“Of course you’re on a quest,” he said. “Everyone is on a quest.”
“What, like life?” I said flatly, sarcastically. “It’s all about the journey, not the destination?” I was unimpressed by this bit of trite philosophy.
He scoffed. “No, it’s all about the destination,” he said. “Otherwise, nobody would go anywhere.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Of course you don’t,” he said kindly.
I sat further back in the bench and folded my arms.
He folded his arms and studied me with the air of a calm professor with the wisdom that only comes from the school of hard knocks.
“You’re famous, aren’t you?” I said meekly.
“That’s what they tell me.”
I sighed. I wasn’t exactly panicking anymore, but I was still unsettled.
“And you’re nervous,” he said.
“Who wouldn’t be?”
“‘Who wouldn’t be?’” He chuckled. “Alice Faye,” he said as he sat down next to me, “it’s good to be nervous.”
I looked at him. “I thought you were going to tell me there’s nothing to be scared of.”
“Why would I do that?”
I shrugged. “That’s what anybody else would have said.”
“I’m not anybody else.” He grinned.
“Fair enough.”
He spread his arms wide, narrowly avoiding smacking me in the face. “Look around, Alice,” he said. “There’s everything in the world to be scared of!” He stood up, arms still wide, still grinning. “That’s what makes it so exciting!”
People were giving us strange looks as they walked by. I couldn’t say that I blamed them. David Charles had enough charm to get away with these kinds of eccentricities, like the breakout character of a TV show. But he was in his mid-to-late thirties, for crying out loud . . . was this whole shtick really necessary? I mean, who went around doing and saying things like this?
Labels: january brings few faces
