by Young, Bryan
Shifting his grip on the flower, he caught a thorn on his index finger, drawing blood. The blood crept down, past his fingernail, the moisture inviting the cold to bite his finger. Such a bite as to cause Michael to wonder whose idea it was to give spring flowers to lovers in the middle of winter. It made little sense to him, but custom dictated his gift.
Well, he thought, perhaps not so much custom as the inevitable smile that it would bring her.
As he rounded the corner, his thoughts turned from flowers to fear: her boyfriend’s car was still in her driveway.
“Shit,” he told himself and tried to find a hidden purchase behind a gnarled maple tree, naked and asleep for the winter. Peeking out from behind the trunk he could see the exhaust billowing from the tailpipe, the car was running. Was he leaving or just arriving? Even though his hands were stiff and hard to use in the cold, he checked the last text message he’d gotten from her. “Valentines Lunch? 1:30?”
“Absolutely,” he’d replied.
“Good answer,” she’d shot back.
He checked the time on his phone and discovered that he was ten minutes early.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t explain being there, he and Sarah had been friends for years. It was the flower that he’d find hard to explain. He imagined himself strolling up to Luke and saying, “Hey. How’s it going? You heading back to work?”
“Yeah,” he’d reply. “I just stopped in to see Sarah for lunch.”
“That’s too bad. I don’t know if you know this, but we’re dating behind your back and I'm taking her to lunch. See? Here’s the flower I’m bringing her for Valentines Day.” Michael then imagined himself withdrawing a book from his coat pocket, “And this is my present for her. It’s a book of poetry and it’s beautiful and full of all the romance she lacks living with a putz like you. I’ve even personalized it with a love letter on the copyright page.”
And then he’d haul off and punch me in the face, Michael thought.
He smirked to himself, wondering if he’d ever have the brash arrogance to do something so definitive in his relationship with Sarah. The sound of a car door slamming shut roused him from his daydream.
Peeking around the tree once more he was relieved to see Luke’s car pulling away from the driveway and heading down the street in the opposite direction. To be sure Luke had rounded the corner, Michael counted to ten before coming around the tree and back on the sidewalk, making his way closer to Sarah’s door.
He knocked three times at her door before it opened.
It seemed to him as though she was so captivating that he couldn’t comprehend her entire visage at once. Instead, he had to take a long tracking glance at her, from bottom to the top, to take her in. Ever dressed down and never appropriate for the weather, Sarah wore black mary-janes over white-tights that disappeared beneath a black skirt. Moving his eyes higher, his heart skipped a beat. She was wearing a long-sleeve, black blouse that made her cleavage the focal point of her body. When he got to her lips, he was lost.
“You ready?” She asked.
“Uh-huh,” he muttered. They’d been dating like this for a long time and the excitement caused by the mere sight of her had never dulled in his heart.
“Great.”
Instead of verbalizing a response, Michael took the single rose from behind his back and presented it to her. The wide smile that appeared when she saw it was contagious.
“You shouldn’t have.” Taking the flower, she kissed him on the cheek, “You’re so cute.”
They came down the front stoop together, arm in arm as lovers might. She kept the rose close to her nose, lost in its scent. “You didn’t have to get me anything.”
“I know,” he told her.
As they walked to the restaurant two streets over, she put his head on his shoulder and told him all about how terrible her last week of work had been. He listened with a careful ear. She’d been confused at work. Privately, her employer had berated her and her performance, but at a meeting with all the other co-workers, he did nothing but sing her praises.
“You’ll come out on top. You always do.”
She squeezed him around his middle and he put his arm around her and kissed her on the top of her head.
They both laughed, truly taken with each other’s company.
Quickly, they’d covered the distance between her house and the restaurant and found a table inside. They both felt terribly out of place. The restaurant closest to where Sarah lived was a sports grill and was populated on this particular day almost exclusively by overweight Red Wings fans watching a game against the Anaheim Ducks. They were seated in the back, away from most of the commotion.
They spoke in tender tones, the way only people in love can. They locked eyes at every opportunity, doing their best not to get carried away by drifting their gazes to each other’s lips. She tried hard to avoid noticing the innocent bent to his eyes-brows and loving grin across his face. He tried hard to keep his eyes above her chest. Any lower and he’d be facing the certain doom of an erection beneath the table.
“Thanks for seeing me today. It means a lot.”
“It’s okay. I wouldn’t if I didn’t want to.”
“I know. I just figured…you know…today of all days it would be a more risky to meet me.”
Michael pinned the stray lock of hair that dropped in front of her eyes gracefully behind her ear.
“I got something for you. For Valentines Day.”
“You did?”
“Did you expect anything less of me?”
“No,” she replied with a smile. “I just thought…”
From the bundle of his coat, Michael withdrew the small book of poetry and offered it to her.
“Did you write something in it?”
“Don’t I always?’
“I’ll read it as soon as I get home.” Over the time they’d been dating, incognito or otherwise, he’d given her perhaps a dozen books. Each of them was personalized with a love note.
Michael had felt that a well thought out book with a well thought out inscription said more than any love letter could.
Perhaps he was right.
Sarah certainly seemed to agree.
She took a closer look at the book and grew more excited about it and more in love with him. Putting it into her purse, she looked up and kissed him affectionately on the cheek. “You’re too good to me,” she whispered.
“You’ve got it wrong,” he whispered back, “it’s the other way around.”
She grabbed his hand and held it, sparking electricity between them. “I got ribbed at the office for taking off last minute to have lunch with you on Valentines Day. I don’t think there’s anybody who thinks we’re ‘just friends’ anymore.”
“Who cares what anyone thinks? I’m just glad you could make it.”
“You care what Luke thinks…”
“He’s my boyfriend.”
“I’m sure you didn’t tell him about this.”
“He’s my boyfriend,” she reiterated.
“I know. But can’t we just be friends having lunch? Would that have been too much of a stretch?”
“It’s Valentines Day, Michael. It’s risky enough as it is.”
“I know, I know. I just think it’s funny. I love you more than anything in the galaxy and we’re dating. We’re together, except I get the lunch date and Duke gets the fancy evening date and gets to take you home tonight.”
“His name is Luke.”
“I know what his name is. All I’m saying is that I just wish we were the only two people left. That way we wouldn’t have to worry about boyfriends or girlfriends or anything. We could be together and it would make sense and there wouldn’t be anything to it. No guilt, no hiding, no sneaking around, no lies.”
“I know,” she said with a breathless sigh.
“Things would be so much easier if you could just break up with him and—“
“—it’s not that easy, Michael.”
“I
know. You’ve said before.” The thought of sharing her was killing him. But his unbridled love for her not only made it impossible, but incontrovertible. What could he do?
They both finished their beers in silence, lost in the worry that this minor tiff had somehow caused a rift. Would this have a lasting effect on their relationship? Probably not, but neither could be sure and neither wanted the relationship to self-destruct. They needed each other in one way or another and nothing could change that.
“Let’s go back to his house. Right now.”
“What?”
“You have his key? Right? Let’s go back to his house.”
“And what would we do there?”
“Make love.” He was completely in earnest.
Playfully, she swatted at his forearm. “Are you crazy? I’d feel horrible.”
“Wouldn’t it be fun?”
“No.”
“Think about it. Think about how exciting that would be. It would be our secret.”
“That would be a mean secret.”
“More than this?”
After a moment of wondering to herself, she replied, “You’d have to get me really drunk.”
“I’ll order more beer. And I’ve got a fifth of scotch in my desk. I can go run and get it.” Michael seemed only able to joke about the situation.
“No,” she giggled. “You’re bad.”
“I just don’t understand how it could be anything we haven’t already done.”
“Of course you don’t… But in his bed? On his sheets? I couldn’t bring myself to look at him again.”
“I think I’ve got a bottle of wine at work somewhere…”
“Get that idea out of your head?”
“Never.”
Awkwardly, they stopped talking.
Michael searched within him to say something that might get at the truth, but the best he could come up with was, “I don’t want this to end.”
“It won’t.”
“I know that. But I mean now. This. Here. This is a perfect moment. I can sit here next to you and watch the light catch in your eyes. You know they sparkle in the right light? It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
“You read too much poetry.”
“Maybe. Maybe I just have poetry in my heart and you make it all pour out of me.”
Delicately cupping his cheek with her hand, she told him, “You are absolutely adorable.”
“Just adorable? I was hoping for something more along the lines of suave and debonair.”
“Oh, you’re that, too.”
“Then why don’t you leave him?”
She hated that question more than anything. It was so much more complicated than Michael seemed able to comprehend. She loved Michael, but Luke seemed to need her. How could she possibly respond to him? Fortunately, she didn’t have to answer. The waiter arrived to save her, “Is there anything else I can get you?”
Not looking away from Sarah, Michael quietly told him, “No.”
He left the check and went away, leaving Michael to break his gaze and fish in his back pocket for his wallet.
They walked the whole way back to Sarah’s house holding each other, not wanting their time together to come to an end. At her door, she asked, “Do you have time to come in?”
“I have to get back to work,” he said, defeated.
“You can put them off another half an hour, can’t you? I miss you.” She had a way of whining so that it was both seductive and adorable.
A lump appeared in his throat and could feel himself hardening at the thought of her body against his. He swallowed hard, “I want to. More than anything I want to.”
“It’s alright. You should get back to work.”
Standing there on her porch, ready to part, they could resist no longer. Brushing her cheek with his fingertips, he pulled her close to him and they kissed, passionately. The kiss turned to an embrace.
Michael found himself whispering into her ear, softly, “I love you. I wish things could be simpler.”
Quietly, she shushed him. “I love you, too. Let’s just leave it at that.”
With that, they kissed again and once more.
Finally, they separated. Michael walked backward toward the sidewalk, unable to tear his eyes away from her.
“Farewell, my dear. And remember, the courses of true love never did run smooth.”
He turned and ran through the snow like a smitten schoolboy.
When he was finally out of sight, she pulled his gift to her from her purse and opened it to the first page. In his sweetly sloppy pen, written out in pentameter was more Shakespeare:
"Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs,
Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes,
Being vexed, a sea nourished with lovers' tears.
What is it else? A madness most discreet,
A choking gall and a preserving sweet."
Below that was the admonition that he loved her, with all his heart. “I would rather share you with him and live with the conceits of my own jealousy that not to have you at all.” It was signed “M.”
With the warmth of love and weight of confusion in her heart, she sighed and went inside.
III
A Friend Indeed
My wife dragged me into the dress shop knowing the only thing I’d have to do is twiddle my thumbs, waiting for her to try on two truckloads of sun dresses and blouses. She would always promise to not be more than a minute, but in all my years of marriage, a visit to a clothing store has never lasted less than a few hours. I hate shopping, but I love my wife, so I suppose one cancels the other out. And, at the end of the day, it’s wonderful to see her all dolled up in a dozen different designer dresses.
Even after years of marriage, her beauty could take my breath away. I was so afraid when I got married that her attractiveness would wear down smooth on me, but such has never been the case with Veronica. I’ve heard of it happening to other men. They grow so used to the beauty of their wives that it doesn’t seem beautiful anymore, simply average. Veronica could race my heart, simply by baring her shoulders and pulling her hair back. When she pulled her hair tightly into two pig tails, the coarse red hair at the end was just long enough to reach the base of her freckled neck and that would always drag my eyes down her slender shoulders. She’d turn around in a whirl and look up at me with her bright green eyes and I’d see love behind them. Biting her lower lip, she would look down, dragging my gaze down the front of her, her dress cut low enough to give a promise of firm, freckled breasts, but not reveal much beyond the shape and the soft bulbs peeking from the top. Maybe she wouldn’t do exactly that, but it would seem as though she did.
Enough of that. She gets me like that every time and I imagine no one wants to hear how beautiful I imagine my wife to be. No… I don’t imagine it. She really is that beautiful and more.
So, there I was, waiting for my dear Veronica to try on dresses. Every few minutes she would come out. This time, she was wearing a white dress that came down just above her knees. It was a strapless number that showed off her shoulders and the top of her chest. If my wife were blonde-haired and blue-eyed, she’d be the spitting image of Grace Kelly.
Some say gentlemen prefer blondes, but I prefer redheads.
“What do you think of this one?” Her voice was as delicate as her movement as she twirled around, showing off for both me and the mirror.
“I think it’s hideous. It’s the sloppiest rag I’ve ever seen you throw on.” Teasing her made up for the hours of waiting.
“Oh, you. Tell me, what do you think? What do you really think?” She was asking me, but preening herself in the mirror, running her hands over her body, smoothing out any wrinkles she imagined the dress to have.
“It’s wonderful. You make every dress wonderful. You know that. How could I say otherwise?”
She considered the dress in the mirror for another moment and was back in the dressing room to change all over again.
This happened a few more times until she came out in a bright green dress that drew the air from my lungs. It brought out the color of her hair and the brightness of her eyes as I had never seen.
My jaw must have dropped because she asked me to pick it up. “Do you really like this one that much?”
“I do, indeed. Put that one in the pile of those we’re buying.”
“I don’t know…” She had her back to me but glanced at me from over her shoulder. She knew it drove me wild when she played coy.
“Buy it.”
“I’d still like to try on a few others…”
She went back into the dressing room.
I was so distracted by that dress on Veronica that almost I didn’t notice an old friend outside the store window shopping. At least she seemed to be window shopping. Lindsey was one of Veronica’s bridesmaids at our wedding, but she had gotten married a few years ago and we’d lost touch. I’d assumed she had moved away, but here she was. For the life of me I couldn’t remember who new last name.
There was something odd about her though. She was wearing jeans and a tight t-shirt, her purse was slung over one shoulder. She seemed as though she was almost in a daze.
I put on a smile and waved to her, but she still didn’t notice me.
I came around, through the door of the store.
“Lindsey! How are you?”
She looked over at me. I hadn’t noticed before, but now that I was closer it seems as though she had been crying. “Peter?”
She was clearly shocked to see me and seemed twice as shocked when I gave her a friendly hug and a kiss on the cheek. “How have you been? Veronica and I haven’t heard from you in so long.”
“Fine… Fine I suppose…”
Tears welled in hear eyes, her chin quivered. Her response wouldn’t have fooled a child. With a breath, she composed herself.
“What’s happened?”
“Shawn left me.” I never knew Shawn all that well. What I heard about him I can’t say that I liked.
“Left you? When?” It hurt me to see people hurt. Particularly old friends whom I cared about.