Porträts in Worten

Shira had been inside the fair for four minutes when she realized, with some irritation, that she was having a good time.

This was unacceptable.

The building had once been a furniture warehouse and still looked faintly prepared to resume that function at any moment. High windows ran along one brick wall. Steel beams crossed the ceiling. Folding tables had been arranged in long rows beneath hanging signs marked VINYL, AUDIO, CAMERAS, GAMES, and, for reasons no one had explained, MISC. FORMAT.

The air smelled like coffee, old cardboard, warm electronics, and the particular dusty sweetness of record sleeves that had spent several decades in basements.

From somewhere near the entrance, a stereo was playing New Order.

From somewhere else, somebody was testing a cassette deck with what sounded like Steely Dan.

A third booth was playing ska at a volume that suggested a personal grievance.

Shira adjusted the strap of her bag and kept walking.

“This is amazing,” Sumi said.

Shira looked at her.

“You've been here three minutes.”

“I know.”

Sumi was standing in front of a table containing portable radios, alarm clocks, a translucent purple telephone, and several appliances whose purposes had apparently been forgotten by history.

She picked up a squat orange object with a cord.

“What is this?”

Freya glanced over.

“Fondue pot.”

Sumi stared at it.

“You can have a machine just for fondue?”

“You can have a machine for almost anything.”

Shira would usually rather stay home.

Sumi has already made plans for everyone.

Freya has found a way to measure the results.

Somehow, they are still friends.

Shira, Sumi, and Freya keep ending up in places none of them quite expected: beaches, restaurant kitchens, vintage-media fairs, competitions, trips, and eventually perhaps a few places considerably stranger than those.

The stories can be read individually, but they also build on one another. If you’re new to the three of them, publication order is the best place to start.

The Friends

Shira

Shira likes black clothes, old technology, AFI, and situations in which nobody expects her to participate.

She carries an old iPod, keeps her smartphone monochrome, and has a well-developed instinct for finding the objectionable part of any cheerful group activity. She is also usually the first person to notice when someone else is scared, embarrassed, or being overlooked.

She would prefer that this last fact not become a topic of discussion.

Sumi

Sumi does not so much invite people places as inform them where everyone is going.

She is cheerful, impulsive, almost completely without a filter, and an astonishing cook. Unfortunately for Freya, Sumi does not consider extraordinary culinary talent evidence that she should immediately establish a restaurant group.

Unfortunately for Sumi, Freya does.

Freya

Freya is training to become an elite rower and approaches everyday life with the troubling suspicion that most things could be improved with timing data.

Sumi had been at the summer festival for six minutes when she realized they were eating incorrectly.

“We need a plan,” she said.

Shira stopped beneath a string of paper lanterns.

“No.”

“You don’t know what the plan is.”

“You said we need one.”

Freya unfolded the festival map.

“What are we optimizing?”

“Food,” Sumi said.

Shira looked from one of them to the other.

“I’m going home.”

The festival occupied four blocks around the old town square. There were food stalls, musicians, local artists, children carrying glowing plastic swords, and a man on stilts dressed as what Sumi believed was either a heron or an extremely disappointed angel.

The air smelled of grilled corn, frying dough, woodsmoke, and sugar.

Sumi had already eaten half a plum pastry.

It did not count. She had bought it before realizing they needed a plan.

“We have to pace ourselves,” she explained. “If we eat the filling things first, we won’t be able to try everything.”

“We are not trying everything,” Shira said.

Sumi looked at her.

Shira wore a loose black dress despite the heat, black boots, and the expression of someone who had been brought to the festival as part of a court-ordered rehabilitation program.

“We can’t try literally everything,” Sumi conceded.

“Thank you.”

“There are two stalls selling kettle corn.”

Shira closed her eyes.

Freya was studying the map.

“We should begin with the north side,” she said. “Highest concentration of small portions. Then the eastern block before the dinner rush.”

Shira had been at the beach for eleven minutes when Sumi announced that she was healing.

“I can see it happening,” Sumi said.

Shira lowered her sunglasses. “What?”

“Healing.”

“From what?”

Sumi gestured broadly at her.

They were standing outside a small rental cottage two blocks from the water. Sumi had already changed into shorts and a blue camisole and was carrying a canvas bag containing sunscreen, three oranges, a paperback she would not open, two bottles of water, and enough food to survive a minor maritime disaster.

Freya had gone back inside because she had forgotten her running watch.

Shira regarded Sumi for several seconds.

“I’m going home.”

“You can’t. Freya has the car keys.”

“I’ll walk.”

“It’s four hours.”

“I have music.”

This was true. An old silver iPod Classic was clipped inside Shira’s bag, its scratched back polished smooth in places from years of use.

Sumi brightened. “Perfect! A healing walk.”

Shira put her sunglasses back on.

Freya came out of the cottage already wearing her watch.

“I found a seven-kilometer loop for tomorrow morning,” she said.

“Of course you did,” said Shira.

“It follows the coast.”

“That almost makes it sound recreational.”

“It is recreational.”

“You timed yourself brushing your teeth yesterday.”

“That was an experiment.”

Sumi took Shira by the wrist. “Come on. Ocean.”

They started toward the beach.

Shira had agreed to this trip six weeks earlier, at dinner, under conditions she now regarded as legally questionable. Sumi had made dumplings with roasted mushrooms, scallions, and something involving browned butter that neither Shira nor Freya had expected to work. It had been astonishing. Freya had told her she could sell them for eighteen dollars a plate. Sumi had looked horrified.

I sit at my desk with a sense of quiet anticipation, prepared to share with you a piece of writing that means a great deal to me—a piece written by my grandfather, Gordon Alfredson, born on June 26, 1930, in Meriden, Connecticut. His father was an immigrant from the rural area of Västergötland, Sweden, and though the man himself was a man of few words, the legacy he left behind can be felt in every sentence that follows. My grandfather was a man who carried himself with a quiet dignity, an engineer’s meticulous attention to detail, and a love of jazz music that colored his days with notes of improvisation and joy.

Though he never attended college, he was, in his own way, an educated man. He was the sort of man who believed in reading, in the value of civic discussions, and in fixing what needed fixing, both in the world and within himself. He belonged to a generation of working men—he spent his entire career at Ryerson, a steel company in his hometown—who took pride in their work and in the simple act of building something with their own hands.

It occurs to me that in these days, a time so different from his, some may regard men of his background as closed-minded, or even hostile to new ideas. Yet I believe his story shows another side of that world—a time when a man could be blue-collar and still carry a mind open to reflection, curiosity, and growth. My grandfather’s life reminds me that it was not always the case that lines were drawn so sharply between thinking and doing, between working with one’s hands and expanding one’s mind.