Maybe...

It was a beautiful spring day after a long and cold winter. I spent lunch sitting in the grass in Bryant Park.

Something had gone wrong for me along the way to the summit. I had been sentenced to time in a cubicle selling invisible screams for attention.

I had no choice at this point in my life and simply accepted whatever job was offered to me.

I came alone but quickly sat next to some other people who seemed to be escaping the confines of the office as I was. As I sat there I joined their conversation about baseball. There was one fervent New York Mets fan and she was adorable. She was in her thirties and had a smile on her which coupled with a laugh, produced a sense of sugar overload within me.

Her name was Cindy and she was married with two kids at home. She had wanted to become a therapist of some sort but put that off when she met Alan, they wed and instantly got pregnant. She finished the semester and “wobbled her way back home after making the Dean’s list.”

“I was 8 months pregnant and really rotund.” She laughs and then a sense of darkness swept within her eyes. “That’s what Alan said, at least.”

I thought to myself, “what an asshole.” But I stayed silent and just listened to her and absorbed her words.

I told her I was married with two kids as well, and that my wife was from England. She believed in a stiff upper lip and despised public displays of affection. This included holding hands and embraces. Her views on private displays of affection were similar to her public ones. The sense of a chilly atmosphere of rejection, seemed to permeate through me.

Her father had made millions of dollars and was a powerful man who despised anyone who could not match his energy and resolve.

I could not match his energy or resolve. It was soon when I was slapped with the fact that she echoed her father’s disdain. I felt it from her as I went from one job to another searching for elusive success.

My wife would constantly tell me to join her father’s company in whatever menial position he would offer. I rejected those proposals and she moved a bit further from me.

“That must really emasculate you.” Cindy said.

“Yes, but I do love her and I know she loves me. It’s just a clash of emotional physicality.”

“Ok, that sounds about right.” She laughed.

Her companions went back to work and she said she would meet them back at the office.

We sat there talking and then I brought two cups of coffee for us and we just kept talking. Time and the need to return to our offices had no power over us. We were both in need of appreciation, desire and affection.

I took her hand and she softly pulled away. Tears filled her eyes and she whispered, “I get it.”

“I know you do.”

There are several hotels within the perimeter of the park. The thought of them and us whispered into our vacant pockets of fulfillment. She smiled and I smiled.

Whatever happened that afternoon, the conversation and the way we both went our separate ways will not be revealed. Did we or didn’t we, there are no clear cut answers.

I still go to Bryant Park and I look and listen for her smile and sweet laughter. Maybe we have seen see each other and continued our conversations as if they never ended.

Maybe our vacant pockets of fulfillment can be populated by stolen moments in a park and the memory of her smile and her laughter; by my words and my emotional rescue missions to heal the fissures within…Maybe…