Until We Meet Again by Randy Gresham

Episode 2: The Elegant Gentleman

.The Elegant Gentleman

He sits at a low table covered with a white linen cloth in the courtyard of a charming old, ci-devant Florida resort. He is taking tea with his dear friends, three elderly ladies he has known for decades of “the season.” He balances a paper-thin, china cup with supreme aplomb. His hands are strong, yet fine and aristocratic. They are punctuated by manicured nails filed into perfect little crescents and buffed to a high gloss.  He wears three matching gold bands on his right middle finger and a monogrammed gold ring on his left pinkie. On his left wrist there is an antique gold Cartier tank case watch. His appearance is that of a true thoroughbred, his bearing and distinguished manners those of the early years of the last century. He holds his chin up just slightly in a gesture reminiscent of Hyde Park patricians.  His attire is the very picture of restrained old world elegance: white linen suit, Egyptian cotton shirt, white silk bow tie, Panama hat, polished black tie-up shoes.  He sports an ebony black walking cane with an elaborate gold knob.

His age is hard to determine.  Though his hair is completely white, his face is almost completely unlined, his skin as smooth as porcelain.  His face retains an angularity suggesting youth and virility.  His eyes are steel gray and though they flash with mirth and subtle fire, they occasionally register sadness.   His movements are graceful and deliberate and do not suggest the burdens of age.  He seems to possess a vitality lacking in the resort’s other guests. His clothes, though as vintage as those of the other vacationers, do not imply an involuntary stoppage in time, but appear as more of a costume.  He stands out.  There is an energy, a vitality concealed beneath the white outfit.  He is the very portrait of a well-bred gentleman.

To describe him as a portrait is most apropos. There is something studied in his behavior. Though engaged in animated talk, he looks as though he is also busy posing for a painter.  He sits, delicately sipping his tea, chatting, dropping bons mots on the blue haired matrons with whom he shares the afternoon ritual. They flirt with him in the manner of the elderly.  They dote on him and reward him with chuckles of amused delight, laughing at his every comment.  

His table’s conversation spills out into the courtyard.  He is obviously someone used to an audience.  The resort’s other patrons overhear, take note, laugh, and occasionally walk over to his table where he holds them enthralled. They add a witty comment or two and delight in his clever retorts.  He acts like a person of note, perhaps a celebrity or personage.  He encourages and enjoys the attention he receives. He smiles at everyone but something in his features fleetingly registers a keen sense of loss.  Loss, experienced throughout the decades, glossed over and dressed up in pretty pastels and brilliant smiles, runs through the throng of older vacationers. His loss, however, seems recent and still sharp.

Someone has stopped at the courtyard gate.  The gate divides this refined little world and that other realm, the outside modern world. A young man, perhaps in his late twenties, is looking in on afternoon tea.  He is deeply tanned, well- built and clad only in a red Speedo.  His nipples are pierced.  He seems perplexed and captivated by the scene he is witnessing. The resort guests no longer notice the intrusion of the outside world on their sacrosanct courtyard and afternoon rituals.  No one bothers to look up from tea to register shock, disdain or indignation. Out there, manners are lost and everything has become coarse with the passing decades.  The members of this charmed and polished circle have found ignoring offenders their best strategy.  To them the outside world simply doesn’t exist and should not be acknowledged.  Our elegant gentleman, however, notices.  He glances over and catches the young man’s eyes.  Too much is revealed in the exchange, an electrical charge, yet on both sides, utter perplexity.  An unknown, unexplored continent of the imagination emerges.  A clash of cultures, a leap through generations, insists on recognition.  The elderly gentleman appears bewildered and deeply pained.

The elderly gentleman returns to his companions.  It is all so very lovely.  Really it is.  He hopes it will stay this way always.