Tone: excerpt from installment #6

While I was waiting for Tone to get off the phone, I had eavesdropped on Flack. So, I selectively applied what my mom had taught me about phone courtesy – don’t hover over somebody while they’re on the phone. I didn’t hover over Tone, but I did spy, gently and really out of earshot if you want to know the truth, on Flack.  Is that really eavesdropping, if you can’t hear anything? And since Flack wasn’t saying anything, I just watched him through his half-open office door and began to strain to try to hear something from the Tone call. Wasn’t hovering though.

Flack was on the phone with one of his west coast buddies. He was standing up at his desk, the dried flowers still a good distance above his head – Renoir’s brush collection drying in the rafters. Did Flack hang the dried flowers up, or did the Flackette help? Flack had recently added a barricade of potted violets to the edge of his desk. Living plants, in dirt, beautiful expensive pots in greys and milky blues, gorgeous black crazing, overflow trays, lamps, light meters and the whole bit.  If you got really close, you would see the note tacked to his desk: “10-12k lux. Red light-bloom. Blue light-photosyn.” If nothing else, Flack was a lunatic for details. The pots made an effective screen for Flack when he sat down. You couldn’t even see him.

Read the rest of installment #6