The coffee was either too Venti or Trenta, so Will emptied it in a trash can and walked to the end of the dock. In the red brick square, Will took a seat on a bench by a yellow life ring attached to one of the pier’s pilings. It was a clear day, so the spans of the Bay Bridge were in focus. The water, which rarely looked blue, was tea colored. A bench away, a young woman in shorts and wearing a “Naptown” hoodie was cradling a book. She looked familiar.
“Hello?”
The woman looked up and blocked the sun with the back of her hand. Will saw evidence of minor scars.
“Parker?”
“Oh, hi. I remember you. You brought in Dean.”
“In my silver Honda.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“I never thanked you for helping me.”
“You’re welcome,” Parker said. “It wasn’t my finest moment, but I rebounded. Dean was such a sweetie.”
Will sat on the bench next to her. She didn’t leave or recoil in horror, although Will thought she stiffened a bit. He surreptitiously inched to the farthest edge of his side.
“What are you reading?”
“A poem by a man named Shapiro.” She had bought A Geography of Poets, which she snagged for $3 at the Baltimore Book Fair.
“What’s the poem about?” He had never uttered that question.
“I’ve read it only twice. You really should read a poem several times,” she said. “But it’s about being on the lookout for a ‘great illumining’ even among the desks and chairs of the office ‘should it come between nine and five.’ I like that part about the desks and chairs.”
Will wondered what a great illumining feels like and whether every woman he was to meet on the planet had a thing for poetry.
“I’m Will Larkin.”
“Nice to meet you again. I’m Parker Cool.”
Parker’s hair looked like it still wanted to be blonde but was losing the fight. Dimple on her right cheek. The most unusual eyes (Will wished he had a name for her eyes). An air of – what? – fabric softener about her? So kind when her job called for kindness. Hardly ever made small talk at the vet counter. He noticed she wasn’t always checking her phone. He liked that. No ring, either. He still wore his but more on account his fingers somehow gained weight.
“What do you do for a living, Will Larkin?”
“I teach high school algebra.”
“Ah, a left-brainer.”
“It’s my best side.”
“I bet you didn’t know you have a famous poet’s name,” she said, cracking her knuckles. Will hadn’t heard anyone crack their knuckles since middle school. “Ever read Philip Larkin?”
“That’s my middle name. Philip.”
“You’re a Philip Larkin! This could be my lucky day. Have you ever read your namesake?”
“I was named after my father and grandfather, none of them poets,” Will said. Poems never added up. “I wonder if poets understand poetry.”
Parker’s chin clenched.
“Poems are temples; poems keep you company. Walt Whitman said that. Surely you’ve read Whitman. I mean everybody has read Whitman, right? I sing the body electric? O Captain, My Captain?”
“Is that where Whitman’s Samples come from?”
Parker looked aggrieved. This Will Larkin was such a math teacher. She withheld disclosing her respect for slant rhymes.
“My ex-wife liked poetry,” Will said. “I sort of took a chainsaw to her poetry books.” For the first time since that night, he felt regret – not for the gazebo but for shredding poor beautiful Emily Dickinson.
“Sort of?”
“I did not take a chainsaw to her poetry books.” Dumb, some really dumb shit that.
“I so want to ask why,” Parker said.
“She left me. That’s the best answer I got for now.”
“Do you still love her?”
“I don’t want to talk about love.”
Will eyed a wobbly umbrella. Three months ago at a Starbucks, the wind lifted an outdoor umbrella from its concrete table and sent it rocketing toward Will’s car. The umbrella’s tip impaled the windshield, creating many little windshields. Starbucks paid for the damage and threw in a McCartney CD, but Will was shaken. Someone should write a poem about flying umbrellas and windshields – maybe it was a metaphor. This Parker Cool would know something about the metaphor business.
“What do you think of blogs?”
“I don’t read them. Are they interesting?” Will said.
“Mine is.”
Not that it was any of Will’s business, she continued, but her blog was devoted to the dogs she had cared for at the Annapolis Animal Hospital. Parker posted entries on 165 dogs and wondered if her blog might make a book one day. Dean was post No. 162, and it featured the case of the mistaken basset hound.
“Did you write about my dog?”
“If I did, I’m sure it wasn’t interesting.”
This wasn’t going swimmingly. Will felt safer at school explaining to 151 students that he didn’t round off 89.2 to an A. He felt safer in a faculty meeting faced with a plate of lumpy mayonnaise passing for shrimp salad.
A Harbor shuttle, with its blue canopy and twin outboards, cruised by carrying four wide-eyed tourists and one focused boat captain with too much tan.
Speaking of poetry. “Dean had the biggest, eh, equipment, we ever saw in our office,” Parker said, recalling the dog’s most glaring attribute.
“He was remarkable that way.”
This Parker Cool was pretty in a cute way. Something else, though, something bewitching – although Will never called anything or anyone bewitching. How did that word barge into his head? He was loping along, ran into a vet tech, and found himself talking about Dean’s balls, dog blogs and some poetry dude named Philip Larkin.
By 6 p.m., the wind off the water was bracing. The sky turned sloppy, and the bay water turned gunpowder gray. Will couldn’t think of another thing he could lose.
“I bet you haven’t heard this classic before, but can I have your number?”
Parker frowned.
“Do you have anything to write on?”
A copy of the local newspaper The Capital had been left on the bench. Will borrowed a pen from Parker and wrote her number on the paper.
“Ah, left-handed, too,” she said.
“You, too?”
“No, I am one of God’s normal people.”
“Benjamin Franklin, Julius Caesar, Paul McCartney, David Letterman, Julia Roberts, Bart Simpson, a bunch of cool presidents. All left-handed.”
“All lies.”
They were enjoying themselves despite their usual instincts for flight. Two old souls, Will hoped.
“I