Catherine stayed in Spokane when Francis moved to San Francisco. He begged her to come with him, but she counter-attacked his pleas with vague excuses. “My lease goes ‘til March.” “I can’t up and quit my job like that.” “Maybe I’ll come join you after I’ve tied up some loose ends.”
Francis squinted his green-gold eyes, trying to look ferocious, but the effect was that of a kid play-acting the tough guy role.
“C’mon, please. Please, Catherine.” He brushed at a strand of chocolate-brown hair that hung across his forehead. He opened his eyes wider, blinked, looked at her lost and bewildered, which is how he felt: lost, sad, rather than angry.
“I can’t go. I’m not a San Francisco girl.”
“‘Cos you’re not from there? Most people who live in San Francisco aren’t from there.”
“No. That’s not what I mean.”
She clinked her spoon against the side of her mug of cooling Earl Gray tea, three times in a row.
“Well then, you could become a San Francisco girl by living there.”
“No, I couldn’t. It’s not that simple. I’ll never be a San Francisco girl. I’ll never know the club drugs and the dance remixes; I’ll never be skinny enough, even if I do the club drugs.” She grabbed at the flesh of her thighs. “I’ll never paint twee pictures of antlered creatures and know about the newest organic locally-grown vegan restaurant; even if I do paint those pictures, they won’t be twee enough. I’ll never be able to pull off that style they have, looking somehow fashionably homeless. When I wear tattered clothing, I straight-up look like a bag lady.”
“I don’t think those girls really exist. I think that’s just another one of your excuses.”
“They for sure exist, Francis. I’m sorry, but I can’t do it right now. Maybe I’ll come join you when-”
“When your lease ends. When you get tired of your job. When you miss me enough. If you miss me enough.”
He slurped down the rest of his tea, and left her apartment. He left Spokane the next day. And Catherine stayed.
None of Catherine’s friends understood why she stayed either, or why she’d moved to Spokane in the first place. Most of them were from Spokane and surrounding areas, and for them it was a place they were perpetually trying to leave; for them it was merely a stopover on the way to bigger, shinier cities - nevermind that many of them had been stopped there for over a decade, now. But that was their rotten luck, and Catherine, well, she was so talented (she had begun to loathe that word, the more often it was used to describe her, the more meaningless it seemed), she could have had a promising art career. She received a B.F.A. in Studio Art from the University of Idaho (where she was also on the Dean’s List every semester but one), and could’ve taken it and her talent to Seattle, San Francisco, or Portland. Instead, she packed up her meager belongings and left Moscow, Idaho for Spokane, Washington.
And it was one thing that she’d moved there. She had met Francis there, after all, a skinny and beautiful boy that most of the girls (and many of the boys) in the Spokane music scene lusted after. But now Francis had left, gone to San Francisco, and he adored her and wanted her to join him. She had the perfect opportunity to leave, to go somewhere new and exciting, with someone who loved her by her side, so why didn’t she take it?
She had moved to Spokane for one reason, really, because it was called the Lilac City. Lilacs had been her favorite flower since she was a young girl, her family’s big backyard in Iowa had been a proliferation of lilacs for a few weeks every May and June, and she loved them, loved their shade of dusty purple and their smell that was at once subtle and heady. And she loved that their existence was so fleeting; the fact that their lifespan was less than a month long and then you had to wait a whole year before you saw them again only added to their beauty. So when she graduated from college and didn’t have any idea where she was going to go, she chose Spokane because it was the Lilac City.
When she arrived, it surprised her to see that the city was rife with lilacs not only during the Lilac Festival in May, but that the light was very often a watercolor wash of lilac. It would happen at dusk, over Spokane Falls, or for brief moments in the very early dawns (the sort you can only glimpse if you've stayed up all night), above the Selkirk Mountains. That lilac dawn sky over the mountains took her breath away the first time she saw it. She painted a series of Spokane skylines in various shades of pale purple soon after her arrival; they were the first of her paintings to be shown there.
Catherine loved the city in a way she could never explain to her friends. They wouldn’t understand someone who had moved to a city because of its nickname, and they certainly wouldn’t understand why she had stayed. They couldn’t see what she had left there that was worth staying for. All they could see was the nice-but-not-too-nice apartment, the handful of friends, the job at a used appliances shop that, though it paid more than the bills, was not what anyone would call a dream job, and the same bars and cafes she’d been hanging out - and occasionally hanging her art - at for the past six years. She had her own list of reasons to stay that ran deep in her blood, but she knew to most people they would seem like nothing. She could think of no way to explain to them about the purpled dusks and dawns, about the apartment where, yes, several of the floorboards were warped and the tiles on the bathroom walls periodically fell off in a rain of plaster and grout, but also, the light that came in through the living room curtains every afternoon at four turned each object that it touched into clover honey, and at night, if she listened closely, she could hear the roar of the river, and further past it, the piercing steel shriek of freight trains. She could think of no way to explain to them about her job, that she loved finessing broken appliances, fitting them with new parts and with patience, getting the popcorn makers and radios and vacuums to hum to life again. And a handful of friends, that was no small thing, nor were the cafes and bars where she felt comfortable, where her face was as familiar to the patrons as her paintings.
She had other things left, too, things Francis had given her. Not the tangible, physical gifts he'd bestowed upon her; rather, things he'd taught her to love that she’d had no interest in before they'd met. Like indie pop and white wine. Before him, she only listened to punk rock records, with growling vocals and loud-fast-rules guitars and drums; before him, if she drank wine at all, she only drank red, red like fire and blood and the dye she tinted her hair with. But he had taught her to slow down and listen to the indie pop records, to hear the way the jangly guitars and soft whispers of vocals created a tapestry; he had taught her to appreciate glasses of white wine with their tastes of peaches and honeysuckle. He had softened her rough edges a bit, she realized. She'd even grown her hair out; when they got together her hair was only a couple inches of uneven tufty spikes, now, three years later, it was down past her shoulders and she wore it in two braided pigtails. So he had given her music and wine and a softness she'd never known. She wondered if she had ever given him anything worth holding on to.
She had these things: the Lilac City, her apartment, her job, friends and favorite places, indie pop records, white wine. And she had her talent, though talent without motivation made her feel like a planet spinning out of orbit. She hadn’t completed a piece of art in nearly a year.
There was another reason, a secret reason Catherine stayed when Francis left. She was afraid that San Francisco, with all its hilly charms and its San Francisco girls, would make him forget her, would make her fade into a faint memory of his past. She thought it would be easier on both of them if he forgot her when she was home in Spokane; easier than if they’d both gone to San Francisco and he forgot her while he slept next to her, then left her to wander the streets alone.
She hadn’t told him that when he begged her to come with him. And she did not beg him to stay, could not bring herself to say, “If you really loved me, you wouldn't leave.” He needed to go. He’d been talking about it since they’d met. And he belonged there. He was named for the same saint as the city. She could picture him sitting atop a golden hill, a Buddha boy-saint, with a halo of fog, with his mind’s eye cleared of everything. Cleared of Spokane, cleared of her.
Francis squinted his green-gold eyes, trying to look ferocious, but the effect was that of a kid play-acting the tough guy role.
“C’mon, please. Please, Catherine.” He brushed at a strand of chocolate-brown hair that hung across his forehead. He opened his eyes wider, blinked, looked at her lost and bewildered, which is how he felt: lost, sad, rather than angry.
“I can’t go. I’m not a San Francisco girl.”
“‘Cos you’re not from there? Most people who live in San Francisco aren’t from there.”
“No. That’s not what I mean.”
She clinked her spoon against the side of her mug of cooling Earl Gray tea, three times in a row.
“Well then, you could become a San Francisco girl by living there.”
“No, I couldn’t. It’s not that simple. I’ll never be a San Francisco girl. I’ll never know the club drugs and the dance remixes; I’ll never be skinny enough, even if I do the club drugs.” She grabbed at the flesh of her thighs. “I’ll never paint twee pictures of antlered creatures and know about the newest organic locally-grown vegan restaurant; even if I do paint those pictures, they won’t be twee enough. I’ll never be able to pull off that style they have, looking somehow fashionably homeless. When I wear tattered clothing, I straight-up look like a bag lady.”
“I don’t think those girls really exist. I think that’s just another one of your excuses.”
“They for sure exist, Francis. I’m sorry, but I can’t do it right now. Maybe I’ll come join you when-”
“When your lease ends. When you get tired of your job. When you miss me enough. If you miss me enough.”
He slurped down the rest of his tea, and left her apartment. He left Spokane the next day. And Catherine stayed.
None of Catherine’s friends understood why she stayed either, or why she’d moved to Spokane in the first place. Most of them were from Spokane and surrounding areas, and for them it was a place they were perpetually trying to leave; for them it was merely a stopover on the way to bigger, shinier cities - nevermind that many of them had been stopped there for over a decade, now. But that was their rotten luck, and Catherine, well, she was so talented (she had begun to loathe that word, the more often it was used to describe her, the more meaningless it seemed), she could have had a promising art career. She received a B.F.A. in Studio Art from the University of Idaho (where she was also on the Dean’s List every semester but one), and could’ve taken it and her talent to Seattle, San Francisco, or Portland. Instead, she packed up her meager belongings and left Moscow, Idaho for Spokane, Washington.
And it was one thing that she’d moved there. She had met Francis there, after all, a skinny and beautiful boy that most of the girls (and many of the boys) in the Spokane music scene lusted after. But now Francis had left, gone to San Francisco, and he adored her and wanted her to join him. She had the perfect opportunity to leave, to go somewhere new and exciting, with someone who loved her by her side, so why didn’t she take it?
She had moved to Spokane for one reason, really, because it was called the Lilac City. Lilacs had been her favorite flower since she was a young girl, her family’s big backyard in Iowa had been a proliferation of lilacs for a few weeks every May and June, and she loved them, loved their shade of dusty purple and their smell that was at once subtle and heady. And she loved that their existence was so fleeting; the fact that their lifespan was less than a month long and then you had to wait a whole year before you saw them again only added to their beauty. So when she graduated from college and didn’t have any idea where she was going to go, she chose Spokane because it was the Lilac City.
When she arrived, it surprised her to see that the city was rife with lilacs not only during the Lilac Festival in May, but that the light was very often a watercolor wash of lilac. It would happen at dusk, over Spokane Falls, or for brief moments in the very early dawns (the sort you can only glimpse if you've stayed up all night), above the Selkirk Mountains. That lilac dawn sky over the mountains took her breath away the first time she saw it. She painted a series of Spokane skylines in various shades of pale purple soon after her arrival; they were the first of her paintings to be shown there.
Catherine loved the city in a way she could never explain to her friends. They wouldn’t understand someone who had moved to a city because of its nickname, and they certainly wouldn’t understand why she had stayed. They couldn’t see what she had left there that was worth staying for. All they could see was the nice-but-not-too-nice apartment, the handful of friends, the job at a used appliances shop that, though it paid more than the bills, was not what anyone would call a dream job, and the same bars and cafes she’d been hanging out - and occasionally hanging her art - at for the past six years. She had her own list of reasons to stay that ran deep in her blood, but she knew to most people they would seem like nothing. She could think of no way to explain to them about the purpled dusks and dawns, about the apartment where, yes, several of the floorboards were warped and the tiles on the bathroom walls periodically fell off in a rain of plaster and grout, but also, the light that came in through the living room curtains every afternoon at four turned each object that it touched into clover honey, and at night, if she listened closely, she could hear the roar of the river, and further past it, the piercing steel shriek of freight trains. She could think of no way to explain to them about her job, that she loved finessing broken appliances, fitting them with new parts and with patience, getting the popcorn makers and radios and vacuums to hum to life again. And a handful of friends, that was no small thing, nor were the cafes and bars where she felt comfortable, where her face was as familiar to the patrons as her paintings.
She had other things left, too, things Francis had given her. Not the tangible, physical gifts he'd bestowed upon her; rather, things he'd taught her to love that she’d had no interest in before they'd met. Like indie pop and white wine. Before him, she only listened to punk rock records, with growling vocals and loud-fast-rules guitars and drums; before him, if she drank wine at all, she only drank red, red like fire and blood and the dye she tinted her hair with. But he had taught her to slow down and listen to the indie pop records, to hear the way the jangly guitars and soft whispers of vocals created a tapestry; he had taught her to appreciate glasses of white wine with their tastes of peaches and honeysuckle. He had softened her rough edges a bit, she realized. She'd even grown her hair out; when they got together her hair was only a couple inches of uneven tufty spikes, now, three years later, it was down past her shoulders and she wore it in two braided pigtails. So he had given her music and wine and a softness she'd never known. She wondered if she had ever given him anything worth holding on to.
She had these things: the Lilac City, her apartment, her job, friends and favorite places, indie pop records, white wine. And she had her talent, though talent without motivation made her feel like a planet spinning out of orbit. She hadn’t completed a piece of art in nearly a year.
There was another reason, a secret reason Catherine stayed when Francis left. She was afraid that San Francisco, with all its hilly charms and its San Francisco girls, would make him forget her, would make her fade into a faint memory of his past. She thought it would be easier on both of them if he forgot her when she was home in Spokane; easier than if they’d both gone to San Francisco and he forgot her while he slept next to her, then left her to wander the streets alone.
She hadn’t told him that when he begged her to come with him. And she did not beg him to stay, could not bring herself to say, “If you really loved me, you wouldn't leave.” He needed to go. He’d been talking about it since they’d met. And he belonged there. He was named for the same saint as the city. She could picture him sitting atop a golden hill, a Buddha boy-saint, with a halo of fog, with his mind’s eye cleared of everything. Cleared of Spokane, cleared of her.