Kelsey
Somewhere in the next few weeks, Bruno and I become one of those walking couples, as in, a couple
that walks all over the place, endlessly, for no particular reason. I’ve always been a walker; it’s part
movement fix, part people study— I’ll clock someone’s posture crossing Fifty-Seventh, file it away, and
find it six months later when I want a certain attitude onstage.
And as for Bruno, he may have everything he wants flown onto his yacht, but you can’t import a nice
long walk onto a boat. And along with walking comes talking. Things we hope to do someday, things we
regret. Everyday dramas, like my difficulties with certain moves and friction with certain people in the
show, and Bruno’s clients who he may or may not make watches for—he really thinks about it, whether
they’re worthy of a watch.
Listening to him, I get the feeling that when he makes a watch for somebody, it’s almost like they’re
connected for life. Sometimes he’ll update me on his ongoing battle with some tiny component that I can
never retain the name of. He has very massive opinions about some very tiny bits of metal, that’s for sure.
I adore it. I don’t think I could be with somebody who wasn’t intense and passionate about something.
I love it so much in him that sometimes I drag him to a jewelry store window where there are fine watches
just to get him
going on how badly certain popular watch brands are made. I’ve also become fascinated by his time at
the military boarding school, Fenmore Academy, where he and his brothers were sent along with kids
from all over the world. They had room inspections and bugle calls instead of alarm bells and they learned
things like Latin and how to twirl a gun—which he demonstrated one night in the apartment with the bat,
to the immense delight of Lola, Sienna, and me.
I haven’t stopped thinking about his mother, though, this woman out there in Cerro Miel, New
Mexico, working behind a gas station counter. What the hell is going on with that whole thing?
He thinks his PI told him everything he needs to know about her. I can’t help thinking he’s wrong.
One afternoon when we’re waiting for our order at Greta’s cheese counter, I bring it up again. “Is it
possible there’s another side to the story?”
“Sometimes people’s actions speak louder than their words ever could,” he says.
I leave it alone.