Dupont Circle - Hardcover

PAUL KAFKA-GIBBONS has reviewed books for major papers nationwide after winning the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for his first novel, Love <Enter>. Papers includethe New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Dallas Morning News. He is also a professional modern dancer and has performed with companies in Paris, Washington, D.C., New York, and Boston.

The Still Point of the Turning World

Jonathan Allard walks toward the fountain at the center of Dupont
Circle and, Jon has always thought, of the capital itself. Jon"s
theory that Dupont Circle is a paradise in the heart of the city and
the nation goes this way: In Dupont Circle poor meets rich, old meets
young, gay meets straight, native meets new arrival, and the peoples,
styles, and languages all squish together to form America. Love
begins here during morning rush hour with a glance. At midday,
political and religious evangelists stop passersby with a few words,
a petition, a holy book. In the afternoon, solo figures pursue
venture capital and real estate deals using tiny phones. In the
evening, dogs approach or snub one another. People find good food
nearby, designer and regular ice cream, coffee simple or embellished,
newsstands, movie theaters with smallish screens. All of this, in
Jon"s eyes, is persuasive.
But what conclusively distinguishes Dupont Circle from its
Parisian ancestors and Washington cousins are the dozen bookstores
within a few minutes" walk. Bookstores enough to gladden any newly
published author"s heart. Bookstores chain and independent, specialty
and general; large stores inventoried via satellite and corporate
projection, small stores inventoried according to individual whim.
Bookstores filled with thrillers and self-help books that sell like
hotcakes, and bookstores obstinately maintaining law, philosophy,
literature, and social history collections. Stores where books are as
surprised to find themselves rubbing up against each other as the
people who crisscross great Dupont Circle itself, queer theory thrust
into a briefcase alongside military biography, genetics text squeezed
into the same well-worn backpack with epistolary love story.
Dupont Circle, Jon maintains to friends when they complain
that the place has become commercialized, gentrified, Metro-station
dominated, is still perfect.
Y
He settles on one of Dupont Circle"s inner row of benches. The
fountain in front of him resembles a flying saucer, held aloft by two
Greek women in flowing robes and one scantily clad Greek man blowing
on a conch shell. Water pours from the saucer in a silky curtain into
the basin below.
Jon scans the crosswalks to the north and east for his
husband, Peter, and their little girl, Nita. Jon knows he has five
minutes, Peter punctual with a self-righteousness Jon finds, after
nine years, overly emphatic. Peter will, as always, wear that
expression that says, Yes, I"m exactly on time once again. Jon
himself is often late for dinner parties he and Peter are hosting, or
bike rides with his training buddies, or even, once or twice a
semester, seminars he is teaching. Jon is always sorry and promises
to try harder.
Peter and Nita will arrive from either of two directions.
Northwest lie Lambda Rising, Kramerbooks, Kulturas Books, and Jon"s
sister Valerie"s beautiful, sunless house on Decatur Street, where
Valerie lives with her eight-week-old, Sam. Nita, a big seven-year-
old, is Valerie"s first child. Jon and Peter have raised Nita since
she was a baby, when Valerie once again became an inpatient at
Chestnut Lodge in Rockville. Peter may have taken Nita to see Valerie
and Sam. Nita needs to get to know her baby brother. It is possibly
only a matter of weeks before baby Sam comes to live in Peter and
Jon"s Church Street row house. If they come from Valerie"s, Peter and
Nita will appear on Connecticut, among the crowd emerging from the Q
Street Metro exit, crossing from coffee corner toward the necklacepod
trees.
On the other hand, Peter may have skipped Valerie"s — who
can blame Peter for shying away from Jon"s sister without Jon along
to help? Peter may have gone to Bailey"s, Jon"s father"s house, just
about the last of the lovely patrician townhouses on O Street not yet
converted to condos, offices, or stores. On Friday afternoons, Bailey
and Nita often bake cookies and play gin rummy, while Peter slips
around the corner to Second Story Books, or upstairs to Bailey"s own
library to daydream, nap, read, or perhaps even write a word or two
in his current notebook. If they come from Bailey"s, Peter and Nita
will appear from the west, by the drugstore or the elliptically
curved office building. Jon scans both lines of approach. He waits
for the tulips to open.
Y
Whereas a moment before Jon was content, sunning, his legs stretched
in front of him, suddenly he is aware of how lonely he has been. Nita
spots him and comes running, Peter almost keeping pace, his chin up
as if to counterbalance the downward tilt of his long torso. Jon
lifts Nita, and kisses her. "How," Jon asks them, as if it"s been
weeks, not hours, "goes?"
"We made cookies," Nita reports. "I beat Grandpa five games
to two."
"We had a nice afternoon," Peter says.
"Cookies?"
"Oatmeal chocolate chip," Nita says, pillowing her head on
Jon"s shoulder.
"I"ll just try one now," Jon says, reaching into the bag
Peter carries. He munches and lugs Nita off toward home. "What did
you do in school?"
"We practiced minuses with checkers. Ms. Schwartz read us
Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle"s Bad Table-Manners Cure. We had mac-and-cheese
for lunch. We played Bombardment outside. We did Quiet Drawing. We
got New Words." And on and on, through the day, omitting no part of
her program. Ms. Schwartz is the sort of elementary school teacher
adored by all. She never raises her voice. She is not large of
stature, and she has bangs. The worst troublemakers, those who
reduced the first-grade teacher to tears, reform instantly when they
reach the second grade, so potent is Ms. Schwartz"s magic. "We made
pipe-cleaner art. I made Voltaire. I want to put him in The Gallery,
for five dollars."
Nita takes after Peter. She loves nothing more than telling
her whole story and selling her art. She has her own gallery space in
Peter"s home office and, of course, a Web site. Peter helps Nita
price her paintings, drawings, sculptures, and books. Voltaire, the
tawny tomcat, is often Nita"s subject. Relatives and friends
regularly buy her work. Peter, a novelist himself, insists this whole
process is vocational training.
"Bailey got a call from a second-year," Peter says.
"Does he sound all right?"
"It"s a woman."
"Oh," Jon says, setting Nita down and taking her hand to
cross to P Street. He and Peter decided that Bailey could use a
student in the house, currently occupied by only Bailey himself.
Bailey, now sixty-six, has long suggested that there should be other
occupants, or that he should sell the place. His children and
grandchildren all want the house to stay just as it is, with him
inside it. Jon assumed Bailey would find a man. A young woman living
in the house with his father disturbs him.
"I don"t think Caroline would object," Peter says.
"She"d be all for it," Jon says. His mother has been dead for
eight years. "What did Bailey tell you about her?"
"Louisa. He says she sounds very businesslike and
responsible. She"s an early riser. They"re meeting tomorrow."

Copyright © 2001 by Paul Kafka-Gibbons