by Catalina Florina Florescu
Mirabela was holding a baby blue cloth. Her hands were trembling.
“Do you need a cup of tea?”
Mirabela did not pay attention. She was examining the cloth with fascination but also terror.
“Holes … holes in the design.”
“What’s the matter, Mira?”
“Holes … dear…”
“Yes, I see them. But you love that cloth.”
“Oh, yes, I do … you have no idea.”
The thought of having no idea is how we lure people in. We do not want them inside our heads, no, no, we want them at the threshold, so we feel their breath without the weight of their bodies. We think we practice being cautious that way; like, you never know when they may hurt us by getting too close to who we are. We do not want others to fully get to know us.
*
It was so hot. Abnormally so for late May. They have had a fight over their wedding cake for the last hour. Sixty minutes wasted! He wanted lemon meringue, and she wanted chocolate. Godiva, to be exact. His argument: “It’s a summer wedding. It fits with the season.” Her argument: “I have always wanted to have a Godiva cake at my wedding. Ever since I tasted that kind of chocolate for the first time. I was travelling…” He interrupted her: “I know the story. You told it many times.” “I did?” “Come on, don’t play with me.”
In her family, people died young, around mid-30’s, and no one knew why. Some thought it was curse related, some bad blood left unchecked for too long, now impossible to cure. Others were fine with that and enjoyed every single day without worrying about death.
At first, Mirabela did not want to marry because it felt too traditional. She did not like the notion of a bride-to-be, a replica of the same, ill-fitted role. So, she pushed the idea aside, and began to travel through Europe, Asia, and some parts in Africa. She met him by accident in Budapest when she was buying a post card to send to her best friend. His eyes were black and intense. His lips wanted to be savored. Right then and there. In fact, she said to him:
“Buzele tale au fost făcute să fie savurate.”
She said it again, switching to English:
“Your lips were made to be savored.”
He laughed. Invited her to have a drink.
“Didn’t you hear what I just said?”
“Are you a prostitute?”
“Poate că sunt.” She left that like that – without a translation.
She wrote her number on a piece of paper and said “Goodbye.” She was late for a cocktail party and did not have time to savor those lips. “Maybe another time,” she said smilingly but vaguely.
Mirabela wanted to have her own bakery ever since she was a little girl and played with her toys. She wanted to feed them three meals a day and saved her own food until her mom was suspecting her of an eating disorder. You know how moms are, jumping too many steps ahead into a narrative that makes no sense. She told her mom: “Dar şi lor le e foame” and her mom could not say another word. Mirabela came from a long lineage of terrible accidents committed in the kitchen. All women tried their best and failed majestically there. She wanted to break the spell and started to read cookbooks, watched tutorials, enrolled in culinary community college classes, did everything in her power to reroute the narrative, but for no reason, she was still terrible at remembering the details of a recipe, clumsy measuring the ingredients, sometimes even buying the wrong ones. In part, her attempts were unsuccessful because the menu was designed for toys. “No one cared for them,” she argued. She always wanted to create something new, just for them. She always failed. After each experiment, the whole kitchen looked like an exploded intestine of a large bovine. She had no idea why that analogy soothed her. There was a divine pleasure in twisting words, in pushing them to try new meanings, have another life, of sorts. Whatever she fucked up in the kitchen, she completed marvelously on canvases. She was a self-taught painter.
“Hello…?”
“Yes, hi… do you still want…?”
“Want to …? Who’s this?”
“The man whose lips you wanted to savor once.”
“Nah…”
“Oh, I am so sorry, miss, I think I misdialed. Have a …”
“Hey, fool, do you want to meet?”
She could steer a conversation in a completely new direction, if she wanted. She was a maestro at that. The words were her instruments, and she could create a symphony on the spot. Words were not ever passive to her.
They met at an old café that served hot cocoa.
They introduced themselves.
They spoke about their dreams.
Now they were arguing what kind of wedding cake to have.
*
He thought his body was overflowing. His first sexual encounter! I mean, he did not plan it. Now, he was thirsty. He had sex less than an hour ago, and his body was adjusting to manhood. He did not just leave. He was a gentleman. His dad taught him to respect women. He left her a note on the table. Inside the store, he was a bit concerned because let’s be frank, who leaves handwritten notes anymore?! The convenience store was just a few blocks away from his home. He wanted to drink something familiar, like a lemonade. That was his mother’s favorite drink. “It’s not exactly lemonade, dear, but life does not hand you lemons… not always anyway … and when you don’t have lemons, don’t cry. Just drink a fake lemonade.” “How so, ma”? “Well, adulthood is like that: it has holes. There are holes in the design.” His mother would become a widow too young and would marry a man with a temper, a man with too many fetishes, a man with Boa snakes as pets… She was not sure why she had to commit to so many men who would die, leave, or ignore her. “Are you afraid to be alone, ma?” “I wish I knew … I wish I knew …” That day when he became a man it was extremely hot, and he bought two bottles of lemonade and drank them immediately, galloping them down his scorched throat. “I wonder if she got my note… I hope she does not think I am a freak who writes notes…”
“Excuse me …”
“Sorry… I mean, you bumped into me…”
“I did.”
“Then why would I excuse you?”
“Huh???”
Sometimes we forget that we say words without thinking. The mouth opens and starts emitting sounds. They may not always have a meaning. There should be a sponge above our heads cleaning any words that were said by mistake and turn them into confetti. She was there in the store because she could not fight with him anymore. He said, “You win,” but all she heard was, “I let you win. I am tired of fighting with you. Have your Godiva cake.” They were not even a married couple.
“Was that good?”
“Not really. I mean … it has sentimental value… my mother’s favorite drink.”
“Oh, that’s cute.”
“Cute???”
“Yes, cute. What’s wrong with cute?”
She wanted to say, “Boy, you are stupid.” She went to the freezer to check out the beverages.
“Hey, you, come here.”
“Who, me?”
“Come help me find a drink.”
He went. He could not explain why he did that, why his feet were moving without any resistance towards this stranger, why he was doing what she was saying, after all, she bumped into him, and he said “Sorry.” She opened the freezer door and from the other side she looked ethereal. Maybe it was his newly found manhood, maybe it was something else, but he kissed her passionately. She reciprocated.
She paid for an iced mocha and left the store.
He was not overflowing anymore.
She got back in the car.
“We could have lemon meringue. You win.”
*
The wedding was ordinary. The doves his mother-in-law ordered were delivered by mistake to a hospice in a remote village, the bride was fine with that, but the groom’s mother went berserk. When the priest asked if anyone was against their union, his mother stood up and spoke about doves, it sounded surreally hilarious, so everyone assumed that was a stand-up routine. She was aspiring to become a comic in her “golden days.”
A few days after the wedding, after they were done opening all the gifts, she needed an excuse to return to that store. Mirabela went there day after day after day. For about two weeks. He did not show up. She asked about him. No one knew about his whereabouts. The teen at the register was too absorbed with her phone to pay attention to the customers. Two years after the wedding, her husband was deployed to a country in Africa and left with a dry hug and kiss. Things were not good for them as a married couple. They hadn’t been good for some time. But many married couples ignore that. It’s hard to diagnose this type of marital apathy. She blamed everything on his lemon meringue. She was joking, yet a smile was reluctant to match what she was claiming.
Even more bizarrely, she was surpassing all her relatives, refusing to die. Mirabela had no idea why she was still alive; why her story deviated from what had happened before with all her family members. His years in the military took him more and more away from their home. There was a wedding photo hanging loosely on a wall in the living room. Truth be told, his going to different, undisclosed locations was not so bad for her after all. “Maybe he dies, and I will die of a broken heart.” She used to say this to herself to justify why she was still alive. On her 40th birthday, she convinced herself she became immortal. It was overwhelming. She did not want that. Every single time when she was going into her dark places, there was something that pleased her. She could not explain why. He was writing to her less and less, was barely calling her, and she was fine with his silence, too. She did not feel the need to try harder either.
*
“Actually, could you make me a tea, dear?”
“Sure. What kind?”
“Surprise me. Ah …, and could you pass me that box?”
She opened it. Unfolded a piece of paper gently. “Dear you, I cannot stop thinking about our kiss. I went to the store several times. You never showed up….” She folded that back. Chose another one: “Dear beautiful you, how have you been? You know, that day, I felt a connection with you right away…I can’t explain why or how, I just know… I just felt whole next to you …” Another one: “I am angry at you. I miss you. How could I miss someone whom I met only once, for a few minutes? I am angry at myself.” Another one: “I was on my gap year when we met. Actually, my second gap year. My first one was about finding myself. The second, finding ways to lose myself. Weird, right?” Another one: “You know … I had a girlfriend who made me a man, but I broke up with her. The thought of you … that kiss was haunting me. I had a girlfriend! Fuck!” Another one: “If I met you again, I would fuck you then and there. I would not care if they arrested me for indecent exposure.” Another one: “Maybe you died. You were older than me. I saw a wrinkle budding on your face, right above your upper lip. I wish I could touch your face. Forget about fucking; that would be wonderous, don’t get me wrong, but I’d rather feel your face.” Another one: “I met a girl. I mean, we were partnered up to finish a project. I am a senior in college now. I kissed her. I felt something. But not like our kiss.” Another one: “You know, I am an idiot. Why the hell do I write to you? What’s wrong with me, writing to the void? I hate myself. I have so many wounds. Heal them. Please!” Another one: “I got married. It was a small ceremony. We had it in a bathroom hotel. For real. Why would I lie? If it helps, it was a big bathroom, imported marble, fixtures, and shit.” Another one: “We had our first kid. We bought a big house. In the suburbs. I drive an electric car.” Another one: “I had an affair. With a man. I thought I wanted to try that, too. I guess I am a late bloomer. You know … how kids experiment a lot in college, I did that, too, but afterwards.” Another one: “My wife had a miscarriage. It was a boy. I held him. Unformed as he was. He was mine.” Another one: “I was so scared. I had this pain in my stomach and, I never told you this, but my mom died of cancer. When the pain increased, I could not think of anyone else but my mom, lost son, daughter, and you. Funny thing this body of ours … it turned out, I had a severe case of indigestion. I drank a lemonade.” Another one: “My father died. He was old, but when your last parent dies, you suddenly feel you are too grown up, like there is an excess of adulthood stuck on your skin and inside your bones … like, you feel confused, what the hell just happened? When did all this time go? You know? Say something!” Another one: “My daughter had her period. She was yelling with excitement: I am a woman! I am a woman! I hugged her. I thought of you.” Another one: “I got a divorce. It was a long time coming. I should have let my wife be free sooner. I am a bastard. Yep, that’s right. You should say: Mucho gusto. Say that. Again. And again.” Another one: “After my divorce, I travelled a lot. I went to this country and lived with shepherds. They were talking about transhumanţă. Check it out. You will love it.” Another one: “My daughter came to me and asked, Daddy, when do you know you are in love? I smiled. I thought of you.” Another one: “My mom used to say there are holes in the design… every single time when she wanted a story to be told more fully, more beautifully, more differently, she would say this … there are holes… We do not ever have time to go back to fill them out … to actually meet our second chances… do we?” Another one: “This is my last letter. I finally got cancer. I will leave all these letters at our store. They wanted to tear it down. I bought it. I left it for you. Stop by. Pick up the letters. Have a lemonade. Sincerely, forever yours, Raul.”
*
It’s a funny thing, life, that is … how we love… or, how we develop feelings.
“Is the tea ready, dear? If it’s too cold, you will have to make me another one.”
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http://www.catalinaflorescu.com/
Bio: Dr. Florescu has a PhD in Comp Lit/Medical Humanities, and she is the author of 11 books.
She teaches at Pace University in New York. She is a person with a hidden disability.