To Paint a Sunset

Gilded and gleeful. The dining room of the pretentious social elite. Daily trudge through the monotony of meaningless interactions. This was the perpetual existence of Eliza Loughnan. Fraudulent interactions of the societally upward with the person that brings them their seventy-six dollar steak. Still, it pays the bills.

An aberrational guest appears to the surprise of no one. In a room filled with silk suites and satin sundresses worn far too long into the evening, this man was dressed as if his aim was to be a trustworthy mechanic. To the amazement of Lizzy, he walked straight past the porcelain skinned and articulate hostess that had about three months left before she would be replaced by the newer model. That podium almost the catechism of a waystation for a patron’s daughter before moving on to get a degree in psychology and marry into another family considered to be equally as upstanding. His strange and seemingly slighted walk landed at a table for two coveted by couples celebrating anything that might prop up their color in the lines lifestyle.

Strangely intrigued, Eliza walked over to the man who might be called ‘Appalachia Albatross’ to simply drop a menu. Before the heavy leather bound booklet could even touch the table, his scratched and scorned voice uttered a quite specific request of seven ounces of strip steak cooked slightly less than medium-rare alongside a boiled potato mashed with no seasoning and a whole onion chopped and sautéed in unsalted butter.

Slightly taken aback, she simply nodded and retreated to the concealment of the kitchen with menu in hand feeling as if she had done something wrong. Half the staff was standing in wait as she crossed into the safety of conversation the kitchen door provided.

Being possibly the least assertive woman currently occupying any zip code she happens to occupy, she uttered an almost sharply inquisitive, “Who is that”?

Them around her, appropriately referred to, looked at each other with creeping smirks until they collectively broke out into laughter. One of the lemmings even had the audacity to utter a bombastic, “He’s your problem now”.

Through largely snickering conversations over the next several minutes, it was made abundantly clear that this particular gentleman would generously be perceived as an oddball that Lizzy had simply yet to encounter.

A years forgotten lecture from her father came to mind. She didn’t actually remember what he had said to her as the most precocious seven year old in their family tree. The decade-later drunken Thanksgiving dinner answered the question of what the had so ridiculously attempted to rhetorically convey to his child whose most significant worry was the upcoming spelling bee.

After a bottle or so of bourbon, he said, “It meant that if you think you’re completely right”

Followed by a deep burp, “Or you are inescapably wrong. There’s no in between. But you can’t assume the first one”.

Now, granted, his immediate subsequent rant was something about the ‘college types’ having some other word for what comes first, but the sentiment of the original moment has stuck out in Eliza’s mind ever since.

Her thoughts back to that sparsely summoned nugget of wisdom imparted from her departed father were abruptly interrupted by a Chilean Sea Bass filet flying in her face as her ailed attention aided a quite spectacular collision with a passing server.

Patriarchs of each table in pass rushed to help the two women to their feet. Both women with simple bumps on their heads. Though with Eliza, the faint trickle of blood akin to a leaky faucet cascading over her brow. A brisk return to the confines of the kitchen for the pair. The clumsy hands of coworkers to alleviate the bleed. It was not a serious injury. However the head, once bleeding, is not so simply void of that blemish.

Several minutes pass and several more come to assure that Eliza will endure. As the business of the moment abates, the door opens to utter silence. Standing with every eye on him is the man the subject of the casual mockery that took place not half in hour prior in the exact same spot. In his hand was a little black book.

Taking a short two steps towards Eliza, he extends it to her and plainly says, “You dropped this”.

Exiting the kitchen, the stunned staff turn their gaze from the man back to Eliza.

“It must have fallen out of my apron when I fell”.

It would not have been the end of the world had she lost it. After all, it was only filled with little snippets of thoughts that she put to paper so as to come back to them.

The night had ended for Eliza. Not seriously injured but assuredly jarred, her responsibilities were gladly taken over by the collective of the staff. As she was bracing for the twenty minute walk to her far away car, she had a thought to write down. Opening her little black book to jot it down to perpetuity, a piece of paper fell out. Picking it up from the floor, she realized that it was not a piece of paper at all. It was a check that was folded in half. Opening the check and finding that it had been written out to cash…in the amount of twenty thousand dollars. Stunned, she simply looked around to see if anyone had witnessed her bizarre discovery. When her eyes came back to the check she noticed that she had overlooked something. In the memo line was written in quite poor handwriting, “To paint a sunset”.

The note was bookmarked to one of Eliza’s passing thoughts seldom she shared for fear of a lack of understanding. Thoughts that she feared even more for the absence of a want for understanding.

“Embrace that which will never happen said the man that could see every subtle line of every leaf of the nearby tree, though had not the sight to see the marvel of the sunrise behind; a beautiful scene reduced to a simple backdrop to his tired eyes”.