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Part 1 (His P.O.V.)
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He waited at the crosswalk for the signal. Without effort or forethought, his mind turned to her. He knew it was complicated. It was foolish. It was wrong. Still, the attraction was there. There was no denying it. It lingered there – teasing them, taunting them, testing his loyalty, questioning her integrity, ripping apart his sanity, her composure.
He longed for a feeling he hadn’t known for a very long time. He wanted to be ravaged with the intensity and screaming desperation of a rabid animal. He wanted to share in the hunger and the madness and the mystique of this other woman. And suddenly, she was there.
He pulled her away from the curb, absolutely astonished at her timely appearance. He sunk his hands into her auburn hair and pulled her to him, holding her, inhaling her, not caring what the people on the street must think. He took her in his arms and took just a moment to brush the hair out of her eyes. She made him so insanely happy again.
He leaned down and kissed the top of her head, then her ear, her cheek, and once again – found her lips. And he was amazed that she let him hold her, kiss her, burn through her like no one had ever done. He was so lost in her that he barely heard the words, “Hey buddy, the light changed. If you’re not going, get out of the way.” Grimacing, he stepped off the curb and crossed the street.
He forced himself back to the mundane reality of his pathetic life. He made it to the restaurant, gave his name and waited for the table to be ready – and waited to see if she’d really show at 2:00 p.m. – thirty minutes from now. He’d arrived early. He knew he wanted her more than he had ever wanted any other woman. She was the only thing he was sure of right now.
He wanted to touch her, to taste her, devour her, and then, at last, he would be inside her. He knew with her there would be no holds barred, no uncomfortable moment, no barriers at all. She would take him to the brink of insanity, and then, lost in denial, he’d slip over the edge. “Sir, your table’s ready.” The vacant look on his face slowly recovered and he acknowledged the hostess. “What?”, he managed. “I said your table is ready sir, are you all right?” He nodded and stood up. The waitress took off, away from the picture window and into the room. He followed her to the table.
From across the street, she watched him stand up and make his way towards the table. It was 1:45. Now, she knew the same thing he had been thinking earlier. It was complicated. It was foolish. It was wrong. And she walked away.
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Part 2 (Her P.O.V.)
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They met at a social function in the ballroom of a hotel. Christmas decorations were up and the evening air was absolutely electric. As people were bustling around her, she fought to get the olives on her shiny plastic plate with the over sized tongs. She kept them from rolling everywhere but some strategically placed cubes of cheese. Proud of her small accomplishment, she was momentarily oblivious to the world.
She came back to reality with a jolt, not caused by the commotion around her, but by one lone pair of eyes, quietly regarding her. He stood at quite a distance, but she could still see his expression. Amusement. His smile told her how entertained he was by the cheese and olive war she had currently waging on her plate. Not even sure why, she flushed with embarrassment so strong – it colored down to her soul.
She felt the immediate and mighty urge to swing swiftly around, but her mind worked faster than her body. In less than a second, she had already envisioned the scene – her spinning around and subsequently losing the war to both the olives and the cheese. Which would be fine, she told herself, but not in front of him. She wouldn’t allow him the pleasure of watching one more display at her expense. With much effort, she s-l-o-w-l-y turned around and calmly (on the outside) made it back to her table. She sat down with her coworkers. No one even noticed. She had become invisible once again.
When she coaxed within her – the nerve to look over his way, he wasn’t there any longer. Her eyes desperately searched the room, eventually finding him seated at another banquet table, not nearly far enough away to give her comfort. Their eyes met. She hadn’t had time to look away. He smiled. What could she do? She smiled back. He subtly tipped his glass in a toast shared only between them. This made her blush. She nodded, almost imperceptibly, and looked away. She was terrified, but still longing to look over just one more time. It was disconcerting to look at him, and know – absolutely know – that they both wanted to take each other to bed. She had already been undressed in his eyes, but that wasn’t what embarrassed her. It was the fact – he knew she’d done the same.
Did he also know her first vision of him, across the room, included wine and grapes and some of those damn cubes of cheese? He couldn’t know what a sap she was! He couldn’t know about the romance novel stuffed down in her purse under the wallet and Kleenex, the one under the car seat, the ones littered throughout her apartment. She had waited for someone to look at her like he was doing all of her life. Twenty-eight years. Instead, she’d been invisible.
It was when she couldn’t take this line of thought anymore that she went out onto the patio. Just like in the movies. She stood looking out at the lights of the city, out at nothing, and he was there. He put his hand on the small of her back, and as she turned, he slipped his hand into her long auburn hair. That was it. That was all it took. He said, “My God, My God, where did you come from? How?” And he kissed her. And she let him.
The noise from the party started to move towards the patio. He said, “Friday, two o’clock, Angelo’s. I’ve got to see you again. I’ve got to.” And he was gone. The last thing she saw, as he walked away from her, was the Christmas lights reflect on his wedding band. And it cut her to the bone. There she stood – her knees weak, her lipstick faded, unable to speak, or think, or talk. Her coworkers stepped out onto the patio, laughing and carrying on. Her entire world had just begun and ended in the same moment. As usual, they didn’t notice.
Friday was six days away. She had time to think this through, time to decide. Maybe his wife was in a wheelchair, on her deathbed with cancer or lupus or something really bad. Maybe they were separated. Maybe, maybe she had died and he just still wore the ring.
And maybe she should get a big “L” tattooed on her forehead. She didn’t know what to do. She’d had boyfriends, she’d had lovers, but this man – his eyes. My God – for the first time she realized she didn’t even know his name. Just like a movie. This rendezvous, if you will, was the craziest thing she’d ever done, well, thought about doing… Not just the craziest, also the stupidest. Definitely the most immoral. She made herself go to Angelo’s on Tuesday, for a late dinner, just to check it out. Her heart told her – he was her soul mate. Her head told her – she was an idiot.
On Friday, she got there at 1:00 p.m. She walked in. She walked right back out. Across the street was a pub called O‘Malley’s. She thought to herself, “just like in the movies.” She got a table by the window and watched. And waited. And worried.
He walked up to the door around 1:30, nearly half an hour early. He was ambling slowly, seemed preoccupied. He even aimlessly bumped a stranger in passing. Her mind panicked. She thought, “maybe he’s taking his time, just coming to let me down easy, because we’d made plans… Maybe it’s a setup and we’ll go to a hotel and (you know) and then all his friends will jump out of the closet, laughing and laughing, at me – the joke… Maybe he already had an appointment, that’s why he told me Angelo’s at two. He knew he’d be there. He won’t remember me. He won’t even recognize me. I’ll just be invisible again.”
She watched him move away from the window, following the waitress to the table. Their table? Maybe he is my soul mate. Maybe it was really a class ring. But she knew the truth in her heart. She stepped out of O‘Malley’s and watched as he faded from view through Angelo’s window. She knew this was complicated. It was foolish. It was wrong. As she turned her eyes into the sunlight, squinted, and walked down the street, she walked away, not knowing the rest of the story . . . .
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Part 3 (past, present, future & the waitress)
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The waitress led him to the table and he sat down, facing the room. It was 1:45. His mind was racing and he was beginning to feel ill. He thought about ordering a drink to calm his nerves and realized that was the worst thing he could do. He would not let himself resort to a sorry crutch that his wife had used for years. A crutch that had ended up taking a life, two years ago. Instead, he ordered a chocolate milk, large. The waitress gave him a funny look, but walked away with her notepad. This was his story.
He was 35 and had been married for 17 years. They got married the summer after they graduated from high school, so she could live with him when he went overseas for the military. She got a clerical job at the embassy. Things had been good. But they were so young then. And clueless.
They found out she was pregnant just before returning to the states, so the welcome back party was for two and a half. When they came back, his parents showed them a nice sized house about thirty minutes away from them. Her parents were only about an hour. They stayed with his parents until they closed on it and moved in to their new place excited and expecting. Four months later, their son was born.
It took a long time for him to realize that things had gone sour. He tried to get home often, but was gone at least two days every week, sometime three or four. Once, when he came home, the baby was screaming and she was passed out on the couch. Whatever was left of the bottle of vodka, had seeped into the carpet.
He got her to bed, let her sleep it off and sober up. He thought one of her parents must have died, or something tragic. She said the baby wouldn’t stop crying and she couldn’t take being alone all the time. From that day on, things changed.
He called her brother and told him move his family out of his apartment and move in with them, rent free. The house had room, and a big yard. He respected his wife’s privacy, so he never told her brother why. And besides, the problem seemed to go away. His mom had experienced postpartum depression, so he was not going to be an insensitive jerk.
His wife was thrilled to have family nearby, and help with the baby, and she wasn’t alone anymore. Three years later, the family next door put their house up for sale, and her brother snatched it up in a heartbeat. So, family was near family.
Life went on pretty smoothly from then on. She seemed happy. He never found her drunk, passed out, or the boy in harmed in any way. Except for a few bruises, but you know, boys will be boys. He was home more than half of every week and she never complained about anything that had happened during the time he was gone. He thought everything was under control.
While he was at the base, he got a phone call from the hospital. His son, seven years old, had fallen and injured his face and ribs. They were wiring his broken jaw back together. He rushed to the hospital and was greeted by his brother-in-law. His wife was not there.
Dismayed, he had to sit down when his brother-in-law whispered quietly to him, “She’s sleeping it off. She’ll be fine. She must have been so upset to find him hurt like that. I guess he fell and hit the coffee table? She must have went into shock. I came over and nobody answered when I knocked on the door, so I let myself in.
“She was sitting on the couch, staring at the wall. There was some vodka on the table. He was lying on the floor there. I thought he must be dead. By God. But he wasn’t. He was fine. I mean, he’ll be fine. It’s not too serious. I guess if I must’ve thought he was dead, lord, what must have been going through her mind.”
He didn’t know how to respond. He could only give a blank stare and look straight ahead, his eyes boring right through the wall. His mind was racing, trying to put this picture together. He didn’t want to believe the worst. He wanted to have complete faith and trust in his wife, and believe every word he’d just heard. He heaved a heavy sigh as he stared at their past, at that day years ago he’d come home by surprise.
For the first time, it hit him. He’d come home by surprise. In all this time, that had never occurred to him before. He wasn’t supposed to be home until the next day, but he’d finished early. Did that have any bearing? The picture forming in his mind was scaring him to death. Her brother was saying something to him.
“What? I’m sorry I was somewhere else.”
“Oh, that’s okay, bud. I said that was one heavy sigh of relief there. I’m so glad the doc said he’ll be okay. You know, I have to go pick up the kids from the old lady across the street. If you need anything, call or knock.” And he was gone.
Sitting there, waiting for the doctor, reviewing their entire marriage, looking for clues to reassure him, or clues to unmask a lie – looking for the truth, not knowing which way to look. His questions were answered when the nurse called him aside. They went into some kind of private area. She asked him where he was when this happened. And how many injuries his son had had before. The line of questioning was really a line of attack.
He told her he hadn’t been home, he’d been on the base when it happened. He thought his son had fallen on their coffee table. She gave him a doubtful look and gave him the name of a social worker who would be coming by to see them. That’s when they started counseling. And bit by bit, the sad truth unfolded. Here is his wife’s story, as recorded, in her own words:
“I didn’t think I had a problem. Not at first. My parents always had a stocked bar. I’d sneak drinks because I thought I was being cool, being rebellious. My mom and dad always seemed to have a cocktail with dinner, or in the evening. It was no big deal. I only drank on occasion. When I drank too much, I told Mom I was too sick to go to school. She never suspected a thing.
“When we were married, I still had it under control. I only drank enough to feel calm. I hid the bottle behind the household cleaners under the kitchen sink. I really tried to stop when I got pregnant, and I was so proud of myself. I guess, subconsciously, I did know I had a problem, or why would I have been proud?
“After the baby was born, sometimes I just couldn’t handle the pressure. The day he came home and found me drunk, I was so filled with shame. I didn’t tell him it was a longtime habit. How could I tell him when I’d kept it a secret for so long? And I was sure, after that, I could change – without any help from anyone. And I did pretty well, at keeping the fact that I couldn’t stop a secret.
“The nurse thought I’d hurt him on purpose, that I was an abusive parent, but that’s just not true. I never hit him once. Not ever. Sometimes, he was just so hard to handle. I didn’t want to say anything, because I wanted to be strong enough to handle it myself. I didn’t want to lean on anyone, my husband or my brother or anyone. Sometimes, when he would cry, I would shake him and tell him to stop. I never meant to give him bruises.
“And that day he broke his jaw, I didn’t hit him. He came home early from his friend’s house. They’d had a disagreement over sharing. I was so frustrated, because this was my time. My bottle of vodka was on the end table. I yelled at him, because I thought he needed to learn to get along with people, if he was going to make it in this world. He cried and cried. I started to shake him to tell him to stop it. It was making my head explode with pain. He turned to run away from me and fell hard against the table, then slipped to the floor.
“I panicked. I thought he was dead. I ran to him, myself crying by this time, and I felt his neck. He was still alive, thank God. I didn’t think he was hurt at all. My mind was so muddled, and the quiet was such a relief. I just sat down for a minute. It seemed like a minute.
“I swear if I’d known his jaw was broken, I’d have called 911. But I couldn’t tell that by looking. God, I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose him, either one of them. Please, I’ll do anything. Please, God. Whatever you want. Just don’t take my family away from me. “
Whimpering, she finished, “please, I’ll do anything you want.” She was crying. Her husband, also in tears, reached out and held her. He didn’t want to lose her. He loved her. He loved his son. He knew she wasn’t mean, she was just sick. People understood these things now. Their whole family would get help.
The social worker was pleased, but wary. He took a leave of absence to stay home with his boy. His wife entered rehab and was gone for several months. The secret was out, now things could get better. And they did. She stayed clean and sober,
After eight years in the military, he left and worked with his dad, who had a general contracting company. It wasn’t the work he was used to, but it was a nice change and it allowed them all to be together – and be a family.
One day, when their boy was 11 years old, she got a phone call. Her parents were getting divorced. Her mom was devastated, they had been married thirty-two years. Her dad wanted to marry his 23 year old secretary, who was pregnant with his baby. She talked to her mom for over an hour, and told her husband she had to go be with her. That wasn’t the truth. Her mom was flying to Key West to think this whole thing out. On her dad’s credit card, of course. She didn’t stumble in until after midnight, staggering her way to the stairs. He made sure she got to bed, and then he prayed. He didn’t know it, but in the next room, his son prayed too.
The next four years were a roller coaster ride. Sometimes she could stay on the wagon, twice she went back to rehab, several times she didn’t come home all night. Their son tried to nurse her, every time she was hung over. He tried to do the chores and shopping, and didn’t tell his dad how bad it was when he wasn’t home. He loved his mom so much, and his dad. He couldn’t stand the chaos, the drama, the crying. So he tried to cover up.
Until, one night, she didn’t come home. The fourteen year old opened the door to the police. His face registered the reason for their visit and he just crumpled to the floor. Coming out of the study, seeing his son, the police in the doorway, a surreal moment froze him in time. He couldn’t move and just stood in the doorway of the study staring at the horrific apparition before him.
The car was totaled. Her funeral was four days later. They’d found the broken bottle of vodka and her purse lying near the car. He and his son were on their own. They couldn’t stop her disease. In the end, they couldn’t help her. Two years had passed since then. He and his son had grown closer. It would only be them now. That was his vow the day of her funeral. He would never love again. He could never love again. There was an emptiness and a loss so great – that even his desire was extinguished.
Until he saw the girl with the auburn hair. And now, here he was waiting for her. He couldn’t do it. How could he ever expect her to understand everything that had happened to him, to his son? And how could he push a new woman onto his son? She had no idea was she was getting into. He came back to: it was complicated; it was foolish; it was wrong. Making his decision, he jotted a quick note, paid up, and gave it to the waitress.
“I’m expecting someone in five minutes, but I just got paged. I have to go. Can you give her this note for me?” The waitress agreed and he hurriedly walked out of the restaurant before he had to face her. He never knew she had already walked away. And she never got to read his note:
“I knew you were my soul mate – from the moment I saw you, your eyes, your auburn hair. But I can’t even ask you if it’s possible for you to feel the same. My wife died two years ago. Drunk driving. It’s just me and my son now. How could I ever ask you to deal with all the pain we have experienced in our family, all of the baggage we carry? I couldnt. Take care, my angel.”
The waitress ended her shift and went home. As she closed the door to her small, plain apartment, she sighed. On the table was a suicide note she’d been working on. She read it over, shook her head, and tossed it into the trash can. Shoes kicked off, coat discarded, she wound her way through the mess and sadly made her way to the bedroom. A bottle of pills on the end table caught her attention and she just stared blankly for a few moments then let out another sigh that the world couldn’t hear.
Undressing for bed, she began emptying her apron pockets to put her tips in her top drawer and she came upon the note the man had given her. A little surprised, but now, she remembered. She knew she shouldn’t read the note, but then, what did it matter now?
Not even knowing the whole story, as she read the words on the napkin – tears softly slid down her cheeks. Soul mate. Drunk driver. Baggage… The vision of the preoccupied, worried man tapping his fingers entered her mind. Then, the pacing young girl from earlier invaded her memory.
No. She wouldn’t let it end this way. A sense of purpose surged through her veins. She’d keep this note, and watch for the girl with the auburn hair who had come in and left so abruptly. Maybe someday she would come back. She took the bottle from bedside the bed and flushed the pills from it down the toilet.
The waitress knew that only she held the key to true love, even it if wasn’t hers. At least not this one, but just maybe… Her eyes now quietly reflected a glimmer of hope that had drifted into her soul as gently as a leaf falling, as accidentally as fate unfolding. And with that, she slipped into bed and peacefully closed her eyes for the first time in a long time.
