REBECCA

She wondered, in the middle of that empty store, why she bothered sharing her theory with a perfect stranger. It really is a good theory she thought, as she dug out an old Jim Croce record and played, Time in a Bottle. The very first song on her list of five that reminded her of her father. Dammit, she missed him. She knew she wouldn’t be in this situation if he was still here. Something in the rhythm of this song made her think of his navy-blue eyes and how they always looked at her with complete love, even when she knew she was letting him down, again.

She hadn’t meant to disappoint him. College just wasn’t her thing, and nice guys weren’t either, as it turned out. She knew she had accidentally turned into a stereotype. She would fix it, she knew she would. She just wasn’t ready yet.

First, she’d take a minute to listen to the words, “the box would be empty except for the memories of how they were answered by you…”

She remembered the first time she heard this song, driving with her dad doing mundane errands on a Saturday morning as he checked the oil in the old van they were driving. She heard the words, “you’re the one that I want to go through time with.” Did he even realize that he was this to her? Did he have any idea she loved him the most, no one else could ever compare.

Why couldn’t they have more of that time? Why did the time have to be in a god damn bottle?

William

He wouldn’t go so far as to use the record player, or even plug it in for that matter, but he would slump down on his sofa with a drink and let the idea in. An idea he had formulated on his walk home. Five songs: That’s what he decided he needed to do. Come up with the five songs that were Kate. Listen to all five of them and then live again.

Finally, a day that ended with a plan.          

Six Years Ago

Most days start and end like every other day; the unwelcomed alarm clock, the argument with one’s self about wearing something more professional to work, and ultimately letting the casual, comfortable outfit win- a later train, some uninspired meetings, possibly a few laughs during cocktails after work, and then the tireless sleep that resets the monotony of modern life.

Some mornings William woke dreamt he were a farmer or a fisherman. He wanted the pressure of knowing he had to get out of bed or people wouldn’t eat, crops wouldn’t harvest, villages would crumble in his absence. Instead, he knew that if he didn’t get out of bed and go to work, there would be one less piece of useless marketing content in the enormous vat of electronic mail that was supposed to inspire, promote, and entice customers to what, exactly? Change the world? Reverse the course of their life? Buy something? He had no idea. Essentially, his job was just to entice a consumer to open an email. After that his job was done. He was nearing forty, very well-read, and lived an entire boyhood dreaming of being a pirate or an astronaut, and somehow it turned out that he was living out his life with the mission of getting people to open their emails. Not exactly what he dreamed would happen while spending most of his youth the victor of very dramatic sword fighting and always, always winning back the castle.

But, thankfully, or mercifully, really- there are actual days where the monotony is tampered with and the universe pauses for the briefest of moments to allow a tiny bit of unexpected sunshine to come in.

Suddenly, William’s two o’clock meeting was more than just his two o’clock meeting. It was his two o’clock meeting with the loveliest person he had ever seen walk through the doors of his marketing firm. “Kate. Meet William, he’s the lead on this project. You can ask him any questions you might have to get you up to speed,” his boss had casually introduced them, not realizing that it would become one of the most telling moments of William’s life.  

He didn’t remember much after that moment. A moment he would keep going back to in his mind as either the end or the beginning of something. What was the difference really? Aren’t the beginning and the end virtually the same thing anyway?

There was a laugh, a handshake and a lingering look in the eye that caught him off guard. For the briefest of seconds he was happy that he did choose marketing over farming or pirating.

Six bloody years later

William sat remembering that moment. He knew he was in for it when he first met her even though it would still take a long time to realize this. But after that day of meeting her, he would always choose the more professional outfit, the stairs over the elevator, and the salad over the pasta at lunch. He went to bed at night suddenly with a creeping sense of optimism in his soul, and the beat of Foggy Notion in his mind. Just as he would fall asleep, his thoughts were filled with the knowing that the next day would bring more of Kate and more of this music into his head.

So- he supposed, reluctantly, that this was the first song of his five for Kate. This was the song that even over the course of the last few years when things got tough, he would think of and remember the feelings of love at first sight, and a beginning of the end- or the end of the beginning. There was the before and there was the now. There wasn’t really any other way to explain it. William closed his eyes. Today had been enough for him. Even though he was aware of what the first song was, he certainly wasn’t about to listen to it. Not today.

Instead of listening to Foggy Notion, he remembered the time they heard it together. He remembered feeling almost embarrassed when she said, completely unaware of how much the song made him think about her, “oh, I have always liked this song. It makes me so happy when I hear it.”

It was the day after he had moved out of Sarah’s apartment, which he swore was “their” apartment, and maybe he had been kicked out, but that’s just in the details. There was a happy hour after work and he reluctantly decided to go. He was depressed about the breakup and even more depressed that he had gone from a spacious loft apartment with a built-in bar to Pete’s and Lizzy’s sofa bed. The happy hour seemed a better alternative to getting to their house too early and crashing their family dinner. If he killed a few hours he would get back there after the kids were in bed, and dinner dishes were done. He’d be able to skip all of the normal family rituals and only feel like a regular loser instead of an extra-loser like he did last night when his friend’s daughter Lauren said, “Uncle William, you can sleep in my room, I have new butterfly sheets.”

But this happy hour turned into more than just drinks with semi-friends from work. William knew that something shifted in him that day. He had just broken up with Sarah, but things had been really sad for a long time. He had mostly given up on being able to feel anything real for someone else again. But as all sappy movies begin- there she was.

Kate sat down next to him, beer in hand and said, “I love this song, it puts me in such a good mood. And after a day at this place, anything positive is a bonus, don’t you think?” She laughed, but he knew what she meant, it really was such a strange place to work. People were always coming and going, and not that he needed to get joy out of every moment of the day, but the place was exceptionally depressing.

…until now.

That night walking back to Pete and Lizzy’s house, he felt for the first time that life maybe could be nice if he allowed it to be. It wasn’t so much that he and Sarah fought a lot or anything, it was more that they were barely even in each other’s orbit anymore. It amazed him how little you could get away with talking to the person you lived with and were supposed to marry.

They would go an entire weekend with as few words as possible, watch entire movies without so much as a shared laugh or comment. Dinners with friends were seemingly fun but then they naturally find themselves alone on the car ride home with nothing to say to each other and the silence felt deafening.

But then after days of having nothing to say when they were alone for days on end, they would actually sit down with a wedding planner and his future- mother-in-law and pick out things for their upcoming celebration. It made him wonder how they had ever gotten this far. He must have felt connected to Sarah at some point, he did buy her a ring and ask her to marry him. He just couldn’t conjure up any of the feelings that brought him to that point anymore.

He remembered when it all went wrong.

The wedding planner had suggested that the lighting in the room for the reception dinner should be more romantic, “you do want a more romantic mood, don’t you?” Loretta the wedding planner had said as innocently as possible.

“You mean more romantic than eating dinner in complete silence on the sofa?” William quipped without meaning to, but still causing Sarah to cry all the way home.

He knew it was mean to say it, and to this day wasn’t even sure if he had meant to say it out loud, but it was after an entire day of being asked ridiculous questions about chairs, silverware, and flower arrangements. Really? Now the level lighting? All of this without any alcohol or any trace of laughter.

The fact that Sarah seemed surprised by the comment was the part he really couldn’t believe.  She lived in their apartment too, did she not? She knew how little they had been interacting lately. Just that past weekend he had played a little game with himself to see if she would break ten words an hour with him. At first he was happy that he was winning, but then he realized it took nearly three hours to reach that ten word mark- and that was only because they ordered pepperoni and meatball pizza, and that had added two extra words. How could that comment have thrown her for a loop? How could you consider talking about romantic lighting when you couldn’t reach ten words an hour? If it weren’t for the pizza toppings they would have been at eight, he wanted to scream!

They say the more you love something, the harder it is to let go. And the thing was, it seemed relatively easy to let go of Sarah. It almost felt like a weight had been lifted his shoulders. Maybe he realized that making her happy would not actually be nearly as rewarding as it would be tiresome. Eventually you had to start weighing the rewards and accept that all of your efforts aren’t always worth it if you aren’t going to get out of something what you are putting into it. Slot machines are fun because there is always the chance of winning and reaping a nice reward, but no one wants their life to feel like a slot machine. You stop caring about the winning, and eventually come to the realization that no matter what the odds are, you just no longer want to play.

With Kate it was just the opposite. He felt like he didn’t really have to put a lot in but somehow the payout was much greater. What he got in return for loving her was better than happiness, it was contentment. Contentment was something never easy to attain, but nearly impossible to lose once you’ve had it.

He looked over at the record player, and the cover of The Velvet Underground album, and even though he could hear the faint lyrics in his head, “Sallie Mae…Sallie Mae…,” he refused to plug it in.

Next Chapter: Remove Your Farthingales