Somewhere Only We Know (Part 1 of 3)

“The first few weeks of living in Kyoto were harder than I thought. Not that I haven’t lived in Japan before, but Kyoto was definitely something else. The old lady that lived next door yelled at me for using the wrong kind of trash bag---can you believe it? And oh yeah, working at the art gallery was really tough as well.”

Violet looked at her glass of water as if she were looking for something, and then looked at me.

“Wow. That does sound pretty tough,” I said.

“Definitely. Of course, after a while things got a lot better.”

“I know you could do it.”

We had just finished a late dinner at a small Thai restaurant somewhere in the Upper West Side. Sitting next to the floor-to-ceiling window that formed the façade, we had a good view of the narrow street outside. Occasionally a car would pass by, its headlights adding a brief moment of illumination to our candlelit table.

Violet sat across from me, her arms neatly folded at the edge of our small table, her body leaned in slightly. She was wearing a white button down shirt that was almost translucent, and through the opening of her collar I could see a very thin gold necklace. Her deep auburn hair came down straight past her shoulders and curled in at the tips, framing her face. She wasn’t wearing a ring.

“So, what exactly are you doing in New York?” I asked.

“There’s an upcoming auction at Sotheby’s and my gallery has a collection of items that’s part of the exhibition, so I was sent here to work with them. I’ve already met a couple of their people at lunch today. They seem like nice people.”

“I see. So how long are you going to stay in New York?”

“I’m not sure...the auction is in a week, but I suppose there will be things to take care of afterwards. My gallery basically told me I could stay as long as I need to.”

“That’s really nice of them.”

“Isn’t it?” She had a sip of water. “But enough about me. How have you been doing? I want to know.”

“Me? Nothing too exciting. It’s the same as always.”

“Really? That’s hard to believe. I heard you have your own clinic in Flushing. That must really be something.”

I laughed a little. “Once in a while I’d get some interesting cases, but overall it’s rather boring. Mostly family stuff. I see a lot of grandmas.”

She chuckled. “Really?”

“Mainly arthritis or high blood pressure, the usual. If it’s too serious then I’d just send them onto a bigger hospital.”

“I see...well, I still think it’s impressive. You’ll have to show me around one of these days.”

There weren’t many people left in the restaurant. I paused for a moment to look at Violet, and she smiled.

“It’s getting late.” She said.
　
“Shall we go?”

“Sure. Thanks for dinner.”

We got up and gathered our belongings, and I helped her into her jacket.

“Here,” she reached into the inside pocket on her jacket as she turned around. “They gave me a temporary cell phone and a box of business cards. Give me a call sometime if you’re not too busy, alright?”

* * *

Violet and I had met sometime during the spring semester of our freshmen year in college. We were in the same economics class, and before lecture one day she came up to me out of nowhere and asked if she could borrow a pencil. Being freshmen, we wasted no time in introducing ourselves to each other. After class she returned the pencil and we ended up having lunch together while talking about people we both knew.

For the next couple of months we would have lunch together after economics class, and then spend the rest of the afternoon sitting in the billiards lounge at the student center, talking about all sorts of things---what we liked to eat, our favorite spots for studying, ways to procrastinate, and funny stories about our friends. She had a special way of arching her back and leaning in close as she listened to me talk, as if nothing else around her mattered except for the silly words coming from me.

Violet was different from the other girls I knew. She usually wore nothing more elaborate than a t-shirt, a simple white cardigan and jeans. She didn’t care much for makeup or jewelry. And she always carried around a tiny notebook for taking notes while she read---and she read everything from 19th century Russian novels to Cosmo.

Violet had asked me to go to the annual campus-wide formal towards the end of that first school year. I hadn’t planned on going and I didn’t think too much into it, but Violet had pitched it as just a fun way for us to spend a Saturday evening, so I shrugged and said sure.

That evening I got ready, went over to Violet’s room, and knocked on her door. Moments later the door opened halfway, and through the gap between the door and the frame I saw her standing there. She had nothing on but a deep blue towel loosely wrapped around her. Her right hand was holding on to the edge of the towel over her left breast, and her hair was damp and clumped into thick strands that plastered onto her face. She looked at me with her mouth parted slightly, her eyes locked on mine with an intensity like nothing I had ever felt. I stood in the hallway silently. Finally she smiled, told me to wait outside for a bit, and disappeared behind the door as she slowly closed it.

After what felt like a couple of seconds she emerged again wearing a dazzling black satin spaghetti-strap dress. We then walked from her room to the formal, which was held in the vaulted, gothic-style freshmen dining hall. The drabness and strange odors that were still there at lunch were all but gone, replaced by ice sculptures and mountains of grapes and berries. Violet and I walked around and stopped to listen to the swing band.

After the swing bands played through three songs, Violet turned to me and grabbed my hand.

“Let’s get out of here, yeah?”

“Where to?”

“I’ll show you.”

She led me through the crowd of big sweaty guys by the chocolate fountain to the rear of the dining hall, and then we were out through the back exit. She took out a key from her purse, and unlocked the unmarked door next to the exit. Beyond the door a dark hallway appeared, at the end of which was an elevator.

We got in the elevator and went up. When the elevator doors opened again, we were at the balcony in the bell tower. Below us was the shape of the campus etched out by tiny lots of light, beyond which was the city, and then the harbor, everything shrouded by the dark navy blue of the night. The wind was strong up there, but it carried with it a sense of freshness and even a tint of saltiness that reminded me of the end of spring.

She walked over to the railing and grabbed it, resting her weight on it. “Much better now, isn’t it?”

I stood right behind her. “Oh yeah. It was so stuffy down there. How did you find out about this place?”

“When I did student janitor last semester I had to clean this place twice a month, so I just kept the key afterwards.”

“It’s...beautiful.”

“Isn’t it? I like to come up here once in a while when I’m frustrated.”

“Really? Frustrated about what?”

“Frustrated about...decisions.”

“...what kind of decisions?”

“Decisions on life...what kind of a person to be, what kind of a life I want to have, what kind of boy to like, things like that. It’s just, I don’t want to have to make these decisions just yet...but I don’t want to let anyone else decide for me either,” she turned around and smiled. “I guess I’m just really contradictory, yeah?”

“It’s ok.” I said. “I think I need to think of things in more concrete
terms, but I sort of understand what you’re saying.”

She brought herself up from the railing, and leaned back until she was
resting her back on me. Instinctively but slowly I brought my arms around her
waist. I closed my eyes and let her hair fall on my face, her scent seeping into my pores and filling my veins. I felt the weight of her body against my chest.

And then just like that I let go of my arms, unconsciously, and I was back again. She turned to face me. “Thanks for tonight,” she said softly, kissed me on the cheek, and started towards the elevator.

When I was back in my room later that night I sat on the edge of my bed and thought about what happened that night, replaying the events over and over again in my mind, hoping that they would eventually be seared in permanently. But as the images crystallized one after another, my consciousness slipped away. I lost the ability to think.

After the formal we continued to hang out at the billiards lounge as usual, and once in a while we would go watch an indie film or go to a school concert. Usually she did the inviting, since she had friends in the school orchestra and choir, and she was much more up to date than I was about movies.

I wasn’t aware of it back then obviously, but very slowly we drifted apart anyway, naturally, even when neither of us wanted it. We chose different majors, stopped taking the same classes, and then work just piled on. I was working with a neuroscience professor in lab, and she was starting to work on the creative piece of her fine arts thesis. At first it was cutting our conversations short, and then it was twice a week, and then once a week, and then we had to plan around our schedules just to see each other. Eventually, phone calls were replaced by emails, and then even that became rarer as time went by.

Sometime towards the end of junior year Violet had called to see if we could meet up. It was the first time in maybe several weeks since she last talked. I went to meet her that Friday at the billiards lounge.

The place was quiet, dimly lit with a maroon tint. I walked in and found Violet sitting on the couch under the vintage Absinthe poster. She had kicked off her sandals and drawn her legs up on the couch. Her hair came down straight over her cheeks.

I sat down next to her. “What’s wrong? You said you wanted to talk to me about something.”

“Um, well...alright. I just wanted to tell you, I’m sort of seeing this guy. His name is Jeremy.”

I nodded, and stared at the silhouette of the three pool tables in front of me. “Oh.” I said.

“Oh?” She said. “Is that...it?”

“That’s...pretty much.”

“Well...I just wanted you to know. We’ve been seeing each other for almost two months now. I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. He’s this second year med school student, really smart guy. We met at a friend’s birthday party one night. We share a lot of interests. He’s been really good to me. He understands me.”

“That’s nice, but...why are you telling me all this?”

“Because, well, I just thought you should know.” She extended her legs and slipped her feet into her sandals. “So...that’s that. Hey, I don’t want you to let this bother you. I want to stay as friends, just like we are now, yeah?”

I looked at the ceiling. “Yeah.”

“Then, you should be happy for me. Can you do that? Will you do it for me?”

Without saying anything, I closed my eyes and exhaled. Violet looked at me and waited, but I couldn’t give her what she wanted to hear.

Finally, she looked at her watch and sighed. “Well...I have to go now. I’ll see you around.” She got up and slipped out of the room, leaving me in the dark. Her movements reminded me of that image of her wrapped in the towel. And one after another the images came to my mind, juxtaposing themselves on each other, blurring and swirling together in a torrent of sights, sounds, and scents. Soon those fragments of memories became indistinguishable shapes, and I gave into the darkness.

The next morning I was woken up by the Christian Fellowship people who used the lounge on Saturday mornings for Bible study. With a piercing headache, I dragged myself back to my room across campus.

(To be continued)