How They Met, and Other Stories(49)
Author: David Levithan

The other constant in Wallace’s life, of more importance than the cornflakes, was Mary, who for forty years had sat across the breakfast table from him. Recently, she had been the same every morning, too, dressed in a bowed blouse, blue skirt, and white sneakers (a gift from one of their few grandchildren), the standard outfit for a schoolteacher over sixty.

That day started like many others before it, with Mary waking first and Wallace wandering into the kitchen after ample time was provided to make coffee and pour orange juice (coffee for him and orange juice for her). Wallace had on a bathrobe over his flannel pajamas; he had recently been feeling a chill during the unpredictable April nights.

“Any coffee?” he asked as he entered the kitchen, more out of habit than thirst.

“Here,” she answered, pouring the coffee into a World’s Greatest Grandmother mug, leaving just enough space at the top for the milk.

The cornflakes box and bowl were already on the table, awaiting Wallace’s use. As he sat upon a cushion worn thin over the years, his wife impulsively went to the refrigerator and got Wallace the milk for his cereal. And although she realized that he could have gotten up himself, she always did it. Bringing the milk was merely one of the many constant mini-actions in her life, and to change the process would only make her think about it, thus making the whole thing much more complicated than it was.

“Thank you,” Wallace said, always routinely appreciative.

“You’re welcome,” Mary mumbled, as she walked the ten steps to retrieve her toast from the toaster.

Sitting at the table, neither of them was terribly interested in the other. Granted, had one been missing, the other would have noticed. Yet breakfasts could be eaten with little more than a few words spoken between the lifemates. They had been together so long that superfluous conversation (“Nice weather we’re having,” “What time did you go to sleep last night?”) did not need to be voiced. It was assumed.

That morning, however, the morning was in some manner disrupted. It started very innocently; Mary had been looking at a slightly askew picture frame behind Wallace when he, sensing her head’s movement, looked up to match her glance. But when Mary’s gaze shifted back from beyond Wallace, she couldn’t see him at all. She suddenly found herself reaching through the bonds of time and under the tattered layers of skin.

A hand appeared before her—a man’s hand free of age spots and prominent veins. And when she followed the hand to see its keeper, she saw him again, the one she had only seen long ago.

He was a young man once more, looking polite and hesitant, like one of her fourth-grade students on the eve of a school dance. His smile was a mixture of delight and fear, his voice searching to sound assured.

“Would you care to dance?” he said, without a quake and barely a motion.

“Oh, I could hardly…,” she said, putting down her wedge of toast.

“Um…why not?” said the familiar stranger, starting to sway back and forth, anxiety and doubt starting to make themselves known.

“It’s just…in this skirt?” she asked, more out of reaction than out of thought. Yet, when she motioned to reinforce her statement, she saw her blue skirt had turned into the bottom of a blue dress. Her white sneakers had disappeared to be replaced by a pair of blue formal shoes. In surprise, she ran her hands down the cotton of the dress and noticed that her fingers looked younger, too.

He paused. Paralyzed with rejection.

“Oh, what am I saying? I’d love to,” Mary concluded aloud, going along with the game being played.

She took the hand before her and stood within the kitchen, seeing nothing but her unearthly partner. Slowly, the white tile of her kitchen gave way to the brown, white, and blue of a dance hall. Her appliances disappeared amid a flurry of true metallic music, the triumph of horns and drums that had been nearly forgotten in the distant present.

“I hope you don’t mind a slow song,” he said, gaining confidence as he led her onto the dance floor.

“Oh, no. I like slow songs. I’m not much of a dancer, never have been, but slow songs just seem easier,” she found herself saying effortlessly.

“I think they are, too,” he confessed, smiling deeply into her eyes. Gradually, his arms stretched around her, as the band regained its melody.

She gave in at once in his arms, feeling security that she had felt for the first time long ago. Her smile matched his, her soul was his for the taking (she knew now as she didn’t know then).

As they danced, the hall faded away. They were light amid a darkened space, with events and faces flashing by.

Their figures drew closer at times and distanced themselves at others, bombarded by emotions and discord somewhat out of their control. Yet, with their eyes meeting and their bodies embraced, the music could not be destroyed. At times the perception of the sound changed, but the song remained the same.

Backward to forward. Forward to backward. They were once again in each other’s arms on the dance floor. The music resumed its earthly tone, letting that moment’s dance slide gracefully to a halt, joined by applause of appreciation for the music’s makers.

For a moment, the couple remained embraced. Her cheeks dimpled with a smile. His eyes moved over her shoulder.

Slowly, his hands lowered.

“It’s a shame that’s the last song,” she said, seeing the finality in his eyes as he looked at the clock.

“There’ll be more tomorrow,” he said, with yet another grin.

“Do you think I could see you then?”

“Certainly,” she said, walking with him toward the door.

“Until then,” he remarked upon departure, walking into the balmy summer night, his thoughts and hopes as incomplete as his farewell.

As he left, she sat herself down, seeing the decorations undone around her. In her lap was a clean handkerchief someone had left on the chair next to hers.

Before her eyes, the handkerchief slowly transformed, as Mary returned to the familiar. It metamorphosized from cotton to silk to velvet to paper, from white to red to blue to yellow, until all that was left was a napkin in her lap.

Mary quickly glanced to her side, seeing the kitchen once more. Although nothing in the room had changed, she felt that some things did not seem to be the way they had been before. She centered her sight and saw Wallace again. Looking into his steady eyes, she had a feeling that he felt it, too. The music had faded, but it was there all the same, awaiting the next crescendo.

INTERSECTION