Stories I'll Tell When I See You Again

I swear I could see icicles on your eyelashes, a raindrop hanging off the tip of your nose. It was a cold morning when you flew into the bakery, the bells on the door chiming like leaves whispering of an approaching storm. Beneath your pale skin were bright eyes, the promise of warmth. Then you smiled that James Dean smile and my stomach fell to the floor. In the blur, you asked about the smell in the air and I replied chocolate croissants and almond torte. You walked closer and I blushed. It was a day I will never forget; Thursday, April 2, 1964.

Fifty years later and I sit here, waiting for you. My face has dropped and my cheeks have hollowed. My eyelids sit as if they carry their own icicles weighing them down. I walk slower, I move slower, I live slower, but I think all the same.

And I have thought of you every single day.

The second time I saw you was on a Monday, a day usually reserved for deliveries. Most Mondays were uneventful. Customers would walk to work, or ride their bicycles; lean turkey sandwiches their wives packed for them in tidy brown bags that would crinkle as they moved. I would wave from the window and wait for the next day to arrive, hoping for change to happen.

This particular Monday was different because you walked through the door. You looked nervous, like you were equally on the brink of saying something and simultaneously stumbling forward. I held my breath and I wondered if you were holding yours, too.

“Would you share a glass of wine with me?” You spoke slowly and deliberately, like JFK addressing a crowd of people and not me, standing alone, behind the display case of a bakery.

“Where would we drink?”

“Anywhere.”

“Here?” I looked outside and it made me nervous so instead I flailed my arms, waving around the shop. “I have more work to do in the back. Would you mind?”

“I brought an opener.”

“I have glasses.” I spoke as you swiveled behind the counter and followed me through the kitchen doors.

You poured the glasses slowly and looked at me intently, as if begging for an answer. Instead, I sipped the wine, then licked the falling drop from my ruby stained lips and smiled at you like you were a chandelier hanging from a silver thread. You were remarkable.

“Cherries.” I offered to the silence.

“I taste cherries, too.” You beamed. (Or maybe, looking back, I just wanted you to.)

I turned to my table and laughed, giggled really, hoping you would think it was the wine and not the feeling of sizzling oil jumping up and through my chest. It was you. You made the oil in my stomach leap and my heart flutter and my ears close off to all noises other than your voice.

I opened a tote of fresh produce calmly, as if you hadn’t walked into my life and shifted it in an instant. I tried not to look at your face as I blindly reached into the bag, unsure of what I would pull out of my neighbor’s weekly produce offering. But then, in a flash, I saw them. Beneath the faded canvas fabric laid bright red stalks, each the length and strength of my forearm and dripping with color.

Rhubarb.

I smiled and my mind went to rhubarb cake. My grandmother used to tell me stories of her recipe. She made it once a year, for my father’s birthday, and when he was young she would spend hours hunched over the kitchen table, weaving pieces of rhubarb stalks together to form a sailboat to perch on top of the cake. My father would be so excited, he would dive his tiny fingers through the middle of the just-baked dough and lift a soft handful into his mouth, laughing with joy. I missed my father. I missed dreaming of his rhubarb cake.

I turned to you and I could tell from your eyes, I was smiling.

“Do you know what rhubarb is?” I asked.

“It looks like lipstick on a celery stick… What does it taste like?”

I laughed, “Sometimes it’s tart and other times it’s sweet and, oftentimes, you won’t know ‘till you’ve tried it.”

“Like wine,” You held up your glass and nodded.

“The sugar is on the shelf behind you.” I paused before moving. You carried the bag of sugar to the table and I met you with a bowl. You slowly poured the sugar in, as if reading my mind.

I wanted to kiss you. Instead, I paused, glanced, spoke.

“Dip the rhubarb stalk in the sugar, then take a bite.” I shifted my eyes towards the sugar bowl, adding, “Try a sip of wine after… it probably wouldn’t hurt.”

I went first. Then, I could hear you crunch the stalk and sip the wine and I swear I could hear you smile. Against my better judgement, I looked up and felt my lips so close to yours, a tilt of the earth would have brought them together. It was a whisper between us that lasted only mere moments, but you stood so close, I nearly fell into you. I almost pressed my sugar coated merlot lips against yours and let myself go.

And I have thought of that moment every day since.

I asked, “Are you married?”

You replied, “I’m engaged.”

I pushed, “Why are you here?”

You swore it was arranged.

I wanted to hold open the door and show you the way, offering the promise of seeing you again someday, but instead I sat and listened. We shared stories and paused only for a bite of a cookie or a sip of merlot or to dance under the kitchen lights and to sing atop tables. We talked for hours and I could tell time was moving so much faster around us than it was within us, there in the back room of the bakery, where I will always remember you.

I cherish that night and the day we met for many reasons, but mostly, because you have written to me on the exact date, every year since. On every second of April, you sit down and pen me a letter, telling me of your problems, your wishes, your dreams; and each year, a few days later, I would write back. One letter each, then we would leave it and continue on with the other 360 days as usual. We each got married and brought families into the world. We loved and were loved by others…

And I never loved anyone less because of you, I promise you that.

Your wife died of breast cancer, mine of pancreatic. I didn’t need to ask how your children reacted, nor could I tell you of mine. It was a hard few years, but each year, we would write, nonetheless.

Last year, you sent an invitation. Our daughters must share a brain because they separately told us to show up and meet each other on this night, on April 2nd, 2014, at the place my bakery used to be. I was so nervous, my daughter had to dress me. She wrapped my neck tie and placed cufflinks along my wrists, before walking me across the street to a place I once knew.

It is a wine bar now, which is fitting, so I’ve ordered a bottle of merlot. I see you approaching from the distance and I can almost swear I see a bouquet of flowers, but it may be rhubarb.

Before I see you, before our first real date, you need to know this:

I wanted to tell you that you were beautiful the day we met. I wanted to tell you that you were loved, you were whole; that I would be the ground beneath your feet that swayed and moved to meet your ever-changing needs but, still, stayed solid.

If I could have been your rock, I would have frozen in place. I wanted to be your land, your sea, your sky and moon; and I would have traded places with the Earth to become everything for you, if given the chance.

I wanted to be the one to feed you chocolate-coated blackberries at midnight and on your deathbed, be the one to spoon-feed you apple pie. To be loved by you and to love you; in moments, to be hated by you, adored by you, and craved by you.

But as I sit here on this day, fifty years later, I am delighted, simply, to be your date.

For this one night, just maybe, time will pass under this moonlit sky as we sip wine and dream of more than the life we would have had. We will talk of rhubarb kisses and merlot lips and all that could be.

And I, as always, will love you.