Communion, Part I

[Note from Ulysses: At the moment I find myself washed up on another shore, watching the dolphins swim by, letting the sun deepen the tone of my skin, building in the sand, longing for Home. And writing, yes, but nothing you will see this week. This week it is Penelope telling the stories. Don't like them too much better; soon enough you have to put up with mine again. I present for you this week: Communion, three parts that form a single whole]

The boy.

At the bar, the lights are dim, but then, that's the expected ambiance. As soon as he sits down, notebook in hand, shoulders slumped, Rachelle grabs a fresh glass and says, "Amber Ale?" with a wink. She doesn't even wait for his nod before she starts the tap. He’s torn in his thoughts (as he often is): should I feel good to be in a place where I'm familiar enough that they know my order, or should I feel embarrassed to be that guy who's a little too familiar with the bar? He really wasn’t an alcoholic. He just needed to get out of the house, to escape the four too-familiar walls of his room, the suitcase he’d been living out of since he left, the unmade single bed.
He sips his beer and sighs quietly with relief, or perhaps exasperation. He'd started writing a story that morning. Before that, he hadn't written in a month. When he re-reads what he had written just ten hours ago, he thinks: well, maybe there's a reason for that, U. This is crap. More of the same crap. The boy. The girl. The disconnect. He's tired of showing up on his own page. He wants to write himself out of these stories. Because he isn't sure he believes anymore that they are worthwhile. Whatever he is searching for -- no, whoever -- is still distant, unformed, indistinct.
He takes another cold sip and swallows slowly. Removing his pen from his pocket (where its leaky ink had already left an unfortunate stain on his pants), he continues the work:
"Is there any more room on that bench?"
It should work for two. I believe it was made for two.
"I brought the paper, we could do the puzzle."
This is early to be up for you isn’t it?
"Every once in a while for a special occasion."
Welcome aboard -- just let that bike fall. I grab a thermos out of the side bag and push the bike over to get the handlebars off your side of the back of the bench. Would you like some coffee? I hand you the thermos and you start to pour.
"It’s got cream in it."
Yes, yes it does.
"You don’t put cream in it."
No, but you do.
"I was hoping I’d surprised you."
You might not always show up, but that doesn’t keep me from anticipating it.
He jots down a few more notes and finds a good stopping place. He's feeling a little less discouraged. He pulls his credit card out of his wallet and slides it across the bar toward Rachelle. A slip of paper flutters to the ground. He gets up off the stool and bends down to pick it up. It's an old fortune cookie fortune (he likes to keep the meaningful ones in his wallet), which reads: Your dreams will come true when you least expect it.
"In bed," Rachelle says as she hands back his card and receipt.
He looks up for a second, startled. He hadn’t heard her. "What?"
"You never heard that? You add the words 'in bed' to the end of your fortune and it makes it better. So what’s your bedroom fortune?"
He grins a little sheepishly. "Your dreams will come true when you least expect it... in bed."
"Lucky you!" Rachelle says with a laugh.
He signs the receipt and gives it back to her, closing his notebook and packing up to leave. He is avoiding the naturally self-deprecating response, "I haven’t been feeling too lucky these days," avoiding becoming that guy at the bar who not only has his drink in his hand before he even asks, but who also uses the bartenders as therapists. He isn't that desperate for someone to talk to (is he?).
Outside the stars are just beginning to light the sky. The moon is a crescent and it makes him long, for a brief moment, to be held, to be cradled like a child. To say silly things and be adored. His ex's favorite comeback had always been, "Oh, grow up!" accompanied by a slamming door in his face. He hated that they argued in clichés. He hated being loved piecemeal: she wanted a gentleman in the bedroom, an overachiever in the workplace, a saint in church, an unwavering asshole when she was wronged. But confuse any of these identities (a saint when she was wronged?) and her love was gone. Was it love at all if it was only doled out in fragments? If it was held out, like a piece of too-sugary candy, as a reward for good behavior and snatched away so easily when mistakes were made?

The girl.

Had she made a huge mistake? He hasn't called in a week. Now it's Friday night again, and here she is, doing the embarrassing single-girl-in-sweats shopping spree. Another more conspicuous walk of shame for the twenty-something woman, her arm strains under the weight of her basket: Ben & Jerry's ice cream, four microwave meals, a bag of lettuce (which she purchased every week, and every week remained unopened and turned brown), a weekly gossip magazine from the checkout aisle, and a six-pack of Amber Ale. Yes, she is spending Friday night alone in her room, overanalyzing her life and filling her body with toxins (almost forgot to mention the pack of Marlboro Reds she asks the cashier for on an impulse).
Outside the stars are just beginning to light the sky. The moon is a crescent and it makes her long for someone to sit in the dark and look up at it with her. The smell of fried food from The Golden Dragon wafts through the night air, and she realizes, as her stomach growls angrily at her, that she hasn't eaten dinner. She tosses her grocery bags in the car and runs in to order some General Tso's and crab Rangoon. She knows she will regret both decisions later, like most decisions she's made lately, decisions which she can easily see will be harmful in the long run, but in the moment, feel better than being empty and alone.
She only has to wait five minutes for her food, and then she's back out to the car. She sits down and turns the ignition so the stereo starts (Ray LaMontagne singing something sweet and low). Often, she gets in the car and thinks, before turning the key, Whatever song comes on when it starts up is the song that says how fill-in-the-blank feels about me. Her own little game of fortune telling.
Oh -- fortunes! She almost forgot. She rustles in the brown bag and feels to the bottom for the plastic-wrapped cookie and cracks it open. Tonight's fortune is a tiny bit hopeful, at least, better than others she’d gotten recently ("Friendship is important to you" and "The crow always finds the apple in the grass" -- wtf?). It says: Your dreams will come true when you least expect it. She folds the little slip of paper in half and sticks it in her wallet. Even though she doesn't really like the lemony stale taste, she has a superstition that if you don't eat the cookie, the fortune won't come true. So she partakes of it like a communion wafer, eyes closed, believing.