Falling Leaf

He looked at her once again after he ordered, and he saw the Falling Leaf monograph in her hands, and he watched as she turned page after page, wondering what she thought, how she felt when she saw his work. He looked down at his hands in that moment, his hands the instruments of his craft, the truest measure of his soul, and he regarded them with pride. His hands were the link, he knew, the means through which his vision reached upward towards expression, and sometimes, into being. He steepled his fingers almost in prayer, imploring her to like what she saw within the pages of that book, crying out to the infinite silence of the universe to allow that woman to see across the gulf. To see – him.

+++++

She stopped once again at that image of the geometrically timbered forest atrium, her eyes dancing between the precision of the angles and echoes of ancient bonsai gardens that sheltered below. Then she closed the book, lay it on the table and slid it across to Suki.

"Go. Talk to him. He's just sitting there, and he looks so lost...so alone. Ask him about the house, tell him you're studying architecture. See what happens!"

"Mother! You're impossible! Why disturb the man? Does he look like he wants company?"

She regarded her daughter curiously, realized Suki had never been alone even once in her life. Suki had almost no understanding of loneliness, she could see now, and certainly no real appreciation for loss. Suki had grown up just far enough away from the merest shadows of loss. The pain she herself knew was so different from what Suki might feel...

"Perhaps so," Amila replied. "Perhaps he would like to talk."

"Then why don't you go talk to him!"

"Perhaps so," she said to the universe, and yet she was unaware she whispered those words as if in prayer.

+++++

He watched her take the book in hand again, but then she stood. She looked his way, and then – came his way! He looked down at his steepled hands, then back up as she stopped beside his table.

"Excuse me," she said, "but are you this Carpenter? This is your house?"

He looked at her eyes, so impossibly large, so luminous. "What?" he said.

She held the book out, pointed at the house on the cover. "This is you?"

He regarded her hands, grew lost in the slender beauty of her fingers. "Yes, I suppose you could say it is me."

"I wanted to ask..." she began, but he stopped her.

"Would you care to sit down?" he asked as he stood.

"Please, yes. That would be nice."

He moved to the other side of the table, pulled out her chair. When he finished, when he had returned to his seat, he regarded the book as she placed it on the table.

"So, what is this?" he said as he picked up the book. He turned it over, saw the USC School of Architecture label on the spine and smiled inside. "Ah. Old Sloan's still at it, I see."

"Excuse me?"

"Your daughter. She must be a first year, at USC."

Amila nodded. "How do you know this?"

"Oh, every year around Halloween this book makes an appearance. One or two students come to the house, ask me to show them around. It's a ritual now, I suppose." Smiling, he put the book down, steepled his hands as he looked at her.

"And what do you do with these students, Mr Carpenter?"

"Show them around." His smile faded a bit.

"We live next door..."

"I know. I know your window."

"Oh, yes. I understand this."

'I doubt that,' he said to himself. His gaze turned to her hands, then his own. "So? You wanted to ask me about the house?"

"I wanted Suki, my daughter, to talk to you about the house, but she is shy. Too shy."

Crestfallen, he looked away, searched his memory because suddenly he remembered something. Another day, years ago.

"Perhaps I am, how do you say, forward in asking this," Amila continued, "but I am sure she would love to see this house. If you have time, of course."

He turned back to her, listened as she spoke. "Listen, would you care to join me for dinner? Both of you?"

"This is not awkward for you?" Amila asked.

It feels awkward not to, he thought as he smiled. "No, of course not." He turned to the owner, asked him to move the women to his table, then stood and walked across the room to Suki. He looked at the little girl he had met once years ago, and he smiled knowingly at her, then asked her to join him.

Clearly embarrassed, Suki stood and followed the architect back to his table, wondering just what her mother had gotten them into, wondering if tonight would finally be the night to talk about the greatest secret of her life.

+++++

She had just turned seven when they arrived in California, and she remembered those first days as the most important in her life. Her mother had an appointment at UCLA that first morning, something to do with her job, and a lady there had given her mother a list of affordable housing in the area.

"Affordable" had apparently meant one thing to people in Los Angeles and an altogether different thing to people like them, and her mother's wild-eyed terror when she saw the rental prices on that list had been one of the most frightening experiences of young Suki's life. Reassured by the lady who gave her mother the listing that assistance would be available, someone from the office had driven them around "the Westside" that afternoon, and they'd spent hours looking at row after row of bleak tenements until they came upon a simple beige building on a prosaically named street called Vista del Mar, or View of the Sea. And in a way, there was a view, if you could crane your head enough from just one of the bedroom windows, but that wasn't what had captivated Suki.

She had been captivated by the house next door, and fallen under it's spell.

Something about the lines of the house, the almost hidden hexagonal shapes that seemed deliberately masked by other, overlapping forms. The warm brick, the weathered copper roof, the mitered glass windows; she took one look and felt a sudden, overwhelming affinity for the concealed mysteries hidden within such sublime form. The house pulled at her from that very first moment, the very instant she laid eyes on it, and it had pulled at her ever since as if the very soul of the house held a special magnetic attraction only she could feel. She had convinced her mother then and there that this apartment was where she wanted to live, and though the rent was higher than the others they had seen, Suki just knew her mother understood. They had moved in the next week.

A few weeks later she saw the man who owned the house for the first time, and she at last finally understood what it meant to fall in love.

+++++

It was like a dream, he thought. Sitting here with the woman who lived across that formidable gulf of space and time. With the little girl who used to watch him so secretly from the trees. With the book on the table, with his Falling Leaf casting it's spell once again, he looked at his hands, at this new creation that had just now come into being.

"So," he said as he looked at the girl, "you are in Sloan's survey course this term?"

"Yessir," Suki said, nodding her head vigorously.

"And what have you studied so far?"

"Wright's Sturges House, and Fay Jones' Thorncrown Chapel so far. We just started Falling Leaf this week."

He nodded his head sympathetically. Poor Sloan, wouldn't he ever change his syllabus? "And what do you think, so far?"

"The lineage is direct, isn't it? I mean, the exterior form of Sturges, wedded to Fay's structural..."

"Yes," he said. "Direct. Intentionally so. Yet I always felt Wright's Usonian framework was unsuited to Los Angeles. The flat rooflines. The broad overhangs. Too dark inside, too sheltered."

Suki nodded her head vigorously. "Yes, that's the genius of Falling Leaf. Your soaring glass vault radically altered the Prairie Style, finally expressed Wright's desire to bring the outside in."

He smiled again, looked at the girl over his steepled fingers. "So, how many times have you been inside?"

"Just the once, sir."

"What?!" cried Amila. "You have been inside when?"

He remembered the day, now perhaps more than ten years ago, when Lupita, his housekeeper, had ushered this very same girl into his office, and on that day she had been profoundly shy, and so much younger – so young it had been, he remembered, hard to take her seriously. He had shown the girl around the house for perhaps a half hour, had listened to her questions patiently – yet even then he had been impressed with her knowledge of architecture, and of Wright's early work in particular. He let her look over some drawings of works-in-progress, at the way his drafting table was arranged, and he explained the way he approached a new commission, how a new project took shape in his mind. And he had been surprised even then by her seeking eyes, how she intuitively understood what he was trying to convey to her, how she saw beyond the façade of words into the workings of his mind.

She disappeared later that day, but he saw her from time to time over the years. When he went out to get the mail, or when he drove in after visiting a construction site. He remembered her, remembered that day, and he waved at her smile.

Now he listened to the girl as she explained what had happened that far away day, saw understanding dawn on the woman's face when the girl told her mother about how the house had spoken to her that very first time she saw it.

"That house, you, you're the reason I decided to study architecture, sir."

"I see." He looked at her differently now, because the girl seemed to be hesitating on the edge of a vast precipice. Her lower lip was trembling, her face flushed. He turned to face the girl directly then, held her eyes in his. "And what else do you want to say to me now, what other secret would you like to share with your mother."

Suki's eyes seemed to blaze with sudden strength. "I fell in love with you that day, Sir. That day in your office. I've never stopped loving you, and I never will."

Amila had been about to take a drink of ice water when Suki's torrential revelation shattered the calm inside the restaurant, yet no one seemed to notice when she dropped the glass into her lap.

+++++

He got the logs in the huge fireplace going when he got home, then he went to the kitchen, started making another cup of tea, all the while avoiding the darkened window across this gulf of a million tears – and the void of finite time cast a pall on his thoughts. He waited for the water to boil, lost in thoughts of her that slipped away like an errant prayer. He turned, walked into the living room and flipped his old B&O stereo on, then slipped a CD into the player and turned up the volume a bit before going back to watch the kettle. Diana Krall was singing Dancing In The Dark one more time, and as he listened he leaned over, holding on to the edge of the countertop while her words washed over his soul. He thought about the girl's words, about her mother's almost comic reaction. He thought of massive, storm driven waves breaking over a rocky shore, a sailboat driven onto the rocks, his hands shaking in the cold water as he tried to hold onto her hands.

She broke free on the next wave, and he watched her screaming, pleading eyes as she slipped from his fingers. He tried to swim after her, but he was no match for the swirling currents. He screamed at God as she moved further away, thrashed at the water as he watched her swirling in the maelstrom, as he listened to her failing pleas. He watched as the next wave took her high above the looming rocks, and she seemed to hesitate there for a moment, lost forever in time, lost like a falling leaf caught in an unsteady current before disappearing into the waiting embrace of the rocks below.

+++++

He came in from the store in the middle of the afternoon a few days after that nerve-shattering dinner, and he unloaded the car, put away the food. He placed mounds of candy in a huge wooden bowl by the door, then began carving the pumpkin he had just picked out. His Halloween efforts were always slightly more goofy than ghoulish, and this year's effort was no different. He stood back and took in the effort, groaned when he saw the utter lack of resemblance, then shrugged his shoulders.

"Well Frodo, looks like we screwed the pooch, one more time."

He placed a candle inside the Jack-O-Lantern and took it out to the entry, placed the poor thing where it would just be visible from the street, then went back through the house and drifted out to the terrace that looked out over the sea. Storms were building again he saw, new storms were coming as autumn winds drove swirling eddies of gold leaves down the hill, down onto the street below, while salmon colored clouds lined the horizon of his dreams. South of Palos Verdes he saw lightning, perhaps beyond Catalina, and he guessed the weather would turn foul in three or so hours, four if the kids out tonight were lucky.

He went inside, went to his bedroom and stripped off his clothes. He padded gently to the shower and turned on the water, and when it felt right he stepped in and sat of the rock ledge that formed a seat of sorts, then he let the water beat on his neck for a minute or so before he stood and rinsed off. He couldn't help but founder under the weight of memory, of the Halloweens he'd never known with her, and the precious few he had, then he pulled free of their insistent gravity. He turned off the water and stepped out into the bathroom, wishing memories were as easy to turn away. He looked at his reflection in the mirror through still swirling mists, and he caught himself before he reached out for her one last time, before he fell into the overwhelming gravity of her death. He shaved, brushed his teeth, habits so long endured he no longer questioned their need, then he dressed – and took up his Halloween staff.

He had the same CD ready to roll that he played each year, hours of old Halloween favorites like Grieg's In the Hall of the Mountain King and Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain, and he set the speakers in the entry to play them endlessly, and mercifully, far away from the interior of the house.

He sat and watched the sun set over Malibu with a tall bottle of spring water by his side, waiting for the doorbell and the endless parade of ghosts and ghouls and goblins that came for a visit each and every year.

He was, he understood, grateful for the company, and the memories that came calling in quiet interludes.

+++++

The first to come were old friends of sorts, a ten year old brother and sister, identical twins in fact, the only children of a friend who lived down the street. Staff in hand, he opened the door and Saint Saëns' Dance macabre filled the air – just as the twins shouted "Look, Papa! It's Gandalf!"

Everyone laughed, and Carpenter filled their bags with mounds of candy and then he watched as they scampered down the walk and onward to their appointed rounds. His friend waved, said "Later!" then disappeared from view just as another group of kids sprinted for his door.

He loved Halloween, and Christmas too. He enjoyed the renewed sense of living community that dwelled in children's eyes each autumn, especially during those chilliest evenings amidst the lighted trees of December, because those eyes always took him back to the best memories of his own childish days. Even so, it was the joyful magic in the air that was Halloween he enjoyed most of all, so he laid in enough candy to feed a regiment of cossacks – and there never was a child who left his house disappointed. All the houses in the neighborhood had been egged and wrapped in toilet paper more than once – save his.

Perhaps there was wisdom in charity after all, he said within the smile that came.

He looked at the sky, then at his watch, a battered old Rolex Submariner she had given him years ago: it was almost nine o'clock, the unofficial time to turn out the lights and pull in the Jack-O-Lantern, then he heard the thunder. Loud and close. He went to the stereo and turned it off, then to the kitchen – where he bagged up the leftover candy, then back out to the entry, to pick up the great glowing pumpkin.

And he saw her then, within that golden glow.

Walking up to the entry of his house.

+++++

"This is stupid! I look stupid," Amila shrieked as she looked at herself in the mirror. "Like a big, fat mouse, all painted gold and black!"

Suki stuck her head in the bathroom door and whistled. "No you don't, Mom. You look like a hooker!"

"Oh, and this is supposed to make me feel good? A hooker, going out on a night like tonight? To look like a prostitute?"

Suki opened the door all the way, revealing her own costume.

"Oh, and you must tell me what it is you are supposed to be?!"

"Me? I think a hooker that had a close encounter with a chainsaw."

"Yes, that would explain all. This is fake blood, yes?" she said as she rubbed her fingers over Suki's t-shirt.

"Red paint, I think. I hope."

"And you want to go out dressed like this?"

"Sure, it'll be fun."

"Fun? You think walking around our hills in these shoes will be fun?"

Suki laughed nervously, if only because she'd never worn anything like these stilettos in her life. She'd kept her hands out on the walls to brace herself as she practiced walking around the living room, and while she thought she was getting the hang of it, the pain bordered on excruciating. "Only one way to find out, Mom!"

They'd gotten a late start. Amila's day had been a long one, and she was already tired when she walked in the door, and to make matters even less interesting, Suki was loaded down with homework and hadn't stopped working on this latest project until well past seven. It was after eight when they shut the door behind them and took off into the night.

Amila thought she knew her daughter's ulterior motive: she wanted to get her mother to Carpenter's house so she could apologize, but when the storms moved in they looked around, saw the lightning, saw how far they were from his house, and decided to make a dash for their apartment. They were walking past the Falling Leaf when Suki saw the front door open, and she stopped when he walked out into the light.

"It's him," Suki whispered. "Do you still want me to apologize?"

Amila stopped as well, and followed her daughter's eyes to the house. "My God. He looks like that wizard. From those movies."

He looked, Suki saw, like Gandalf, from The Lord of the Rings. "You're right, mom! Holy shit!"

"Don't speak like that around me."

"So, do you want me to go talk to him?"

Amila looked at her daughter, at her outlandish costume, then she remembered her own. "No. You go home. I must speak to him."

"You're sure, Mom?"

"Yes. I am sure." The first band of heavy rain hit suddenly. "Now go!" She watched her daughter run up to their door and disappear inside, then she turned towards Carpenter's house. She saw him lifting a huge pumpkin, then saw him stop dead in his tracks as she came into the light. She saw him look at her face, at the round, black nose pasted over her own, at the hideously long mouse-whiskers that sprouted outward across her cheeks, then she saw him look at her fishnet stockings and high heels and she had to smile inside.

The rain was falling hard when she got up to him, and yet he simply stood there, looking at her, looking into her eyes.

"It's raining," she said after a long wait.

He jumped, as if coming out of a trance, and he looked around. "Yes. Would you like to come inside?"

"I would, yes."

He took her arm and led her up into his house, and from that moment on it was as if she was being led into another world.

The entry way, the walk itself, was thick glass, and a deep gray pool lay beneath her feet. She felt as if she was walking on water, yet even so she felt confined. The walls were compressing inward, the ceiling downward, then she came to the door and stepped inside.