Two
19 Two T HE FIRST TIME I MET JILL, SHE WAS WORKING THE FRONT end of her new restaurant, The American Pie Bistro. I’d been out of town for a few months and upon my return had heard that The American Pie was a cut above anything that Rapid City had ever experienced. I’d heard the food was great, but no one told me about Jill. She met me at the front door with a menu in her hand and a smile on her face. “Are you here to join Mr. Harlan?” she asked. Bill Harlan was a reporter for the local newspaper. We’d been friends for decades and I was there to meet him for dinner. Jill gestured to the back of the restaurant and I saw Bill raise his hand to wave. I should have waved back but I was thunderstruck by Jill and stood transfixed by her green eyes and wispy blonde hair. “My, my, my. What do we have here?” I’m sure that I only thought that, but Jill swears I said it out loud. We agree that I followed her closely to the table and Harlan stood up and greeted me. I had that rare but energized feeling that most of us get when we meet someone we know will play a role in the next act of our lives. Jill was being very nice to me; later she told me it was because she had me mixed up with another of Harlan’s friends: the man that wrote restaurant reviews for the newspaper. She was only aiming for a good review in the newspaper. It was a month later that I met Jilian, Jill’s ten-year-old daughter. She sat in the back of the restaurant doing her homework and didn’t bother to even look up when I said hello. I had been advised to take it slow with Jilian because, with a divorce brewing, she was having 20 P A R T O N E some trouble sorting out her feelings about her father, and, by association , men in general. I was determined to play it cool and give her all the time she wanted. For several weeks I watched her snub Jill’s other suitors. She was polite with me and would occasionally offer a smile. But her eyes flashed like her mother’s if someone got too close. I watched her doing her homework and occasionally helping bus a table. I paid close attention to how she reacted to the customers, cooks, and waitresses. I learned that she liked to play basketball and softball. I overheard that she was a pretty good dribbler and a steady hitter. She got good grades. I watched the customers come and go. She liked it when the women would stop and talk to her. She was not as friendly to the men and sometimes she would roll her eyes at the things they said. I learned that she was more likely to argue with her mother if there was a man standing nearby. In public, I kept my distance from both of them. During the first few months that I knew Jilian I had the idea that I would figure her out just by watching her. I might even have hoped to enlist her to help me get in good with her mother, who I was already desperately in love with. I knew that any relationship I had with Jill would be short-lived if Jilian was not on my side; I didn’t want to blow it. So I engaged her only superficially and continued to watch. As a life-long observer of wild things, I have learned that you have to look closely but never stare. You can remain visible but must blend in with your surroundings. That was my role with Jilian. I approached the situation as if she was a shy avocet standing at the edge of prairie pond, a young coyote that stayed close its den. It was the middle of the summer before I was invited to a softball game. I was almost fifty years old and I hadn’t been to a kid’s athletic event since I was playing myself. Jilian and the rest of her team took the field in baggy baseball uniforms and gloves bigger than their heads. “These things can get crazy,” Jill said. I nodded to where the girls were jogging, lackadaisically, out to their positions. There...
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