by Billy Coffey
“Let me tell you something,” I said, “and I’m only going to say this once. I loved Caroline. I’ll love her forever. You’re right, I couldn’t tell her about you. But I couldn’t keep you from her either. I let her go because I had to. I was willing to make that sacrifice.”
“Why?”
“Because…” I trailed off, not sure how to say what I’d always known to be the truth. “Because you’re my answered prayer. Because God sent you to me. And because I know that between Him and you, I’m pretty well covered. I’m in good hands. Don’t matter how much two people love each other, sooner or later one will let the other down. Her and I would’ve been no different. I trust that won’t happen with you and God.”
The Old Man thought for a moment and nodded. Only after did I realize he never agreed with me. “Tell me this one thing, Andy. Do you really want that? Do you want what she has? Or should she be wanting what you have?”
With that he smiled and began to fade into the bench.
“I’m melting! I’m melting!” he shouted. Then he laughed and was gone, leaving his last question to linger like a shadow.
I took the towel from my shoulder and went back to wiping the counter. Should she have been wanting what I had? What did I have? My own private angel, yes. I’m sure that would have caused a considerable amount of envy even in Willa’s sainted heart. But I didn’t think that was what the Old Man meant. No, he meant the sadness I carried.
Was that true?
Life was a complicated thing full of mystery and wonder. There were some things that everyone, regardless of who they were or what they had, could count on. Happiness was not among them. Not the permanent kind, anyway. That came in the next life. Here in this life we were in the fire, and it was a fire that burned hot.
I could have tried to find Willa’s happiness. If I wanted to and if I really thought it would be best, I could have forced my sadness down and covered it up with smiles and hymns. I could hope that sooner or later the happy life would become so ingrained that it would become the truth.
But the Old Man was right. Deep down in my secret places, I knew better.
I knew that life was not a sitcom. My troubles were fewer and less painful than most, but rarely did they invoke laughter. My circumstances were seldom wrapped up in a half an hour. And I could not recall there ever being applause at the end.
To feel sadness did not mean I had no faith; it meant I had an abundance of it. It meant I could see things were not what they should be. What they were intended to be. That there had to be more. Better. It was not my fault and not my doubt that made me feel the way I did. I hurt for no other reason than because I was alive.
I reached for the card that still sat by the cash register—BE HAPPY!! GOD LOVES YOU!!—and then stooped down and placed it in my box. I had always allowed Willa her happiness, but from then on I vowed I would try to accept it. I would smile as she sang and prayed and laughed, which was a good deal of the time. I would tap my feet as she danced to the lusty melodies of life and I would join her when I could. But I would always hold dear to my own truth: that the real conquerors of life were the ones who knew not only when to laugh but when to cry.
9
No One’s Here for Rest
Elizabeth sat immersed in her paper and scissors. I wasn’t sure if she had heard me or not, if she had even heard that story or not. My eyes had kept to either the wall in front of me or Willa’s card as I’d remembered her aloud. It was hard enough to share, harder if I had to look at the person with whom I was sharing. The few times I did glance at her, Elizabeth hadn’t been looking back. She’d just been cutting. But now she glanced up to me. “It takes some people a very long time to learn that lesson, Andy,” she said. “And sadly, many never do. They go to such lengths to avoid the pain in their lives that the lengths themselves become a pain that’s worse. You should count yourself fortunate.”
“What are you doing?” I asked her.
“What?”
“The scissors and paper,” I said. “What’s that all about?”
“Oh, sorry,” she said. She rested her project on her lap and gave me her full attention. “Nothing personal, just a habit I picked up a while back. There was a little girl in here named Constance. Very sick, the poor thing. She’d spend hours with scrap sheets of paper and a pair of scissors, cutting out these wonderful little shapes of animals and hearts and snowflakes. It was amazing. She said it helped her to remember and forget at the same time.”
“I don’t understand what that means,” I said.
Elizabeth picked up her paper and scissors again and said, “I didn’t either, but she asked me to try it one day. Can’t say it has the same effect on me, but it is soothing. Sort of allows me to put a picture to what I’m talking about.”
“Or listening to,” I said. “This little talk’s been pretty one-sided so far. I know next to nothing about you.”
“That’s because the point is you, Andy,” she said. “That’s why I’m here, and that’s my job.”
“I get that,” I said. “Pretty hard for a guy like me to keep opening up to a total stranger, though. Even one who’s…”
“Yes?” she asked.
I cleared my throat and said, “Easy to talk to.” It wasn’t a lie. It also wasn’t exactly what I almost said.
“Well, thank you. But in my defense it’s a by-product of my work. I’ve spent a lot of time listening to a lot of people. I was made for it.”
“So these people,” I said, “you fix them up on the inside and just send them on their way? Do you ever see any of them again?”
“Oh, sure I do,” she said. “I like to keep in touch.”
“What happened to the little girl? The one with the scissors and paper?”
Elizabeth slowly turned the paper upward—“She died”—and cut out a small arc.
There wasn’t a hardness to her words. Not much at all in the way of feeling. Elizabeth was stating a fact and nothing more. She might as well have said it was dark outside.
“That sounds a bit cold,” I said.
“That she died? Why?”
“I don’t know. Just sounded like it wasn’t a big deal. It must have affected you.”
“Of course it affected me,” she said, though not enough to stop with the scissors. “Everyone I see here affects me, and I love every single person I meet.”
I weighed the pros and cons of my next question and decided more bad than good could come out of it. Then I asked her anyway.
“Do I affect you, Elizabeth?”
She looked at me with those eyes and said, “Very much so, Andy.”
I didn’t push my luck further but hoped she heard what I’d left unasked. I wasn’t fool enough to think a person could feel anything close to affection toward someone they’d just met, especially when you were wrapped up like a boogeyman in a Scooby Doo cartoon. But as Elizabeth snipped her sheet of paper and looked at me, I knew I was beginning to feel something. I didn’t know what it was or what it could lead to, and I didn’t care. Feeling it was enough.
“So you’re okay with not being happy?” Elizabeth asked.
“Most times,” I said. “Happiness is an overrated emotion at best.”
She nodded. “I think you’re right, actually. No one’s here for happiness. Or rest. It’s all about work, Andy. Everyone has their job to do. That’s the important thing.”
“What sort of job?”
“God wants people to dry tears and mend hearts. That’s pretty much an impossible task until you’ve shed your own tears and had your own heart broken.”
“I suppose you’re right,” I said.
“What about love? Is that overrated, too?”
“By no means,” I said. My smile said more. “Of course, that’s just me. I’m sure other people would have a different opinion.”
“Anyone I know?”
I looked down and pulled the sealed envelope from the box.
“One comes to mind.”
&nb
sp; Elizabeth studied the name that had been scrawled on the outside.
“I was wondering when you were going to get around to that one. Who’s Alex?”
“Never got his last name. Doesn’t matter, though. Because I think we’re all Alex, at least at some point.”
10
The Envelope
I dug into my pocket for two quarters and popped them into the giant binoculars at the boardwalk’s edge. The lens clicked open. I panned to the right just before the setting sun and made out the cargo ship’s port of call: Panama. A lone figure was leaning on the starboard rail, savoring one final look at the city. It was a sweetly ironic moment. A part of me longed to be him, free of the land and its trappings, and I imagined a part of him longed to be me, free of a life spent in motion. Such was man in his deepest self, always searching yet rarely finding his place in the world.
The man and the boat and the sun went black as the telescope’s shutter snapped shut. Fifty cents bought only so much reverie. I felt my pockets again and found nothing, so I turned and instead focused my attention inland. What began less than an hour previous as a slow trickle of afternoon pedestrians was now a mini rush hour. Joggers and walkers and Rollerbladers paraded past me in varying degrees of speed and strain, all in search of that elusive prize of thinner thighs and flatter stomachs.
“Maybe you should get a little exercise, too,” the Old Man said.
I turned back around to see him leaning on the guardrail and staring out at the cargo ship easing its way over the horizon. His linen suit flapped in the warm breeze. He bent the rim of his fedora down to shield his eyes from the sun.
“Me?” I asked. “I’m in great shape. I exercise all the time. You look snazzy.”
“Walking out from behind the counter at the gas station to pour yourself another cup of coffee is not exercise,” he answered. “And thank you.”
“Like you should talk,” I answered. I looked down to where his suit jacket wasn’t buttoned. “You have a bigger gut than I do, and you’re an angel. Thought you people were supposed to be beautiful.”
He feigned insult. “You don’t think I’m beautiful?”
“I wouldn’t say you’re exactly easy on the eyes. My opinion, anyway.”
“True,” he said. “Especially around here. Lots of beautiful people at the beach. Who, by the way, do not go out and about in a pair of cutoff jeans and a Dale Earnhardt T-shirt.”
It was my turn to feign insult. “Fine, my clothes are ugly. But you’re ugly, too. And I can change my clothes.”
“Touché,” he said. We both chuckled and switched vantage points, him now looking to the crowd and me out to sea. The sun was turning from yellow to orange to pink. In the distance a dolphin broke the surface, tumbling me into reverie again.
It seemed the Old Man was taking part in a little reverie of his own, because he spent the next few minutes stroking the bracelet on his arm. I’d asked him about it more times than I could remember, but he was as mysterious with that as he was with most anything else. The flow of information was always the same with us, and that was a current that never changed direction.
“What is it about the ocean that calls to the lovers in this world?” he finally asked.
I shrugged and said, “Never thought about it. Why?”
“Take a look over there,” he said, nodding into the crowd.
I turned to see a couple near the pier, strolling hand in hand toward us. Their appearance stood in contrast with the exercisers who snaked their way around them. He was tall, with coal-colored hair and a deep tan that set off the tattoos on his right arm. She was a strikingly beautiful brunette with pouty lips and a smile that seemed brighter than the sun. With his beige khakis and white muscle shirt and her blue sundress and sandals, the two were a J Crew ad lost in a Nike commercial.
Their pace was slow and deliberately aimless. They did not scan the surf or the skies or even the pedestrians around them but kept them low and just a few feet forward to the boundary of their own private world. Each step was made in unison and coincided with some form of physical contact—a hand deftly moved behind her back, a gentle kiss on his cheek.
“Love is a beautiful thing, Andy,” the Old Man said. He took his eyes off the couple and put them on me. “Isn’t it?”
It was more than a simple question, and I knew it. Much more.
He was speaking of Caroline.
She and I had never gotten far enough to speak of love, but I always believed I had felt it for her. Not the love-thy-neighbor sort of love, but the sort that keeps you awake at night wondering what it would be like if you never had to wonder again. Yes, I thought, love was a beautiful thing. At least the little I knew of it was, before it scared me into breaking things off and breaking her heart. The Old Man was right as far as all of that went. I could never get close to anyone. Not with him in my life. But I knew what love looked like. Knew what it was and what it could do. I wasn’t an expert at it, but that seemed immaterial. I could appreciate a picture without knowing how to paint one.
“Yeah,” I answered. “It surely is.”
The couple neared and I politely turned away. I heard her giggle at something he said and then mention how beautiful the sunset was. He maneuvered her away from the crowd to the railing beside me. She rested her head on his shoulder as she surveyed the scene.
“Be right back,” the Old Man said, fading from sight.
“Okay.”
“What’s that?” the man asked me.
“I said ‘good day,’” I answered, turning toward them.
“It is,” he said.
The three of us exchanged hellos, and he asked to borrow my lighter. He pulled a cigarette from his back pocket, lit it with Sinatra-like panache, and then handed it to his lady for a puff. She exhaled a long stream of smoke and gave him another peck on the cheek as thanks.
I decided then it was time for me to move along. Though not intentional, the two made me feel like a passerby in their magical kingdom of love. Besides, all that kissing and touching was just a little too Cinemax for me.
But as I turned to walk away, something unexpected happened. The woman sighed. Not a contented, life-is-beautiful sigh. More of a this-is-going-to-be-hard sigh. I eased my way back to the railing. And just when I thought Snow White and Prince Charming had it and had it bad, she uttered the four words that invariably spell the death of romance and the sudden end of every fairy tale.
“Alex,” she said, “we have to talk.”
How many times had I heard that? For that matter, how many times had I said that? I wasn’t sure, but I was sure enough to know that it didn’t involve we at all. And very little talk.
We have to talk. Translation: “I have to talk. You have to listen. And this will not go well.”
I considered the possibility there were other translations of which I was unaware. Maybe to some We have to talk meant “I’d like some ice cream” or “Let’s turn in early.” Maybe to some it even meant “We have to talk.” But from the look on his face, Alex seemed most familiar with the standard interpretation.
Alex peeked at me from the corners of his eyes. I pretended to watch a pair of Navy F-18s flying out to sea. His weight shifted from one foot to the other as he tried to restart the frozen gears in his mind.
“We have to talk, Sweetie,” his companion said again. Her voice sounded more confident this time. The subject had been broached, which meant the hard part was now over. For her, anyway.
“So let’s talk,” Alex said. He glanced again in my direction. I ignored it and kept watching the sky for jets. He whispered to her, “But why don’t we go back to my place?”
“No,” she told him, running a hand down his arm. “I think we should talk here.”
Oh yes, I thought. The public breakup. Get your business done out in the open with lots of people around. He’ll be upset, but maybe he’ll be too embarrassed to cause a scene.
“Okay,” Alex answered, though I think by then even he realiz
ed he had no choice in the matter.
“Alex, you know I care about you,”
[this guy’s definitely getting the boot]
“and you know I’d never do anything to hurt you,”
[except rip your heart out and spike it like a football in front of this stranger]
“but I really think we need to spend”
[some time apart]
“some time apart.”
She let go of his hand and took two steps backward. Alex shoved the hand into his pocket and proceeded to take the longest, deepest, saddest drag from a cigarette I had ever seen. He inched his head toward me. I knew what he was thinking. He was thinking that right then he would give just about anything if I would turn around and walk away.
But I didn’t. Maybe I should have. My presence was probably only making things worse. But I knew that in just a few minutes that lady was going to walk back up the boardwalk without him, and both of them might need someone there to make sure nothing stupid happened.
“Lauren,” Alex said, “I don’t understand. Did I do something wrong?”
“No,” she assured him. “It’s me, baby.”
It’s me. Translation: “It’s you.”
Lauren rubbed Alex’s arm to make her point, but her tactic was no longer welcomed. Alex was trying to maintain his composure and not doing very well at it. He inhaled the rest of his cigarette and tossed the butt into the sand.
“What are you doing?” he asked. He put his arm around her to both keep her there and remind her of how special she was. “We’re great together. We have fun, right? I mean come on, we’re perfect. I love you. You know I love you with all my heart. I tell you every day.”
That’s right, I thought, nodding. Put it all out there. Now she’ll have to think about what she’s doing. Sure there have been mistakes, but those mistakes can be worked out. Hearts can be mended. We can start over. Move forward. Make it better. Right?
Nope.
