A Different Kind of Valentine

by K. J. Dahlen

  Laurie’s jaw dropped. From the front, she realized that she had been wrong. This man wasn’t Rob; it was Gary! A much more handsome Gary, with huge biceps, the reason why she had assumed he was his brother. But his eyes were the same twinkling stars and his voice was just as deep and husky as she remembered.

  Her shock and confusion left her tongue-tied and twisted, with nothing to say and too shy and unnerved to look him in the face. Exactly as she had been on their first date--how there had been a second one, she had never been able to fathom. All week she had longed to talk to his brother so that this reunion could take place, but she had imagined that she would be able to prepare first!

  Finally, she gave him a timid smile and gestured for him to sit. "Do you have time to catch up with an old friend?" Laurie asked, finally finding her voice, amazed that it wasn’t shaking.

  Gary had already sat down. "Wow, o wow. You look great, Laurie."

  "I thought you were Rob!" Laurie blurted out.

  "Thanks. I know all the girls in school used to drool over his arms."

  Laurie blushed. She had been one of the few to overlook Rob; she had always only had eyes for Gary. "So what brings you to the neighborhood?"

  "Trying to find a place to stay."

  "Moving back here?"

  "Yes. Pennsylvania’s a great state but is excessively overpopulated with assistants. I have several job interviews lined up, all with pay rates much higher than I would get in PA. I’m crashing with Rob until I find a place."

  "Wow, that’s great. I never thought that you would move back to the area."

  "I didn’t think I would either." Gary shrugged. "But I’m finding that I don’t mind. Not much has changed."

  "Naw, it’ll always be the same here." Laurie bit her lip, wishing she had something more significant to say.

  "So what have you been up to?" Gary leaned back on his chair, taking a long swig of his drink.

  "I teach algebra at our high school."

  "Wonderful. I’m so glad to hear that you made your dreams come true."

  Not all of them, she thought wryly. She took a sip and noticed that his left hand sported no ring. He followed her gaze and chuckled. "No, no wife. Not yet at least. You?"

  She grinned, suddenly feeling reckless. "No wife for me either."

  He laughed. "Quick wit, as always. Boyfriend then?"

  A toss of her blond hair from side to side as she shook her head. "Currently single. I just recently broke up with someone."

  "Well, I was just dumped." He sighed. "Romance just isn’t fun and games anymore. Not like it used to be." He sounded bitter, something that Laurie would have never before associated with him. The Gary she remembered was carefree, a wild spirit with a passion for life. Laurie was suddenly aware that this Gary was all grown up, a different person from the one she had dated, with scars and memories that she wasn’t privy to. Not like before. And she also wasn’t the same young girl from high school. She was more mature now, with a job and a place of her own. The time spent with her grandmother had made her appreciate family, something that Gary and young Laurie had never talked about. She certainly was still attracted to him, which remained despite the passing of years, but she no longer knew his hopes and wishes, desires and fears. The man in front of her wore a familiar face but was still a stranger.

  Laurie smiled again, wishing for the conversation to be lighter. "Maybe what’s changed is what you want out of a relationship," she said airily.

  "I guess you could say that," he said slowly. Laurie saw the gears grinding in his head.

  She cleared her throat. She wasn’t sure what to say and Gary had stopped talking as well. She could not believe how surreal this was! Talking to Gary again was a dream come true yet she couldn’t find the words to keep the conversation going. They never used to have awkward, silent moments before.

  "Time certainly can change a person," Gary finally said.

  "For better or for worse," Laurie agreed.

  Gary glanced at his watch and sighed. "I better get going. It was nice catching up with you."

  Laurie managed a smile. They had hardly caught up at all.

  Evidently her face displayed her disagreement and Gary laughed, the same easygoing laugh that she had fallen in love with. "All right, all right. So we had two minutes, if that. Not much time for a couple such as ourselves. We go back too far for that. How about one last date for old time’s sake?"

  "I’m willing," Laurie said at the same time that Gary finished:

  "At least a dinner."

  "What? Cheapskate, are we now? No movie? Heck, we could even rent something and watch it at my place." Dinner and a movie had been their last official date. Most of their time spent together had been at the park or one of their parents’ houses. They had been poor high schoolers, after all.

  "Whatever you want," Gary promised.

  Laurie gave him a bittersweet smile. "Remember the last time you said that to me?"

  He nodded. "I wanted you to decide, for us, about us."

  She grinned, lightening up the somber mood. "Well, now I want dinner and a movie."

  He laughed and Laurie was glad to hear that it hadn’t changed: a real, strong, hearty laugh that meant he was happy. "Okay, okay, dinner and a movie." He stressed the ‘and.’ "Where is your place?"

  Laurie recited her address.

  "And when?"

  "I’m a school teacher. My life isn’t too exciting," she said dryly, "whenever is fine."

  "Then I’ll pick you up tomorrow at four. Movie first?"

  "Sounds good to me." She drained the last of her coffee and stood up. "I should get going, I have tests to grade."

  "Go easy on them." He grimaced. "I never did do well in algebra."

  Laurie smiled and waved good-bye as she left the shop behind. She was tempted to call Meg and ask for advice on what to wear when she shook her head. A date with Gary didn’t mean that she should start acting like a high schooler again!

  ~ * ~

  A movie may not have been the best of ideas, Laurie realized the next night. Sure, Gary sat beside her, his arm causally across the back of her seat, but there was no way to talk and the teenagers in front of them were making out. Plus, the movie wasn’t that thrilling--it was a sequel of a mediocre movie, with a rehash of the same car chases and action sequences, with a fight between the main characters that would, of course, end with them back together again. When the lights finally came back on, Laurie turned to Gary. Before she could say anything, he sheepishly admitted, "Maybe next time, you can pick the movie."

  "Oh no. Watching the same movie twice really isn’t that bad. Of course, the first time around wasn’t that great either." Laurie’s heart thundered at the words ‘next time’ but she refused to allow herself to think about that. Now was all that mattered; it was time to rediscover who Gary was and whether or not she could still consider him a friend, let alone anything more than that.

  They laughed and left the theatre. As Gary pulled out of the parking spot, he glanced over, a strange look on his face. "Is Italian still your favorite?"

  "Yes," Laurie said. She straightened her black skirt and fixed her low cut blouse, just wishing to have something for her hands to do.

  "Good. I made reservations at Joe’s." Gary’s face relaxed but he still seemed a little too tense, too uptight.

  When they got to the restaurant, Gary held out Laurie’s chair before sitting across from her. The candlelight made his strong features more rugged and Laurie could not remember a time when he looked handsomer. Well, prom was up there too.

  "Why are you smiling?"

  "I was just thinking about prom."

  "Which one?"

  "Both."

  He returned the smile. "You certainly looked gorgeous that night. Er, those nights."

  "And you were the handsomest man there."

  "Were?"

  Laurie laughed.

  Their waiter came over. "Can I interest you in any wine this evening?"

&nbs
p; Gary glanced at Laurie. He mouthed ‘merlot’ and she nodded. "A bottle of merlot, please." He ordered and the waiter hurried away.

  Gary laughed. "Sharing a bottle of wine with little Laurie. Never would have thought."

  "We all have to grow up sometime." Laurie grinned. "Although it isn’t as if this would be the first time we’re having alcohol together."

  Gary grinned. "A yeah, that can of beer. I thought you were gonna get sick."

  "I still can’t stand the taste of beer. It just rubs me the wrong way." She grimaced at the memory of bitter taste and repressed gag reflex. "We did get into our share of trouble."

  "Yeah, our reputation was set when we fell asleep at the movie theater. Just like that Simon and Garfunkel song. Course that was probably the only time we were innocent."

  Laurie laughed. Reminiscing was grand but she also wanted to find out more about adult Gary. She already knew everything about teen Gary. After they ordered their food and munched on delicious breadsticks, Laurie asked, "How was PA school? Was it everything you thought it would be?"

  "It was rough. The undergrad part was easy enough but the master portion, crazy. All these different rotations and…"

  As Gary told her all about his schooling, Laurie couldn’t help but be proud. He had wanted to be a physician assistant since he had first learned what one was. His parents, neither of whom had gone to college, had not been the most supportive but Gary had not backed down from his dream. And now he was certified and ready to start his professional career. Laurie was so proud of him and she told him so.

  "Thank you. I don’t think I could have come this far without you. Even though we broke up, I still thought of you. Was actually a little worried about bumping into you around town."

  "Worried?"

  "I thought for sure that you would have found someone by now."

  "Well, I didn’t. I guess a certain someone set the bar a little too high out of reach," she teased.

  "I used to think that we would get married. But I was afraid to say anything. I mean, we were so young and I knew how much your grandmother meant to you and the best schools for me were in PA. We had to drift apart. And now it seems so surreal to be sitting across from you."

  "It does, doesn’t it? Like a dream that you could wake up from at any moment."

  "Little Laurie. All grown up. I don’t even know you anymore," he said sadly.

  "It’s true; we aren’t the same people we used to be…"

  "Do you know, I reserved all different kinds of restaurants. I wanted to take you wherever was your favorite, only I wasn’t sure if your tastes had changed."

  "That’s really touching," Laurie said, a slow blush forming on her cheeks.

  "Or ridiculous," he muttered before clasping his hands and his eyes turning brighter. "Tell me everything about you: your dreams, your favorite color, everything. I want to know the now Laurie. See if she’s anything at all like the past."

  "Only if you’ll tell me…" She gestured with her hands, back and forth.

  "Of course."

  "Well, I still love red."

  "The color of passion."

  She grinned. "I may be an algebra teacher but I’ve been thinking about writing lately."

  "You want to be an author? What kind of stories?"

  "Young adult mostly. But although I have many ideas, I haven’t finished one manuscript yet."

  "I wouldn’t mind reading what you have so far."

  Laurie hesitated. She hadn’t let anyone read her writing. In fact, not many people knew that she did in the first place. But Gary seemed so earnest and some feedback would help. "All right."

  She sighed. "Let’s see." She didn’t have to tell him about her grandmother’s passing, she had already told him via the only letter correspondence between the two during college. "The reason why I broke up with my last boyfriend was because we never had any fun, he was much too serious, and we just didn’t… connect. We spent time together but it wasn’t as if we actually…. We just didn’t talk about things that mattered. We didn’t care about each other. Not enough, anyway. So we parted ways."

  "Ah, the old flames. Well, Alice was one of my classmates. Type A personality which should have been a warning flag. She always was studying, worrying about her grades. I cared about my grades too, but I wanted to learn more from an application standpoint. She just cared about the letter grade. Well, we were in a study group together and sometimes would be the only two to show up so it only seemed natural to ask her out. We did get along for the most part but she was just too uptight all the time. And she wasn’t very supportive of me when the incident happened."

  "What incident?"

  "Well, a bunch of the guys were playing soccer. It was all fun and games until I got kicked, hard, in the groin. Had to go to the hospital, was the most embarrassing moment in my life. They had to run a bunch of tests and actually had to remove one testicle. From all the testing, they found out that I’m sterile."

  "My God, Gary, I’m so sorry," Laurie gasped, her hand on her throat.

  "Yeah, well, Alice, perfect Alice, wanted a large house with a white picket fence and two point five kids. Couldn’t exactly promise her that, now then, could I? And she wasn’t sympathetic either about the whole thing. Thought I was immature for playing, let alone getting hurt." He sighed and rubbed his eyes. "So, she wanted more from me than I could give and I had to get out. Leave."

  "You never ran from relationships before," Laurie wondered aloud, "not even ours."

  "That’s because things were different with Alice. I never could see myself with her long term." He paused, opening and closing his mouth, as if willing himself to say something. He stared at her, his eyes turning darker. He took a long swig from his wine glass and Laurie realized it was for courage when he blurted out, "Did you ever blame me for us breaking up?"

  Laurie’s eyes widened. She had not expected that at all. "No!" She protested.

  "I… a part of me always regretted it," Gary said, staring at the red liquid in front of him.

  "Regretted what?"

  "That we didn’t even try. A long distance relationship, I mean."

  "Did you have any friends freshman year that had a girl back home?"

  "A couple," Gary nodded.

  "And did any work out?"

  He shook his head.

  "What makes you think that we would have been any different?" Laurie asked softly.

  "But we could have tried. We should have tried. I thought about you constantly and after all the time we spent together, we just threw it all away because of miles!"

  Laurie was struck by his bitter and unhappy tone. His dark eyes were stormy and Laurie’s heart melted.

  "Well, maybe fate is trying to tell us something. After all these years, we happen to run into each other when we’re both single. We could give us another shot, now that we’re in the same city again."

  "I’ve been looking for jobs all over the place. Some might be easier for me if I didn’t live here in town," Gary warned. Despite his words, Laurie was almost certain that his eyes were hopeful.