"I'm Mirelle Martin," and his fingers were very strong.
"Mirelle?" he asked and then, to her surprise, spelled it correctly.
"I was christened Mary Ellen but it got elided into Mirelle."
"Distinctive. And it suits you."
"I've always felt more Mirelle-ish than Mary Ellen-ish."
"Mirelle goes with the Sprite, horseback riding and sculpting."
"Oh?"
Her fingers had been nervously spinning the salt cellar. He reached across and spread them flat on the formica. They both looked down at them, as if they were the hands of a stranger. The long tapered fingers that never fit into gloves, the very square palm, the arching thumb. Then she noticed that the webbing between his long blunt fingers was well stretched.
"You're a pianist."
"You're observant!"
"Necessary for a sculptor."
The harried waitress swooped down on them, poking menus impatiently at their hands.
"Are you a concert artist?" Mirelle asked when the woman had left with their orders.
"A concert accompanist. A highly specialized variation." His eyebrows quirked with inner amusement.
"Indeed it is. My mother was a professional singer. I've had chapter and verse on accompanists."
"Your mother… was?"
"She died… twenty years ago now. She sang in Europe. I don't think her name was ever known in the States. She was Mary LeBoyne."
"Irish, I deduce." He was honest enough not to pretend recollection.
"Do you live in town?" she asked, to change the subject.
"I do now." He made a grimace. "My very old and very comfortable apartment house in Philadelphia was condemned and torn down for the much vaunted urban renewal. After a very discouraging search, I gave up and headed south. I've been teaching here at the Music School for the last two years so this seemed a logical relocation. Also the connections to both Philly and New York are good."
"True." He didn't like the town any more than she did.
"However," and he sighed, "owning one's own house has advantages. No one can complain about practicing at all hours."
Mirelle grinned. "Sculpting is a silent profession."
"Don't you cast in bronze or work stone? No tapping of hammer and chisel?"
"You don't cast in bronze in your own house. Too costly. You send the piece out to be cast, to Long Island, if you can afford it."
"I'd no idea."
"Modern technology."
"With us everywhere. What about plaster? Or wood? Or… whatever it is that some sculptors use for raw materials… metal scraps, tomato cans and stuff. No blow torches?" His expression was comically wistful and Mirelle was sorry she'd agreed to lunch with him.
"None," she replied, trying to control her exasperation.
"You just pat the clay and turn the wheel?"
"Sometimes I whittle."
His eyebrows flew up in mock astonishment. "I wondered who supplied wooden nutmegs these days. Tell me, do you whittle to you, or from you?"
"Neither."
"How is that possible?" And Mirelle realized that he was deliberately baiting her.
"I scrape back and forth, like so," and she demonstrated. "I get fascinating textured effects."
"Where are these chefs d'oeuvres to be seen?"
"Nowhere locally. I've some things placed in museums and a small gallery on 50th and Lexington used to handle my work. I still get occasional commissions…" She broke off because his mobile face registered astonishment when she mentioned museum and gallery. "And yes, there is a kiln, but it's a commercial one and takes up half my studio. And nary a single panther on the mantel comes out of it."
"I most sincerely and abjectly beg your pardon, Mirelle." He caught her eyes but she looked away, despite the contrition in his expression. She regretted accepting assistance from him and violently wished that she could just walk away from the table. She had met such condescension all too frequently but somehow, had not expected it from him and she was disappointed.
At this point the waitress came and slapped their lunch platters down, deftly if noisily.
"Coffee, with or later?"
"Later," they both said in a mumble.
When she had marched off, James Howell reached across and captured Mirelle's hand as she reached for a napkin.
"A talent is never an easy gift," he said.
"How would you know if I have any talent?" she demanded, sullen with her disillusion.
"Because of your attitude toward it," he replied, as if that answer were obvious. He turned his attention to his lunch.
She forced her resentment down. They talked of any number of inconsequential subjects until she noticed with surprise that the tow truck had retrieved the Sprite.
"He'll need the keys," she exclaimed and started to rise.
He took the keys from her and delivered them across the street. Mirelle watched his long figure and noticed, too, something to spring on him when he returned. At the station, he stood for a few moments, hands on his hips, in front of the Sprite, held nose-up by the tow truck. He talked to the mechanic, grinning, amused by something the man was explaining with many gestures. Then the matter appeared to be settled and James Howell sauntered back across the highway. In his short absence, Mirelle had seen him in another perspective.
"How long were you in the infantry?" she asked and was rewarded by his surprised exclamation.
"How the hell did you know that?"
"The way you walk," she said, grinning at the accuracy of her observation.
He tipped his head back and laughed.
"Not much escapes you, does it?"
"Nope."
"Except remembering to check your battery."
"Oh, no. No. No. I checked it yesterday when I got gas. I know that car. It's the generator brushes. They jam."
"Yes, that does seem to be it," he agreed blandly. "It'll take another half an hour or so, he thinks."
"Are you sure he does? Think, that is?"
"There's always that interesting possibility, isn't there?"
"Look, you've been a very good Samaritan…"
"But you don't need to hang around any longer," he finished for her.
"But you don't."
"All right, if you object to my company so much," he said with mock petulance and made a great show of getting to his feet. "I've got more than two hours before the first lesson and the only occupation I can dream up to fill that outrageous length of time is to buy something for my lonely bachelor supper tonight. That cannot take upwards of fifteen minutes, no matter how long I dally."
"If you stand in the longest line at the check out, you could stretch it to half an hour."
"Hmm, with steak juice dripping down my hands? The piano keys will be gory with beef blood."
"Never happens. Everything is all prepackaged with cellophane."
"It isn't cellophane anymore."
"Well, whatever it is."
"Such antisepticism takes all the charm out of shopping," he said wistfully. "Now, in Europe, where prepackaging has not yet spread its plastic aura, they wrap things up in funny paper triangles…"
Memories flashed across Mirelle's mind, accompanied by appetising smells and a tactile memory of texture, of rainy mornings spent shopping with the bustlingly efficient hausdienst…
"And by the time you get home everything crushable is, and everything cool isn't."
"You've lived abroad?" He was surprised.
"Yes," said Mirelle in as flat a tone as she could to discourage further questions.
"That's a definitive answer," he remarked, clearing his throat and adjusting his tie knot. "Remind me never to broach that subject again."
"I'm sorry," and her contrition was sincere. "Some of my bleakest moments were spent in Europe."
"Mine, too," he said, looking her squarely in the eye. "But mine happened years ago now. Yours must have, too."