Because it's summer, and I find myself with little else to do but re-read my old stories, and procrastinating so much that I somehow come up with a new one. But this is mildly reminiscent of something I wrote three years ago. I still (still!) don't own Rent, and reviews are still wonderful.
Even though the air is still cool, for the first time in months the sun is bright. There are people walking just to walk and people stopping to look around and everywhere people laughing.
They are sitting on a bench in the park, having left the apartment just for errands but, upon finding that the first day of spring really does feel like a real new beginning, instead have walked around just to feel the fresh air.
For once, there are no hats or mittens in sight, and the sun is so bright that some have even taken off their jackets, and they walk around feeling strangely lighter than they have in months. Collins has to squint to look the newspaper he's picked up on the bench, and when he opens to the crossword, smiling because it's unfinished, the paper seems to reflect back every light in the sky.
Angel is happy just to sit, and absentmindedly picks up Collins' left hand and begins to play with it against her own, twisting her fingers around and down each of his, rolling her thumb across his knuckles and her index finger through the creases.
A little boy sits on the grass playing with his toy truck, and birds chirp in a nearby tree, and the sun reaches such a height that shadows are a mere memory.
"What's the Spanish word for spring?" Collins asks, gesturing to a nine letter blank and holding the paper parallel to his face, the only way not to reflect the sunlight.
Angel smiles. "Primavera," she answers, squinting up at the blue sky.
He gives a nod and begins to write the word in. Angel thinks about the word, mouths it again to herself. A mother sits down in the grass next to the little boy and begins playing with him. Prima, cousin. Angel looks at the mother and the son and feels the corners of her mouth turn upward, very slightly. Cousin, family.
She finds her fingers twisting around the finger next to Collins' pinky, stroking the skin up and down and circling her index and middle finger around the base of it. She lets out a small sigh, and, because the entire city looks bright and brand new today, allows her thoughts to wander.
She thinks of a simple gold band around the finger that she's still rubbing, with a matching one on her own hand and an engraving on the inside. She stares out farther, past the boy and his mother to other people and other couples, and she lets herself continue.
She imagines thousands of days just like this one, and decades of birthdays and Valentine's Days and New Year's, and the Christmas Eve when they will split a bottle of wine for their anniversary and Collins will admit that that he no longer remembers how much he was hurting in that alley.
She imagines old age.
She imagines sitting on this same bench next to an old man with a bad hip and a big smile. She imagines leaning over and kissing the top of a gray head with flecks of white so bright that they are dazzling in this weather. Eyes still open, but no longer really seeing, she imagines her own body, so tired and old that it is finally at peace with itself, standing up and offering the old man a hand before they shuffle off to their apartment.
"What about this one?"
Collins gestures toward another spot in the paper, breaking her reverie and forcing her to look at the blinding page. "It says, 'possessed,'" he continues, pointing at the clue. Angel looks at the puzzle: eight letters, fourth letter "u," fifth letter "i."
She feels the word hit her in the chest before it reaches her head, so before she can say it or even think it she knows it's there, pressing down on her, slowly working its way up to her mouth. She closes her eyes and leans her head against Collins' shoulder, wrapping both her hands around his left one in her lap.
It's silly, she thinks to herself as the word comes tumbling to her throat, four years of high school and four years of college and four years of grad school and a PhD and he still can't think of this one word. But maybe he's just even better at imagining than she is.
Angel opens her eyes and sees, for the first time, that there are still small patches of snow in the park, dirty and packed together on corners, refusing to melt. She notices that even though it feels like spring, the trees are as bare as they were in January.
"Acquired," she says.
The word hangs between them for an instant, and Angel thinks how strange it sounds alone, naked when not followed by the next two.
Collins tilts his head and gives a short laugh, a dry smile spreading across his face. "Of course," he mutters, scribbling it in the blanks.
He puts his pen in his pocket, carefully folds up the newspaper, and turns his head to kiss Angel softly on the temple. Then he stands up, and Angel, still holding his hand, follows suit. As they walk away, he places the newspaper in a nearby trash bin without pausing to watch as it falls in.