When Ava Fodor returns to New York from Paris, she leaves behind her budding romance with Pierre and turns her attention to another man: Zsolt Fodor, her father. He's a penniless Hungarian poet transplanted to New York in the wake of the failed 195...
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"What it comes down to is that less is more," Pierre explained, trying to describe the concept he was presenting in his paper in a few days' time. His angular face came closer to mine as he brought his fingers to meet his thumb to form a small oval in a gesture I rarely saw American men make.
"I like that." It was antithetical to the way I lived, but intrinsically it appealed to me. Pierre personified it. No one else in the Royalton's lobby lounge appeared to buy into the concept of less is more, but that was part of why we were there.
"In what way do you understand it?" A scholar down to his fingertips, he insisted on examples from me to support my statement.
"As a pianist." I was no longer making a living playing piano, but I was still a pianist. Some nights I played pieces in my dreams—Bach inventions more often than anything else. I'd be well rested the mornings after I had such dreams.
"Give me an example."
"Erik Satie—Gymnopédie."
"Good. What about fashion?"
Pierre asking about fashion? Apparently, the two women draped on the slouchy couch across from us, both wearing textured tights, were exerting a subconscious influence.
"Where do I begin? Coco Chanel?" My grandmother? "Whoever it was who said whatever you've put on to go out, take a look in the mirror before leaving and remove one item."
He chuckled. "I never heard that before, but it sounds right."
"You never heard that before because you're not a fashionista." What would Sanja say about Pierre's shoes? I made a note to suggest getting side by side shoe shines when I took him for a tour of Grand Central station.
Meanwhile, I took in the shoes on the slouchier of the two women across from us. They were sky-high platform shoes that didn't appear to have any heels. The entire back section of the shoe she was now dangling from her foot was missing. How did she manage to walk anywhere in New York? I guessed she hid a pair of flat ballet slip-ons in the cavernous, buttery leather bag on the floor next to the couch, standing sentry to announce "Just look at how big and beautiful I am. I belong to a very important person. Have you checked out her shoes yet?"
"Literature?" Pierre continued.
"Some say the highest literary form is poetry because every word captures meaning distilled down to its essence."
I could hardly wait to ask my father what he thought about 'less is more.' I guessed he'd give me his thoughts on the more side rather than the less, being a larger than life sort of person. But the 'more' side of my family hadn't provided for me—the 'less' side had.
