Someone Else

What is the most romantic thing you’ve ever done for someone?

She lobbed the question like a Frisbee, sort of wobbly, knowing that eventually it would hit the ground but for awhile it was going to float along the air and remain there for a proper portion.

He had somewhat of an answer but he delayed a moment…his delay a signal that perhaps he had done so many numerous romantic efforts that the catalog in his mind was searching for the perfect one.  And, candidly, there were quite a few.

I think it had to be a letter I once wrote.

A letter?

Yes…a letter.  Handwritten. 

 

And to whom was this correspondence?

He loved that she said that…correspondence.  It was a mutual communication…it was a give and take.  In today’s SnapChat world of disappearing texts and erasable emails letters were his domain…he loved handing them to her, loved printing them with his own hand. 

 Letters were effort.

Now remember this was a long time ago—

How long?

Like before I met you long.

Okay.

She was processing, he could tell, but it still looked like he could continue without a lot of damage.

And by the way, he added…if I’ve ever done anything that you believe is exceptionally romantic then please feel free to let me know.  Because the only reason I mention this is that she acknowledged it to me.

A few moments of silence.  Then…fair enough.

So he began.

In my sophomore year of college we got a new English teacher…a young lady, probably twice my age.

How old were you?

I was about 19.

Okay, so she was 38?

Uhm, she was in her thirties.

You said twice your age.

I was exaggerating for effect.

Try to stick to facts.  This could be important.

It’s really not.

It could be.

Okay.

So anyways, she shows up and she is stunning.

Stunning?

Stunning…she was petite, she was well-read, learned, and she was like this quiet, almost Adrian-like.

Adrian?

You know…Rocky…and Adrian.

The mousy girl?

Yeah….mousy…but you remember that scene in his apartment when he takes off her glasses and mentions how beautiful she is?  And she doesn’t believe him?

I think so.

Well she was like that…but maybe she knew.

Knew what?

That she was pretty.

Oh?  How so?

Because of her eyes.

Her eyes?

Yes…they were…

What.

They were blue.

Blue?

Yes…but like deep water blue.  Like levi-jeans blue.

I hate her already.

No, no…it’s not like that.  They looked black from afar, and she had this little mousy face and small body, but when she got close you saw the color of her eyes and they were such a different shade that I guess I found them indescribable.

Okay…so what did you do that was so romantic?

He waited, remembering an effort…a correspondence.

I tried to describe them.

Them?

Them…I tried to describe the color of her eyes.

She took it in…nodding slightly…(to his mind annoyed)…

So what happened?  Did she respond?

He went back a ton of years…to a point when he was much younger…to a point when he had not heard anything…to a point when he felt he had poured out something like a piece of him and it had gone unmeasured…it had gone overlooked…or insignificant…and that piece of him remembered a bit of a cut, a bit of a sting.  Lemon in the wound.

And then, later, in the summer, when a letter had arrived and he had been mowing the lawn, probably in high summer and he was in just shorts and pushing the mechanical engine across a unrelenting lawn and his father had come outside.  In his hand he had a letter and for some strange reason he had stopped him from his lawn progress to interrupt him.  His father had asked if he had known somebody by a complicated Irish name and he remembered thinking that a rubber-band snap of a memory had taken place…and that he now had…some correspondence.

It was in her handwriting, and he saw how fragile it was, and the bone-thin envelope with barely something in there…but it was something from her and as he was sweating, stinking of gas and lawn clippings he scurried through the writing.

It was polite.

It was demure.

Her words were comforting while they were crushing him altogether…and he was rubbing parts of grass away from his cheeks and reading her actual hand-written words…but in the end, she talked of ages of difference, ages of knowledge.  Ages that were any easy way to say no, and as much as he appreciated the correspondence, it inevitably ended up being a closure.

Yes.  She wrote me back.

Well what did she say?

He turned to her…knowing that she was aware of her violation of his memory…that she was worried about a blue eye, or wondering about an age…but at the same time he knew that she was such a brown-eyed girl that had captivated him that her interest was more like curiosity than jealousy.

She said no.

No?

Yes.  She said no…that we couldn’t work out…wouldn’t work out.

A pause.

Well I’m sorry.

Don’t be.  It wasn’t the end.

It wasn’t?

No it wasn’t.  I had to go back to school and face her, and keep this tiny, little splinter in me while I was in school and it was a bit of a pain in the ass…but…

He stopped, thinking about the data…thinking about letters and why you write them…why you communicate…why you put down in words so you ink-stamp them on somebody’s mind.

But what?

He thought ahead…Years later…she reached out to me…I don’t remember how she got my information but she reached out to me.

She did?  She sat up in her chair, perhaps thinking a new wrinkle was at work.

She did.  And she was lovely.

Lovely?

Yes…she basically admitted that she had stumbled upon that letter…many years later…many moons ago…and she felt bad about letting me down.

She did?

She did…and I was amazed…I was curious why she kept the letter but then I thought better of asking.

Why?

It was a fair question…a question of holding on, of grasping straws, of letting age spill into a cup and trying to reverse the sands, of remembering why there was an inspiration…why there was a muse.

Because I think I said to her what I honestly felt…and so very few people are willing to risk such an effort.

She stared at him a bit, and seemed okay with the answer.

Have you ever done that for me? She asked.

Without hesitation…

All the time.