Finn was surprised. He could usually sniff out a fellow artist. He’d had Maribel pegged as … what, he didn’t know, but definitely some kind of other ballpark entirely. “I’m lucky,” he replied, trying to sound nonchalant. “We do a lot of signage, and some of it’s actually really creative stuff. I draw too, though. Just sketches and line drawings, mostly, but sometimes I can get a client to incorporate them into a project, which is pretty cool.”
“Man,” she said, “usually I can spot a fellow artist. I was way off.” Finn must have gaped at her speaking his own thoughts aloud, because she laughed. “I feel like I owe you an apology.”
“For what? Wait—” Finn held up a hand. “Never mind. I don’t want to know what you thought I was. Apology accepted.”
The violinists were starting to tune their instruments, and the chaotic sounds added a not unpleasant backdrop to the buzz of conversation and laughter around them.
She wrinkled her forehead. “If you’re tapped into the art community, I can’t believe you never heard of LumenoCity.”
“I don’t come downtown much,” he admitted. “Sometimes I go to open galleries—Final Fridays and whatnot—but usually just around Northside, Clifton … small neighborhoods.”
“I didn’t know they had galleries in Northside,” she said. “I’ve been a downtown girl ever since I moved here from Indianapolis. I guess I never got as familiar with the outlying neighborhoods.”
“I’m always hearing there’s a lot of cool stuff happening down here. Reclaiming the bad streets, etcetera. I mean to come, I just—” Finn could not think of a single actual reason he hadn’t. He shrugged. “Don’t.”
Maribel downed the rest of her wine and pulled another miniature cabernet out of her purse. “Tell you what,” she said, filling his cup. “Cool stuff we know about. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” They drank to it. “I have to admit, though,” she said, “I’m not sure I’m married to the place. Long term, I mean.”
“Where would you rather be?”
“Asheville. North Carolina. Have you been?”
He nodded, closing his eyes to conjure the Blue Ridge Mountains rising all around him, the lowlying clouds, the crisp air, the sidewalks filled with people who seemed to be living exactly the life he wanted to be living. About five and a half hours away, Asheville was one of Cincinnati’s most popular road-trip destinations. If you weren’t aiming for a bigger hub like Chicago or Pittsburgh, it was one of the rare jewels you could drive to in an afternoon—but he didn’t just love it the way other people loved it. He went for a weekend every time he got the chance. Made a point of stopping for a day en route to anywhere farther east or south, too.
“Just to be part of a community like that, one that appreciates art, lives art—.” Maribel sighed. “I mean, I’d probably be in danger of becoming a total hippie, but I’d love to live there one day. And do you know Asheville is in, like, the top five U.S. cities for days of sunshine? I don’t know who’s in the bottom five, but my money’s on Cincinnati.”
Finn laughed. “I’ve thought about moving there too. Something about those mountains. It’s like food even tastes better.”
“Because it is better. Their restaurants all seem to be locally sourced, organic—”
“And there’s this little Irish pub where they have bluegrass and rockabilly and serve local beer—”
“Jack of the Wood! I go every time I visit, because I always end up cheaping out and staying at this fleabag motel on that end of town…”
“The Edge Inn!”
“Oh my God. Yes, the Edge Inn. I can’t believe I’m admitting to you that I’ve slept in that place. You’re going to think I have syphilis.”
“Well, in your defense—and mine, actually—it’s slim pickings if you don’t want to have to catch a pricey cab ride to your hotel. I just make sure I’m good and drunk by the time I turn in, and then run like hell at daybreak.”
She laughed. “Sounds familiar. I think we’d make good travel companions.” She averted her eyes and shifted a little on the blanket, and he couldn’t tell if she was regretting that she’d said it, or hoping he’d say it back.
“Well, now you’ve got me jonesing for a Green Man Porter from Jack of the Wood,” he said, choosing neutral ground.
“I know where you can get a fairly similar one around here. I could show you, if this doesn’t let out too late…”
He grinned. “Are you trying to get me drunk? Is this, like, your thing? Meeting guys from the Internet and then getting them drunk?” She punched his arm.
The darkness had settled in thickly around them by now, and the crowd was starting to quiet down. The idea that a night out with Maribel stretched before him filled Finn with warmth, and he felt himself relaxing, letting go of all the expectations he’d brought into the evening. It seemed so natural to be sitting with her this way. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so at ease with a stranger. Well, maybe he could. It had to have been that day in Sunny Isles. Still, this was different. It was almost—
The tent lit up in a brilliant soft white-yellow, and a hush fell over the park. Then came the opening notes as the entire exterior of Music Hall was at once illuminated. Maribel reached over to refill his wine and clicked the lip of her cup to his. And then it began.
“It’s a laser light show,” Maribel had explained back in Fountain Square. “It uses the Music Hall as its canvas, while the symphony plays.” It sounded kind of cheesy. But this was no zigzag of neon lasers—it was itself a work of art, a complicated projection and optical illusion composed by teams with an ear for harmony and an eye for the spectacular. And the building was no canvas. As the music picked up tempo, the lights transformed the brick fa?ade into a living, breathing thing, a larger-than-life kaleidoscope set into motion. The circular stained-glass window in its center became the spinning, twinkling focal point as all around it the building itself seemed to twist, dance, bounce, sway, then magically crumble to the ground and just as quickly reassemble itself. The crowd oohed and ahhhed, cheered, breathed as one, and finally surrendered to the genius and the beauty of the animation.