Communion: The End is the Start

So Boy and Girl meet. Everywhere. It's like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, except there is no choice. Fate, destiny, call it what you will, but every circumstance has led to this:

They meet at the park. Sunday morning and the boy is, of course, on The Bench. The girl walks by with her dog, which strains on its leash and pulls towards him. The boy sets down the crossword and bends down to ruffle the dog’s ears. He looks up into the girl's eyes. She smiles at him. Time freezes for just a second.
"What's his name?" the boy asks.
"Karenin," the girl answers, almost reluctantly.
"Kundera fan then?" the boy asks.
"My favorite," the girl replies.
She is surprised he recognizes the reference. She is surprised at how strong her desire is to sit down next to him, to place her mouth where his mouth had been on the edge of the thermos.
"One of my favorites also," the boy says. How to keep her here, to continue the conversation? He is beginning to panic just a little, ears ringing, trying to think of the perfect thing to say.
Just then, Karenin hops up onto the bench, knocking the thermos over, which the boy had left open, coffee spilling all over the paper.
"No! Bad Karenin!" the girl shouts, tugging at his leash to pull him down from the bench. She quickly wraps the end of his leash around the leg of the bench and knots it, then gets on her knees and proceeds to sop up the mess of newspaper and dark liquid.
"I ruined your paper. I'm so sorry. Let me... I'd pay you for it, but I never bring my wallet with me on Karenin's walk."
"Tell you what," says the boy, all previous panic dissipated, "come with me to the newsstand to pick up another one. There’s a little café a few blocks down. The three of us could sit outside and maybe start the puzzle again? I was having some trouble getting started anyway...
"We'd love to," the girl says.
Both boy and girl are surprised at their own boldness, and at the boldness of the other. Basically strangers, at this point, with a shared love of a certain Czech author, and yet there is much more they recognize in each other: a safe haven, a companion, a lover of words (and animals), a fellow victim of circumstance. Although right now, they are both more than happy to be victimized. Sunday morning, the sun is shining, the coffee is fresh, Karenin is snoring softly on the sidewalk beneath the table, and the crossword is just so much easier with two.


Or maybe they meet at the grocery store, Saturday afternoon. The wine aisle. The girl's on her tiptoes, stretching to grab a bottle of white that’s just out of reach. She can’t quite make it, and curses loudly, "Fuck!" and the boy, a few feet away, has to muffle a laugh. The girl is startled: she thought she was alone in the aisle. She covers her mouth, embarrassed.
"Excuse me, could you..."
He is next to her and effortlessly pulling down the bottle before she can finish asking for his help.
"All that for a Riesling?" the boy says, a teasing look in his eyes.
"What? I like Riesling," the girl says, cradling the bottle close to her, defensively.
The boy raises his eyebrows and shrugs.
The girl glares at him -- but there is a playful twitch around the edges of her lips. He can't stop looking at her lips now.
"Are you a wine snob or something?" the lips ask.
"Not a snob, not at all. I just have a refined palette."
"Uh huh. Well, what does your palette have against Riesling?"
"Nothing personal. Just a bit overwhelming in its sweetness."
"Maybe I like sweet wines."
"They have some great boxed Franzia at the end of the aisle."
She laughs then, a quiet giggle that emanates from deep in the throat, little exhales from the nose.
"Even my palette is too refined for that," the girl says. "But seriously, what do you recommend?"
"There’s this Rosé that still has some sweetness, but gives you a better sense of the fruit. And it's only ten bucks a bottle."
He crouches down to the bottom shelf and hands her a pinkish bottle. Their fingers touch for just a second, with what feels like an actual spark and like a reflex, they both let go. The bottle crashes to the ground, spraying wine and glass all over the floor and the two of them.
There is a moment of silence, where the whole store pauses, like a gasp, and then the two of them, boy and girl, begin to laugh -- eyes tearing up, stomachs aching, laughter that's been stored up for too long, that's bubbled up from beneath the surface. Together, their laughter sounds like a symphony. Other shoppers in the store feel pangs of jealousy and aren't sure why.
He pays for the broken bottle. She gives him her number.
He calls her the next night. She meets him at his place. He is waiting on the front porch when she gets there with two glasses and a bottle of Riesling.


Or maybe they meet at the bar. The lights are dim, but then, that’s the expected ambiance for falling in love. Outside, it is pouring rain. Umbrellas litter the floor and a sense of dampness pervades the room.
"Amber?" Rachelle says, reaching for a glass.
"Actually, do you have coffee? Maybe with a shot of whiskey?" the boy asks.
"You got it."
The door to the bar opens and the girl walks in, hair damp and curling around her face. She makes a beeline for the ladies' room before returning to sit two stools down from the boy, who is sipping his coffee, mug held tightly between both hands.
That's what the girl notices first: his hands. She imagines how warm they must be. They look sturdy, like they do hard work. Skilled, she thinks, and her mind goes somewhere a little naughty for a second. She quickly turns her eyes away before he can notice and looks at the bar's chalkboard list of drafts. Nothing appealing. The waitress approaches.
"What can I get you sweetheart?"
"Do you possibly have coffee... and cream?"
Rachelle nods. "You want some whiskey in that?"
"No thanks." After one fateful St. Patrick's Day, the girl and whiskey had forever become enemies.
She leans down to pick up her bag and pulls it into her lap, takes out a notebook and a pen (already, he is smitten), puts them on the bar, then removes her jacket and hangs it on the back of the stool.
He notices her bare shoulders, the way her hair brushes just at the top of her clavicles, beads of water collecting at the ends. She looks like she could use a towel.
She opens her notebook and puts pen to the page, but does not move. He notices a small tattoo on her inner wrist, the shape of an anchor. After a few seconds of staring at her page, she starts to chew her pen and tap her foot against the underside of the bar to the beat of the jukebox, playing Ryan Adams: Steady my soul and ease my worry/Hold me when I rattle like a hummingbird hummin'...
"He's a writer too," Rachelle says, setting down the cup of coffee and mini pitcher of cream, gesturing to the boy.
The girl turns toward him slightly. He looks over at her, unable to not listen in on the conversation.
"What do you write?" she asks.
"Fiction, mostly." He doesn't like when people ask this question, but with her, he somehow doesn't mind.
"What kind of fiction?"
"Explorations, really... whatever strikes me at the time. No real method to the madness."
"Hmm." She closes her notebook and turns back to him. "Mind if I sit closer? I need some help with something I'm working on."
"My pleasure."
She moves over to the stool next to him. He can vaguely smell her perfume despite all the soggy odors of rain throughout the bar. Vanilla. Sweetness.
He takes another long sip of coffee, eyes closed, swallowing slowly, enjoying the warm feeling as it makes his way down to his stomach.
"How’d you get that scar?" the girl asks when he returns from his warm beverage reverie.
"What scar?" the boy asks, for a second unable to place himself anywhere but his kneecap with its long surgical gash. He was wearing pants, so she wouldn't be able to see that one.
"Your eye."
"Oh," he says, "Funny story."
"I like stories"
"I was about 6, playing on the back porch -- I'm Batman, and my blanket is the Bat Rope, which I'm using to climb up the outside edge of the stairs, on the other side of the railing. Apparently some dastardly villain has tricked me -- the 'rope' comes untied, and I fall, something sticks me and scratches my left eyelid. I remember being in the kitchen holding a white wet washcloth my mom gave me over my eye. I bring it down to take a peek, and it's got blood all over it."
"Great story. I hoped it wasn’t going to be, like, something about golfing. I've never met a real live superhero before." She quickly scribbles something down in her notebook, in a sly way that she thinks he doesn't notice.
"You got a scar story?" the boy asks.
"All internal, I’m afraid." The girl looks away and takes another sip from her mug.
"Looks like the rain may continue on for a while. We've got time. Why don’t you tell me one?"
"They're personal."
"I'm a person."
She rolls her eyes, but smiles a little.
"Fine, so tell me anything. Any story you want."
"If I had a story to tell, I'd be writing it down here! But as you can see," she says, pointing at her notebook, "blank pages."
"I noticed you wrote something there in that corner."
She blushes visibly and closes the notebook again.
"Just... an idea. Nothing really."
"Writing all starts from ideas."
"I disagree -- I think it starts from characters. People."
"Maybe it's a combination."
She nods. "Balance is important."
"Symmetry," the boy says, also nodding.
The girl starts to laugh.
"What's so funny?" the boy asks.
The girl just shakes her head, pauses for a minute, then slides her notebook over to him.
"Go ahead. Read it."
Scar eliminates symmetry from his face, but brings a different intensity. A sense that he knows what you’re thinking.
"I don't believe mindreading was one of Batman's superpowers," the boy says.
"Maybe you were just trying to be the wrong superhero."
"Maybe I was just smitten with the wrong heroine."
"Oh yeah, tell me about the one your thinking of now?"
"Let me think of where to start."