“Nothing more hopeful and beautiful than gray skies and rainbows,” he says as we walk.
I furrow my brow and wait in case he clarifies what he means. He takes his place against the brick wall, across from my bench. He sits on the wet ground and I wonder if rainwater seeping through his jeans will bother him or if he just deals with things like damp clothes. When he doesn’t say anything else, I give him a last look and head back toward my office without saying goodbye.
As I pass through the gate and wait to cross the busy street I see it—a rainbow arching across the cloudy sky. And he’s right. It’s beautiful and hopeful.
Chapter Two
The guitarist is here again today, and he smiles a hello when he sees me. I shyly return the smile and sit on my bench, pretending to busy myself with my plastic container of tossed salad. My focus is truly on the incredibly beautiful rendition of “Für Elise” that fills the air. He plays with so much depth and emotion, I get goosebumps as he plucks each note on his guitar.
Pop, rock, classical…. Is there anything this guy can’t play?
A man in a suit tosses a quarter into the Mason jar, and I want to shove his monogrammed black leather messenger bag up his ass. Does he not recognize beautiful music when he hears it? A quarter buys a piece of bubble gum or a ride on a rocking horse outside the grocery store. That won’t buy live classical music. Huffing, I spend the next minute trying to find my pink wallet, which is lost in the file cabinet of crap I call my purse.
I have a five-dollar bill and a twenty-dollar bill. Chewing my lip, I look over at the musician. I like looking at him, though he’s not my type. Not even a little bit. He looks like Jesus with his long hair and denim-blue eyes and that ethereal aura that bounces off him. I’m sure Jesus doesn’t look like a homeless street musician, but if he were to come down and be all sorts of cool, I could see him looking like that. People must flock to him in droves, especially women, because he’s got a strange sexual magnetism about him. The guitar guy, not Jesus.
I’ve still got my hand stuffed in my purse, and I’m holding the five and the twenty. Five bucks doesn’t seem like nearly enough to compensate for his talent. But giving him a twenty could be too much—I don’t want to look like a desperate person buying his attention. Or he might think I’m some spoiled rich girl throwing money at the poor, dirty, sexy homeless guy.
I feel I should give him something, though, since I’ve been sitting here for the past week enjoying his music, even though I try to act as though I don’t notice him and the fluid movement of his hands. And the way the feather blows against his cheek in the breeze. Or how his eyes track me when I enter the park. Or the way his eyelids close so very slowly when he’s completely into the song he’s playing. But just because I notice all those things doesn’t mean I’m into him in that way. Homeless men with feather earrings are of no interest to me. I just want to show my appreciation of his craft. A simple gesture of thanks can turn a person’s day around.
As I struggle between the five and the twenty, I notice a man with a food cart across the park. Yes! Food is much safer. I toss my salad container into my lunch bag and head across the park.
“What’ll ya have?” the guy behind the cart asks when I approach.
Contemplating the plastic menu taped to the front of his silver cart, I wonder whether guitar guy is into hot dogs or hamburgers. What if he’s a vegetarian? I finger the heart charm on my necklace nervously. Maybe cash would have been better, after all.
“Ma’am?” he urges, though there’s no one in line behind me.
“I’ll take a cheeseburger, a hot dog with no bun, a bottle of water, and a sweetened iced tea,” I say quickly. “And can I have an empty cup or a bowl?”
He throws me an irritated glance as he flips a patty on his miniature grill. Minutes later, my stomach growls loudly as he wraps the burger and puts it into a plastic bag with the rest of my order. The tiny garden salad I packed for lunch can’t compete with a juicy burger, but I’m determined to stick to my goal of healthy eating.
After I pay, the hunger pangs turn to nervous jitters as I walk down the paved pathway toward the musician. I wait off to the side until he finishes the song he’s playing, not wanting to interrupt. The couple watching him smiles, praises him, and then walks away hand in hand. They don’t tip him. I wonder what that feels like for him. Does it feel like rejection? Lack of appreciation? Or maybe it doesn’t bother him at all and he just likes to play music for people.
He squints up at me as I awkwardly hold the bag out to him. Now that I’m standing closer to him than I was in the gazebo, I can see his perfect white teeth and the tiniest dimple in his left cheek. “I got you a hamburger and a bottle of iced tea. And a hot dog and water for your dog.” I try not to get lost in the endless realm of his eyes as he studies mine. “You don’t have to eat it if you don’t want to,” I continue, hoping I haven’t offended him or gotten him something he doesn’t even like. “I just kind of guessed.”
A smile tips his lips. “You guessed right. I’ve been dying for a burger. Sitting here smelling the food coming off that cart every day has been driving me crazy.” He stands, towering over me and making me feel even shorter than my four feet eleven inches. “I almost moved to the other side of the park, but I didn’t want to give up the view of my favorite bench.”
I follow his eyes, and my heart skips a beat or two or twenty when I realize he means my bench.
Is homeless guitar guy flirting with me?
“Sit with me while I eat?” he asks.
The invitation bounces my thoughts around like a ping-pong ball. Although he seems nice, I’m wary of sitting with a homeless person. I have no proof that he might not be a thief, a murderer, or any other brand of criminal. He may just hide it really well, as some do.
At least that’s what they do in books and movies. Maybe I watch too many late-night movies… someone is always a victim or a suspect.
I scan the park surroundings, knowing I should politely decline, but I’m too intrigued by the tiny spark of excitement I felt when he asked me to sit with him. Other than a pizza with every topping imaginable or ice cream in a waffle cone, not much really gets me excited lately.
“C’mon,” he urges. “I could use some real conversation.” He rubs the dog’s head affectionately. “He’s a great listener, but he doesn’t talk much.”
His pleading smile convinces me to give in. I hold the bag of food while he packs up his guitar and shoves his Mason jar in his duffel bag. I follow him and his dog to a spot farther away, to a picnic table near an old stone bridge that arches over a road that hasn’t been in use for years. My heart beats a little faster with apprehension as I glance behind us. There are about twenty people in various areas of the park, most of them still close enough to hear me if I let out a blood-curdling scream for help. I finally join him at the old wooden table.
The truth is, though, I think the slow realization that I might actually like this guy and want to spend time with him is making me far more skittish than the possibility that he might have plans to hurt me.
The beating of my heart calms to a normal pace when he fills the paper bowl with water and breaks the hot dog into bite-sized pieces for the dog. Then he unwraps the burger for himself. It’s the second time I’ve seen him show special care for the dog, and I find it very endearing. It proves he’s not an asshole and, in my na?ve twenty-one-year-old mind, also that he’s probably not someone who would hurt me. Serial killers torture animals. They don’t worry about them getting wet, and they wouldn’t feed a pet before feeding themselves.