Rediscovery Read Free Page A

all stuff I could make. Not stuff I knew how to make, but stuff I could learn how to make. So I asked the owner if he’d be willing for me to leave some cards on the bar or in the bathroom or somewhere. He agreed, and that’s how I got started.”
     
    “So you aren’t into the leather scene?” Michael asked.
     
    Lee shook his head. “Afraid not. I hope you’re not disappointed. I’m really rather vanilla.”
     
    Michael smiled. “I’m not disappointed. Relieved might be the better word.”
     
    “I still love leather, and I love wearing it,” Lee said, “so it was easy to put together outfits for cons like this or visits to clubs that draw attention and show off my workmanship. People see what they want to see. If it helps my business, I’m all for it.”
     
    Michael could hardly argue with that when he had fallen into the same trap. “But if I wanted a leather wallet or satchel or something like that, you could make it too?”
     
    “Sure,” Lee said. “I still have all my grandfather’s old patterns, and the satchels especially are popular because they’re smaller than a briefcase or a backpack without being as feminine in appearance as a purse.”
     
    “Are most of your clientele men?” Michael asked.
     
    “About half and half,” Lee said. “I’ve got the web site divided into two catalogues at this point, although there’s some overlap, obviously, for items that could appeal to either gender.”
     
    The waitress interrupted once again with the meals, and they grew silent as they ate. When they finished, Michael said, “So what’s next?”
     
    “That depends on you,” Lee said, “but my suggestion would be to start with a trip to Hermann Park.”
     
    “Okay, why?” Michael asked.
     
    “Because it’s a beautiful place to walk at night,” Lee said. “Shakespeare in the Park is going on this weekend.”
     
    “You like Shakespeare?”
     
    “What’s not to like?” Lee asked. “He’s a brilliant comedian, and his tragedies are heart-wrenching.”
     
    “You’re full of surprises,” Michael said. “I keep thinking I have you figured out, and then you say something like that.”
     
    Lee shrugged. “I’m a pretty ordinary guy, really. I own my own business. I work the occasional weekend, but for the most part, it’s weekdays nine to five. I like to read, pretty much anything I can get my hands on. I travel when I can afford it and surf the Internet for ideas of places to go next when I can’t.”
     
    “And help out your fellow vendors at a con by playing with their kids,” Michael said. “That isn’t ordinary.”
     
    “It is when you grew up in the country,” Lee insisted. “My mother’s friends would come to visit with their kids in tow. As the oldest, I ran herd on all of them, from the one two months younger than me to the baby, when I was sixteen. I’m not sixteen anymore, but the habit hasn’t faded.”
     
    “You didn’t get tired of it?”
     
    “Not yet,” Lee said. The waitress brought their checks. They paid and Lee led Michael to the door. “You said you’d let me show you the world through a different set of eyes. Will you come walking with me?”
     
    “Why not?” Michael said, not really expecting much to come of it, but it couldn’t hurt. After all, drinking aside, how different could Lee’s view be from his own?
     

     

     
    By the time they reached Hermann Park, Michael had already started revising that opinion. Lee had chosen to drive down all the back streets instead of taking 59 like Michael would have done. They didn’t get there as quickly, but they saw so much more, with Lee pointing out a bungalow in Bellaire, the last one left on the street, and telling Michael about his mother’s parents who had lived in the area before it was fashionable and sharing his memories of visiting a little bungalow almost exactly like that one for years as a child. When his grandparents finally had to move into a nursing home, they had sold