Twice in Love

The curtain of rain made me invisible. The windows of the great dark buildings ―which slanted precariously if you stared at them for too long―shimmered like mirrors. No one would notice me here. I was folded on a damp park bench watching the hustle and bustle of the world before me.

My favorite hobby was people watching. I got to know people just by watching them, which was fine by me as I had little desire to socialize. Business women trotted by in their ferocious heels; their hair billowing like a veil behind them. Everyone was always moving. Always rushing off to work or to play. No one ever just stopped to notice the world. I did. Especially when it rained. People were funny in the rain. They were frantic in the good weather, but in the bad weather, they moved like shooting stars. Blink once, and you’ve missed them. I was so busy trying to keep my eye on them, I didn’t even notice the woman beside me.

“Hello, sir?” I didn’t think the verbalization could be directed toward me, as I considered myself invisible.

“Sir?” And yet there it was again. The soft and reassuring voice of a councillor. “Are you hungry?”Her inquiry made me chuckle. Did she think I was homeless? I watched a bead of water trickle from a peg on her umbrella to the seam of her cherry red raincoat.

“Is it really so bizarre for a man to sit alone outside in the rain?” I asked.The woman tentatively sat herself beside me on the slick wood of the bench. I hadn’t even invited her to sit. I was supposed to be homeless. Was she out of her mind?The zippers on her bag jingled pleasantly as she rummaged through its contents.From a leather pouch, she produced a nutritious looking sandwich. It was made with that fancy brown bread―seeds sprinkled on the crusts and everything.

“Not bizarre, per se, just sad,” she replied, tearing the sandwich in two. She handed me one of the halves, which I accepted. If my suspicions were true, and she thought I was homeless, I may as well give her the satisfaction of feeding a ‘man in need.’ Plus, I really did love brown seeded bread.

“Just because I’m alone doesn’t mean I’m sad. On the contrary, I feel more alone when I’m in a crowd,” I said. I heard the squeaking crunch of lettuce as the woman bit into her half of the sandwich.

“Interesting,” she said, mouth still full. I don’t know why she found that interesting. I’m an introvert, so what? I just shrugged in reply. “I’m Melinda,” she said.

Melinda. I once had an aunt named Melinda. Everyone called her Mel. She was a hoarder. I visited her house once. She collected enough useless materials to plug a land fill. I remembered thinking how it wouldn’t kill her to get rid of some stuff, when, ironically, I stumbled over her flaccid corpse.Served her right for being such a pig!

The other Melinda turned her head toward me. I saw her face for the first time since she sat down. She wasn’t beautiful by any means. Nor was she ugly. Her eyes were harder than I expected. They peered intensely at me behind a pair of round spectacles, which magnified her hazel eyes. Her hair was black and springy and her skin was a sort of mesh between brown and white. I raised an eyebrow at her extended hand. Exchanging germs with another certainly wasn’t my idea of a friendly greeting. Nonetheless, I took her hand and gave it a good shake. Then, there was a pause. I could tell she was waiting to hear my own name. I never divulged my name. Names gave false impressions. If this Melinda hadn’t told me her name, I wouldn’t be seeing her as Aunty Mel, the hoarder.

“Would you accompany me to a café, sir?” Melinda asked. I laughed out loud. She had no idea who I was. Didn’t her mother ever tell her not to talk to strangers?

“What is this? A date?” I snorted. The woman sighed and folded her umbrella. It made a swooshing, flapping sort of noise.The rain was now leeching through the clouds like water through a crooked hose.

“The rain seems to be letting up,” she said, turning her eyes toward the sky. Without even realizing it, I stood up, placing my chilled hands in the pockets of my trench coat, and followed her gaze.

“You payin'?” I asked. If this Melinda was willing to dish out the change for an overpriced cup of coffee at a yuppie café, I’d be a fool to turn her down.

“Of course I’ll pay,” she grinned. At that point, I just shrugged and drifted behind her, sloshing through the colourful puddles of oil tainted rain water on the crosswalks. Much to my displeasure, now that the rain was slowing, downtown shoppers were gradually streaming out from the comfort of bookshops and bakeries. One person in particular enthralled me: a hunchbacked woman with an exceptionally long chin hair. My moment of distraction caused me to lose Melinda in the crowd. I sighed. So much for my free coffee.

“Hey! Sir!” a voice called. “Yoo-hoo! I’m talking to you, Trenchcoat! I strained to see past the buzzing hive of humans, only to get a glimpse of Melinda poking her curly head out from inside a homey looking café. In fact, the building looked as though it was once a house.

“What would you like?” Melinda asked. Behind the counter were several long blackboards filled with terms I’d never even heard of before. What the hell was a marocchino?!

“Just a coffee,” I responded. “I’m not really into all this fancy shit.” Melinda chuckled.

“Neither am I,” she said. She ordered the same. We plunked ourselves in a pair of leather chairs, just close enough to feel the warmth of a gas fireplace.

“Alright, what’s all this about?” I finally said after a long pause, filled only with the sounds of our lips slurping coffee. Melinda stared into her mug.She was hesitant to respond. Then she asked me a bizarre question.

“You really don’t remember, do you?”

All I could say was, “What?” She made a disappointed huffing noise and placed her mug onto the square table in front of her.I wracked my brains trying to think of where I would have seen her before. I didn’t have any family, so she couldn’t have been a relative. I most certainly didn’t have any friends.

“Listen, sweetie,” I said, leaning forward in my chair, “you’ve got the wrong guy.” Her eyes suddenly went all buggy and wet.

“I thought the sandwich and my red coat and this place would bring back the old you for sure…I guess I was wrong.” The woman adjusted her glasses to wipe away a tear. I was speechless. What did she mean by ‘old you?’

“Are you crazy or something?” I asked. I knew it was insensitive of me, but I had to ask.

“No.” Melinda gathered up her umbrella and her brown suede bag. She hurriedly sipped the remainder of her coffee and then flew out of the café to join the flock of pattering feet splashing up and down the sidewalks.

I went home mystified that afternoon. The woman had to be a nutter. Only a nutter would consider talking to a strange man sitting on a park bench. I shouldn’t have taken her sandwich, or her coffee.The whole scenario was really almost laughable. The woman didn’t even learn my name! I shook my head and took a gander in the mirror before lying myself across the bedspread. I really could do with a shave, and maybe a haircut. Oh well. My bed was far too comfortable at the moment. Before I knew it, I was dozing peacefully…that is until someone thumped on my door. I grumbled. The little old lady across the way must have received my mail by accident again. I unfastened the chain from the door and it immediately swung open. A pair of lips met mine so fast, I had the air knocked from my lungs! Fingers followed the contours of my face, and wove their way into my disheveled hair.

“Do you remember me now?” It was Melinda. I blinked at her stupidly. How did this woman know where I lived? Did she follow me home or something? She must have been all types of horny to kiss my prickly whiskers!

“Yeah,” I said. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and found a smear of lipstick present on my knuckles. “You’re that mental case from the café.” Melinda’s bright features drooped with sorrow. Still, her eyes were aglow with desperation.

“I know you, Sebastian,” she declared.Now I was really freaked. How did she know my name? I started to close the door, but she managed to wedge her boot between the frame.“Wait!” she cried, “Let me explain.” My heart was beating faster than a racing horse. I was both scared and intrigued by what this woman had to say.

“What the hell,” I said, rolling my eyes. “If you wanted to kill me, you would have already done it.”

My apartment was nothing special. In my opinion, it was a pretty accurate representation of myself: in need of maintenance. The paint on the walls was peeling, some of the cupboard doors were missing doorknobs, and the faucet in my bathroom did a better job of giving me a shower than my shower head.

I sat down on a couch I picked up from a thrift shop. It was hideous, but it sure was easy on the rear. Like I said, I wasn’t into fancy shit. Melinda stationed herself beside me. She was just close enough for me to feel a slight tinge of anxiety flutter in my gut. She pulled out a leather bound scrapbook from her bag. She took a breath as though she was about to start her explanation, but then stopped.

“Human brains are peculiar,” she finally began.

“Okay,” I said, not really sure where she was going with the statement.

“About a year ago, my fiancée got into a bad car accident,” she explained. “The airbag was defective. When it deployed, it shot metal fragments through his skull.”

“Damn, that really―”

“He didn’t die,” she cut in. “Well, not really.”She crossed and uncrossed her legs, and then removed her glasses, only to put them back on again.  “Did anyone ever tell you the story of Phineas Gage?” she questioned. I nodded. I didn’t know much, but Phineas Gage certainly rang a bell. He was the foreman of a construction site who survived after having an iron rod blown through his brain.

“After his accident, Phineas Gage underwent a drastic personality change. Once a hard working, dependable man, his behavior became profane and erratic. In a way, the Phineas Gage that everyone knew and loved did die.” I took a cigarette from my pocket and perched it between my lips.

"So, what's your point? That poor ol' bastard's been dead for like a thousand years!" I said.

Melinda’s big wet eyes scrutinized me behind her glasses as I started digging through my pockets in search of a lighter. She reminded me of a neglected puppy. “I’m still listening.” The words came out muffled, as it was hard to speak properly with the cigarette in my mouth. I let out a triumphant laugh when I managed to find the lighter. It was shoved in the crevice of the couch―along with greasy chip crumbs and grimy lint balls.

“So,” I said, smoke billowing out my nostrils, “your lover boy’s like Phineas Gage, is that it? He got metal shit in his brain and then went kooky?”Melinda’s face was flushed. I could see she was holding back tears. I apologized to stop her from crying. She said it was okay and handed me the leather bound scrapbook.

“My fiancée and I had been dating for over three years. During that time, I made a scrapbook of the two us and the fun we used to have.”

I took the cigarette from my mouth and tapped it over the ashtray on the side table. Figuring she wanted me to see her fiancée and her happy as peaches, I cracked the scrapbook open. The first picture I saw stunned me. Having just inhaled a puff of smoke, I choked. I was frozen, completely shocked by the contents of the scrapbook. So shocked, that the cigarette fell from my fingers, meeting the sole of Melinda’s boot.

“This is impossible,” I gaped. I was in every single picture. Kissing Melinda on the beach, holding her hand down a pigeon infested street, sitting cozy on a park bench with a sandwich…

“What the hell sort of trick is this?” I cried, flinging the book across the room. She took my wrist firmly in her hand and looked me square in the face.

“It’s not a trick,” she whispered, softly. “You’re my fiancée, Sebastian.”

The apartment got so quiet I could hear myself breathing. Then the rain started tapping against the window panes. As the water drizzled down the glass, tears drizzled down Melinda’s face. Her palms were hot against my cheeks.

“I knew your name. I have pictures of the two of us together. You even have scars on your forehead from where the surgeons removed the metal fragments from your brain.” She sniffed and bent to retrieve the scrapbook.“Not only did the car accident change your personality, it also left you with amnesia.” She forced the book into my hands. “I’ve been afraid to look for you, afraid that you wouldn’t remember me, or that I could never learn to love the new you. I’m sorry I didn’t find you sooner.”

I brushed a tear from her cheek. Her soft freckles suddenly felt familiar. I turned to the first page of the scrapbook. There we were, perched on the bench just as we had been earlier today. I was clean shaven with neatly combed hair―not at all the rugged character I was today. Adjacent to that picture was another, which depicted us jubilantly guzzling coffee in the café. Under the photo was a caption that read Fancy Shit Café. The realization hit me like a tidal wave.

“What happened earlier today, happened years ago, didn’t it?” I looked over at Melinda. She laughed.

“I had us pose in these pictures to re-enact the day we first met. Your aunt Mel was a professional photographer who―”

“Was also a pack rat?” I finished her sentence. Melinda bit her lip and nodded. I touched her hair just then. The action felt natural, as though I’d done it countless times before. Next,I removed her glasses.This too, felt natural.

“It was a shame she turned out to be a hoarder,” Melinda said, she leaned closer to me. “Her vents were so packed full of stuff she ended up dying from carbon monoxide―”

Our lips met for the second time that day. Only this time, I invited them. The warm curves of her body pressed against my own and I remembered that late night on the beach when we tousled in the sand. Each memory flowed into my mind, bursting with joy. I could feel the blood flowing hot in my veins as she wrapped her legs around my pelvis. Cotton candy beards at the carnival, skinny dipping in the neighbor’s pool while they were on vacation…

By the time our bodies separated, the sky was painted black. We were both sprawled on my bedspread. Her ear was against my chest, listening to the sound of my heart beating. I may not have been the same man I was, but at least I was alive.

“You know,” I said, nuzzling myself under the spread, “there’s a chance you won’t like the person I am now.” Melinda joined me under the covers.

“I know,” she replied.

“I cuss a lot, and smoke, and I really don’t like social gatherings. Sometimes I pretend to be homeless,” I confessed. Melinda laughed. The sound was music to my ears.

“At least you acknowledge who you are, now.”She kissed me. “I’ll just have to do the same.” She pressed her head against my chest again and closed her eyes. “It will be like falling in love all over again.”

The End