Tears spun the world out of focus. Her face became a Picasso blur as my throat crunched words into dust.
"You don’t get it," I croaked, looking away, snuffling mucous on my sleeve.
She took my hand, squeezed. "I do get it, I do." Held on.
"You can’t."
"Yes I can -- I’ve been there, too."
I turned back to her across the picnic table, but she was still awash with color and light. Was this her true soul -- mixed, roiling, indistinct? Changing and moving with the moment...confused? I looked down.
"Been where?" I whispered, "where is it you think I am?" I looked into her eyes, blinking furiously, seeking clarity.
"In love," she said, almost ashamed. "In love...with someone who wasn’t in love with me."
Tears again. I hid them best I could by raising my beer to my lips, staring into its amber depth.
I knew this already. Hearing her say it, make it real, hurt -- but not as much as I’d imagined.
"You’re suffering," she said, "I suffered, too. Not just emotional torment, either -- I experienced physical pain."
I glanced at her, doubting Thomas that I was.
"I did!" she insisted. "I’d been in love with this guy for months and months. He’s all over my journal. I wrote poems about him." She took her hand back, broke our grip.
"I’ve written you poems, too," I mumbled, surprised at my admission. She let it slide, either not hearing or not wishing to open that particular Pandora’s Box.
"We were good friends and hung out all the time," she continued, "but I never told him, point blank, how I felt. I dropped hints, of course. But he either didn’t get it, or chose to ignore them.
"So this one night, we’re hangin’ at our regular bar with some friends. There’s this new chick -- new to me, anyway -- and she and him hit it off. Really hit it off. They start makin’ out right there in front of me! It was really uncomfortable, you know? But I rode with it, tried not to think about it, what it meant." She stroked her glass with both hands.
"Then, he leaves...he leaves with her.
"And I got this pain, this pain in my chest. Like a dozen needles piercing my heart. It was sharp and real and physical. He left with her...and I was having a heart attack."
Listening helped pull me away from my own pain. I’d dried my eyes, mostly, and conquered my sniffling.
"Well, I can’t say anyone’s succeeded in giving me a heart attack. I’ve had heart ache -- where the blood turns to lead and the heart to marble and you can’t breathe and you want to die."
She nodded, took my hand again. "You know, sometimes I wonder what’s wrong with me... I’ve got a control freak who wants to marry me, I’m screwing a guy who couldn’t start an emotional spark with a mountain of flint, and here’s someone right in front of my eyes who loves me unconditionally."
"There’s nothing wrong with you," I assured her, "Love hides in a labyrinth.
"But why does it have to be Heaven or Hell? Why can’t Love just be Heaven?"
Her turn to look away. I plunged on.
"I’ve felt Love -- or maybe just intense Lust -- for other women. Even then, if it was Lust, it was Lust infused with powerful emotion. Not talking just a hot groin, here.
"But," I choked up, eyes flooding, "but I’ve never felt like this before." I struggled for a few breaths, then went on.
"You like to deny it, but I think you know its true when I say, ‘I know you’ --
I know you down deep. I think you fear that. That’s why you deny it."
She smiled, looked at our hands clasped before us.
"You’re right. You know me," she whispered. "But I don’t think you know why."
I smiled back. "You’re right. I don’t know why."
She took a long drag off her Camel.
"God, I can’t believe I’m gonna tell you this," she pulled her hand back and laughed, machine gun nervous, "I’ve never told anyone..." she stared into her pint, small hands encircling it, sliding up and down, slowly, riding the condensation.
I waited patiently, watching her eyes dance.
"You know I was in convent school."
I nodded.
"When I was nine," she peered over the edge of the table umbrella into the azure above, "eight?...no, nine," she fixed her dark, earthy eyes on mine, again. "I was in my room at night.
"And he spoke to me."
My brows rose. "What was it like?"
"Cliché, really. Though I didn’t know it then, of course. The room filled with light, white, white light, and his voice came to me, and he said I should love everyone, as many people as I can."
We just stared at each other. There was nothing to say. We sipped our beers.
"I wish I weren’t so vindictive," I ventured, "because I’m luck a puppy -- I give as much love as I can. But, if it’s not returned, I tend not to give any more. And I may even get a little cold toward them. Too high expectations, I guess."
"But that can be a good thing."
"Yeah, maybe," I laughed, "but I sure don’t get much!"
"That can be a good thing, too." She laughed with me.
"Tell me," I grinned as best I could, "how?"
"You’re holding out for the real thing."
"Yeah, but the waiting’s such a bitch!"
We giggled some more, then quieted.
"Really," she said, suddenly serious, "I think it ties into why I met you."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. You’re such a better person than I am."
I rolled my eyes to Heaven.
"Please," I said sardonically.
"I mean it!"
"No -- I’m no better than you are."
"Yes, you are," she insisted, leaning in.
"Okay, fine," I agreed, reaching for her wrist. "Let me raise you up to my level." To where you love me as much as I love you, I wanted to, but didn’t, add.
"Another challenge," she said, tapping ash with her free hand, "that’s why I met you! You’re here to challenge me."
"Hell, I challenge everybody I meet," I said, looking down into my beer, then,
"I liked your first reason better."
"Well, most people don’t challenge me. Mostly, they’re like old shoes: comfortable and snug, no surprises."
"And I’m the new pair you don’t wear but on special occasions -- I pinch your toes and squeak a lot, but I’m oh, so shiny..."
Laughs.
"But I like that," she said, "I want to be challenged. I need that in my life."
And I need you in mine.
"Challenged how?" I offered, "how do you like to be challenged?"
She looked at me, cocked her head in that way she did, and said, "Well, it’s easy to just take the easy road, you know?"
"You mean like have most of my life."
"And you make me consider the difficult roads, the one I might naturally avoid."
"So, I’m your sherpa, eh?"
"Yeah," she said over a giggle and a smile, "you could say that."
My own grin toppled into a grimace. "I’m not sure how comfortable that is for me. As I keep telling you, I don’t want to make you do anything you don’t want to do.
It bothers me even when you do things others lead you to, and you regret it later."
"No, no, no," she said, blowing a narrow stream of smoke, "believe me, you won’t make me do anything I don’t want to. You’re a guide toward difficult paths. You reassure me that I’ll come through those trials intact, stronger even.
"Those ‘difficult paths’ lead to good things, and while I may not pursue them on my own, your support makes me go for it. That’s important."
"Well, good," I said, confidence obscuring my unsurety, "you’re important in my life, too."
"Yeah?" she said, teeth framed by a smile.
"Of course," I said emphatically, "I can’t picture my life without you in it."
"You better not!"
Laughter again.
"No worries."
"Like the other night at the Elysian," she said, taking a pull from her glass, "the Summerfest. You were talking to that woman on the other end of the couch."
"Brenda," I said, "I didn’t think you’d noticed -- you certainly paid her no mind at the time."
"Maybe," she said, "but you did!"
"Well, you were watching the bands," I defended, "and I wanted to talk. She listened."
"Like she had a choice." ZING!
"Okay," I admitted, wet a finger and stroked the air, "you one, me zip."
"About time!" she said, chuckling.
"And what’s that supposed to mean?" I said, brows arched.
"It’s just nice," she said, head cocked again, "it’s nice to be the center of attention instead of the audience."
"Christ on a stick, girl! When have you not been the center of my attention?"
"I’m not talking about attention like that. That’s another point altogether. I’m talking about having someone applaud at my clever repartee, too."
"Hey," I said through pursed lips, "I wouldn’t hang with you if you couldn’t hold your own. You just don’t join in that often. I’d love you to toss out more zingers."
"Well," she said, stubbing out the cigarette, "maybe I would, if I had more opportunities."
"Ouch! Don’t wait for ‘em to appear, honey -- make your own."
"But you’re always talking."
"I talk a lot, sure, but I also listen a lot. I’m more intense and all over the place, but I think we’re relatively balanced, if you’re gonna compare hot air time."
"Okay," she conceded, "but then it’s that intensity that keeps me quiet."
"Yeah," I said, familiar self-doubt and chagrin descending, "that I can see."
Pause.
"Anyway," I started again, "we were talking about Brenda. You had a reaction, after all."
"Well," she said around a fresh Camel in her lips. Her match went out. I raised my Zippo, the flame took. "All I was gonna say is, if you’d left with her, I’d’ve been jealous."
Great. She loves me not, she loves me. Another daisy bites the dust.
I dropped my head to the table. "Sometimes I wish you wouldn’t tell me those things." Raised it. "No, I’d much rather you told me. But it adds to my confusion."
"Sorry," she said, not unkindly.
"It’s just that, you know how such suggestions feed my fantasy of us as a couple. Of true love and Princess Bride and all that."
"You mean, ‘to blave’."
"What?" I asked, off track.
"To blave. To bluff. In Princess Bride, Miracle Max fears True Love, so he insists the Dread Pirate Roberts is merely talking poker."
"Oh, yeah," I mumbled, "right. You know, I don’t know why I work at that video store, when you’re the movie buff trivia queen."
"Somehow, I can’t feature you as ‘trivia queen’."
"You got that right.
"Anyway, before I forget, I’d been meaning to tell you -- next time you bite my shoulder when we’re saying our long good-byes, and biting is fine by me, by the way, but next time go for some skin. No reason you should just get a mouthful of 100% cotton for your efforts. And you know I won’t take the next step, even then." We’d covered this ground before.
"Yeah, I know it." Was that a sigh? Shit.
"I’ll take the rap, but I suspect we’re both guilty of wanting too much.
One shouldn’t wish for everything. That’s pride."
"Don’t go all Stendhal on me, babe."
"Not to worry," I grinned, "if I ever got what I most desire, there’s no way in hell I’d toss it away. I really want what I desire."
Another pause.
"Speaking of intensity," she broached, "you reminded me, when talking about putting me in your spotlight whenever we’re together... Sometimes that spotlight is a little too bright to handle."
"How, exactly?" I asked. "I mean, I’m not sure how much I can change the raw material of who I am, but I can try, if I know specifics."
"Well," she began, stopped, sucked on the Camel. "When you’re longing for that consummation, that Princess Bride perfection, your attention upon me is kinda difficult to take. It’s like lasers slicing through me."
"I see," I said, knowing all too well what she meant. I’m an intense guy. Most folks can’t take it. "Relaxing is not my strong suit, but I’ll try to tone down the lasers a notch or two."
Machine gun giggles.
"That’d be nice," she nodded, tapped ash.
"Okay," I said, "it’s a deal. But I gotta know something."
"Okay..."
"About the time we first bonded, we had that long, charged conversation at the Big Time. You’d just broken up the night before, and we were really hittin’ it off, we were all over the emotional map. And you’d accentuate your points by touching my arm, and often, my thigh.
"And at one point, we were talking about how your ex didn’t communicate well, and was emotionally distant --"
"Didn’t stop me from getting back together with him two weeks later, did it?" she mumbled.
"Yeah," I said, "well, we all choose our crosses.
"But you’re not gonna divert me that easily. Back to the night in question: you re-phrased my communication sentiment, saying how you’d take your signals for what he wanted from him, and assumed he did the same. And you put your hand on my thigh, and said, ‘Just like you’re taking your cues from me, and I’m taking my cues from you.’
"Now, I gotta know -- did you mean what I think you meant?"
She blew another plume of smoke, cocked her head.
"Probably."
I collapsed onto the table, head in hands. "I knew it!"
"But," she jumped in, "I’m glad we didn’t go there."
"Why?" I asked the weathered wood.
"Because," she cooed, "then we wouldn’t be here, now."
I looked up, "How can you know that? I didn’t go with your signals because I felt like I’d be taking advantage. You were vulnerable."
"I was vulnerable."
"But," I said again, "how can you be sure we wouldn’t be in an even better place?"
"Because. I just know."
My shoulders sagged. Okay. I give.
We stared at each other in silence for a time.
"So," I said at last, drained my glass. Hers was empty. "This was a good thing."
"Definitely."
We stood, walked out of Fiddler’s courtyard and onto the sidewalk. I faced her.
"You need time," she said. "That’s all."
"Maybe," I said, "maybe we both do."
We hugged, deep and long.
The tears returned, but I managed to grind out a good-bye as I buried my face in her shoulder.
"Without you," I whispered, hoarse, "all I have is time."