Five Days by Douglas Kennedy

Author:Douglas Kennedy [Douglas Kennedy]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2013-03-27T16:00:00+00:00

Five

SYNONYMS FOR ‘RANDOM’: ‘unselected’, ‘irregular’, ‘chance’, ‘by hazard’, ‘happenstantial’.

Happenstantial. As in happenstance. As in, the business of stumbling into something new, unforeseen, unpredictable. Like the happenstantial way I met Richard. And met him again at that movie theater. And agreed to lunch. And the happenstantial way we drifted into the trajectory of this afternoon – which, like all events predicated on randomness, had no foreseen trajectory to it; the fact that we had proceeded from Commonwealth Ave and Newbury Street was predicated on a wholly aleatorical set of circumstances . . . though aleatorical almost implies chance by design, which perhaps makes it the right synonym to be used to describe all this. Because behind the random lies choice. Which, in turn, means that subtext always lurks behind the happenstantial – except that the subtext is something that only arises courtesy of the pinball-like way an event begets an event, which, in turn, begets the fact that we are now on that exceptionally elegant and luxe stretch of Boston real estate known as Newbury Street, and have just stepped into a boutique (because this is certainly not ‘a shop’) that sells eyeglasses.

‘So do we call this place an opticians, an ophthalmologist, an eyeglass store, or a spectacle emporium?’ I asked.

‘Spectacles – specs – is still, I think, parlance in England. And as we are in New England . . .’

‘Well, the place is called Specs.’

‘Don’t think this is the place for me,’ Richard said. ‘I mean, look at the guy behind the counter.’

The fellow he was speaking about had a shaved head and a pair of high-modern pince-nez glasses hugging his nose. He also had large black circular earrings implanted in both earlobes.

‘He looks reasonably friendly,’ I said.

‘For someone who belongs in 1920s Berlin. This guy is going to look at me—’

‘And see a potential customer. Now stop all the fretting and just—’

I opened the door and all but pushed him into the shop. Rather than being all cold and ‘too cool for school’, the fellow behind the counter was charm itself.

‘Now I surmise from the way your wife had to shove you in here,’ he said, ‘you are just a little reluctant to try a change of style.’

Richard did not correct him about the ‘your wife’ comment. Nor did he seem to blanch when the guy accurately read his unease. Instead he said:

‘That’s right. I’m a style-free zone.’

The guy, who had a name-plate on the counter in front of him – ‘Gary: Spectician’ (is there such a word?) – reassured Richard that he was ‘among friends here’. He then proceeded to expertly take charge. Within half an hour – having put Richard at ease – he talked him through various frame styles, quickly discerning that, when it came to wanting a particular look, Richard hadn’t a clue what he really was after. So Gary showed him all sorts of permutations. After talking about how – given his coloring and his oval face – highly geometric frames ‘might be just a tad too severe .

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.