One Week to Valentine's Day

February 2013

 

I think that in total there were three. Exchanged with a note on a doorstep or from hand to hand on the sidewalk outside one of my many apartments, the paper bags contained items with too deep a personal association to be kept. 

     The first bag I sat beside the red front door of the blue house I lived in two summers ago. In it I had neatly folded a white v-neck, a pair of blue briefs (the one's he thought were too "silky"), and something else that I can't recall. I do remember, however, wanting to find things to fill the bag with. I think I wanted to make a point, but overall I'm pretty sure I was just trying to find a way to make him come back here one last time. Three months before, he had given me a handmade leather notepad imprinted on the front with white feathers. Inside was a thin set of graphed pages which I had drawn a few doodles on. I placed it in the bag at first, then took it out. Then I put it in again, and finally took it out for good. It is now sitting in my wardrobe closet on the middle shelf, in the corner behind a box of jewelry.

     The second bag replaced the first one; from him to me. This one had more things in it than the last, including my pair of cowboy boots, a ton of my clothes, a note which later I ripped up and burned, and a bag of cherries.

The weekend before, I had picked out a pound of cherries from the stand at the farmers market in Westmoreland, right beside the crepe stand that I had been working at. I had left them at his house and after asking to have them back, I discovered he had eaten them all. Furious, I demanded he replace them. The ones in the bag were from Fred Meyer, however, and not from the market. This only made me more angry and I remember refusing to eat even one. This was two years ago.

     The third bag was in my house last night. We had retreated to my apartment in southwest to eat and planned to go out to some bars afterward. After my change of heart and fit of tears that is so oddly familiar and seems to always happen cuddled together on the bed, I made him leave and he forgot his bag. Later he contacted me, wanting to pick it up. I was exhausted. The ache in my head felt like a growing, pulsing rage of heat that was trying to push my eyeballs right out of their sockets. I reluctantly pulled leggings on, grabbed my keys, a blanket for my shoulders, and the paper bag. His car was running on Taylor street, with the hazard lights on. He stood on the sidewalk staring at me. I looked down all the way until I reached him. I looked horrible. I had worked all day and cried for four hours straight afterwards. my hair was sticky and seemed to go just one direction, plastered across my head and puffing out over my right shoulder. I couldn't look at him. I handed him the paper bag: A fresh loaf of sourdough, a pack of salami, a plastic container filled with olive tapenade and mozzarella balls, and an unopened box of condoms, all of which was purchased no more than two and a half hours ago. 

     His eyes were sad and his lips were pursed tight like they did when he was selfishly upset. I wanted to scratch his head and rub my nose and mouth on the stubble of his cheeks. He put the bag down on the concrete and grabbed my hands desperately in his. They were always warm and too soft to be a man's. I tried to remember what it felt like to be in love with him. It wasn't the same anymore. 

     It's never as satisfying as the movies make it seem when the guy runs after you when you manipulatively reject him.

 "It's just that you said you would leave him," were the words that finally came out of his mouth. I knew this was true, but I had said maybe. I had said maybe I would leave him. I shook my head and buried my face in the blanket that clung to my shoulders. This had to end now. I turned around and walked briskly down the path to my building's front door. "Lydia!" he shouted. Then he shouted it again. He said my name three times and when my key was barely in the lock, his hands were on my shoulders and then they were around my waist and his face was in my neck and he was saying "It's going to be okay, it's going to be okay, it's going to be okay." I couldn't think anymore and all I wanted to do was sink into my bed and pray for a dreamless uninterrupted sleep. "I know, I know," I said. I realized he was the only thing holding me up right now. Without him, I would not be standing. He said "I love you," and then was gone as fast as I had turned the key and stepped back into the foyer of my apartment building. 

     I ripped off my clothes which seemed to be consuming me and crawled into my sea of covers on the bed, naked. The blinds of my bay windows were all open and through them I could see a thick orange light glowing against the building next door. The color filled the entire square of my window, and all I could think about was the flickering light of fire and the cracking sound it makes when the flames begin to take over.

Reviews

[Gary Dale Burns]

The three paper bags, "baggage", moving between two characters is very effective in pushing me forward to read. You're able to sketch the tension between two people from the objects alone. Later there are more details from conversation, but it's these objects in the bags that really caught my attention and helped tell your story best. I'm little confused on the time frames, as the first bag was when you were in a house two summers ago and then the second was two years ago, so both are from two years ago? When it happened might not matter as much as the how because I understand from you the contexts of each "break-up."

The line "It's never as satisfying as the movies make it seem when the guy runs after you when you manipulatively reject him" is a bit long and ungainly, but again, the description which follows illustrates what you want that line to say better than the elongated statement. The ending's fire imagery speaks to the note that was torn and burned earlier but also leaves me with this feeling that the character herself is still with a fever for this selfish man. She has not wholly escaped him and there are so many paper bags between them already. Perhaps more can be shown about the inner life of the character before the end, giving us some wish and hope for her future.