by Renee Hart
“Is he gone?” Jessica could hear Chleo whisper from the back room. The door was open just a crack, and Jessica could see Chleo’s big brown eyes. That made her laugh.
“He’s gone. He was actually really sweet. Just totally nervous about a first date,” Jessica said.
Chleo emerged from the back room and eyed Jessica.
“Yeah, I heard. If he comes back again this week, I’ll know for sure that he’s crazy.”
Chleo adjusted the white headband that she wore. Her hair was thick and curly, and if she didn’t tie it back, it would be flowing freely about her face and shoulders. Sometimes she did keep it out, but to her, it was a hassle having to keep brushing it back so that it didn’t get in the way.
“You think everyone’s crazy huh?” Jessica asked. She was almost Chleo’s exact opposite physically. It hadn’t always been that way. When the two met in high school, they were both medium height, and a bit thick with long curly hair. They were known as the yin yang sisters because Jessica was pale, and Chleo was dark, and they rarely were seen without the other one by their side.
Now, after almost 15 years, Jessica looked completely different. She was a very late bloomer. She grew several inches taller than Chleo and lost a bit of weight. She straightened and dyed her frizzy ginger hair a kind of soft black, which made her icy blue eyes stand out.
Chleo stayed pleasantly plump and had a beautiful personality to match her beautiful face. She was always making everyone laugh and she had dimples in both of her cheeks. They were still as close as sisters after all this time, and they opened Any Blooming Thing together when they were 26. Chleo had moved to the city to be closer to Jessica, and everything turned out perfectly.
“Hell yeah I think everyone’s crazy. Do you know the city we live in?”
“I feel like if you had a gun you’d be the shoot first and ask questions never type.”
“See that’s not fair. You’re only saying that because you know me.”
Jessica doubled over with laughter. Chleo was a trip.
“I bet you I can find one decent man in this city,” Jessica said when she finally stopped laughing.
“Ok, and when you find him, ask him if he has a brother or a friend,” Chleo giggled.
“Yeah, but I don’t even know where to look.”
Chleo looked outside the window of the store. The majority of the front wall was a window, and a red dutch door that had a large foggy glass pane on the top half of it.
Just then, a tall blonde man walked by. His face was toward the street, but there was something vaguely familiar about him. Jessica leaned forward, like that would get him to turn his face around. She was sure that she knew him from somewhere. Just seeing the back of his head made her entire body tingle with curiosity.
“Hmm,” Chloe said thoughtfully. “What about…him?”
Chapter Two
Jessica noticed the tall blonde again the next afternoon. He was on his phone so his hand was covering the majority of his face, but there was definitely something about him. She felt drawn to him for some reason. Something seemed very familiar; like Jessica may have known him. Was it possible that she could have met him before? It was a huge city after all, and there were a lot of tall men with butter blonde hair walking around.
The blonde stranger’s hair was short, but long enough to gel and style the front tip. He was wearing the same black jacket that he had worn the day before, and a pair of faded jeans. Jessica only saw him for a second when he walked by, but she felt such a strong pull. Her heartbeat sped up when she saw him, and she shrank into her chair. She was avoiding someone she didn’t even know.
For someone who was as bold and open as she was, going up to meet someone and maybe ask for a date was practically unheard of. Since she was a late bloomer, it had taken her a bit of time to get used to the attention and the stares and compliments. She still had an issue with her esteem, but having Chleo around helped. She and Chleo could laugh off any situation, and Chleo had always told Jessica that she was beautiful.
Jessica needed her best friend in this big city. She wouldn’t be able to navigate through the city or know how to run her business without Chleo being there with her.
“I’m heading out to lunch,” Chleo said. It was a slow day at Any Blooming Thing. There were some people who window shopped, or came in to peruse, but it was a slow time of year. No one was really in the mood to buy flowers save for strange science teachers going on first dates.
“Would you bring me back something?” Jessica asked. She was sitting at the computer checking through emails, and ordering some flowers for the next week. Chleo nodded, and wrapped a silver scarf around her neck. It wasn’t cold, but Chleo always liked to look fabulous, and she always did.
“I think I want pizza. Or maybe some pasta. I don’t even know. I’m starving and I want sauce and cheese,” Jessica said, almost salivating. She didn’t have a big breakfast that morning. She was running late for work and she’d only had a coffee and half of a bagel with some cream cheese on it.
“Sbarros it is,” Chleo said. Jessica’s eyes were back on the computer, but she signaled Chleo with a thumbs up to let her now that that was ok.
Chleo stepped out of the store and headed down the street. Knowing her, she’d be gone for an hour and a half looking for shoes as she ate. Jessica didn’t mind. She liked that it was quiet right now. She could keep track of her work, and not think about the mysterious butter blonde who kept walking by the store.
Did he work close by? Would he ever come into the store? Jessica let out a sigh of exasperation and leaned back in her office chair. She didn’t have time to ponder about a guy whose face she hadn’t even seen. She had work to do, and she knew she would be too nervous to just go out and ask him out if he ever walked by the store again.
Now she wished she had been the one to go out. She had a lot on her mind, but at the same time there was nothing on her mind. She didn’t know what that meant, but a walk would have been a nice way to sort out her thoughts.
“This is ridiculous,” Jessica muttered to no one. She distracted herself by scrolling through pages and pages of chrysanthemums. “I can’t be thinking of a faceless guy. That’s insane.”
Jessica’s eyes widened at the thought and continued to whisper to herself, “Oh my god…this city’s making me insane.”
She laughed and calmed herself down.
“The best way to figure out if you’re insane is to talk to yourself and get an answer.”
She puffed out her cheeks and let out a whoosh of air. She looked up and outside. The street was a little busy. Some people paused to look inside, but they were mostly stopping to use the window as a mirror to fix their hair or reapply lip gloss.
Jessica stared out a bit longer, wondering what everyone was doing with their day, and what brought them to this side of town at this very moment.
And then she saw him.
She recognized the black jacket right away, and the way that his blonde hair caught the sunlight. It was like shining light through translucent gold.
He was holding a bright green paper coffee cup in one hand, and a donut in the other. Jessica could see that it was from the coffee shop that had recently just opened up the street. His face was turned away, but then he finally looked up and over at the flower shop. He slowed down his walk to peer inside. Then he paused for a moment; squinting his eyes against the glare of the glass that was being illuminated by the rays of the sun.
And that’s when Jessica’s heart stopped and practically jumped out of her chest. She did know him! That was why he seemed so familiar to her when she first saw him and why she was so drawn to him.
It was Alfie Reynolds.
Chapter Three
“Alfred Reynolds is perfect,” Jessica swooned when she spoke. Her hand was wrapped around a light post, and she twirled and daydreamed about him.
“So perfect that you have to say his full name, huh?” Chleo shook her head and watched Jessica twirl. They wer
e in their Junior year of high school. Jessica had had a crush on Alfie Reynolds almost as long as her friendship with Chleo. But Jessica was the silly and awkward part of the “weird yin yang duo”. That’s what people called them in school. They were the class clowns, and people liked them, but not liked enough to date or invite to parties unless the person knew them personally or had to invite the entire grade.
“What makes him extra perfect now?” Chleo asked. She didn’t want to talk about him, but if it would get Jessica to stop dreamily dancing around with a light post then she was willing to do anything.
Jessica let go of the post she was holding, and they continued to walk down the street towards their homes. Chleo lived a little further out than Jessica, but it was only by a 10 minute walk or so. They lived in a relatively quiet town. It was small enough for people to know of other people living there, but large enough so gossip didn’t spread around like wildfire.
“We spent all of after school talking,” Jessica said. She had stayed late that day at school to wait for Chleo to finish with her softball practice. Jessica wasn’t really into sports. She liked anything that had to do with visual arts. Chleo seemed to be on a mission to try everything on earth at least once. She was on the debate team, the softball team, the captain of the school math team, and if she had more time in the day, she would be in Chemistry Club and drama. She also managed to be in the top 3 of her class.
“Don’t you guys kinda talk all the time anyway?” Chleo asked.
“Yeah,” Jessica said a bit defensively. “But it was different this time!”
“How?” Chleo said, narrowing her eyes.
“Well, if you shut up for a sec, I’ll tell you…”
*
Jessica was running late. In her mind anyway. She was supposed to meet Alfie in the art room right after school. She walked Chleo out onto the field, and they chatted for a bit. It was only 7 minutes after the bell rang, but to Jessica that meant she was late. This was the first time that she had Alfie all to herself…as a partner for an English project.
She made it to the empty physics lab that they agreed to meet, but he wasn’t there yet. He didn’t arrive for another 10 minutes. He apologized profusely, but he never explained what it was that was keeping him so long.
“I’m actually glad we got Macbeth,” Alfie said with a grin. His eyes were the sort of blue that sometimes turned green or turned grey depending on the weather or the color of the shirt that he wore. He wore glasses, because his eyesight was hopeless, and he wasn’t a fan of contacts. For some reason, that made a lot of the girls swoon over him more. He was dreamy, but also seemed like a real person because he had glasses.
“That’s a curse,” Jessica said with mock shock. Her mouth widened, but she laughed.
“I mean, I’m glad we got the play about the Scottish King.”
“Why is that?” Jessica asked. Everyone at school knew that she had a crush on Alfie, she was even sure that Alfie knew. He pretended not to notice, and she didn’t act on her feelings. She treated him like everyone else.
“Because it’s about a strong female character who is an antagonist…”
“Yeah, but isn’t it sexist about the power hungry controlling wife who ends up being crazy?”
“Fair point…but she stuck by her man,” Alfie’s eyebrows raised as if to prove a point. The corners of his mouth curled up into a knowing smile, and he nodded to acknowledge his own strange genius. Jessica shook her head and tried to hide a laugh.
“She stuck by him and then went nuts.”
“I mean she lasted as long as she could. They were actually married though. It wasn’t as shallow as Romeo and Juliet,” Alfie argued.
“What exactly are you saying?”
“Saying that if you were my girl, I’d hope you’d stick around to do messed up things with me…then maybe go crazy. I’d like that better than some love story suicide pact. That just sounds unhealthy.”
“Your girl?” Jessica didn’t know what to say. The question was barely audible, but it made her mind reel.
“Yeah. You seem like the Lady Mac…Scottish Queen type.”
“Why? Because I’m nuts?” Jessica tried to hide her emotions by being silly. She didn’t know the right words to say about this.
“No, because you’re a ride or die. And you make me laugh. Not a lot of people have done that since Mitch Hedberg died,” Alfie said.
“Well I’m glad I can make you laugh,” Jessica said with an over the top bow. She couldn’t break her rhythm. Anything would give her away, and she didn’t know how she would feel if everything was unraveled at once.
“Yeah. Doesn’t hurt that you’re really pretty,” Alfie said looking away. He shuffled nervously from the ball of one foot to the other. He looked everywhere but directly at Jessica.
He must’ve been joking. There was no way that he was really telling her that she was pretty. The only thing that made it seem that he could have been serious was the fact that his face was turning a bright shade of red.
“But I’m fat,” Jessica blurted out the words. She didn’t know why that was the first thing she thought to say. All of the compliments geared towards her were about her personality, about how funny she and Chleo were, and how she was an open and fun person. It was everyone’s kind way of saying; you would be dateable if you weren’t you. That was what Jessica thought to say, but the only things that came to mind was her weight.
“Yes,” Alfie nodded in agreement. “You’re fat and you’re pretty. You can be both, you know?”
Jessica’s eyes had wandered around the room too, but when she looked back at Alfie, he was looking and smiling at her.
“You think?”
“Of course. You have those freckles, and that bouncy curly hair, and when you laugh you light up. You’re beautiful, Jessica,” Alfie said. His smile was reassuring. He wasn’t being condescending at all.
The look on his face made Jessica smile back. She couldn’t believe how genuine he was.
“Anyway,” Alfie cleared his throat, “are we getting this project done or what?”
Jessica didn’t say anything. She simply nodded, and the two of them didn’t talk about anything other than work for the next hour and a half.
*
“That’s it?” Chleo asked. Jessica had told her the story, and it had lasted all the way to Jessica’s front door.
“What do you mean ‘that’s it’? He thinks I’m beautiful!” Jessica said. Chleo could practically see the brightly colored words escaping Jessica’s lips. So full of happiness and so full of hope.
“Honey, I think you’re beautiful. Because you are beautiful, but that’s just Alfie being sweet.”
“Maybe,” Jessica said with a shrug, rummaging through the front pocket of her Jansport bag in search of keys to her front door. “But he was just extra sweet to me.”
Nothing seemed to be sinking in. Chleo didn’t want to see her friend get hurt or disappointed. In Freshman year, a boy pretended to like her, only to pull some childish middle school prank. He had cornered her in an empty classroom one day, whispered a few sweet things, and kissed her on the cheek. The next few days he did this. He’d be sweet to her in the quiet, and ignored her throughout the day. Eventually, he worked up the courage to ask her on a date, and Jessica made the stupid mistake of asking him about it the next day. The boy, recoiled in mock disgust bleated loudly enough for everyone in the class to hear that there was no way in hell that he’d date a hippo. Jessica had sunk back in her chair, and didn’t speak to anyone again until Chleo had moved into town just before winter break.
Chleo didn’t know Alfie. They were only in one class together, but she didn’t pay him much mind, so she couldn’t know what his intentions were. Thinking she could save her friend and not hurt her, she blurted out:
“You know he’s taking Stacy Links to prom, right?”
Chleo felt terrible, but she also felt like she was doing her duty. She didn’t know just how much that hurt Jessic
a. Jessica pretended not to let it show. She found her key, shrugged, put it in the lock, and went inside without a word.
Alfie Reynolds did take Stacy Links to prom, and he and Jessica barely spoke in Senior year. It was for the best; Jessica kept trying to convince herself. Even though after almost 15 years her heart and stomach twisted in knots when she recognized his face.
Chapter Four
Jessica was pulled out of her high school memory by the sound of the door opening. She was so lost in her trance that she didn’t notice Alfie coming toward the door to open it. Jessica’s heart was still when she heard the jingle of the wind chime when the door brushed against it.
“Can I help you?” Jessica tried her best to sound cheery. Her cheeks were red, she knew, and that meant the freckles about her face were more visible. She brushed a strand of her long dark hair behind her ear, and stood up from behind the counter.
“Just looking for now, thanks.”
He hadn’t recognized her. Rather, his eyes were perusing the store and hadn’t come to focus on her yet. Normally she would have asked a customer to leave their food and beverages on the front counter, but she was almost too scared to say anything.
Then she shook her head at herself. This was stupid. She had known Alfie Reynolds a half a lifetime ago. This was her business, and she needed him to buy something.
“What kind of flowers are you looking for? Is it a gift, or…”
That was when Alfie finally turned to look her way. His eyes met her, and every muscle in his face relaxed into a curious smile. He did, but also didn’t recognize her. Her hair was no longer wild and red, and she had lost some weight. The only thing that could probably give her away were her beautiful blue eyes and freckled nose.
“I know you,” Alfie said. It almost came out as a question. His movements were so graceful that he practically floated across the room toward her. The dreamy smile of curious recognition remained on his face until he got to the counter.