Frost

They met at a party on Flanders. She was wearing a red dress that made the disco ball dance on the brown of her eyes and faintly showed the outline of her black bra. He assured her he wasn’t too drunk. They danced to the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s and some band neither of them could remember but both liked. When they kissed they felt something but both attributed it to their tipsy libidos. Then her anorexic friend passed out in the corner and he helped carry her into the elevator. She beamed at him and would later call him a gentleman after forgetting his name. After making out for twenty minutes she assured him for the hundredth time that she never did things like this. He replied that he did things like this all too often. She wrote her number on a soggy receipt they found on the pavement, and then she asked him if he believed in fate.

A thousands possibilities of response raced through his partially functional brain. He weighed the consequences of his truth. He looked at the soggy pavement. He considered the her that he knew already and realized that he hoped to know the rest of her.

He looked at her and he told her no, he did not belief in fate.

Then Eleanor took Hank’s arm, and, suddenly more sober than he had been in longer than he could recall, she said nothing and led him around the corner and to her apartment.

The next day he arose at dawn. Gathering his clothing, which was spread sporadically from wall to wall amongst her impressive collection of books, he admired her sleeping form, and quickly disappeared. Eleanor woke up, unsurprised, and disappeared once again into her solitude.

  

Everything in Hank’s intuition was telling him to slow down, but he simply wasn’t in control any longer. The ice was slick on the cement, a perfect fluency for the rubber of wheels to glide over as if traction had never been invented, but Hank had uncharacteristically gathered the calm composure of a racetrack driver. Where his usual controlling demeanor went he did not know; on the other hand, he felt like he any longer had a choice. Eyes centered, both clammy hands on the wheel, he let the weight of the past day sink into his heel and slide through his entire foot until settling into his toes. As the engine roared and the car shot over the yellow line that should have been a wall to hold him back, Hank felt his eyes close against his will. The strange sensation of blindness in what could have been the last moment of his life should have terrified him. Instead he felt the unbinding joy of absolute freedom.

           

Eleanor knew that her day was ruined the minute she put on her new winter coat and realized it was half a size too small. After wrestling with it for a few inconsequential minutes, she gave up, threw on the ornate Indian shawl that lived on the hook by the door – although it wasn’t nearly thick enough to guard her body again the squally frost – and stomped three blocks to the nearest coffee shop. Fortunately, the coffee shop was her favorite. Unfortunately they were out of the Marionberry muffins that were the reason it was her favorite. After weighing her limited options (to stay or to go), she resolved to stay only long enough to shake the fast developing chill that was settling under her skin.

After nestling into the only free armchair in the shop, she pulled out the new novel that smelled of age, dust, and, strangely, strawberries (the source of which she discovered on page 52). Her shawl was too thin for even the petite room, which held heat in as piping kettle held steam. A peculiar flapping sound behind her made her realize why the armchair was free; a fresh wave of arctic blast slipped in every time the door swung open or closed. Annoyed, she burrowed even deeper into the chair, as if hoping to become a part of the very folds of fabric that prevented her from absolute freeze. What a way to begin the day, she thought as she tried to allow her book to consume her. However the aged pages were unable to hold her attention, so she turned instead to examine the shoddy faces of her peers.

She recognized a few of the faces, as they were mostly locals, and all as underdressed as she was. They were an odd bunch; solitary individuals who only craved the company of others when there was minimal conversation involved. Most, like Eleanor, were struggling in one way or another – artists, doctors, students, lovers – they bonded together under the supposition that life would not be kind to them but didn’t care enough the change their fortunes.

Her eyes swept across the disinterested faces until settling on another pair. Blue and bright, he as looking at her with such intensity that she felt her face grow hot. She gazed back at first but then, realizing the subject of her gaze, looked quickly away. She hid her face behind her book though neither her eyes nor her thoughts would focus on the page. Instead, her mind plunged through the picture book of faces she kept in her mind, but to no avail. She didn’t even recognize her sordid admirer as an acquaintance never mind in the fashion such a look would warrant. Confused, she braved another look, peaking over the edge of her all but forgotten book, but he was gone. All that was left was a coffee cup with the forgotten residue of a once loved latte.

Eleanor was shaken. She quietly packed up her bag, tossed the sheer shawl across her shoulders, and walked absentmindedly but resolutely into the cold. Though the air had only gotten colder she failed to notice. It wasn’t the fact that a man had stared at her, but the transparency of the gaze. It was stern and strangest of all, familiar. She scanned her memory base again for a match but without any luck.

Her thoughts kept her warm for the rest of the short walk him. After warming her hands under her not quite so frozen breath just enough to handle her keys and open her door, she stomped once again into the small hall that was her entrance. Two full bookshelves lined one of the walls, save for a long, ornate mirror that separated them. Eleanor ran her hands along her beloved books until catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Tipping her head, she considered her large brown hair, her large brown eyes, and her perfect teeth from too many years of braces. Everything about her was large and brown, she thought, from her curly big brown hair to her hunky brown shoes. She sighed and made a face at her image, dismissing the familiar stare of the blue-eyed man as a mistake. She didn’t consider herself attractive enough to warrant such a gaze from any man, even one who wasn’t so attractive.

Eleanor was shy, in a sense of the word, but her shyness was not a product of her unwillingness to partake in society. Her entire life had been shaped by solitude. Growing up an only child had some to do with this unfortunate disposition, but it had more to do with the very particular lifestyles of those adults who surrounded her in her youth. Her father was a miserable genius, whose capacity originated itself through painting. However, after years of not quite making it, he begrudgingly resorted to a disappointing marriage and a reluctant career in nursing. Unfortunately for Eleanor, his genius had made him a sort of unpredictable madman (as true genius’ often are). Harry mostly ignored her, but on the rare moments when he was able to see through the rage of his failed sense of entitlement that blinded him, he encouraged Eleanor’s natural creative intuition. While these rare moments were not quite affectionate, they satisfied what little necessities Eleanor had and were able to sustain her until the next unexpected spell.

From her mother she learned nothing, as she had disappeared when Eleanor was five. The only familiarity she had was a tattered photograph and the all too irregular stories her father would tell, a characteristic of when he had consumed one too many Old Fashioned cocktails. Instead, Eleanor had the eccentricities of her Aunt to guide her. Aunt Margaret was Harry’s estranged sister, and had decided to implant herself as an unwelcome fixture in their household. Eleanor and her father mostly ignored her, yet as the only woman in their lives, it’s doubtful either of them would have survived without her. She cooked for them, cleaned for them, dealt with Harry’s flare-ups, Eleanor’s solitary nature, and the unbridled gossip of the snooping neighbors. Aunt Margaret was too controlling and often bordering on miserly, but in all honesty her quirks held the family together like tape. If not for her Harry and Eleanor would have left each other long ago.

In her present, Eleanor mostly entertained herself with small pleasures she had picked up through her solitary life. Sunday walks through the park were a necessary part of her survival, which she kept with such diligence through all the seasonal elements that the park staff considered her one of their own. She enjoyed collecting smooth rocks in order to skip in the reservoir by her apartment. She had inherited an almost flawless record player, on which her love of old jazz records could relive their forgotten glory. From her father she found a love of impressionist art, reproductions of which filled every free nook and cranny of her apartment. But by far the most nourishing of her quirks was her astonishing collection of books. Her bookshelves lined every wall of her small apartment from floor to ceiling, and heaps of extras lined the floor, causing a sort of scholarly maze about which she thought nothing unusual. She was a celebrity with all the local bookstore owners, from which she cultivated a kind of friendship. Because her quirks – though solitary – were those that others could partake with some encouragement, she gathered a group of what she called friends around her.

However men were an entirely different matter. It wasn’t as if she had never had a boyfriend – she had dabbled in that world of silly promises and mixed up romance too many times – but it never offered the same kind of security that the pages of a worn novel offered, or the history that a scratchy record presented. Eleanor did not like change. She preferred knowing that the things of today would still be around when she opened her eyes in the morning. Rocks, books, records, and paintings could provide that for her – boyfriends could not. Thus, Eleanor found her happiness in the past lives of inanimate objects. The present never offered any security anyways.

She was quite unprepared for the informality of the blue-eyed gaze, but resolved that he must had been some fleeting acquaintance from a local bookstore, or the friend of a friend who she met maybe once at some nameless place. She resolved to forget him and move on with her reluctant contentment, and another listless afternoon rolled by with Eleanor’s consciousness firmly set in the listless protection of her book.

  

In the corner of Room 21, a small assembly of twenty-something’s were watching an ostensible feat of the human body. The sheer dubious nature of the length of Hank’s mouth when he yawned was enough to challenge that of an Argentine Horned Frog. Over and over he repeated this feat, until it was clear to Hank’s friends that this was no mere one-time event. Hank had a new girlfriend, and she (as he explained to his friends) had needs. Unfortunately those needs were keeping Allen from maintaining the life he had so meticulously cultivated. A controlling man by nature, Hank had the life he had always thought he wanted: a boring but well paying job, a solid group of friends, and plenty of beautiful women. The current beautiful woman in his life, while having a personality that was no more interesting than a floor lamp, had a libido that rivaled that of a fifteen-year-old boy.

Yet when he tried to explain the conundrum he was facing in between each monumental yawn, all he received were blank stares.

To his left sat Robert. Robert and Hank had met in first grade when Robert had saved Hank from a close run in with a prank involving Elmer’s glue that looked disturbingly like frosting. From that day forward, their friendship had survived thick, thin, and everything in between. Consequently, Robert also knew that Melody, who, as the current flavor of the week, would not last more than that week. And so he stayed quiet.

Laura, on the other hand, was beside herself. Standing on Hank’s other side, Laura was his right mind; his conscience. She always knew the right thing to say at the perfect time, and tried to use her natural intuition to mend Hank’s countless mistakes. Because of that she was irreplaceable to Hank, a natural ally who would be at his side until the end.

“Hank,” she said.

“I know, I know.”

She raised an eyebrow. It was a characteristic statement bold enough to shake Hank back into his senses, however misguided they were.

“You know, she might be okay if she just talked me and seduced me less.”

Laura rolled her eyes and sat down; Robert high-fived Hank with his.

  

An hour later Hank was in a coffee shop trying to stifle his rapidly increasing yawns. Hoping to control them to a manageable amount, he ordered a triple shot latte, extra foam.

While Hank was a relatively well-balanced individual, his eccentricities did manage to surface in rather unique ways. His controlling nature was such a quirk, but fortunately, he was controlling in such a way as to keep a healthy lifestyle that involved the security of friends. His love for latte’s had been born from necessity. His day-to-day life was so demanding that he was forced to find an outward form of energy – his daily store was not nearly enough. Caffeine presented enough energy for him in a socially acceptable fashion.

Hank’s childhood was very different from Eleanor’s. With six siblings, solitude was a welcome but all too rare refuge. Thus, his memories always involved other people – from the two brothers he shared his room with for his entire childhood, to the countless birthdays, Christmas’, parties, graduations – and as the family grew – the cousins, nieces, nephews, aunts, and uncles. Hank also happened to have the misfortune of being very small for much of his life, an adversity that gave him the disadvantage (or advantage, depending on the day) of blending very easily into the walls, the furniture, and crowds. In fact, it wasn’t until he was well into his late adolescence that the heavily anticipated hormones began to kick in and his sisters finally no longer had an excuse to dress him up in the their clothing and parade him around family functions as a girl. (Shortly after Hank’s growth spurt, at one of the many nameless family events, Hank’s Great Aunt Nancy, though slightly blind, failed to recognize him and spent the entire evening looking for “the sweet little boyish looking girl.” They never quite had the heart to tell her that girl did not exist; instead they allowed her to think she was simply one of the many neighborhood kids who had liked all the family commotion but had recently moved away.)

Needless to say, Hank preferred the company of others to his solitude. He never quite found ease or leisure when by himself. Instead of spending time in his apartment, which, strangely enough, he lived in alone, he often could be found in bars, restaurants, parks, shopping malls – essentially any place that included people. Thus was the reason why he found him in a coffee shop and not in bed at home. The problem, which was one he was aware of but tried to ignore, was that even when surrounded by a crowd of people he still felt utterly and completely alone. Usually he felt even more alone in a crowd of unknowns than when in his apartment, and he did not know how control or put right such a feeling. It was outside of all of his other familiar emotions. Yet the older he got it only got worse. Sipping his latte, he sunk further down into his chair, simultaneously hoping no one and every one would notice him, and looked quietly around the room.

He was hoping to recognize a face or two. His chances were high, as chances often are for social butterflies, but face after face passed his view and none were remotely recognizable. They were bored faces, usual faces, faces one would expect to see in a nameless neighborhood coffee shop on a snowy day. Then a beautifully engraved shawl caught his eye. It was sewed with such detail, as if every stitch had been made with the care that could only come from having to put food on the table everyday. Everything about the seemingly in looked familiar, almost like the ones his mother used to make.

He was jolted out of his drowsy stupor. Hank’s mother had died when he was five, but her legacy had survived through her art, and almost especially through her exotic shawls. His eyes moved from the beautiful shawl to the shoulders and resting on the body of its wearer. The shawl that wasn’t nearly thick enough to brace anyone against the winter that raged outside but that looked like home around its wearer’s shoulders. She wasn’t anybody he had met before – at least, he didn’t think – but on the other hand, she looked so…familiar.

Then their eyes met and, though startled, he continued to stare directly into her brunette peepers. The intensity of the gaze made her face grow hot, and she hid her eyes behind her book, which in turn shook Allen out of his daze. Overcome, he drained the remainder of his latte, shook his head from side to side, took one final look at the familiar stranger, and left, braving the threat of solitude for some room for thought.

  

It would be three weeks before either Allen or Eleanor would meet again, though it was long enough that neither remembered the other. Both wrote off the event as insignificant – a random moment of emotion between two strangers, and proceeded to forget about it entirely. They continued to lead their very different lives. Eleanor enjoyed her Sunday morning walks and her solitude as much as she ever did, and Allen, true to form, moved through each flavor of the week without knowing exactly what he was waiting for. Their second meeting, though both considered it their first, was considerably uneventful. Eleanor recently finished reading all of the books she deemed worth reading in all of her local bookshops, and so she decided one unparticular Sunday to walk just outside of her normal circle of familiarity. It was at this unparticular bookshop on this unparticular Sunday that she stumbled on a very rare copy of her current favorite novel. Eleanor was ecstatic. She leafed hungrily through the timeless pages, drinking the ancient fragrance literacy, cherished the worn bindings that were falling apart in her hands, and poured over the words that seemed to speak to her very soul. Taking a deep breath, she tried to control herself and peeled her eyes from her beloved book to meet those of Allen’s.

Allen’s blue eyes looked strangely familiar, and for a fleeting moment they both found a spark of recognition, but it was lost as quickly as it was found. Still, Allen walked over to her with the confidence of royalty.

“I see what you have there,” he said without quite knowing what he meant.

His meaning unfortunately also eluded Eleanor. “Oh, I see.”

An uncomfortable silence followed before Allen decided to try again. “I meant to say,” he continued without losing any of his control, “that I too admire the almost infallible work of the genius you’re clutching so feverishly to your breast.”

Eleanor felt her face grow hot before once again regaining her cool composure. “Well unfortunately for you, I was auspicious enough to grab it first.”

“Oh no harm, I don’t actually want to read it again. I mean, it was all well and fine the first time around but to actually have to read it again I think I would have to shoot myself.”

“Well thank god you imparted your holier-than-god opinion on lowly me. Now I can finally go to enjoy my day in peace,” she replied sarcastically. “Thank you.” She quickly purchased her most prized possession, and without a backward glance, ran out of the small store door that faced the busy Main Street.

Eleanor claims to this day that she didn’t see the bright red Toyota moving at a respectable tempo down the road, but that doesn’t really matter, does it? For the minute she stepped over the over the bookstore threshold and failed to be blocked by the non-existent barrier that should have existed if only for the purpose of prevention, the bright red Toyota pummeled into her as if she was a common bump in the road and not at all human.

  

Countless hours later the hospital still smelled like a wet dog and Allen had consumed more coffee than he considered humanly possible. The main lobby nurse seemed to agree, as she main her third lap around his row of chairs in a room that housed more than twenty. And she had shifty eyes, which were constantly directing him towards the water fountain, that Allen gave up trying to attribute to Asperger’s. He eventually gave up trying to ignore her shifty eyes and rotating nature and went outside for a quick jaunt in the frigid air.

Although Allen had replayed the events of the last few hours that began in the bookstore in his mind repeatedly, he revisited once again. The night air seemed to offer a refreshing opportunity for insight.

And Eleanor, unconscious in an overused bed that wasn’t hers, was dreaming. Her characteristically happy imagination was replaced by dark images and disappointment. Her usually comforting labyrinth of novels became a hell that ensnared only her. And Allen’s face, the one that was strangely familiar enough to shake her out of her lazy coffee stupor of solitude, still was as practically unfamiliar to her as the day she met him the in the coffee shop.

And yet, she dreamed his face.

And what a dream it was. Full of all the emotion and understanding that she had avoided for ages, or, rather, not know was possible in the soggy excuse for women that she pretended to be. It was enough to question the act of faith that seemed to be suddently besowing itself on needy empty life.

But, after all, she didn’t believe in faith.