A Winter's Tale
Of Beginnings and Balthazar
Same Evening, 11 pm, Mel's Bedroom, Vera Manor, Suburbs of Spruce Hill Village
Hello Om, Mel finally typed. It's been one very long and crazy day…
Tell me about it, the response came just as swiftly, followed by a smiley-face emoticon surrounded by a plethora of pink hearts.
Mel's fingers paused above the typepad. Om typically did not inscribe hearts like that—at all. Could she be-Abigael? One and the very same? She bit her lip, mulling this over as she took a sip of fresh-brewed peppermint tea, courtesy of Harry.
What if Om was not Abigael? Mel had kissed the latter—Abigael—and had her companionship, her loyalty, and by all appearances sans evidence to the contrary—her heart. That should have been enough for her, no? But…
What if…what if?
Her nagging conscience continued to prod, weaving discomfiting questions within her once-soporific psyche, even at this late an hour.
You and Om had a meeting of the minds. Don't try to deny it—
I wasn't going to, she said to herself. I know what I felt—
Mel recalled their midnight chats, spent regaling the other of eventful happenings of the day, their triumphs and setbacks, their successes and such—Om's bedroom to her own, two glimmering beams streaking through an elegant symphony of intricate, interlaced, intermodal cyberspace akin to Kelly and Yorkie—Black Mirror's couple of the idyllic software-sewn San Junipero paradise. Om and Lilla had been, in her mind, modern-day comets flying across hammered hardware, their purest embodiments actively seeking solace in the other's pristine prose amid the blissfully secluded solitude of twilight.
I'll live with it—
Abigael and I are a couple, a blossoming, burgeoning pair. Mel tried to convince herself that that alone was sufficient—
Are you sure? Her conscience was really trying her patience.
Mel sighed, and finally typed her response. Can we meet one time, in person? she spelled out, fully expecting an excuse or a half-hearted catfishing reply, but—
Tomorrow, café, noon?
Just three words. Mel squinted at the answer, wondering if there wasn't some way to transport herself vis-à-vis osmosis to Om's bedroom, her living quarters—to breathe in her scent—could it be the same Sussex brunette? And to talk to her, to see just who and what she was, this mysterious woman who had slid into her DMs, epistolary-style.
Did Om's urban habitat include myriad candelabras, their innermost forms shedding pearls of molten wax upon the brass? Did her laughter sound of Sussex in tempered tonality? When she smiled, did her lips smell of mint, her visage of rose petals, freshly-picked from its verdant stem of vitality?
Ok, Mel said back.
For peace of mind. It's all I ask of you, Om, she thought, as she drifted off to sleep, visions of nautical tea lights glimmering all around.
Next Day, Noon, Outside Café SM, Spruce Hill Village
She checked her messages as she stood in front of her café, heart continually skipping a beat as various women passed by—there was that beach-blond sporting a fringe of pink hair, a rather tall woman of tawny hue, and…so many others. But none of them came up to her, introducing themselves as the ever-illusive Om. Not a single one.
Abigael had taken a day off at the last minute, and who knew where she was. Thankfully, the dining crowd had thinned out somewhat (they offered coffee and cookies and boozy shakes, not actual meals), so Mel could take a breather and enjoy some well-deserved time to herself.
She heard her phone buzz. Running five minutes late. Still on?
Slowly exhaling, Mel responded, Yup! before walking back into the café.
12:02 pm, Café SM, Spruce Hill Village
Three more minutes. If everything went according to plan, she and this Om would finally meet face-to-face. She imagined the woman a brunette, with a wry sense of humor and a witty intellect to boot, not to mention—British—based on countless earlier messages and idiomatic expressions within. But imagining alone, did not make something so.
Her eyes fell upon the tall spiky rhinestone-studded thermos tucked behind the espresso machine for safekeeping, that she still hadn't returned to Abigael, despite their near-constant interactions throughout their mutual shared spaces. She ran her fingers over the pleather exterior, plucking the object from relatively shadowed obscurity, thinking of everything that had transpired to lead her to this very situation, right here, right now.
I've finally opened my heart to love again, she realized, experiencing an epiphany of sorts. Rather than a sense of fear and loss over past paramours, she felt the dawning awakening of…hope. Her mind traveled to the winding queues when they had first laid eyes upon the other, followed by Maggie's attempts at playing Cupid over a boozy Santa shake. Far from her earlier annoyance, Mel realized Abigael really was a cunning marketing genius, assessing millennial consumer-driven trends as they continually ebbed and flowed.
And then came the red velvet chocolate crinkle cookies, from a page of Marisol's recipes. Did her mother realize, decades ago, that it doubled as a love potion? Mel wondered as she recalled the intoxicatingly bittersweet, viscous chocolat and the crimson coloring too, coupled with the messiness that led to delicate dabbing of porcelain skin (and gave way to certain other imagined pursuits).
12:03 pm, Café SM, Spruce Hill Village
Not to mention, the candles.
Their luminous glow painted the surrounding artwork of Abigael's lair chiaroscuro, rendering themselves in a veritable hygge snowglobe of interior designation, its antique sofa appearing tiny, yet sumptuous when sat upon, to her pleasant surprise.
Never judge a book by its cover.
Mel knew that now, seeing Abigael's fond, devoted attachment to her precious machinery, her motorbike Arielle, who had no doubt been a formative fixture of her youthful cross-country (and cross-continent)adventures. Deep down, despite (or because of) the gingerbread heist, she understood Abigael to be a kind soul with a quick-tongued, sly, sharp sense of humor, the type of sparkling personality Mel had come to admire and altogether appreciate, a piece of her life's puzzle she never knew she needed, until now. And all that.
Earlier that morning, Mel was at a loss as to what exactly she ought to wear for meeting Om. Whoever Om was. She eyed her wardrobe, realizing the majority were in various shirted styles of black…onyx…ebony…et cetera. After a half hour of unproductive debating and decisions…and revisions to those decisions, she finally decided upon a short black skirt, a forest green ribbed turtleneck that hinted at elegant Christmas cheer, and matching black tights in the event a clumsy customer spilled his or her espresso atop her outerwear (not as uncommon an occurrence as one would believe).
12:04 pm, Café SM, Spruce Hill Village
Sixty more seconds. Mel checked her phone, realizing with some panic that she had only—
One minute to decide if she wanted to meet Om. Assuming Om showed up.
One minute to run.
She glanced at the front door, its normally transparent glass partially obscured with wreathed evergreen holiday décor and the barest beginnings of sugared wintry frost hearkening from the northernmost hemisphere, Vancouver thereabouts.
Only twenty or thirty feet to the back exit.
If she left right now, she knew she could be kept in the dark. She wouldn't have to risk hope that the unknown woman might be Abigael—there was no way on earth the gods would orchestrate such a scenario in her favor. She, Melonie Vera, would only withstand disappointment and a direction toward pointed, near-permanent cynicism if she so much as waited a minute more. Right?
But…what if?
What if you stayed?
Hands shaking, she blinked away tears, staring at the ceiling.
Oh, who was she kidding? She was Melonie-fucking-Vera. Of course she'd stay put.
But it wouldn't make the disappointment any easier…
Ping! Mel regarded her device, brow furrowed.
I'm the one with the cat.
The one with the…what? Unsure of what Om meant, Mel pondered several scenarios, each more ludicrous than the next.
12:04 and 30 seconds pm, Café SM, Spruce Hill Village
Maybe Om has a cat. That definitely couldn't be Abigael then. Mel's face fell a bit, as she had been holding out hope, though she maintained face for the sake of customers and pedestrians alike.
Hope, perhaps, for a fairy tale?
She had no idea, firmly believing there was no such thing as a Disney "happily-ever-after" in whatever way she imagined many women growing up had been trained to believe.
Realizing she only had thirty seconds more, she mentally braced herself, blinking hard, before grabbing the spiked thermos, bravely traipsing through the front door of Café SM, shutting the door behind, as snow flurries began falling from the neutral, nimbostratus sky.
12:05 pm, Outside Café SM, Spruce Hill Village
Hearing a tiny meow, she looked up from her phone, to see—
She gasped.
It was Abigael, her Abigael, holding a sumptuous pleather carrier case containing an extremely wrinkly Sphynx cat, who was dressed to the nines in a cheerful cranberry holiday sweater.
"Hullo, Lilla," the brunette murmured, stepping closer until they were no more than a foot apart, gently placing the carrier upon the sidewalk.
"Hi…Om…I mean…Ab…Abigael," Mel found herself suddenly bashful as the Brit reached forward, tucking a raven lock beneath the former's ear.
"I-I think this is yours?" Mel found herself handing Abigael the spiked rhinestone thermos she'd held on to for the past days and weeks, but the woman stopped her.
"You're crying—"
Mel sniffed and laughed. "I-I was just worried—I didn't know if Om and you—" she stopped, unable to complete the sentence.
"Were the same person?" the Sussex woman inquired with a telltale arch of her impeccably-crested eyebrow.
The raven-haired woman nodded, a faint rouge tinged upon her cheeks. "I was hoping it was you," she whispered, her visage inches from Abigael's own, drifting closer still, upon which the latter penetrated the infinitesimal distance between them, their lips meeting in an unbridled cataclysmic fervor, kismet at long last.
12:08 pm, Outside Café SM, Spruce Hill Village
"Um…Abi?" Mel broke contact from a kiss that could only be described as the melding of minds, the sultry singing of twin souls…
"Yes, love?"
Mel stared down at the pleather carrier to the hairless creature housed within. "Is that Madame Mayor's cat?"
"Who's asking?" Abigael's mischievous eyes twinkled in the glow of festive holiday lights. Ever the charmer. "I kid," she continued, as Mel gave somewhat of a side-eye, as she was oft wont to do in that curiously entrancing sense of skepticism she had about her. "The madame and her wife left town on short notice for a business trip, and I happened to be the only Spruce Hill resident well-versed in exotic cat breeds…"
"Huh." Sounded plausible enough, Mel thought to herself. "What's its name?"
Abigael lifted the carrier with one hand, the other newly intertwined with Mel's own, as they walked into Café SM together. "His name is Balthazar, and he's simply wicked—…"
-THE END-