Two days after he had departed from Vic and Kristen, Jim was awakening beside Vic's daughter Jane. He had almost immediately strayed from the path he hoped to follow. But Jane's first words after stretching and smiling up at his tall body standing over her bed were, "So tell me about Harry." He couldn't have been happier.
He called Harry, told him they were going on a date with the lovely Jane. Harry paused, Jim hoping he wasn't falling into an apoplectic fit. When Harry hummed and stuttered, Jim was getting a more worried. Harry breathed deeply. "Sure," he said.
"Great," said Jim, in the truest sense of the word.
Jim and Jane showered separately. Jim put on his clothes from the day before, and Jane put on a summer dress. Before they stepped out of her apartment, Jane wrote a message for her roommate Connie to meet them at the boat rental in Central Park from 5 o'clock until seven if she could.
Jim and Jane decided to stay together for the entire day until five o'clock came around and they would meet Harry. Jane was excited to show her city to Jim and wanted to hop in a cab as soon as they walked out her apartment building.
"Let's walk," said Jim. He didn't care about seeing the sites. He wanted to be with her.
"It's like thirty blocks to Central Park," said Jane.
"We got all day," he said as he began walking south.
"Okay," she said as she joined him.
They talked and laughed and enjoyed themselves immensely. He even got to see the Guggenheim Museum which he thought was really cool and kind of fucked up for a museum. They stopped at a deli that sold Yankee caps, bought a couple of them to protect their faces from the hot sun and a couple sandwiches and sodas.
By the time five o'clock rolled around they were at the boat rental place in Central Park looking for Harry. The time came none too soon. They were on the edge of having maybe a little too much of being around each other. Waving a ticket in his hand, Harry appeared a couple minutes late.
"Got the canoe," said Harry excitedly, like a little boy. Jane found him silly yet endearing, both in action and in dress. The guy wasn't the model type. Tall and skinny with a high narrow face buried under even nerdier glasses than Jim sported. And he was either intense or he was retreating. Jane especially liked his intensity. She wanted to encourage it. But first they needed to put the canoe in the water.
Jim held the canoe so Harry could take the stern and Jane could sit in the middle. However, once Jane was in the boat, Jim sent them off. Jane nearly toppled out, but managed to have her lovely high seat meet the seat in the bow. "You fucker," she said to the retreating Jim. She didn't mean to be harsh. She was really just kidding. Harry caught a glimpse of her white panties as her dress fluttered up, and they looked marvelous stretched across her lovely tusch. Harry grabbed a paddle, turning the boat away from the dock and away from Jim. Jane scowled at Jim as they turned. She twisted around in the boat to keep the scowl on longer. She forgot about it when she saw Harry smiling at her. She smiled back. When she grabbed a paddle, Harry held it and placed it back at the bottom of the canoe. His paddle was all that gave the boat any speed and direction.
"Hey you're good at this," she said. She sat facing him, watching his lean torso twist as his lean strong shoulder muscles tightened with each stroke.
"My family would go canoeing a lot when I was a kid. We had our own. It was just the three of us which worked good. We'd go camping, do the whole portaging thing."
"Sounds fun," she said. She couldn't believe how easy it was with this guy. At the start she thought it would be uncomfortable.
"Sometimes. Most of the time I guess. Sometimes, you know with camping things can get really unpleasant. The weather is bad or you just get in a funk that pisses off the two in close proximity for a long period of time."
"Not going to happen," she smiled. "Too nice a day."
"Wonderful day," he said, meaning her.
As they paddled around the winding channels of the lake they talked. Mostly Jane talked. It wasn't shyness that kept him from speaking. He wanted to hear what she had to say. When he talked, he talked about music. He talked about the quiet splash of the paddle, the people's passing conversations, the birds, the squirrels chattering as random musical events, the silences between notes. He talked about John Cage and chance composition. Then he talked about how he liked to compose. Not chance but sometimes sounding like it. But with melody. A melody he concocted using the mathematical relationships found in engineering. Maybe her poetry...maybe he could use her poetry...maybe to make a song...
"I'd love to hear your music," said Jane.
"You want to come over?"
"I'd love to come over."
"You would?" Harry said. When he swallowed it was as if all tension of wanting but not knowing if she wanted, of finding but not knowing if she wanted to be found was like a giant rock finally dislodged and disappearing down his throat. "I haven't played any for Jim yet."