Day’s word count: 2344
Total word count: 7777
Writing location: home
Work: off
Exercise: 32.2 miles (1h 33m) of riding on Rouvy
Notes
I ended at 7774, then added three words just to make it an even 7777. Things are getting back to normal, although tomorrow will be a zero day due to work. I’ll have a couple easy days of flying to make up for it, though, then another zero day.
It’s still a mess, but it’s at the point where I finally let the wife read most of it. She laughed at the places she was supposed to laugh, and the part that is supposed to make people cry actually did, so there’s that.
I’m becoming less worried about Richard being overly eloquent. He’s not a great speaker, but as I’ve read more of the book, it has the feel of him speaking to a therapist but on paper. He’s a guy, and the stereotype of men being afraid to get counseling exists for a reason, but with the childhood he had, he desperately needs one. His book is turning out to be his therapy.
I’ve been writing descriptively as much as I can, and ten times more than I usually do. It’s an interesting experiment, and today it’s reached the point where I can say that the style feels Nabokovian. I’m not trying to imitate anyone, but it definitely has his spirit in it, and if you’ve got to sound like someone, there are a lot worse and few better.
It took over 5000 words, but the first line of actual dialogue popped in. Try as I did, I couldn’t find a better way to deliver the surprise Richard gets when he meets a woman who’s going to change his life and to convey that she’s a lot deeper than most of the chicks he picks up, so he might already be in over his head:
The usual ease of words failed me, so to cover up for it, I took my map and asked her if she knew how to get to the scenic overlook. I didn’t really need to know how; it was near the folklore museum that I’d already visited, and I’d just come back from it.
She shrugged and said something quickly in a language I didn’t understand, so I asked again, this time more slowly. She shook her head to say she didn’t know what I was saying, but her eyes still hadn’t lost the laugh from the penguins, and there was such intelligence behind them. I asked her in French, and this time she laughed a little and replied equally slowly in a language I could now at least recognize as German, even if I couldn’t understand it. I pointed at the map and mimed going there, and she pointed back and forth between me and her a couple of times then wiggled two fingers in a walking motion and said in extremely broken English that we should go together. I gave her a ja, ja, which was pushing the limits of my German.
We started walking toward the zoo exit, and once we got to the bike rack, she unlocked hers. That simplified things considerably because I’d rented a touristy touring bike myself for this ride. Fat tires made for a much smoother ride than my work wife, and even if the team mechanic had let me borrow it—which there was no chance of—I wouldn’t leave it on a bike rack in Europe, a place where a twenty-thousand dollar bike would be recognized as worth as much as it was and would be gone in sixty seconds, even in a safe place.
She took the lead and in a nice, short ride, we arrived at the place I had pretended to want to go. As we walked the bike up the stairs on the last little hike to the top, it occurred to me that she hadn’t asked for the map or directions once. I had no idea how to even start asking about that in German, so I let it go.
As we leaned against the wooden railing of the observation deck, looking over the trees and green grass, with a stunning view of Salzburg spreading out in the distance below us, I dredged up one of the scattered words of German that I knew from the times I’d passed through. I nodded my head seriously, smiled at the view, and said, “Schön.”
She laughed a little bit, then said in absolutely flawless English, “It really is pretty. This is one of my favorite places I’ve found here so far.”
I’m sure she could tell that had the effect on me it was supposed to: sheer stun. I could see the mischievous, fun look in her eyes swim again among the intellect that never left them. I wondered if my eyes had ever looked so obviously like that. Not the Marianas-like depth of hers, of course, but the belying that I was making the first move in a game—a game that would inevitably end, and never in a tie.
She said, “If I’d have simply told you, you’d have gone away. Today is too lovely a day for that. Quite too schön.”
“You speak perfect English.”
“Your French is better than mine, though.”
“I’ve spent a few weeks in France every July for the past several years.”
“Ugh. Worst time to go when everyone’s on vacation.”
“I wouldn’t know. I spend the whole time riding a bike around.”
She smiled. “It’s probably much nicer when they shut the roads down for you.”
“How’d you know?”
“How much do you usually need to say before someone figures it out?”
“More than that.”
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