She was completing her twenty-second lap around the oval in the yard of East Preparatory School when she noticed him, ahead of her, sitting on one of the benches by the side of the track. As she got closer to him, she realized that he was sleeping. At that very moment, the book he was holding in one of his hands fell to the ground. She approached him quietly, so as not to wake him up, and picked up the book. She held it in her hand and quickly leafed through it. While the title of the book was a surprise that made her uneasy and put her on alert, the name signed in red ink on the title page was a revelation that made her scream in disbelief. Her scream woke him up.
“Oh! I am sorry, sir,” she almost whispered, and at the same time, flustered and with shaky hands, she handed him the book. “You dropped it. Here you are.”
“Oh!” he exclaimed. “I must have dozed off. Thank you young lady,” he said, as he took the book from her hand, and put it in the backpack that was lying on the bench.
“Do you like it?” she asked, somewhat nervously.
“Yes, so far. I haven’t finished it yet. It is a novel that I’ve had on my bookshelves for many years, and only now I decided to read it,” he answered, in a lively way, looking up at her. And although she was standing in front of him, he did not ask her to sit down on the empty side of the bench. Perhaps he was intimidated by her youth.
“Why now after so many years?” she timidly ventured to inquire, speaking with a soft and calm voice, as if not to make him suspicious.
This novel was given to me by a friend,” he replied, looking down at the grass. Then he frowned, and after a short silence, he continued somberly. “I haven’t seen her in many years,” he sighed. “I’ve been thinking about her lately; because I came across the movie on one of the streaming services, and it dawned on me that the only object I have to remember her by, is this novel, and that I have never read it. I saw the movie, though, back in the days. I have never read a novel by John Grisham, but I have seen all the movies based on them.” He then directed his eyes to the far end of the school yard, and after another short silence he resumed, wistfully. “We went together to see the movie, she and I,” he said, as if to emphasize that nobody else was with them. “I thought Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington made a lovely couple; well, they were not a couple, but rather a team, or rather two human beings whose troubled lives crossed, and that encounter made their lives different. She had read the novel, I mean my friend, and she invited me to see the movie; and then gave me the book, urging me to read it, saying it was way better than the film.”
“Sir, I don’t mean to intrude; I know I am a stranger, and I have no right to pry into your private life, but when you talked about your friend, I couldn’t help noticing some regret and sadness in your words. Why? I am intrigued, and would like to know. When was the last time you saw her? Why did you stop seeing each other?” She finished the long question feeling that she had just crossed a line, hoping he would not recoil, but would rather seize the opportunity to tell the story to someone, which in the end would possibly bring him some relief.
The phrase “I don’t mean to intrude” brought to mind a memory that made him pensive. For a moment, he looked in silence at the young lady, still standing in front of him, in expectation of his answer. He was assessing whether he should answer that question. Then, in a slow, slightly afflicted manner, he started.
“Well, it is a kind of sad story,” he sighed again, “one that I would prefer to forget. But here I am, dealing with it again, because a damned film made me remember it. The last time I saw her was Victoria Day weekend in 1999. When I met her, I was going through a very bad experience; I was lonely and depressed. She was the new receptionist at the company I was working for. I worked in the warehouse. One day she came to my office to inquire about some shipping. The grief that was weighing me down was noticeable in my face and the way I spoke.”
***
“Are you tired?” she asked me. “You look tired.”
“No, it is something else,” I replied sorrowfully. Then she returned to the front office. About fifteen minutes later, she came back to my office, stood in front of me for a moment, looked into my eyes, and while I wondered what she was there for, she asked me:
“Are you having a rough time?”
“Yes.”
“Do you need to talk?”
“No, I am okay,” I replied without conviction. “But thanks for offering.”
***
“It was a Friday. During the weekend, I thought about her and her act of kindness. The following Monday, I found a coloured envelope on my desk. Inside, there was a card that read: ‘Hi Julian, I hope you are feeling better. I don’t mean to intrude, but if you ever need to talk, I am available, Janice.’ I still have the card. I accepted her offer. I invited her to go out for coffee, and that was the beginning of a bittersweet friendship/potential love story. For the next two years, we would spend almost every weekend together. We would go for walks, dinner, movies, concerts, and play tennis. Destiny had it that we were born on the same day, so we would celebrate our birthdays together. I would go to her place, or she would come to mine. At that point in time, I was completely alone; those whom I loved had deserted me; whether I deserved it or not is another story. She had divorced parents, and a brother; with whom she did not socialize. She had gone through a ghastly upbringing, dealing with a mother who was a religious zealot, for whom everything, especially sex, was a sin. Thus, we brought some company and consolation to each other’s lives.”
“Then why did this bittersweet friendship/potential love story, as you call it, come to an end?” asked the young lady, with slightly trembling lips.
“Well, in my situation of loneliness and lack of affection, it was bound to happen that I would fall in love with her. She was born in 1969. I used to tell her, jokingly, that she was a lunar creature brought back to earth; my Moon rock. When I openly expressed my feelings, they were courteously rejected. Consequently, we continued to be just friends, for a while. But being her friend became unbearable. The Saturday of Victoria Day, 1999, we went to play tennis at the courts on the Saint-Clair and Spadina reservoir. It started to rain. She was all soaked up, and looking at her with the water streaming down her hair and her clothes stuck to her body sent a wave of pain through my brain. She looked like a goddess that I wanted to worship, and a demon with whom I desired to have carnal knowledge. So wild was the passion I was struggling with! I drove her back to her place on Runnymede. I didn’t say a word while I was driving. When I dropped her off, she asked me whether I wanted to go upstairs. Yes! I wanted to go upstairs; and kiss her, and make love to her, and fuse my body with hers. But I knew that was not what she had in mind, and it would have been a painful, disappointing occasion for me. Therefore, I said no, that I was tired, and that I preferred to leave. The following day, Sunday, about noon, she called me.”
***
“What was happening to you yesterday?” she reproached me. “You barely talked to me. You are always brooding. What is wrong with you?”
“What is wrong with me,” I said, overcome by emotions, “is that I am in love with you, and I can’t continue to be only your friend. I think we should stop seeing each other.”
“All right,” she coldly replied, as though it were all the same for her one way or another.”
***
While he related his heartaches, the young lady listened to him attentively and became more and more agitated.
“That was the last time I heard her voice,” he said with certain finality.
After a moment of silence, his face was illuminated. “No!” he screamed.
“What? What is wrong?” inquired the young lady, really concerned.
“I am wrong! That was not the last time I talked to her. Holy!” he said feverishly, raised his voice, and continued to talk fast, as if in a frenzy. “You are making me remember things that I had forgotten. There was another time, actually two. Around November of the same year, shortly after our birthdays, she called and left a message.
***
“Hi Julian, I hope everything is well in your life. I’ve been thinking of you these days. Last week I went out on a date with a guy who speaks English with a very thick accent, like you do. The way he speaks reminded me of you. While he was talking, I wasn’t really paying attention; I was just thinking: "It is so sad that he is not Julian.”
***
“What was I supposed to make of that message?” he said, not talking to himself but addressing the young lady, as if he really expected an answer from her. “That was not enough to make me pick up the phone and call her back."
“Also, in October 2001, again, around our birthdays, and shortly after the World Trade Center towers in New York had collapsed, she called again. This time I was home and answered the phone. When she identified herself(I didn’t know it was her; there was no caller ID in those days),I said hello indifferently, pretending not to be interested or surprised. She didn’t have much to say, and as a result, she casually addressed the topic that was in everybody’s mouth: 911".
***
“Who would’ve thought?” she bemoaned, as if talking to herself. “It’s been a wake-up call for me. Life is fragile, uncertain, and ephemeral. We are alive today, and tomorrow we are dead, casualties of war. We shouldn’t waste time.”
I don’t know what she was trying to tell me. ‘Give me another chance? Let’s start over?’ I certainly needed something more direct and less vague than that. I didn’t want to guess what she meant or what maybe she was feeling, and then act accordingly, only to be rejected once more. I didn’t say any more. I let her speak.
After an awkward silence, she finally asked, “Are you seeing someone?”
“No.” I immediately regretted my answer. I should have lied and said ‘yes.’”
“Would you like to go for coffee?”
“No, I wouldn’t like to do that,” I said in the most dispassionate voice I could fake. I was trying to make her react, to snatch some honesty from her, some avowal of her sentiments, if she had any, and to make her actually say it. ‘Give me another chance; let’s start over.’ Or was it something else she was trying to tell me? Something she wouldn’t dare verbalize? Something that she had decided was better left unsaid, after all? Something I would be better off not knowing? I was ready and willing to hear anything, even something tragic like, ‘I am sorry, I tried to love you, but I am incapable of going through with that sort of thing. Forgive me; something really bad happened to me when I was a child.’
“All right,” she said instead, in her customary insensible tone of voice, as if meaning: ‘No big deal.’ “I put a request to Bell to make my telephone number, which so far has been private, public. So, you will be able to find me in the telephone book, if you wish to call.”
***
“That was definitely the last time I talked to her,” he said with total conviction.
“Sir, if you don’t mind my saying so,” the young lady cautiously said, “a woman does not spend so much time with a man unless she is interested in him. She obviously liked you very much and enjoyed your company. Why do you think she rejected you?”
“I can only guess,” he wailed. “She wasn’t very open when it came to expressing her feelings. Maybe she was, after all, incapable of loving anybody in a romantic-sexual way. Perhaps she was somehow traumatized by the way she was raised. She once mentioned something strange about her father, something she did not want to elaborate on; that made me wonder whether she had been abused as a child. Probably all she needed was a loyal, loving friend. Also, I was fourteen years her senior; it is possible I was only a father figure for her. And besides, you see, I have this deformity, this scar on my face, as a result of a bicycle accident when I was a kid. I am not a physically attractive man. And then there is, and this is comical, the Zodiac thing.”
“What do you mean?” exclaimed the young lady, really puzzled.
“They say two Libras should avoid having a relationship. They are too intense; for them, nothing is half-hearted or lukewarm; it is all or nothing. A relationship between them would be total bliss, or hell on earth. More likely than not, they would consume each other, suffocate each other, and mutually destroy. So, maybe it was all for the better.”
When he said “Libra” she could not hold herself anymore, and asked the question that she had been impatiently waiting to ask.
“When are your birthdays, sir, if you don’t mind my asking?”
When he answered, she became disturbed and overwhelmed. She thought she would faint. A little tremor took over her hands; she had to hide them.
“And now, young lady, as much as it’s been a pleasure talking to you, I have to go,” he said, at the same time that he stood up, and for the first time during their encounter, they were looking straight into each other’s eyes.
“Do you usually come here?” asked her, lowering her eyes, restless, choking, on the verge of crying.
“Yes.”
“I usually walk around the oval. If by any chance I see you again, would you mind my approaching you to keep talking?”
“No! Of course not. I would be delighted.” After saying this, he waved her good-bye and started to walk away, limping, dragging his sixty-seven years of age.
She watched him depart as if something of her own were leaving her behind. He had left her amid a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions that she couldn’t manage, with the ominous feeling that her life would not, henceforth, be the same. Feeling weak and on the brink of fainting, she had to sit down on the bench. “Who is this man?” she was thinking. “He was talking about things that happened twenty-three years ago, shortly before I was born. My mother has told me about the novel, the movie, and about having gone to see it with a friend she once had. Her birthday is the same as this gentleman’s; she was born in 1969. The name on the title page is her name, her handwriting. Is he telling the truth? Is he lying? Did he really leave when he dropped her off at her place on that Saturday of Victoria Day weekend, 1999? Or did he stay and go up to her apartment and stay the night with her? What am I supposed to make of all these things? How am I supposed to react? And what was it that my mother was trying to say when she called him for the last time, shortly after 911? Is it what I am thinking?”
© William Almonte Jiménez, 2023
