game was great -- both of them were infinitely cool -- even though baseball in the Kingdome was always a little stale, and the flickering fluorescent lights would give me headaches.

And that's it.

I don't think I heard from either of them again. Kris never did fall madly in love with me, choosing instead to pursue things that mattered in her own life. Again, that's the way it works. Paths intersect and maybe run together for a little while and then they diverge again.

It was such a surprise -- the last thing I was expecting after a weeklong string of last things I was expecting -- that I've never forgotten it. But it's also a loose end. My internal editor rails against such things, browbeating me even as I write this, asking so many frustrating questions.

"Why? Does it advance the plot? If it's not advancing the plot, are we learning more about the main character? Will it provide a break from plot and characterization, a chance for the reader to catch their breath? Remember: no unnecessary words. Write like a sculptor, removing all the bits of clay you don't need. So why is it here if it goes nowhere?"

Because it happened, I tell him. Because it happened and I actually remembered it and there's so little that I do remember that I want to write everything down.

"Don't let the truth get in the way of a good story," he says.

Duly noted, I tell him, keeping it to myself that I'll have to work on his attitude. Everything stays. We're gonna kitchen sink this thing and only after it's all done will we know enough about the truth to determine the relevancy of a particular memory (or set of memories).

In the meantime, I will have taped a favorite quote onto the side of my monitor:

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," -- that is all ye
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.