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“Oh, my word, here, let me help you up.”
My arm was so tangled in the bags I’d been holding I couldn’t seem to get off the ground.
He held out both hands to me, the flowers still in one. I reached up but grabbed the bouquet instead.
“Sure, I guess you can have those if you want. Did you hit your head?” He hovered over me and started holding up fingers and asking me to count. “When is your birthday? Do you know what day it is?”
“The door got me a little bit, but not too bad. I’ll be okay—December 14th. And I can’t see your hands over this bouquet. I’m sorry, here, give these to your mom.”
I handed him the flowers back and successfully broke free of the luggage straps. I grabbed a bag on each side of me so I wouldn’t pull a shoulder out when I got up—or, at least, that was my logic.
He must have seen how poorly my mind was at problem-solving, so he set the flowers down in the back of my SUV and hoisted me up under my arms like you would a baby. For once, I hadn’t been stressed about the state of my armpits when now I had two handsome hands in them. Suffice it to say, things were not going as planned today.
He pulled me up, and suddenly, we werealmostin a hug. Had my arms notbeen wrapped around myself like I was wearing an invisible straight jacket, we could have embraced. And I might have done that as a platonic way of saying thanks, but my lower back was a little sore, and I wasn’t sure how far I could lean over.
There was electricity between us that I hoped he felt, too. I looked up at him, and I noticed he was sweating slightly. It could be that the sun was finally emerging, or maybe I was just much heavier than I appeared. Probably the latter, considering I was holding all the bags.
“You got a little something on your nose.” His words were smooth, and I could almost feel a cool wave from his minty breath.
I found myself basking in the romanticized near-embrace of him holding me up by the armpits. What a terrible time to remember just how ticklish I was.
Imagine the horror of finding out the hard way that your ticklish reflex was to kick your leg. I will never be welcomed back into that salon for a pedicure ever again, and Eli will not be impressed with getting kicked in the shins. It was, however, a surefire way to end contact, promising I could forever hide from my shame for being so rude at the drugstore, so again, I was toying with the idea.
Here I went again. My mind always loved taking me on these detours while someone tried their hardest to tell me something. He started making those facial gestures, like when you're plucking your chin hairs or applying mascara to discreetly let someone know somethingwas wrongwith their face—myface.
“What is that?”
“It’s the pollen from the lilies.”
I didn’t dare step away or try and crank my neck to see my reflection in the car window. No, I took the approach where instead of acknowledging there was gum in my hair, or I’d just sat on a melted candy bar on a bench outside Mervyn’s while wearing white jeans,I would just ignore it until it went away—the boldest approach for those without bravery. People would think you did it intentionally oryou trulydidn’t give a rip.And while it would haunt you every time you tried to fall asleep for the rest of your life, eventually, they would stop laughing in a few years.I called that a win.
But sometimes longer. Much, much longer, in fact. Once, I saw a man wearing a full cowboy outfit get out of a vehicle and step onto a sheet of solid ice at a movie theater. Cowboy boots and ice are like oil and water, with the same effect. Though the movie I saw that day had long been forgotten, I still remembered the horrific fall eighteen years later. I could still hear his rear slamming down on that ice patch.
Well, it wasn’t horrific, because his ego was the only thing injured. Again, this was an assumption because the crowd that gathered around him had been laughing too hard to see if he even cared. Sure, he may have just pretended,“I meant to do that”,but when he bottomed out on that ice and slid all the way to the box office window, the little spurs on his boots making sparks,it was impressive he didn’t need an ambulance.
But the ego is the most fragile part of the human body. He may have been so internally wounded, so scarred. Regardless, he got up, sat through a three-hour matinee of Titanic, and ate handfuls of popcorn a 48-ounce soda, and finished it off with a box of some rock-hard gummy candy, only to leave the movies and drove himself to the emergency room.
“It’s all over your nose and cheeks. It's—everywhere.” Eli let out a short laugh after he couldn’t take it anymore and stepped back from me.
I started to fall backward out of fright once I realized he wasn’t holding me up anymore, and quickly, he caught me by the armpits and pulled me up to his level.
Motioning to my bags, he had to break the silence. “Man, what did you pack in there? Rocks?”
I shrugged. “My dad has a new rock tumbler I want to test out.”
“Oh, okay. Well, I hope you have a good time.”
He was still just an inch away from me, like at any minute we were going to dance. I could practically see those baby hairs that lived between eyebrows, only to be seen in direct sunlight—like the ghost of a unibrow. I felt all sorts of things and needed immediate willpower to walk away from the forbidden fruit.
Dear Jesus,
I do not know what on earth is happening here, but please give me the strength to keep this... Proper.
In your name,
Amen
More than anything, I wanted Eli to throw caution to the wind and whisper something romantic in my ear.
