by
Gretchen Clark
idealism, a desire for adventure…
The boat was for family only.
That's partly why the boy is still so easy to recall. Like the icy beer my Father let me sip, someone to
hang out with that was my own age was also a rare treat. I don't remember his name, his features
have grown blurry and I can't recall how we filled our time together but still he floats inside my head.
When I had to say goodbye the night before we were to leave, I felt an unfamiliar tightness in my
chest, leaned in, gave him a hug, then ran down in the bow of the boat to hide and start missing him.
The boat was for a memory.
That night the summer heat was unbearable so I left the hatch open above me. Hours later, when I
was supposed to be dreaming, but wasn't, was still up thinking about the boy, about how he made
me feel different, beautifully strange, one at a time, chocolate kisses, little silver stars, started falling
from the sky, started crashing, one by one, onto my flannel-lined sleeping bag.
The boat was for the beginning.
4. preoccupied with love or by the idealizing of love. 5. expressing love or strong affection. 6.
ardent; passionate; fervent.
I'm home alone in the shower with Axl Rose turned up and screeching about the dangers of “The
Jungle” on the tape deck, when I hear something. I ignore the banging at first but it won't stop, so I
rinse the conditioner out of my hair and grab a towel. I go upstairs to look through the blinds. I can't
make out the face. The body looks unfamiliar until he turns. I catch a glimpse of his hair and my
blood, breath, and heart stop.
I remember the gift this morning on the porch…
I was picking up the newspaper when I found a jacket; new, gray and lined with lamb's wool lying on
the deck. A piece of paper stuck out of one of the pockets. I pulled it out and found a sweet love poem
written in blue.
I thought wrong house, wrong girl, until I saw his spiky mane of hair through the blinds. I dress
quickly and open the door.
How did you find me?
“Told your mother I was a friend that had lost your new address.”
How did you get here?
“Eight hours on the Greyhound bus then hitchhiked a little and then walked the rest.”
Why?
“Because I love you.”
I'm nineteen. I think I know what I am doing, say things like forever, perfect, and happy with
recklessness and abandon. I'm nineteen. I think I know what I want; the cowboy not the punk skater,
the dark-haired not the blonde-mohawked, the quiet not the wild. I'm nineteen. I tell the one that has
traveled hundreds of miles and across two states that I love another with youthful guilt-free ease. He
doesn't try to come in. Doesn't try to talk me out of it. He just turns and starts walking down the
street….
7. of or pertaining to, or characteristics of style of literature and art that subordinates form to
content, encourages freedom of treatment, emphasizes imagination, emotion and introspection and often
celebrates nature, the ordinary person, and freedom of spirit.
I meet this former Captain in the Israeli Army while setting up his lumbar myelogram. He is a patient
of the neurosurgeon I work for. He calls for his test results and makes me laugh when he tells me that
he couldn't remember the English name for “nurse” so he called the lady pushing his hospital bed
into recovery the "taxi driver.” Before he hangs up he asks me out.
After a few tequila shots dancing foreign films canoeing afternoon walks on the beach sushi dinners
sake 2:00 A.M. party in San Francisco bottle of wine nights, he gives me a gift with a condition. The
gift is a paperback by Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead. The condition, I can't see him again until I've
read the entire book.
I love this assignment for intense like. How can I refuse 965 pages back to him? I read at my desk in
the afternoon when I should be returning phone calls and setting up surgeries. I forgo sleep, skip the
gym and bring the book in the bath with me because I know it has to be there, the deep meaning
about the two of us in the tortured relationship of Henry Roark and Dominique.
But it's not just the book that has an end.
8. of or pertaining to a musical style, esp. of the 19th century, marked by the free expression of
imagination and emotion, virtuosic display, experimentation with form on the adventurous
development of orchestral and piano music and opera.
9. imagery, fictitious or fabulous. 10. noting the role of a suitor in a play about love: the romantic
lead…
Do you always get each other gifts for Christmas? No.
Do you do expensive dinners out for birthdays? No.
Can you remember the last time he got you a bouquet of flowers? No.
When was the last time you two went dancing? Our wedding.
My girlfriend is horrified with my answers. I can hear her pink Malibu Barbie bubbles of marriage
popping over the phone.
It's not that I don't remember candlelight dinners. Because I do.
It's not that I don't remember sexy bras. Because I do.
It's not that I don't remember getting absolutely giddy, putting out the cheesecake, slipping on the
Victoria Secret silky robe and pushing play on Bryan Ferry's, "Slave to Love," to celebrate our 5th
month anniversary together. Because I do.
But it's no longer about:
5. The heart-shaped pendant
4. The box of Godiva truffles
3. The lingerie
2. The red roses
1. The ring
It's become:
The image of him holding his beautiful cat that is too sick to save.
The worry in his eyes he can't hide when he stands over my hospital bed.
The long drive from hell in torrential rain at night that leaves us exhausted and angry at each other
and how his unintentional Jerry Lewis Chevy Chase Jim Carry fall over an open suitcase in the hotel
room makes us both laugh so hard we cry.
The Depeche Mode lyrics - all I ever wanted, all I ever needed, is right here - that play on the radio as I
drop him off at the airport curb.
The love that somehow continues to thrive underneath the dirty clothes, the compromises, the neglect,
the interruption of small children and dinners of mac n cheese served under florescent lights to the
soundtrack of High School Musical.
I know my friend doesn't think this is romantic but
5. For better or for worse
4. For richer, for poorer
3. In sickness and in health
2. To love and to cherish
1. From this day forward until death do us part
I do.
Writers.com. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Literary Mama, Hip Mama, Skirt, Flashquake,
Foliate Oak, Blood Lotus and Word Riot.
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