Sun in Your Hair
A continuance to the previous. Shorter but hopefully cathartic. This time I take inspiration from a real life place, and the movie The Princess and the Frog. Enjoy!
Tiana's Palace was a comfortable and classy little restaurant, with a checkered floor and mirrors on the wall. Jack was the there early, checking his watch every half-a-minute to see if it was time for her to show up yet.
It was not.
The only other patron in the restaurant was an old black woman, swathed all in white except for black sunglasses. She had propped up her feet on the seat opposite her, and had her head tilted back, regarding the ceiling with an air of great serenity. She had an empty cup in front of her, and a plate piled high with pralines.
Jack took out a sheet of paper from his pocket, and reread it for the umpteenth time. He counted the syllables on his fingers, frustrated with the scansion but not sure how to perfect it.
"Word to the wise," the old woman said, so suddenly that it made Jack jump. "When you gon' read some fair lines o' poetry to your sweet chèrie, you bes' know dat by heart." She tapped her temple, and then her chest, not looking at him once. "Words from the heart, dey sweeter than sugar."
"Well," Jack sighed, and decided to humor her, "I finished this only last night. I haven't had time to memorize it."
"Wrote it las' night? Someone's in a hurry."
"It only took me six months to be in a hurry…" he mumbled.
The woman chuckled, a dry rolling sound that somehow was not unpleasant. "I'm jus' messin' with you, honey pie. Da words don' need to be in your head – but de feeling must come from de heart."
At that moment, the door opened. Jack sat up, his heart pounding so hard he was afraid he would choke. Rapunzel entered the restaurant, without her guitar, and without a smile. As she approached him, slowly, Jack had time to writhe in terror that the old lady was going to loudly ask Jack if this was his "sweet chèrie," but she was mercifully silent – perhaps thanks to the waiter's sudden appearance, filling up her mug with strong chicory coffee.
Rapunzel put down her bag and sat down opposite Jack. "Well," she said, looking around, "glad to see you… found the place okay."
"Yeah." He bobbed his head stiffly. "Thanks for suggesting it."
Rapunzel picked at the napkin on her side of the table. "So." She tucked a short lock of hair behind her ear. It popped back into place almost at once. "I – I was kind of rude yesterday, I'm sorry."
Jack nodded, regarding her with wide eyes.
"I'm willing to listen to you," she said after a pause. "You said you were thinking a lot. What… were you thinking?"
He swallowed. "I wasn't thinking," he said. "I was just – I was just being a kid, nothing but a kid. You were growing up and I was neglecting you—and I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry that I wasn't there for you. But I want to be there now."
Rapunzel looked away.
"I know you must be mad, but –"
"Et voilà!" came a voice from over Jack's shoulder. He and Rapunzel both looked up in surprise as the waiter appeared. He lowered a small mountain of sweet praline cookies onto the table, and then two empty mugs, which he filled with cinnamon and chicory-scented coffee.
"Cream? Sugar?" the waiter asked.
"Um, yes, please…" Rapunzel looked at Jack in confusion. "Did you…?"
"I, uh, didn't order these?" Jack said, unwilling to turn aside such good fortune but also unable to pay for it.
"C'est pas du problème—" ye gods, more French – "it's compliments of Mama Odie." The waiter nodded to the old lady in white, who gave a cheery wave when she heard her name mentioned. He straightened up, winked at Jack, and then sauntered off to the kitchen, humming all the time.
Rapunzel and Jack stared at each other over the mountain of cookies. Then she cracked into a grin, and started to laugh. He laughed, too, the terrible tension in him easing up. Rapunzel took a cookie and held it close to her. "So."
"I wrote you something," he said, too quick to second-guess his decision.
"You wrote me—"
"A poem. I know, I'm not the poetic type, but, I –" he took the crumpled sheet of paper out of his pocket and smoothed it out on the table.
"You must mean it," Rapunzel observed, her voice purposely dry and ironic. "You haven't even tasted your coffee."
He wondered where she had learned to be sarcastic like that. She had always been so painfully earnest when they were young.
"I do mean it," he said. "The poem is called 'Sun in Your Hair.' I, um, I got the idea for it before I saw your haircut… never mind."
He looked down, cleared his throat, and began to read.
"'If there's cold in my bones, there's sunlight in you.
Your light never failed me, steady and true.
I walked by your side and I danced in your eyes.
But I ran to the wind, and I didn't realize."
He cleared his throat. Crap. This poem was complete crap. But he had to keep going. That was the awful thing about reading poetry. Once you started, you had to keep going.
"You were a princess, all noble and fair,
With paint on your hands and the sun in your hair,
You turned into a nurse, all steady and strong.
When you found your way, I felt I didn't belong."
Flibbertigibbit damn it to hell he had never gotten that line right, this poem was a complete failure and he was going to burn it into ash when he got home. Damn you iambic pentameter! He… he assumed that the poem was iambic pentameter. What if it wasn't? Crap.
"Rather than think, I played all my way.
Your goodbye was a hurt, that lasted a day.
I didn't realize, what I was losing
My life took directions not of my choosing."
Last verse.
"I'm trying to meet you, to reach where you are
You've grown up beyond me, I hope not too far.
You bring the light to melt my snow,
I did not know how bright, until I let you go."
He put the paper down. Now all he had to do was wait for her reaction. Good. Nice internal rhyme there. It made the ending line feel very—
He swore and facepalmed. "What is it?" Rapunzel asked.
"I wrote this last night and I didn't realize – the last line is practically a rip off of that song you were singing yesterday. Jeez, I am such a hack poet."
A light sound broke into his consciousness. He peered out from between his fingers.
Rapunzel was giggling. She lowered her hand to say, "That's not the usual way that a guy finishes up his sonnet recitation."
"That was a sonnet?"
"No. It had too many lines." She finished her cookie and pushed the plate over to him. "C'mon, have one. I've had like three." He took a cookie and nibbled at it. It was very good.
"Is your life really falling apart?" she asked, cradling her coffee in her hands.
"Well, falling apart is putting it dramatically, but, yes. Zel? I don't want you to get the wrong idea, and think that I want you to put my life back together for me – but I miss you. I miss us. God, I treated you like an asshole, and I'm so sorry. I acted like you were the sun – like you were going to be there forever, just having adventures with me, and then you were growing up and I wanted to stay the same. And when you left, I was mad, but I didn't realize – "
The mountain of praline cookies shifted and a few cookies fell to the tabletop. Rapunzel moved the entire plate to the adjacent table and sat down again. She slipped her hands – warm and callused from guitars and paintbrushes – into his. She looked into his eyes, and he nearly shook in the face of the openness and trust that he saw there.
"Go on?" she asked.
He squeezed her hands. "I love you now as much as I ever have. Will you take me back, Zel? I'll put my life together. I just want you to be there with me. This time, I'll be what you deserve."
Her fingertips found the blue veins on his wrists, and pressed them lightly as she said, "I'm glad you said you don't want me to put your life back together for you. I need someone who is whole on their own – I can't have anyone depending on me."
"I understand."
"Are you whole on your own?"
"These… these last six months, I drifted without you, but I did figure something out. I figured out my purpose - what I was put on this earth to do. I'm here to make the world better – by making people happy. It's, it's complicated and it all sounds really dumb if you take it piece by piece, but it makes sense in the whole."
"Are you whole?"
"Yes – yes, I'm whole."
She was silent for a long moment, then a smile broke out over her face. "We can try again, Jack," she said. "Just don't run away from me this time."
"I won't," he promised.
"Could you bring over those cookies again? I tell you, Jack, my poetry isn't the same when you're not there to listen to the first draft…"
(So the Cajun cuisine restaurant featured here takes elements from Princess and the Frog, but it's actually based on a real restaurant in Dublin, called Tante Zoe's. I've eaten there, the food was marvelous, and the service superb – though I never did get to try their curried butternut squash. Check it out if you're ever in Dublin!)