Lovesick Little

by Leslie Phelan

  Unbeknown to them, Arielle had been present all the while, watching from the backseat of Gabriel’s Jeep. As she hid beneath the car blanket, she enviously eyed the pretty daisies in Erica’s hand. She was sure they would have driven to their date that night but when she saw them take off running down the moonlit beach, she climbed out and scurried sneakily along after them.

  Erica didn’t care if he was leading her to a swamp to dig for severed hands, she was just ecstatic to be alone with him. Half a mile down the beach, they ducked into a narrow bush path that led them towards the thick of a forest. It was dark in there but in swatches of moonlight, she was able to sneak glances into the basket. There was a baguette and that was promising for where there is bread there is always cheese and where there is cheese there is often wine. A glimmer of gold sticker caught her eye from deep inside. It looked like a champagne bottle. Champagne! How nice!

  The deeper into the woods they ventured, the narrower the path became before it had them maneuvering around thick branches and barreling through spindly vines, catching spider webs in their faces. Arielle followed them closely, staying low and stepping lightly. She was almost more curious than Erica to learn what Gabriel was planning.

  In the evening’s humidity, Erica felt the hair she had so laboriously brushed and blow-dried pay homage to the wild, wiry underbrush that whipped their ankles as they dashed through. Gabriel held her hand tightly as he ran, and behind him, she floated, barely touching the ground. Drops of tree sap hit her hair and dress and falling pine needles and leaves adhered themselves. The time she spent bathing and primping suddenly seemed silly, for she should have known there’d be nothing ordinary about this date. Only during boring dates can any hairstyle maintain its integrity, and only after ordinary dates can a red dress escape without needing a dry cleaning.

  Deeper down the path, Gabriel asked if she recognized anything, for they’d explored every inch of the forest as children.

  “These woods are vaguely familiar, but I’ve still got no clue where you’re taking me,” she admitted, swatting bugs off her legs while looking up at the tall conifers. “Fun hike though!” she said cheerfully, wiping the sticky glow from her forehead.

  “We’re almost there,” he said, stopping dead in his tracks and spinning back to face her. “Kiss me,” he demanded softly, squeezing her hand as he pulled her in. She closed her eyes and leaned into him, pressing her lips to his and, opening her mouth just wide enough to taste his tongue, inhaled some of his sweet breath. To her, his breath was always sweet. She wondered if it really was, or if she was just physically incapable of perceiving anything about him as less than perfect, delicious, desirable. “We’re almost there,” he repeated once again before turning to lead her a little further. In a matter of seconds, their narrow path opened up into a bright, moon-lit clearing, and Gabriel set the basket down signaling to her that they’d arrived. Beneath their feet grew fluffy green moss that was soft as a mattress and covered the ground like a blanket. She kicked her boots off and stood in it, cooling her sweaty feet in the refreshing, dense mat. That feeling, combined with the damp, woodsy scent of the clearing jogged her memory in an unexpected way. Suddenly she remembered being in that exact same spot before, but couldn’t remember when or why but was sure it would all come together soon enough. And while she and her date spread their picnic blanket and loosened the cage around the champagne cork, a sneaky, swift Arielle scaled the trunk of a maple tree to spy on them from high in its branches, concealed by a thick of red leaves.

  Now watching from high above, she could see everything. While Gabriel unpacked their picnic, Erica ran her fingers through her hair trying to smooth out the tangles. Arielle watched her with seething envy as she made slight aesthetic improvements and in a quick decision to thwart her efforts, she grabbed an egg from the bird’s nest on the branch next to her and whipped it hard down at Erica’s head. As it descended upon her rival with expert precision, Arielle began to regret throwing it, and prayed that all that was inside was yolk and goo and not a partially-developed hatchling because that would have been morbid. She winced as it made contact.

  “OWWW! MY GOD!” Erica howled as she ducked down to the blanket to take cover from whatever gross, gooey hard things were suddenly falling from the sky. Gabriel turned around in shock but once he got a good look at her, began to laugh hysterically. Arielle kept her eyes covered.

  “An egg has fallen on my head, hasn’t it?” Erica asked as she began to laugh. Once the initial shock wore off, she realized she wasn’t really in any sort of pain. “Go figure,” she said, “I spend five minutes in the woods, and already eggs are dropping on my head.”

  “I’d take it as a good omen!” said Gabriel cheerfully. “I bet that happens even less frequently than lightning strikes!”

  Arielle finally peered out and was relieved to see that it was just yolk. She ceased being regretful and resumed being spiteful. Erica toweled off her yolky hair with a cloth napkin as Arielle snickered to herself up in the tree, for she was sure she’d managed to kill their mood . . .

  Except that she definitely hadn’t. The smashed egg did not stop Gabriel from pulling plates of fruits and cheeses out, and it certainly didn’t slow him down from lighting a few tea candles and popping the champagne bottle. Having filled two plastic flutes with bubbly, he then toasted to their lifelong friendship.

  “Erica, do you remember when we were little, like six or seven, and used to be obsessed with the idea that all the clocks would stop at Y2K and the world would come to a screeching halt?” She smiled

  – she did remember, and excitedly she recounted ideas they shared on how to re-invent things to be millennium proof. They laughed about how seriously they’d once bought into it, and about the preparations they’d made for the unlikely event of such an apocalypse.

  “A time capsule?!” she asked him. “We made a time capsule together?”

  “We sure did!” he replied. “And we filled it with things we feared might be scarce in a post-millennial wasteland.”

  Erica searched her memory for a moment before squealing with elation. Sometimes she squealed loudly and piercingly when she got overly excited or had a great idea. It was an involuntary reflex, for she never knew a squeal was on its way until it was halfway out and already deafening those nearby. It could have been somewhat embarrassing for her if the moments that typically inspired such squeals weren’t always so overwhelmingly wonderful. She had forgotten all about that time capsule, but it sounded exactly like something they would have done. “We buried it for our future selves in case we survived the millennium, but if we didn’t, then it was for future earthlings, right?!” He nodded. The whole concept was endlessly entertaining to them, for as fun as it was to make and bury the capsule all that time ago, being present for the unearthing several years later was a hundred times more magical, especially since they’d forgotten most of what they put inside. They sipped their champagne and tried to remember.

  When the food was done and the bottle was almost empty, Gabriel pulled out a tattered old crayon-drawn map and a set of garden spades. The map showed an X drawn over the very tree they were sitting under. “The time capsule is here?” she asked him, laughing as she picked a blob of tree sap from her arm and flicked an insect from her hair.

  “Shall we dig?” he asked. She nodded, downed her last bit of champagne, and they began.

  Arielle watched with confusion, straining to see what they were digging for at the base of that tree. After about ten minutes of scooping the dirt around the thick, spindly roots, their spades finally touched upon something hard. Carefully, they excavated the earth around it until they could wiggle it free from its hole. “My Ninja Turtles lunch box!” he exclaimed excitedly as he brushed dirt away and began peeling at the tape with which they’d sealed it. Then he sat it down between them and they savored the anticipation before popping it open.

  Erica brushed the dirt from her arms. “I can’t believe we’re doing this right now! It’s lik
e we’re about to open a gift from a former version of ourselves . . . what a cool feeling!”

  “It really is!” he replied, reaching down to pop open the plastic latch. Inside, sitting on top of everything and looking exactly the way they did when she put them in, were her prized Beanie Babies, a bull and a horse. “Tabasco and Whinny!” she squealed as she hugged them. “You guys look good as new!” She kissed their snouts then set them aside to rifle for more treasures. Gabriel’s prized baseball and Pokemon cards sat next to a wooden boomerang and a plastic slingshot. “I guess you thought you’d be doing some hunting!” she remarked.

  “This thing could take down a bald eagle,” he said, holding up his performance slingshot. “And this thing could behead a deer!” he said as he posed dangerously with his boomerang. Erica moved aside a VHS copy of The Land Before Time (a movie they had both loved since they were tiny) and found her favorite tube of glittery marshmallow Lip Smacker. She brought it to her nose and sniffed its glittery applicator. “Mmm, it still smells exactly the same!” She closed her eyes and inhaled its scent deeply, the way she always used to. But even though it smelled sweet and marshmallow-y as ever, she decided against putting it on. After all, it had been buried in the ground a long time.

  Gabriel pulled out a baggie full of assorted lollipops and bubble gum. He pulled apart its zip-lock right under his nose and smiled blissfully as he inhaled the sugary medley of candy that had been stewing in there for so long. “Smells like a birthday party loot bag,” he said. “Weren’t those the days? Candy, all the time.”

  Erica took a sniff from the candy bag too. “Those were the days,” she answered woefully. She didn’t mean to be a downer, but it was sometimes difficult for her to reflect on the days of her youth without deeply missing both her parents. Gabriel could tell she was thinking of them because the same dreamy look seemed to cross her face whenever a happy memory left her full of longing. He wrapped his arms around her, and she rested her face on his strong chest in the musk of his skin and crisp scent of his deodorant. He was the closest thing to family she had left, and she treasured him. He wanted to be everything to her.

  Then she glanced at the lunch box and noticed an envelope tucked beside a stack of Pogs and pictures. All it read was E + G. Now very curious, she carefully tore the end of it open to find a document hand-written in purple marker that said CONTRACT across the top. “Interesting . . .” she said as she began to read:

  CONTRACT This contract is to ensure that Erica Emery + Gabriel O’Faolain, if neither are married by the time they’re 21, shall agree to marry each other and have scores of neat kids who they’ll raise to be nice people who are really good at sports, storytelling, and inventing cool stuff. Most importantly, both parties agree to fall in love and stay in love forever, even though Erica snores like a raging bull and Gabriel has the toes of an ogre. Signed,

  Erica Anne Emery & Gabriel Jacob O’Faolain Spit sworn on: May 30, 1997 Erica began to laugh nervously. It was all coming back to her like a barrage of old excitement - she remembered signing the contract and imagining what it would be like, years from then, when she and Gabriel would finally make good on it. They had written it up on a night just like this one, where summer celebrations abounded but, same as this night, they only wanted to hang out with each other. And while their families lit sparklers and roasted hot dogs on the fire, they had taken off together down long wooded trails to bury secret troves filled with their most exclusive hopes and promises. “We were crazy kids, weren’t we?” she asked into his dear, dark eyes.

  But she knew they weren’t really crazy, just lucky, for they were and always had been like a pair of twin flames. “So I guess we’re getting married this year!” she said with a laugh. “It appears that we’re contractually bound!”

  “I guess so,” he replied, amused. “Now would that be the very worst thing?”

  “No way!” she replied quickly, and kissed him on his stubbly cheek. “I’d marry you and this face of yours in a heartbeat.” Thinking nothing more of it for the moment, she went back to digging through the capsule and pulled out a three-pack of Kinder eggs that looked surprisingly like they had retained their oviform. When she turned to show him, she saw him pull a little silver box out of the basket. She gasped. It looked like an antique, well-cared for and shiny, with delicate brass hinges and etched in a floral design. Undoubtedly, it held something old and important.

  Erica didn’t want to presume the box held a ring, because, she told herself, a box like that could carry a number of things. Like perhaps earrings, or maybe a Titanic-era brooch. It sure looked like a ring box though. But why would he have a ring box? She briefly considered that perhaps it held matches, or after-dinner mints.

  But then he began presenting, the way men in movies always do, holding it up with both hands, fingers poised to pop it open. Erica held her breath as he cracked it at the hinge, allowing in just enough moonbeam that the stones inside caught the light and dazzled with prismatic glimmer. She asked herself if she was dreaming, but in doing so, acknowledged she wasn’t. Nope, this is real life, and I am the luckiest bitch alive.

  “Erica,” he started as she stared amorously, glancing down at the ring in disbelief. “I’ve loved you since we were kids, and I’ve spent the last twelve years without you, looking for someone just like you. Now that you’re back in my life, I can’t imagine letting you go.” Erica felt her head getting light as she sat perfectly still, afraid to move or do anything that might jinx her fairy tale moment. The ring was elegant and simple, with its modest teardrop diamond and a little emerald on either side. It was perfectly imperfect, for the diamond was riddled with inclusions and the emeralds looked mossy and showed dark veins throughout. But she loved it, and it was for her, more than any VVS stone would ever be. If it was from him, then it was exactly what she wanted.

  “I know we’re young,” he continued softly, plucking the ring from its velvet casing and setting the box down. “But we can do anything together, Erica, we have the whole rest of our lives!” And without even waiting for her answer, he slipped it on her finger. A perfect fit. “So I guess what I’m asking is, how do you feel about being my very best friend and hanging with me ‘til the end?” Erica slowly began to unfreeze herself from the pose she’d been holding. Every word he spoke was like honey to her ears. “It’s beautiful,” she said, feeling tears well up in her eyes. “It’s so beautiful, Gabe. I love it.”

  “It was my grandmother’s,” he said as he held her hand up to admire it on her. “I know it doesn’t look like the rings most girls today expect, but believe me, this one’s full of good luck! Every marriage that began with this ring has been strong, happy, and healthy, and has ended in matching burial plots, or, in the case of Betts and Old Pops, ashes sprinkled over the same lilac bush. That’s all I really want, and I want it all with you. I want to keep you, Erica.” Gabriel looked at his fiancée with misty eyes. With egg yolk in her hair and bug bites on her arms, she was still the coolest thing he’d ever seen. “And by ‘keep you’,” he added, “I don’t mean it in like a proprietary way, just in a way that means you’d be for me to hold.” He smiled earnestly, just a boy asking a girl sincerely if she’d like to love him.

  Erica swallowed the words he’d spoken like a gulp of sweetest nectar. “Gabriel,” she started, still in disbelief, “I don’t know what to say, except . . . yes! Yes, of course I’ll marry you! You’re the one; it can’t be any other way!” She looked down at the ring on her finger, then planted a kiss on his lips. “I want to keep you, too,” she whispered. She pulled away just far enough that she could look him in his eyes through the pale white light. “And when I say I want to keep you, you should know I mean it in a very proprietary way.” She smiled and winked at him, her handsome newly betrothed. “You’ll be the sweetest thing I’ll ever own.” Excitedly and with another ear-piercing squeal, she threw herself into his arms and they tumbled down across the blanket, all giddy and grateful and lapping up each other’s adoration. Life wa
s sweet and the moment was gorgeous; neither one had ever been so happy.

  Arielle, still watching from above, felt dead inside. Her only wish and hope in life was dissipating more with their every kiss. It was over for her; the curtains were closing. She thought seriously for a moment about jumping from where she was perched, headfirst straight down to the ground. But even though her fate was sealed anyway and a quick death would be far less painful, she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

  Suddenly feeling like a creepy voyeur watching from a tree as they made out, she climbed down quietly and left the two lovers to grope each other in peace. She was very sad, and felt very alone as she walked the soft path back out to the beach. All this time, she had hated Erica for coming in and taking what was hers when the truth of the matter all along was that Gabriel’s heart had been Erica’s since long before Arielle had ever laid eyes on him. It was a hard pill for the mermaid to swallow, for it left her with no options, no love, and nothing to do but wait until the day she’d silently slip away.

  By the time the newly-engaged couple made it back to the house, the family was well into a game of Monopoly on the living room rug. Arielle was already effortlessly winning, the owner of all four railroads and with two hotels on each of her top-notch properties. This was much to the chagrin of Ava, who kept landing on them. It was a loud, boisterous foray into board-game real estate but when Erica and Gabriel walked in the front door holding hands, all fell silent and everyone looked up. After a few seconds of frozen stares, Gabriel made his announcement: “She said yes! We’re getting married!” Everybody cheered and jumped up to hug them, and to admire how their Grandmother’s sparkler looked on the next O’Faolain bride. The house was lit up with warm congratulations and everybody toasted to the future of their family. The only person in the room still sitting on the rug was Arielle.