Verwandte Artikel zu A Thing (Or Two) About Curtis and Camilla

A Thing (Or Two) About Curtis and Camilla - Hardcover

Fowler, Nick

 
9780375421600: A Thing (Or Two) About Curtis and Camilla
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0375421602 ISBN 13: 9780375421600
Verlag: Pantheon Books, 2002

Inhaltsangabe

A novel about love and the search for meaning chronicles the rocky ups and downs of a downtown New York love story, from rock star wannabe Curtis's first encounter with the gorgeous Camilla, who becomes his obsession and his muse.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Nick Fowler, a musician, has written for <i>Metal Edge, Teen Beat,</i> and other illustrious magazines, and has appeared on <i>The Tonight Show</i> and <i>The Sopranos</i>. He grew up in Tallahassee, Florida, graduated from Cornell University, and now lives in Los Angeles with his dog, Luigi.

Aus dem Klappentext

It’s April in SoHo, and Curtis Birnbaum, thirty-three-year-old rock-star wannabe out for a stroll, spies gangly, gorgeous Camilla―soon to be his obsession, his songwriting muse, and the reason he does in fact need a record contract (and some health insurance). Their first meeting, like each episode in this year 2000 picaresque love story, is an exquisitely observed social and private moment: Camilla’s dachshund Phillip humps Curtis’s leg while Camilla writes her AOL address backward on Curtis’s forehead. As their tender and tentative relationship runs its course―-through witty e-mail questionnaires, marathon conversations in bed, and parental bonding over the winsome Phillip―-Fowler captures young love with comic and poignant precision.<br><br>Curtis, a hero as frank and self-critical as he is romantic, is cast into outer darkness by an unexpected breakup with Camilla. As he tries to figure out what went wrong (why did her cool blue eyes always signal a distracted aloofness?), he embarks on a series of hilarious East Village misadventures, from a nude modeling stint to a regrettable steamroom incident at CRUNCH gym to a destination he has only dreamed of: the top floor of Worldwide Plaza, where the record moguls preside.<br><br>Curtis and Camilla are children of the 1970s, products of broken homes who are searching for something meaningful in a world of downloading and dealmaking, hanging chads and recovering junkies. With their story, Nick Fowler, in passionate, wide-open prose that is blissfully entertaining throughout, tells us a thing or two about first love, heartbreak, and learning to leave the pain of youth behind.

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Chapter One
Just a Little Green

"I'm Little Green," she explained, in the ripe tone of Manhattan sophisticates. "Today I turned nine and a half and I'm your new neighbor."

"I'm Curtis," I admitted. "Happy half-birthday."

I wriggled from the straps of my gig bag to shake an earnest, outstretched hand-and for just a fraction of a second longer than might've been necessary, I held the wee of her palm, still soft to this world.

Little Green gave me an appraising squint. "Um, why are there calluses on your fingertips?" she wanted to know, like she'd caught me in a lie.

I strummed an air guitar.

"Oh," she went, slightly delighted, while we stood in the 'Nilla Wafer scent of her cardboard boxes. There were about a dozen of them blocking the dust-bunnied hall. I stepped over the largest and unlocked my Lilliputian studio, but as I was about to go inside, I felt Little Green looking into me.

"Were you named after that Joni Mitchell song?" I asked her over my shoulder.

"Yes," she said gravely. "It's about a girl who was given up for adoption, only I'm not adopted. It's my mom's favorite song."

I left my door ajar and fully faced my new acquaintance.

"So how much do you charge for guitar lessons?" she continued, sizing me up.

"For you?" I rubbed my chin (which badly needed shaving). "I'll do one for ten thousand dollars."

She rolled a set of voracious green eyes, looking far too large in her little blonde head. (I could see that the latter would catch up to the former as she began to break hearts.) "Come on, really," she insisted, all business.

"For the beautiful and talented Little Green? Make me blueberry pancakes someday and we'll call it a deal."

"All my mom can make is toast." She examined, then bit off, a cuticle. "Oh, and Cornish hens," she remembered, looking back up at me.

"Oh, they're tasty."

"Quite."

Little Green had on Diesel jeans, a tank top, and powder blue mules. She was gawky, nearly gorgeous-standing in that gangly limbo between girl and woman where they're still overwhelmed by their new, rude beauty.

And so wearing what someone (with whom I'll be overwhelming you and myself in just a minute) referred to as my uniform of black oil jeans and T-shirt, I asked my friend if she weren't married.

"No," she said, with totality, her nostrils flaring to tame what I hoped was a smile.

"Divorced then?" I said-and I immediately wished I hadn't.

She gazed down at a mule, which she then began revolving in front of her, ballerina style. "No, but my parents have been considering one since I was six." She crossed her extended foot over the vertical leg. "My dad says that's why I'm an only child."

"I am too," I said, over-eagerly. But then, in my coolest Cary Grant: "I guess we have them to thank for your lovely eyes."

"Rather."

She yawned, covering a dainty mouth only as it was closing. "Have you been to London, England? U.K.?"

I told her I'd studied there.

"We just got back. They call parakeets budgies."

"I hope you brought along a warm jumper," I said.

She gave me a shallow curtsy of a nod. "I get it." Then she looked at me carefully. "I write short stories, you know."

I told her that I'd actually just been thinking she was probably pretty gifted.

"I am. My dad says I'm extremely perceptive for my age. I have my own ascetic sense of abilities."

I asked her how she felt her writing was coming along.

"Comme ci, comme ça. That's French."

I told her I'd had a hunch it might've been.

"I've been in a bit of a writer's block, actually," she confided, inspecting her gnawed nails again. "Maybe you'd like to read a fairly recent rough draft of mine. I'd be kind of curious to get your take on it."

I told her I couldn't think of much else I'd rather do.

There was a pause. I thought I could see her eyes focusing on some far-off train of thought . . . and then, as it approached, ignoring it. "You have really thin lips, don't you?" she observed.

I cleared my throat and told her that I, personally, didn't really mind her saying so, but that someone with fewer tendencies to self-effacing might take offense to this kind of candor.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled, biting the corner of her own lower lip (which wasn't, for what it's worth, the least bit thin).

We stood there.

I looked at my wrist, where a watch would have been had I been a different kind of person.

"I'm sorry, Curtis," she said at last. "Really."

"Well, don't be," I suggested.

"Okay." She extended her little hand to me again.

"Okay, then," I said, shaking it, and we exchanged one of those stares that only The Movies would have us believe aren't useless.

"Can I call you Clyde?" she asked me, suddenly bouncing on her toes.

"Only if I can call you Stanley," I bargained.

"Stanley?" her nostrils dilated. "That's our dentist's name."

"Then in that case I guess it'll just have to be Walter."

"Walter?" she whined, but there was joy in her voice. "I bet you'll forget to," she reckoned.

"Why would you think that . . . Walter?"

At this, Little Green permitted me the first of what would be a long, bashful pageant of her beauty queen smiles. When it ended, she tilted her head . . .

"Are you lonely?"

I pretended to cough.

She shifted what slender weight she had from her left to right leg. Those emerald eyes were really sparkling at me. I sensed I wasn't going to get off so easy, what with having told her how unoffended I tended to get.

"Rather," I said, with a smile that felt more qualified than I'd wanted. "So, do you need help with those boxes?"

"Yes, actually. Thank you for offering." Reminded back to her task, my friend blew at her bangs. "And you should probably close your door," she suggested, tossing the bangs at it.

"Thanks," I said, closing it.

She swiped the glow from her brow with the back of an exquisite wrist, then hefted a box that dwarfed her, leaning back as she levered it into her empty apartment.

"Wow, you're really strong," I remarked, watching her waddle.

"I know," she sighed, dropping her box in the foyer before walking back to me. "Che Guevara Horowitz cried when I punched his arm in art. But he still wants to marry me."

"Who could blame him?"

Judging from her yuck mouth and trademark eye roll, Little Green could.

I slid my fingers under the bottom of a box-the largest-but stayed in my squat.

"And Che Guev always tries to kiss me," she continued, watching me.

"Who wouldn't?" I quickly wrinkled my brows into what I hoped was my most un-child-molesterish expression.

"Sammy Manna Sonnenberg. That's who. He's the only really sensible boy in my class. He's very much my type. But I explained to him that he'll just have to wait until I'm a bit more mature. Both physically and emotionally."

I told her that as far as things in this world being worth the wait went, I thought the above was probably right up there at the top of the list. Then I, an assiduous...

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Verlag
Pantheon Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2002
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0375421602
ISBN 13 
9780375421600
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Auflage
1
Anzahl der Seiten
398
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Verantwortliche Person
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