That California Cut

“Let’s just stop here and admire that sucker.”

Marie and I were in the midst of standing under a single umbrella on the southwest corner of Mason and Sacramento looking up at the façade of The Mark Hopkins Hotel. It was raining, but not enough to ruin our good time. In fact, we were sort of enjoying it, slouched there on the corner across from the Fairmont and next to that sea-green laurel-leaf gate of The Flood Mansion with its scarred cinder walls. Maybe it was the stormy weather currently passing through town, but there wasn’t a tourist in sight — a rare thing around these parts.

“It is rather majestic, that son of a bitch, ain’t it? All mopey and sandy-stoned and runny windows.”

This was Marie’s unique way of commenting on architecture.

“Sure. When it gets to tinging all soft-boiled yolk and then turns to salmon in them crepuscular tones, well, it really is not nothing.”

“Right. Precisely.”

“These pluvial episodes of beatitude are roughly ours to share, still. Let’s…just…stand here.”

We stood beneath the umbrella’s berth of dry, chewing gum, holding hands, making up reasons in our heads why things would stay this way, in the pull of infatuation’s mood.