ART OBJECT

The first time that I saw Violet Gable was on a warm Saturday afternoon at the end of March, when I decided to sit in Mount Vernon Square and admire the weather, as well as the young women just out of their winter coats.

Needless to say, I had no idea that she was named Violet Gable. I was fairly sure from looking at her that she was somewhere between 18 and 25 (20, I eventually found out), and that she was a student at the Art Institute since it was nearby and she was using a pencil and an art pad.

She was slim and long-bodied (or I guess long-legged, really) and cute if not strikingly beautiful. She had medium-length black hair and dark eyes (though I did not see them that day). I kind of wish that I could say what she wore that day, but I am afraid that I do not remember.

She favored dark slacks and flowered blouses, though.

I hope that all this does not sound like I was staring at her. Certainly I was glancing at her – enough that she caught me at it and smiled.

After that I tried not to look at her openly, since I did not want to make her nervous or make her want to move away. When I got up to leave, I made a point of walking behind her to see what she had been sketching – it was the ornamental fountain in the middle of the east end of the square.

The next time I was in the square was probably a week or so later, and I will admit to sitting where I could get a good view of Violet, once I saw that she was there sketching again.

By the square was as reasonable a way as a couple of others to go home from work, and a good way from the central library, and I began to take it regularly. If I went by the library, I had a good excuse to stop and sit without seeming to stalk her – I could read for a while in the sunlight.

Some of the sketches were probably assignments, but some I am sure were not. I glanced at one that may have begun from a drinking-fountain there, but grew more elaborate in the telling, as it were, and surely had more and more varied birds around it than there was ever in one place and moment in Mount Vernon Square – though they may have been somewhere in Mount Vernon Square that day.

I always looked for her, I usually stopped if I saw her, and once in a while I commented on her work, though I worried about bothering her. I suppose I was cautious enough, since she smiled at the attention.

Then one day, a Saturday, she walked over to me and asked if I would be willing to have her draw me.

I put down the book I was reading and said to her:

“Yes, but if I am going to be a model, I expect to be paid for it.”

She tilted her head and frowned.

“You have to agree to have coffee with me at the Buttery when you are finished,” I continued. That was a coffee shop a block away.

She thought for a moment, and said, “Okay.”

That was how I learned her name, and a fair amount about her classes (part-time, mostly evening; she worked in data-entry days) and her ambitions. She hoped to get a job with a comic-book company as a penciller, and for that reason worked on being fast but fairly realistic.

She was single and unattached at the moment, not even seeing anyone, which sounded good to me. At the end of an hour as we were about to part, I asked her for a date. She said no.

Well, she was still nice to look at. I still stopped, and one day in June there was a sudden shower. I had prepared for it by carrying an umbrella, and she hadn’t. I liked to carry tent-umbrellas, the sort that open to six feet across, and I offered to walk her up to the Art Institute.

She accepted. By holding the umbrella up high and between us we could walk without quite touching or getting very wet. By the end of the trip, as she was going through the door to wait for her class to start, I asked her for a date again.

She laughed, and said, “I admire your persistence. Why not?