Love Story

She responds to this new focus. She says almost no one talks about her reviews. She’s found it strange a public act like writing in a newspaper tends to isolate one more. She’s hungry for connection. Exposing herself every week tortures her. She enters rooms filled with artists and feels chills from corners and does not know why. Has she offended someone or withheld praise? What she wants now is the privacy of writing a novel, something where she can fulfill her lifelong ambition. She knows the talent is there and she knows she’s ready to sustain that kind of work, but she needs a partner to support her in this.

I can see her life is a cauldron of anxiety like mine, I feel I can help her. She looks frail to me now, unloved, under-nourished, and vulnerable. I want to help. How though? I offer to buy cigarettes. She wants to go. We pay and step out to the street. She looks distracted. I run for cigarettes and when I return she asks if I’ll share a cab with her. She’s going home and maybe the boyfriend will be there. Before I can answer she waves a delicate hand and a cab screams to a stop. I watch her slip effortlessly into the back seat. It’s truly a thing of beauty witnessing that act. I never tuck into a cab with more finesse. I try to match her nonchalance.

She looks deep into me. I force myself to not look away. I fear what she’ll see in my eyes. She must know I want her. For what feels like the first time in my life I’m not lonely, not in her presence, of course, it’s hopeless, well, maybe not hopeless? And then...

She thanks me for taking the cab with her. She says I’m kind. I have an unusual streak of kindness in me. My mother must have loved me very much. For a short moment in time she rests her head on my chest. It’s a brief gesture of gratitude and yet I feel rewarded. I feel received, included, valued, and understood. I feel like I belong to her small perfect club. I’m not as beautiful or gifted as her boyfriend, but I’m here.

I was there and she never blew out the small candle that burned in me. In fact that touch of her head and curly hair against my chest lit a furnace nothing could extinguish.