TWO

 

 

The day Danny met Dora Patton was a warm spring day in May. The weather in Portland had been clear and the sky blue. The volcanoes were out, as they say in Portland when you could see a number of the nearby volcanoes and their snow-covered peaks in the Cascade Mountains. Days like this were one of the many reasons he had come home to Oregon to practice law.

Danny parked his Porsche that morning a little after nine in his parking spot under his building. On the way in, his assistant had called and told him his ten o’clock appointment had cancelled.

So he took off his tie and jacket and left them in his car, then grabbed a notebook and headed for a nearby coffee shop, enjoying the walk and watching people because watching people, he knew from all his study of comedy, helped in finding jokes.

When he got to the coffee shop, it wasn’t crowded. In fact, besides him, only two other people were there, both with their heads buried in laptops at tables near windows, tapping away. One was a guy with a beard and bald spot on the top of his head, the other was a woman about his age of mid-thirties from what he could tell without seeing her face and eyes.

She had short brown hair that had clearly been styled.

More than likely both were writers like him. He knew that writers loved coffee shops for some reason. He actually did as well.

This morning the coffee shop smelled of rich coffee and some kind of cookies that had just been baked.

The two people behind the counter stopped their cleaning chores long enough to get him a double mocha, then he found a table and chair near a window, opened up his notebook to a fresh page, titled it with the date and the location, and then sat back, thinking.

He had no idea how long he had been in that position when the woman who had been at one of the laptops said to him, “You need to move around more.”

He jerked and looked up into beautiful green eyes and a broad smile. He had been right, she was about his age and wore a large University of Oregon green sweatshirt and jeans. And she was stunningly beautiful. The short brown hair really shaped her face perfectly.

“Excuse me,” he said.

“Oh, I like your voice,” she said, smiling. “I just noticed you hadn’t moved and as a writer, you need to move around at times or it causes back and other health issues.”

Danny nodded, then realized what she had said.

“You like my voice?” he asked.

“Modulated perfectly right in the middle range,” she said.

He blinked, doing his best to get his bearings. Then he said, “Please, join me for a few minutes.”

He pointed to the other chair.

“My name is Danny.”

He didn’t tell her his last name because just up the block was his building with McDow Building plastered in large letters on the side and over the front door.

“I’m Dora,” she said, extending her hand and smiling that wonderful smile that could light up a room. “Great to meet you.”

She sat down. “I have a minute or so to talk with another writer before I need to get back to work.”

“What kind of writing do you do?” he asked.

“Comedy,” she said. “I write for different comedians, selling them routines.”

He damn near choked. “Seriously?”

“Great fun,” she said, nodding.

“Do you perform?” he asked.

She shook her head and he could tell she was sad about that. “Just haven’t figured out a way to get over the fear of getting up on a stage alone. Working on it, though.”

The smile came back into her eyes. “What kind of writing do you do?”

“Comedy,” he said, smiling.

“You’re just saying that,” she said.

“Seriously,” he said. He slid his notebook toward her and turned it around so she could see. “Flip back and you’ll see some of the routines I’ve been working on.”

She did and then after a moment shook her head and laughed and slid his notebook back to him.

“This is just very strange,” she said. “I pegged you for a novelist. A rich one from the looks of your shirt and vest and haircut.”

“Disappointed?” he asked.

“Not in the slightest,” she said. “Novelists are boring people because they just live inside their own heads most of the time.”

“Never met one,” Danny said. “So wouldn’t know.”

“Trust me,” she said. “So you performing?”

“With this voice?” He shook his head. “I have some sort of defect that won’t allow me to have inflections or tonal changes or anything in my voice.”

“I like your voice,” she said.

“Don’t say soothing,” he said, smiling at her.

At that moment his phone rang and he glanced at it before turning it off.

“I have an appointment I have to make,” he said. “Thus the clothes.”

She actually looked disappointed.

“If you are up for it,” he said, “I would love to meet you here tomorrow morning and talk comedy writing and performing. I have been studying it since I was in high school and seldom find anyone I can talk to about comedy.”

She smiled again. “I would love that.”

“Name the time,” he said.

“Nine in the morning,” she said.

“Until tomorrow,” Danny said. “Always leave them laughing.”

She actually laughed at that old movie title and said, “I’ll certainly try. But Milton Berle was pretty damn good.”

“On the money,” he said and headed for the door, impressed she knew the old comedy movie.

The sound of her laugh stayed with him all the way to his office. That laugh alone at one of his stupid jokes made his day.

Maybe his month.