Page 6 of The Vow

“A sample?”

“This is a job interview, isn’t it?”

As she bent over to pick up her purse and rifle through it, a crucifix spilled from her top. I also saw a hint of a tattoo but not enough to make out what it was. Part of me hoped that it was something sexy. The other part of me wanted it to be something feminine. Either way, her name was becoming synonymous with “mysterious”.

“Here. It’s a poem.”

“A love poem?”

“No. A death poem. Of course it’s a love poem.”

This time, she smiled through her sarcasm. Unfurling the sheet of paper, I read the single stanza:

I hang by the sickle moon,

unafraid to fly.

Beneath the clouds that skirt Heaven,

he is there to catch me,

to love me,

till I die.

The breadth of our love

is like an endless chasm,

expanding like a mother’s heaving breast.

A love eternal, a love we could not fathom.

“Well?” she asked, draining her bottle.

“I love it,” I said, handing it back to her.

“I’m hired?”

“Do you want the job?”

“I have a question first.”

“What’s that?”

“Tell me again why the fuck you’re doing this? Are you an agent looking to find the next bestseller?”

Nick left fresh bottles in front of us and cleared the old ones. My bar tab at Nicky’s is about a mile long, but Nick knows I’m good for it. If I win, that is.

“I box.”

“Box,” she repeated, resting her head on her hand. “Like some Rocky Balboa shit?”

“Um, yeah.”

“You don’t look like a boxer. You’re too pretty.”

It was a thinly veiled compliment and didn’t do much to ease my feelings of anxiety about the big match. I wanted to tell her that she was the pretty one; beautiful in fact, but I changed the subject.