| | | |
The humming was going to drive him over the edge. The music on the radio didn't bother him, in fact he quite liked the song. Liked it so much that he was going to reach over and strangle John, who was humming along in a rather loud voice. Actually he was singing, but he didn't know enough words to the song to complete a line so he was filling in the spaces with garbled sounds. "Well I see you walking with the boys, though it hmm hmmmm hm hm."
Ed turned and opened his mouth but let the air rush out silently. His mind turned to other things. Those other things namely being the vision in midnight blue who had just passed by John's motionless driver's side window. Ed craned his neck to see past John's bobbing head, watching as the most beautiful woman he had ever seen vanished through the door of a natural foods store.
On reflecting, if you can reflect a half a second after the fact, Ed decided that she was not really the most beautiful woman ever. But she was certainly the most breathtaking. His eyes felt riveted to the spot where she had disappeared. It was as if he had those dotted lines running from his eyes, like the characters in the comics back when his dad was a kid. And she must of grabbed the other ends and tied them in a knot around her, because he was stuck. Ed's head almost twisted off when John floored it and sped away from the store. As it faded away into the jumble of buildings he turned to face forward, but his eyes stayed fixed on that door for the rest of his day.
Natural foods became a fixture of Ed's diet. And it often took him hours after work or on weekends to decide what would be best for his dinners. In fact all the shops in that neighborhood became favorite haunts of his; especially favorite when he was treated to a sighting of that raven black hair spilling across that surplus army backpack. He could have instantly written a dated list and description of every time he had seen her. She certainly recognized him now; he had played the role of a laughing looker-on as she charmed a shop owner or played with a child on the street. He couldn't imagine what her life was like outside of the moments he saw her. Or rather, he could imagine too many ways her life could be, all of them amazing to him.
Ed trudged along a wet sidewalk, watching his feet crush the puddles. He shouldn't have been out that night, but he couldn't sleep thinking that she might be sitting in the window of the coffee shop. Unfortunately for him she wasn't there, or in the park, or even at the library. His unfulfilled quest left him unable to do more than drag his feet home.
Ahead of him came some whistling, and then the sound of a female voice in song. "As the days fly past, will we lose our grasp..." Jerking his chin up, Ed saw a beauty in wet coming towards him on the sidewalk. Hair plastered to her cheeks, and skirt clinging to her thighs. Emptying a Pixie stick into her mouth. She beamed a rainbow of a smile at Ed, and his heart closed down operations. She breathed a "hi" at him as she passed, and danced through a puddle. Heart racing faster than his mind, Ed paused and looked back at her skipping figure. He could do little more than stare, and tell himself that it would be the epitome of cheesiness to turn and follow her now.
"You know," a voice inside his head began, "A wise man once said that 'tis better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all." Hmmm, he thought. If I cut through the park I can be sitting at the statue when she comes by. And he hurried his steps onto the wet grass.
Ed just stared. His eyes were locked on the door leading out of the coffee shop. Through a swiftly closing gap he caught a last glimpse of denim overalls coated with patches, descending to the outside. Ed felt himself sinking, just as surely as he had felt himself gliding up those steps earlier, on the fluttering of his heart. She appeared in the window, the center of a group of people who she had just magicked in here, and allowed to spirit her away.
Ed was still staring, and now shaking. He had come this afternoon running on the fuel of excitement. He had suggested that they meet here this afternoon, and she had said she'd be in. And after an hour she was, but now gone again all too soon, after the briefest of friendly chats. He couldn't come to understand it. They had talked for hours the first night in the park; she had come running out of the library to see him as he passed by yesterday; she had come today. And now he sat as her image disappeared from the window.
"Ed, oh hi. No, I'm sorry, I couldn't go to the concert. I forgot I had to work."
He knocked again. No answer.
"Oh are you going to be there too?! Hopefully I'll see you there."
"Ed, come with me. I'm going to ride my bike to Wilton, I want you to come."
"Ed!" She wrapped him in a giant hug. "I'm glad you're here, I love this place." With a wink from one purple eyelid she skipped away.
Another dark night. One that's too silent for sleep. A lone lamp creates a yellow cocoon in the bedroom. Ed rests against the backboard, his wife Ellen snores lightly beside him. He stares at the notebook in his lap, doodles aimlessly with the pen. The gray has hit his hair, and has begun to touch his eyes. It's a long time and a thousand miles away from that day in the coffeehouse, from the day in the park, the day at the parade. A long time and a lot of nights of puzzlement away. His forehead furrows, his hand clenches the pen. What would have happened? What could he have said? He stares at the notebook paper, but his eyes are fixed on a door far away.
With the noise of the coffeehouse crowd, Neal couldn't hear if the clock was ticking. But he had a pretty good idea that it was dead, or dying. Or maybe the universe was grinding to a halt, because he had been sitting here in the company of this bagel for hours, waiting for the clock to turn to four.
Neal sighed and settled back into the wooden bench, watching the crowd grow. He gave his bagel a poke but went no farther, his finger planted in the cream cheese, as a blast of cold air rushed through the door, sweeping in a Snow Queen. A whirl of snowflakes marked her arrival. They glittered in her ebony hair, and clung to her wool mittens. She pulled off those mittens and closed the door, beaming a smile at the entire room. Her every motion sparkled. Neal gawked, his finger planted in the cream cheese, as his brain desperately tried to reach functioning speed. Despite the fact that she was covered in bulky winter clothing from toe to neck, he was sure he had never seen such a dazzling girl.
She approached a table of girls next to him, leaned over and did something with their hands. He found himself baldly staring at her. And he found himself grinning wildly along with her. That is, until she turned and walked to his table. His face, mind and heartbeat went blank. She grabbed hold of his hand in her tiny frozen ones, and he hurriedly wiped the cream cheese off of his other. He fell into her eyes and found himself grinning inanely once again. Her smile seemed eternal. He looked down at the hand she held and watched as she wetted a temporary tattoo and pressed its slimy surface onto the back of his hand. She peeled off the paper, checked it over, and then if possible gave him a bigger smile. Turned, and walked away.
He watched her figure sink into the crowd, which soon broke up and headed out the door. Her face finally left his sight and he dropped his eyes to his hand, to the tiny figure of a sitting Buddha now gracing it. When he lifted his head again, the clock struck five.
Neal cursed as his bike hit an ice patch and slid out from under him. His breath left his body as he fell into a snowbank, but he immediately regained his feet and climbed back onto his bike. A look at his watch confirmed that he was going to be late for work, and provoked another round of cursing. He took off down the side of the road, and barely lifted his head in time to avoid the figure ahead of him. He skidded to a halt in front of her, and was ready to move around her before he realized who it was. Turning to look back at her he caught a snowball in the chest and a mischievous wink. By the time he returned her smile she had turned and was traipsing through the snow. She flopped down to make a snow angel, and he turned to leave.
At the next corner he found himself looking back to see if she was still in sight. Turning his bike around he decided he would go back around the park and take the long way to work today. Two more smiles and thirty minutes later he arrived at the office.
His butt had never felt so frozen. Neal burrowed further into his coat and checked his watch. Yesterday she had been at the library at five, it was now 5:30. He figured he'd give it twenty more minutes before he went inside. It had just been dumb luck that she had come in the same room as him before, who knows where she would go this time.
The feeling of the stone bench biting into the backs of his legs faded as he saw a familar figure among a group coming down the sidewalk. Neal's chest seized up on him; he felt the blood pounding in his ears. He should talk to her, he knew he should. But he didn't know if he dared. He couldn't get anywhere without trying, he told himself. But there is a power women have over men, and Neal felt it in his guts when he looked at her.
She came to the steps with a group of her friends. He tried to open his mouth, but all his stomach would let him do is open his eyes. They followed her as she passed the steps. Watched her as she smiled up at him. Watched as she turned away and continued past the library. Watched as she turned the corner and left him with a goofy grin, a frozen ass and a sigh.
Another dark night. One that's too filled with thoughts for sleep. Neal fiddles with a book under the light of a lamp, and watches the rise and fall of his wife's slumbering body. Life trudges on, and he casts his eyes backwards. He moves back through the years, to a well-worn spot. He remembers snowy afternoons that turned to summer evenings, stone benches that turned to tree roots. Smiles and glances that turned to nothing. He remembers a girl. And he finds himself grinning. Grinning and grinnning.