He didn't think he would find it again.
It probably would've been dumped into a garbage bag with the rest of the paperwork that hadn't seen the light of the day since the Clinton administration. That is, if he didn't insist on combing through everything in storage with forensic precision.
Awakened yet again by the neighbour's dog, nerves throbbing in a ring around his skull as consciousness brute forced its way in. Next to him Marci turned over, her breathing serene and regular.
He threw back the duvet and crept down the two flights of stairs. Now that time was no longer an issue, he figured he'd busy himself with something to do. The doctor would certainly approve, especially given his recent bloodwork: "Those who maintain an active lifestyle after retirement tend to have fewer health problems, Scott. So that's something to consider..."
The basement incandesced into view with a flick of the light switch. At the bottom of the stairs was a small wooden door opening to a storage closet. Documents and odds and ends spilling into one another like overlapping landslides. Mostly half-forgotten junk, sentimental pieces: magazines, pulp novels, VHS tapes and cassettes, yellowing owner's manuals and legal paperwork.
He retreated out of the closet with a stack in hand. A simple process of creating and adding to keep/discard piles. Decade-old Thank You cards went straight to the latter, old subscriptions to Classic Cars to the former.
It fell out from the middle of his Auto Show posters.
His first instinct was to toss the letter unthinkingly into the discard pile. What saved it from certain doom was that extra second of skimming. The large printed script, all sloppy and lopsided. Date stamped on the top right - January 16, 1996. Must be an arch trick of fate, the letter unearthed from beneath the souvenirs of his annual business trips.
He shuffled over to the one-seater and sat down, his mind meandering back twenty odd years. How did it begin again? The details had long been sanded away by time, leaving behind some broad contours, a haze of general impressions.
The first bit that resurfaced was her floral print dress and sketchbook. A pencil, figure skater-like, trailing across the page. The small handmade sign on the ground indicating quick portraits for ten dollars each. He had spotted her just a few steps away from the entrance of the hotel, sitting in front of the adjacent building whose face was set farther back from the curb. A secluded little recess off to the side of the main road. He would have easily missed it had he been in a rush, eyes forward and footsteps resolute like most of the city crowd.
"Hey, can I get you to stand over there?" She motioned towards the exact spot where the previous customer, a fidgety young boy, had been a few moments prior. He was next in line after the boy's mother had finished paying for the completed portrait.
"Alright." He made his way to the indicated spot.
"Where you are right now is perfect," she said. Her voice was bright but not brassy, flute-like in timbre without any cloying pitchiness. "Feel free to move around, strike a pose if you want."
"Sure, if it doesn't bother you too much."
He felt her eyes sizing him up, no doubt taking in the dimensions and calculating proportions. "Not at all. In fact, I encourage everyone to act naturally, so if you have to scratch an itch or, I don't know, pick your nose, go ahead."
"And how many of these embarrassing gestures have made their way into the final sketch?"
She arched an eyebrow and grinned. "Fewer than you might think but definitely greater than zero."
He stood there, hands in his pant pockets, having nowhere else to put them. A mother and daughter pair marched past, the latter tugging on her former's wrist and pointing at the artist, a request met with a swift "no honey, we don't have time" followed by a peal of "pretty please" from the child. Then the restated refusal with louder, more vociferous protest. And moments later their voices died away, replaced by others of different tones and intensity; stentorian barking of businessmen to their associates, tender crooning of lovebirds lost in each other's gazes, profuse admiration of tourists discovering the city for the first time.
