Lily and the Octopus(70)
It’s been a month to the day since Lily died.
Until today I have been doing okay. I took my mother up on her offer to come home. I timed my visit with Meredith’s, and we all spent a few lazy days enjoying the Maine summer, and no one pressured me to talk or to laugh if I didn’t want to. Upon my return, I threw myself into other things—work, exercise (a lot of running—running to? running from?), catching up with friends. Dating, sort of. There have been a few dates; all firsts, no seconds—no real interest on my part. (Afternoon dates, all of them, so that it’s not a big deal when I don’t drink.) All of this is not to say there weren’t a few dark days, even lonelier nights, and a few horrifying nightmares, but I powered through somehow, kept marching forward. It seemed critical, rejoining the world—I have been away too long.
I’d been dreading today, the one-month anniversary of Lily’s passing, but I hadn’t expected it to land with such a numbing clonk. I probably only made this date knowing I would need the distraction. Not that I didn’t find his pictures attractive. Not that I didn’t enjoy our email exchange. I think I’m attracted to his name: Byron. A poet’s name. Romantic. I’ve read a lot of Lord Byron of late; he had a Newfoundland, named Boatswain, who was the inspiration for one of his more famous works, “Epitaph to a Dog.” Near this Spot are deposited the Remains of one who possessed Beauty without Vanity, Strength without Insolence, Courage without Ferocity, and all the virtues of Man without his Vices. Boatswain, it seems, was a lot like Lily.
It felt like some sort of sign, my date’s name being Byron. He would understand me and the depths of my pain. He would speak in poetry, real emotional verse, and not pablum and platitudes. But I don’t really know what I’m doing as I march toward the farther of the two Starbucks, the one closer to the yogurt place.
Living, I suppose. Breathing. It seems I’m almost ready to do those things again. Not just go through the motions, but attempt them for real.
I weave through L.A.’s famous Farmers Market (which is really more of an outdoor food court) and now I’m a few minutes late and the place is packed and there’s still the uncertainty about where to meet when I look down and realize I’m wearing yellow pants. Yellow pants. Really? Sometimes I don’t know what I’m thinking. They’re rolled at the cuff and paired with a navy polo and it looks like maybe I just valeted my yacht and I’m certain to come off as an *. I think about canceling, or at least delaying so I can go home and change, but the effort that would require is unappealing and this date is mostly for distraction, and when I round the last stall (someone selling enormous eggplants, more round than oblong), I see him casually leaning against a wall and something inside my body says there you are.
There you are.
I don’t understand them, these words, because they seem too deep and too soulful to attach to the Farmers Market, this Starbucks or that, a frozen yogurt place, or confusion over where to meet a stranger. They’re straining to define a feeling of stunning comfort that drips over me, as if a water balloon burst over my head on the hottest of summer days. My knees don’t buckle, my heart doesn’t skip, but I’m awash in the warmth of a Valium-like hug. Except I haven’t taken a Valium. Not since the night of Lily’s death. Yet here is this warm hug that makes me feel safe with this person, this Byron the maybe-poet, and I want it to stop. This—whatever this feeling is—can’t be a real feeling, this can’t be a tangible connection. This is just a man leaning against a stall that sells giant eggplants. But I no longer have time to worry about what this feeling is, whether I should or shouldn’t be here, or should or shouldn’t be wearing yellow pants, because there are only maybe three perfect seconds where I see him and he has yet to spot me. Three perfect seconds to enjoy the calm that has so long eluded me.
There you are.
And then he casually lifts his head and turns my way and uses one foot to push himself off the wall he is leaning against. We lock eyes and he smiles with recognition and there’s a disarming kindness to his face and suddenly I’m standing in front of him.
“There you are.” It comes out of my mouth before I can stop it and it’s all I can do to steer the words in a more playfully casual direction so he isn’t saddled with the importance I’ve placed on them. I think it comes off okay, but, as I know from my time at sea, sometimes big ships turn slowly.
Byron chuckles and gives a little pump of his fist. “YES! IT’S! ALL! HAPPENING! FOR! US!”
I want to stop in my tracks, but I’m already leaning in for a hug and he comes the rest of the way and the warm embrace of seeing him standing there is now an actual embrace and it is no less sincere.
He must feel me gripping him tightly because he asks, “Is everything okay?”
“No. Yes. Everything is great. It’s just . . .” I play it back in my head, what he said, the way in which he said it and the enthusiasm that had only a month ago gone silent. “You reminded me of someone, is all.”
“Hopefully in a good way.”
I smile, but it takes just a minute to speak. “In the best possible way.”
I don’t break the hug first, but maybe at the same time. This is a step. Jenny will be proud. I look in his eyes, which I expect to be brown like Lily’s, but instead are deep blue like the waters lapping calmly against the outboard sides of Fishful Thinking.