First Fall A Fragment Of A Love Story K. S. Anthony   © Copyright 2003 by K. S. Anthony

It was autumn and the reds and yellows of the fall were giving way to the pale curtain of winter’s yawning descent.
November had spread its gray fingers across the sky and the night was filled with rich smoke of hickory logs burning in fireplaces all across the town where I lived. Christmas was around the corner and my days working in the city became busier and busier as the holiday drew nearer. The long nights brought no gloom, however, for I’d leave work and spend a few idle hours drinking scotch at The Compass Rose Bar, marveling at the polished brass and rich red velvet chairs where others, tired from shopping or simply weary of their days, sat and drank from gilded flutes of champagne or slim highball glasses filled with swirling color. I would stare at the bar’s dim lights reflecting diamond splinters in the crystal tumbler placed in front of me as I drank, before beginning my commute home. Even the air smelled of Christmas; a sweet fragrant bouquet of rain and pine that hung over the city bejeweled with the warm sparkle of green and silver lights and the urban sparkle of red and blue police flashers. These were the days when I still drank, when the amber anesthetic still worked its magic, before Christa, before everything important.

Sundays were spent in Church. I wasn’t a very good believer, at least not by the standards I saw around me. I cursed, as I still do, though not in front of my church friends, if you could call them that. Faith, at least in those circles, was demonstrated by appearances. The more faithful and devout you appeared, the more highly you were praised by your fellows as a good Christian. I never understood why it was so necessary to be praised by your friends, why people so vigorously pursued “holiness” or at least the illusion of it. Holiness, it seemed, was demonstrated by how much time you spent with other Church people acting as though you were simultaneously blessed and yet exceedingly unworthy of being so blessed and also by how much money you put into the collection bag every Sunday. I always thought it odd that the collection bag also contained requests for prayers, as though one could bribe God for special consideration. But I, being new to this Church, never questioned aloud. I made quick friends, or rather acquaintances, and found myself participating in their activities when I had free time, which wasn’t often. I was on various committees, ministries and boards. All in all, I was at Church quite a bit and was, oddly, good friends with the Pastor and his wife, a woman who had a very curious gleam in her eye and much more of a quick wit than her husband, as most women do. She possessed a sort of timely and practical levelheaded understanding about the way people are that dramatically contrasted with, but balanced, her husband’s notions of how people ought to be. Jack Miller, the Pastor, was a good-natured and educated man who tolerated his parish’s attempts at getting his attention as best he could. He’d often confide in me, as I was part of his Security detail, saying that “if these people spent as much time thinking about God as they did about themselves, they’d soon find that they were not so holy as they might like to think.” This only added to my contention that, despite their good intentions, my fellow Christians had a tendency to behave like an insufferable lot of assholes. But so it is in any community.

We seldom saw new faces in Church, at least none that stayed for long. But one Sunday, that changed, and with it, everything else.

It was late in November, just after the pre-Thanksgiving service, when I noticed her. She was with a group of girls from the choir, chatting off to the side. I knew I had seen her before, but I was not sure when or where. She was petite, and fair, and looking at her made me want to turn away, as she possessed the kind of beauty that makes you embarrassed to look. But I did not turn away. Instead, I found myself staring, most obviously, at her. She was, as I said, petite, about 20, and blonde, though it would be as great an injustice to describe her hair as being “blonde” as it would be to describe the sun as being “yellow.” Her hair was many shades; each complementing the next, and it fell in gentle ringlets around the soft, pale skin of her neck. Therein were the colors of wheat and saffron, and of butter and peaches. More than anything, it was the color of sunlight dancing in sharp sparkles on the ocean’s horizon at dawn. More than anything, it was the color of champagne and golden summers and warm sand. I drew closer, fascinated by her. Simply watching her talk to the other girls made me feverish. She had a small, sweet mouth, lightly traced with persimmon. Her eyes were blue-green, like the sea or like some hybrid jewel born of aquamarine and emerald. They seemed almost gray at times, or like an iridescent sapphire flame at others, and when I realized that her eyes had caught mine staring at her, it was my face that flushed with flame. She smiled at me with a look of inquisitiveness, and her friends burst out giggling. Laughter would have been bad enough, but I had invoked…giggling.

I turned as quickly as I could; trying not to appear embarrassed, and made haste towards the door. But she did not leave my mind for many days and I soon found myself spending more time at Church after work than the bar, hoping to catch some glimpse of her again. Sadly, glimpses were all I got. She always seemed to be coming as I was going or leaving as I was arriving. She waved at me once, a shy flash of the hand with the same coy, inquisitive smile and I managed a half-smile and a nod before burying my head in a book. A week later I saw her talking to Mark Sharpe after the second service and I was crushed, convinced that he had captured the heart of the girl that I had, quietly and most unreasonably, fallen quite in love with. My first thought was not at all holy and if it could have been heard aloud it would have scandalized the congregation. My second thoughts were not holy either. In fact, most of my thoughts the rest of the day were so far from holy that I’m surprised the roof didn’t come down on me.

Fucking Hell. Damn Mark Sharpe. Damn him, damn his collection of Izod polos, damn him and his sweaters and oxford shirts, damn him and his car (that I saw her in the front seat of, that lousy prick), damn him and his hair gel, damn him and his khaki pants, damn him, that Brut wearing, prayer-group leading, “Real Men Love Jesus” bumper-sticker toting, true-love stealing asshole. God, I hated him. I still hate him, though for no reason at all save for that miserable day. I brushed off my ride and walked home in the rain, cold and with wet socks and a heavy heart, before catching a train to the city and drowning myself in Scotch at the Compass Rose, staring outside at the cold gleam of neon lights fading into the rain along with my dreams of possibilities. It was the first day of December and winter never seemed so cold.

That Tuesday was the Pastor’s birthday and I found myself sitting on a suitcase in his closet with a girl whom I did not know on my lap, surrounded by what felt like fur coats, cardboard boxes and a set of golf clubs. I never even knew that the Pastor golfed. The closet smelled musty and vaguely of mothballs and paper, but the girl on my lap smelled like vanilla. We weren’t doing anything, mind you; we were in the closet because it was Pastor Miller’s sixtieth birthday and his wife had arranged for those of us in the Church’s various ministries and groups to surprise him. I had been shoved into the closet by Mrs. Miller when someone, Jim Taylor of the College and Career group, I think, yelled that he was coming up the driveway. Upon being forced into the dark and mothball-scented closet, I crashed into the girl who had taken it upon herself to hide beforehand, so as to avoid any last minute rushes. She even had the forethought to bring a bag of cookies with her just in case necessity demanded a long stay. As it was, it turned out to be a false alarm, but he told everyone to stay put because the Pastor would be driving up “any minute.” Jim Taylor was an idiot, always trying to suck up to the Pastor and his wife, both of whom found his antics amusing at best, but for the most part tiring. He was also Mark Sharpe’s (damn him) best friend. “The way Jim comes around here, you’d think he was vying for a first class ticket to Heaven,” Mrs. Miller said to me once after Jim Taylor had come by with a tray of cookies that she had graciously accepted, “problem is, Heaven would probably rather he stayed down here as long as possible.” The party had actually been Jim’s idea and he had bothered Mrs. Miller with it for so long that she finally just gave in. In any case, the result of all this was that I had was in a closet riding a Samsonite without a saddle and I had a nice smelling girl on my lap. I suppose it could’ve been worse, but I was feeling more than a little nervous and, quite frankly, my palms were getting clammy and beginning to sweat. I wished I had used more deodorant that morning. Even in my scant experience, I had generally found that girls in church generally either remained seated in pews with all their friends or in pews with their families and hawk-eyed fathers. I was fairly sure that girls from church generally did not sit on your lap—or at least not on my lap and certainly not in a closet. My heart began to race. I was almost certain that a hawk-eyed father would soon tear the door off the hinges and accuse me of heinous crimes against his daughter’s chastity before turning me into a red mist with a shotgun, when my closet-bound companion whispered “Are you comfortable? I’m not squishing you am I?”

“Um, no. I’m not making you uncomfortable, am I? Because I can stand if you want to sit.” There was actually no room to stand, but I would’ve been happy trying to crawl into the bag of golf clubs if it meant avoiding being beaten to death by an angry father. Suddenly I felt very, very stupid and the memory of Mark Sharpe (bastard!) driving off with the Nameless Beauty came back to me, increasing my feeling of stupidity. I would’ve given my right arm to be in the closet with her.

She laughed, and her hair brushed against my cheek like a whisper of silk. “No. I’m fine where I am. Nice lap, by the way.” She laughed again and I could feel my face flush. “Do you mind if I just sort of…” she was moving around now and I had to dig my heels into the floor to keep the suitcase from falling over, “just get my arm free here?” She slipped her arm out from being pinned against the golf bag and put it around my neck and shoulders, draping it there. I could feel the warmth of her skin against my neck. “There,” she said, “that’s better.” It’s not that I was physically uncomfortable—I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like having a girl on my lap in a dark closet. I just felt…a little intimidated by her apparent lack of discomfort. After all, she didn’t know who I was, she had no idea whose lap she was on, she didn’t know that in my heart I longed to be with the girl with the ocean glass eyes and champagne colored hair that Mark Sharpe had stolen from me. She didn’t know my name. “So. It’s Kalae, right?”

Ok, maybe she did know my name. Odd, given the fact that most people who knew me called me any number of names--Tony, Clyde, Kyle, Cal—that I resigned to be referred to as having grown weary of teaching people to pronounce my name correctly.

“What?”

“Your name, dummy. It’s Kalae. Am I pronouncing it right?”

“Um, yes. How do you know my name?” I squinted in the dark, trying to make out her features, but the sliver of light coming in from under the door was not enough. Her voice, though soft and tender, did not lend itself to recognition, but was colored with a barely discernable accent. Southern? That laugh again and a silken touch on my cheek. The smell of lavender beneath the vanilla and the feeling of her arm around my shoulders.

“I asked Mrs. Miller what your name was. I like your name. What is it?” Mrs. Miller hadn’t mentioned any of this to me. There had been no By-The-Way-A-Girl-Asked-About-You conversation. If I was nervous before, this had only exacerbated it

“It’s Hawaiian.”

“Are you Hawaiian?” This has always been a loaded question for me because there’s no real way for me to answer it. I am exactly one-sixteenth Hawaiian, and have more Scottish blood than Hawaiian, but with a name like Kalae, people don’t exactly expect to see me wearing a kilt. Regardless of my answer, I always find that people think it quaint to have grown up there. It was really anything but quaint: I was a beer-swilling juvenile delinquent. I hated the beach, didn’t surf, and wore a leather jacket even in the sweltering island heat after reading The Outsiders too early in life. Hardly the personification of the friendly, coconut tree climbing “native” that it seemed people visualized when they heard that magical word Hawaiian. I’ve never felt “Hawaiian,” but I still possess a weird loyalty to Hawaii, to my upbringing, to that part of my heritage. However, the psychosocial aspects of racial identity are not closet chat material, and so I gave my stock answer.

“Not exactly. Well, part. I grew up out there. My mother dreamt the name.”

“What does it mean?” I walked into this one.

“Brilliant-minded. It’s short for Kalaelololo. Three ‘lo’s,’ mind you.”

“It’s a pretty name.” I was glad she said no more of it. She moved for a minute, and I heard the sound of something rustling. “Cookie?” I felt something dry and dusty against my mouth and ate it. Sugar cookie. I heard her eat the rest of it as I sat there confused.

“Oh.” Now I really wanted to know who this girl was. I wanted to, that is, until her next question.

“So, do you know Jim’s friend Mark Sharpe?” Is this a conspiracy? I wondered. Was this some sick joke orchestrated by God and the Pastor to forever torment me with women who were interested only in Mark Sharpe? Was I destined to be Mark Sharpe’s bridge to success with women, doomed to be glanced over, walked over and left over until the end of time? I sighed, disgusted, and she laughed again. “Well? Do you know him or not?”

“Yeah, sort of. Why?”

“What do you think of him?” I could hear the smile in her voice and I was glad it was dark so she couldn’t see me roll my eyes.

“He’s all right.” I lied.

“Do you really think that? Or are you just being nice?”

“Why do you ask?” I was becoming impatient. Suddenly the closet seemed very small and I wished that I was outside or better still, at the Compass Rose, watching couples walk by and hating them.

“Just wondering. So, do you really think he’s okay or are you just being nice?”

“Doesn’t really matter what I think,” I said, the bile rising in my voice as I prepared myself to leave, “if you’re interested in him, go talk to him.” I was frustrated with myself for the sharp tone in my voice. She had seemed nice enough, but I was sick of thinking about Mark and the image of the blonde girl in his front seat cut into my mind, harsh and cold.

“I think he’s an asshole.” She said it so matter-of-factly that it caught me completely off guard. I had never heard anyone from Church swear, and I had never heard anyone speak so frankly about anyone else in Church.

It was pretty damn refreshing.

“He is an asshole.” I said, relieved to have found a comrade-in-arms against a common foe. She laughed again and squeezed my shoulders.

“Yeah he is.” I laughed too and the folds of her dress fluttered against my pant leg.

“So, you know my name. What’s yours?” I felt much more comfortable with my closet-bound mystery friend now.

“Christa.”

“Pleased to meet you. I almost feel like I should ask you what you look like, but then you might think I’m making a pass at you.”

“Oooooohhhh, then you might ask me what I’m wearing too,” she laughed again. She laughs a lot, I thought. I really like that.

“You’re not really like the other girls in church, Christa…you’re a little more…”

“What? Real? Because I don’t think I’m going to be thrown into the pit of fire if I say that Mark’s an asshole? Or if I sit on some strange man’s lap in a closet?” I bit my lip, flustered. I think she must’ve sensed it. “Not that you’re all that strange, Caelis.”

“Thanks, I guess.”

“You’re welcome, I guess.” We sat quietly for a minute and she held another piece of cookie to my mouth. “So,” she said, sounding impatient, “aren’t you going to ask me what I look like? Or even what I’m wearing?”

“I can sort of guess what you’re wearing. But what do you look like?”

She laughed again. “You know what I look like.” A very odd, cold feeling came over me. My stomach began turning and I suddenly wished I could disappear. I felt her stand up, and then heard the soft rattle of the chain attached to the light bulb before the closet was filled with light.

The golf clubs were in a gray bag. The suitcase was a battered old red thing. The cardboard boxes were, as I guessed, filled with papers and Christa was the blonde girl I had seen in Church. I lost the power of speech when she sat back down on my lap with her eyes locked onto mine. “Surprised?” Her lips drew into a wide and sweet smile and she offered me her hand. “I’m Christa.” I dumbly shook it. She looked amused and I’m sure I looked…not dashing at all. “Uh, would you feel better if I turned the light back off?”

“No. Leave it on. I mean, if you want to.”

“K. I like looking at you anyway.” I could feel myself melting away like ice under the sun beneath her studious eyes. She robbed me of breath, voice and reason. She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen.

The Pastor’s birthday party was successful. He was surprised, or at least acted surprised. Mark Sharpe showed up late and avoided Christa and I like the plague. Everyone ate and gave Pastor Miller his presents and then, as the hour grew late, began slipping home. Christa did not leave my side the entire time we were there. Mrs. Miller occasionally cast us a sly smile and glance, but didn’t say anything to us besides “Oh, good, you two have met” after we had come out of the closet.

She was as intelligent and quick as she was beautiful. She was 20, from Charleston, South Carolina, and smarter than anyone I had ever met. She had the fire of her forebears, being of strong Irish, French and Cherokee blood, and was sweet without being overly sentimental—qualities I wish I had. Her parents were divorced, she sang in the choir, and she was single. She didn’t blink twice when I told her I was divorced, having been married to the wrong person at the wrong time, and said only “well, if she couldn’t see what a good person you are, then it’s her loss.” We spent the entire time together, laughing and talking about everything from family disasters to politics. There was nothing I didn’t like about her. I could feel the Earth slipping away from me with every second we spent together and I knew that I was falling hard for her.

Nightfall came and I walked her to her car. It was a new moon and it seemed that every star in the Heavens could be seen. Orion was never brighter. We held hands as we walked and I can still recall how small her hand felt in mine and how warm and how intoxicating it felt to be holding it. She unlocked her car door and looked at me. “Well, Kalae, I had a very good time. Thank you.” A strange longing came over me. I didn’t want her to leave. A ball grew in my throat and I knew I’d have to let her go. Bittersweet. There are not enough words like that to describe how I felt.

“Um, thank you. Nice meeting you as well. See you at Church?” I quietly kicked myself for not thinking of something more interesting or meaningful to say. Doubt she’ll be seeing you again, dumbass.

“No.” I stood there, feeling like I had been hit with a brick. Then she laughed again and smiled. “You’ll see me before then. You’re going to take me to the county fair this week. Here’s my number,” she handed me a folded slip of paper, “call me soon.” She kissed me on the cheek, smiled at me one last time with those eyes and then left me standing there with the scent of vanilla and lavender still lingering on my shirt, and the warmth of her kiss on my cheek as I watched her taillights fade into the darkness. I unfolded the piece of paper.

Thank you again. Call me soon. Xxxx. Christa. 555-0171.

I went home, still feeling her hand in mine, drunk with the bittersweet taste of falling in love with a girl who I met in a closet.

Work was torturous the next day; a sharp and painful slap of reality that woke me from my trance. The Christmas lights offered me no respite, and my holiday cheer was forced at best. I could only think of Christa and resented everyone for not being her. I longed for her to walk by, call me (though she didn’t have my number) or simply appear in front of me. I read and re-read the tiny piece of paper she had handed me over and over again. I had not changed the shirt I wore the day before, as it still smelled of her. I had no idea when I should call her, or what “soon” meant. I knew the fair was in town already, but weren’t you supposed to wait three days to call after you got a phone number? And what constituted a day? Did yesterday count as day one? And did you call on the third day or the day after that? I tormented myself with these questions…and then some. I don’t have a car, what if she expects me to pick her up? What the Hell do I wear? What if this is a joke or something? Is this a date? Is there a bunch of people going?

This. All… day… long.

I didn’t bother going to the bar after work. I went straight home to stare at her number and the phone. Calling too soon would make me look desperate. Too late and I’d appear disinterested. I picked up the phone, started to dial, and then hung up. I lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling, then the phone, then the ceiling. I tried to watch TV, but I realized that after an hour, I still had no idea what I was watching or what it was about. Then I realized it had been the Home Shopping Network and turned the TV off. I went back to my phone-phone number-ceiling staring exercise.

Seven o’clock came and went. Eight o’clock came and went. Prime time ended without me doing anything but dialing all the way up to the sixth digit and eating a microwaved piece of leftover pizza. Books were opened but left unread. I polished one shoe. I took a shower and stared at the phone some more.

Nine o’clock. Okay, I thought. This is it. She said soon, right? This is soon. I picked up the phone and started to dial…then I hung it up again. What if she was sleeping? Or what if someone was over there? Oh, man, then I’d feel like a real dick. Or what if she just hung up? Or what if I got her answering machine? What am I going to say if she does answer? Should I rehearse something? Ah, fuck it.

I opened the piece of paper. Call me soon. Xxxx. Christa. I picked up the phone and dialed. It seemed like eternity, but the phone finally rang. Once. Twice. Three…

“Hello?” Something was wrong. This was some old guy. She said she lived alone, with her three dogs and a cat.

“Uh, Hello. Is, uh, Christa there?” My throat tightened and my ears flushed with heat.

“No. Wrong number.” He sounded pissed off.

“Is this 555-0171?”

“No, you fuckhead! This is 555-0174. Don’t fucking call here again, you stupid….” I hung up somewhere in the torrent of screamed obscenities, relieved that it was the wrong number, then dialed again, more carefully. The phone rang once and she answered.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Christa?”

“Yes, Mark?” She sounded surprised and…hopeful. My heart sank to my stomach. It was all a sick joke. Then I heard her laughing. “Just kidding. Hey Kalae, I was wondering if you were going to call.” Again, a sigh of relief. Twisted sense of humor.

“Um, yeah, I wasn’t sure if you’d be up or not, so I hope I’m not bothering you. I can call you back if you want, so…”

“Oh, so you don’t want to talk to me?”

Fuck.

“No, no, no, no, I do, I just wanted to make sure that you weren’t busy or anything and that,” she laughed again, “oh never mind.”

“I like messing with you.”

“Yeah, I can tell.”

“Does it bother you?”

“No.”

“Good. So, why did you call?” Silence. I had no idea why I called. Because I’m madly in love with you and if I don’t see you, I think it might prove fatal? WRONG ANSWER.

“I don’t know, really, just calling to say hi, I guess…” Idiot! What kind of fool says that?

“Wrong. You were calling to ask me to the fair. How long did you stare at my number before deciding to call? An hour? Two?” I could hear the smile in her voice and I gave up on trying to be cool. I was failing miserably anyway.

“Two and a half. And some old guy called me a fuckhead.”

“You got called a fuckhead for me? How sweet of you!”

“It’s the least I could do.”

“Chocolates would have been nice, too, just so you know. But being called a fuckhead is worth big points, I think.” She laughed and I suddenly felt comfortable again, like I did at the party when I was with her, without any doubts, without any worries, without any fears. And everything, every word, flowed like water in a brook after that. I was surprised to hear her finishing my sentences for me, or to hear her saying words that only I had only just thought to say, as though my mind were a book and she was reading directly from the pages of my thoughts. It was just past nine when I called her, but the sun was rising when we finally got off the phone. We had talked about everything and anything and there was still more to say. She was wonderful and as I lay there in the dark listening to her, listening to her stories of growing up in South Carolina, listening to the music of her voice, I could feel myself falling ever deeper in love and being carried away on the feeling of being near someone who wasn’t even in the same room as me. I had never felt closer to anyone and nothing had ever felt so natural as talking to her.

We had agreed to meet at the fair at six on Saturday night. She was early and was wearing jeans and a pale blue cardigan. I found this terribly exciting because at some stage of my warped development, a fetish for blue cardigans, v-necks and really, most members of the button down sweater family, had crystallized in my psyche. I think it probably stemmed from the fact that, as a child brought up by television, my first crushes were on Wally Cleaver’s girlfriends and Miss Landers on Leave it to Beaver, which I watched in syndication. Since then I’ve always found that type attractive and on the show, it seems like they were always wearing some kind of cardigan or button down sweater with a shawl collar. I have no idea if they were actually light blue or not, but I always imagined they were, though any color does the trick. I’m a sick man, I know. Anyway, she looked great in a pale blue cardigan.

I had worn a black turtleneck and my leather jacket. It was a clear night, but the air was cold at the fairgrounds. She greeted me with a quick kiss on the cheek, then grabbed my hand and pulled me in towards the spectacle of the fair. “Come on, let’s go!” All around us was the smell of damp hay, smoky burlap, and burnt sugar. Mothers dragged screaming children by the hand, groups of teenagers walked by with surly looks, and callers yelled out for people to come and try their hands at games of chance. A winner every time! No one goes home without a prize! The roar of the roller coaster drowned out the piped in sounds of the calliope and the over-dramatized screams of riders. Strings of bright yellow lights hung everywhere, lending a dull orange glow to the sea of seedy red and white striped tents and booths. There were signs everywhere garishly painted in day-glow colors on white plywood screaming out COTTON CANDY, PALMS READ HERE, TUNNEL OF LOVE, WHEEL OF FORTUNE, GET YOUR PORTRAIT DRAWN HERE. A black Elvis impersonator was singing “All shook up” on a stage, while other signs promised that the world-famous hypnosis James Randolph would be doing shows at seven, eight and nine. In the back, towering three or four stories high, was the centerpiece of the fair: a spectacularly lit Ferris Wheel, covered in Christmas lights, gleaming like a green, red and silver star. “Where should we go first?”

“Roller Coaster. Definitely.”

“No way are you getting me on that thing. I don’t like being upside down. Or fifty feet in the air.”

“Ah, come on…” I knew by the look on her face that she wasn’t going to budge.

“Nope.”

“Ok, you pick then.” She smiled and grabbed me by the hand and we waded into the sea of people, lights and sound. We went on some spinning thing that wasn’t fifty feet in the air and I was glad I had entered the fairgrounds with an empty stomach. I think the queasy look on my face concerned her, because she made me buy a coke. We had our palms read by some bedraggled looking woman with a fake gypsy accent and a scarf. You will both live long and happy life together. We ate cotton candy. We laughed at a man who farted loudly every time he tried to knock over a pyramid of milk bottles with softball. We listened to the black Elvis for a while, sitting on a patch of lawn. She leaned up against me, snuggling into my jacket as I put my arm around her, while we were serenaded with “Can’t help falling in love.” I took off my jacket and made her put it on. It was freezing, but I did not feel the cold. It was as perfect, I think, as any night could have been. It got later and the crowd thinned and we continued walking, hand in hand through the fair as the hour waned, until we came to the Ferris Wheel.

“Let’s go on that,” I said.

“Uh, hello? I told you…no heights. I hate those things. I’m afraid of heights.”

“Well so am I, but come on, it’ll be fun. Besides, it’s only for a few minutes and almost everyone is gone anyway.” Indeed, there was no one in line. “We’ll have it all to ourselves. And we’ll have the best view.”

“I don’t think so.” She was wavering, I could tell.

“Come on. It’ll be fine. I’ll protect you.”

She sighed and looked at me suspiciously. “Ok. But you better not rock the damn carriage thing. I’ll never speak to you again if you do.” We walked over to the monstrous wheel and the ride attendant opened the safety bar for us. I stepped in first, and then held out my hand for her. She cautiously entered and sat down as the attendant locked the bar down and checked it.

“Last go-round of the night,” the attendant said, “looks like you’ve got it all to yourselves. Please keep seated and enjoy the ride.” The carriage slowly lifted and the ground disappeared beneath our feet. The lights and tents under us shrank as we rose, slowly, and gently above the fairgrounds and into the cool black night. Christa cuddled against me, fingers digging into my leg, eyes shut tight as her breath misted into vapor in the December air. I slowly put my arm around her, careful not to rock the carriage, and stroked her hair, smelling the fresh scent of vanilla and lavender. It was perfect.

And then, suddenly, inexplicably, we stopped moving. No sound of gears grinding to a halt, no screams, no explosion…and no movement. We weren’t at the top, but we were damn close. Christa looked at me, then looked down, then looked at me.

“Why aren’t we moving?”

Panic. “Um, probably just stopped for a minute. Should start up again in a minute.” A minute passed. Then five minutes.

“What the Hell is going on?”

“I have no idea.” I

 couldn’t tell for sure, but I think the fat man with the bullhorn might’ve been down there for a while before he started yelling at us. “Uh, hey folks? You two kids up there? You okay?”

“Yeah,” I shouted down, “what’s going on?”

“Got some minor mechanical difficulties down here. We should get this thing going in just a bit, so just, uh, hang on up there!” The fat man put down his bullhorn and started talking to a bunch of guys in overalls.

Like we have a choice, I thought. I smiled at Christa, feeling rather guilty and stupid. She rolled her eyes.

“So,” she said, “aren’t you glad you called me?”

“Yes.” An hour went by and all we did was talk. There was little else to do, but even if there had been, I don’t think I would have wanted anything else. We watched as the yellow strings of light went out one by one and the workers below began cleaning up as the fat man and his crew worked on a large metal box at the bottom of the Ferris Wheel. Finally someone yelled up at us. “Okay, should be about another few minutes. You might get a bit of jolt when it starts up again, so hang on!”

“Guess we better hang on,” I said.

“Yeah, I guess we better.” She took her hand off of the safety bar and the other hand from my leg, and then, placing both hands the back of my neck, pulled me close to her face and pressed her lips against mine. She kissed me softly and gently at first, then pulled me closer and I tasted her mouth, her tongue more deeply, inhaling her breath, still sweet with cotton candy and chewing gum. The wheel started moving and as she pulled away, her eyes soft and pale with the winter night, we reached the ground, though I still felt like I was floating even as we walked hand in hand in silence through the darkening fairground and far from the Ferris Wheel still glittering with its lights and the memory of our first kiss.

The next day was the coldest Sunday I’ve ever seen. The hills and pastures surrounding the church, usually a menagerie of forest and pale greens, were frosted over with white crystals. All the windshields in the parking lot were covered in thin blue sheets of cracked ice and the air seemed sharpened with the threat of snow. The outside of the church had been decorated with gold and green strands of tinsel, but even those had tiny, silvery threads of ice growing on them. My breath swirled into vapor as I walked into the parking lot and I pulled my scarf around my neck and sank deeper into my jacket, hoping to see Christa’s car.

I hadn’t talked to her at all since she had dropped me off the night before. We had driven home in relative quiet, though not in the uncomfortable silence I had known with women before. It had been late by the time we parted ways and she said she’d see me in church before kissing me on the cheek and saying that she had a wonderful time. “I like being around you, Kalae.”

“I like being around you, too, Christa.”

And so the night had ended, though the taste of her lipstick still clung to my lips and I dreamt of her on that Ferris wheel, curled up against me, Orion’s belt blazing in ethereal white-blue flame above us.

But I did not see her car in the parking lot and so I trudged into the Church’s reception hall, greeted by parishioners, Styrofoam cups filled with coffee and Wow some weather we’re having, never seen it so cold, how’ve you been anyway, ready for Christmas are you, gonna see your folks? Sure ain’t like Hawaii, eh? It was harmless banter and, had my mind not been somewhere else completely, I might’ve found it pleasant, even engaging. Instead, I found it tedious. I began to consider just how small “small talk” actually is. Pleasantries, it seemed, were nothing more than the opposite of “if you don’t have anything nice to say…” Rather than not saying anything at all, as the maxim suggested, it seemed people would instead create nice things to say. I understood the idea of it: to make people feel welcome, to create an atmosphere that might indeed lead to actual communication, to “break the ice” with newcomers; but in the midst of being asked so are you ready for Christmas for the sixth time, I began to wonder if silence wouldn’t have been better. Perhaps a monastery would be more to my liking, I mused, entertained by the thought of myself dressed in cowl and habit, chanting in some gothic cloister in some mountainous region of Belgium. How quickly time passes. One minute you’re kissing the most beautiful girl in the world in some fairy-tale Ferris Wheel mishap, the next minute you’re considering the view from a Belgian monastery while a well-intentioned transplant from Minnesota asks you if you’re ready for Christmas. I excused myself from the Minnesotan and wandered over to the coffee pot for one last cup before having to enter the Church. On stage the choir was there, but without Christa. Maybe she’s sick. Great. I sat down in my usual pew towards the back as the band, bedecked in, I swear to you, matching green and red outfits, broke into “Open the Eyes of My Heart, Lord” and the congregation leapt to its feet, hands clapping, arms extended to Heaven, eyes closed and filled, yes, I say FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT who was probably laughing His ass off. The Minnesotan screamed out “Touchdown, Jesus!” and I had no idea what he meant, what it had to do with the song, or what I was doing in this place. Touchdown, Jesus? Quite an image. I pictured Christ as a quarterback, dressed in an all white jersey, ball tucked under a muscular arm, sweat running down his face, eyes ablaze with an iron will, punching through hordes of enemy players with forked tails as his angelic defense ran down the field with him like a luminous wall of holy sportsmanship…but wait! Satan was off the bench now! I saw him running towards Jesus Christ, Quarterback, at full tilt, flames leaping from his helmet, as Christ artfully evaded him at the 10 yard line before running towards Heavenly Victory, spiking the ball and raising one finger in the sign of John the Baptist to a screaming crowd! Touchdown, Jesus! Yee-Haw! I started giggling to myself and then a voice behind me shushed me.

“You shouldn’t laugh in church, or keep choirgirls out so late.” I turned and it was Christa, smiling. “Come and sit back here with me.” Football Jesus disappeared and my mind suddenly felt clear and unoppressed. I went to the pew behind me and stood next to her as the song came to a close after two sweaty, additional choruses and the Minnesotan screaming, “I feel your spirit, Jesus!” The band had stopped for a minute to mop their brows (those outfits had to be hot and uncomfortable) and then broke into “Shine, Jesus, Shine.” I looked over at Christa, who rolled her eyes. “Let’s leave.”

“What?” I was surprised and quite happy to hear the suggestion.

“Let’s go do something.”

“Like what?” A couple next to us looked over and glared. I shrugged it off.

“Like anything. It’s beautiful outside. Let’s go.” We walked out of the Church and into the icy parking lot. The cold had become more pronounced, though the sun was still barely visible through a veil of clouds. Christa had brought a jacket this time and I was somewhat disappointed: I had hoped she would perfume mine again by having to wear it. I would have gladly endured the bone-piercing cold for that. She pulled on a pair of mittens and slipped her hand into mine. “Let’s go sit by the lake.”

There was something about just feeling her hand in mine, in feeling her fingers pressed against mine, in just being next to her that filled me with a tense, nervous joy. It was the kind of joy that is tempered with a clinging feeling of worry—a fear that it will not last; that it will be lost; that you will do something to make it disappear. But whenever she looked at me or smiled or even spoke, the fear dissipated and I found myself lost in her. I liked the thoughtful look on her face when I spoke, the feeling of actually being listened to. I liked that she always paused, as if to carefully choose her words, before she ever said anything and I liked that once she decided to do something, she did it with a decisiveness and resolve that I had never seen in the women I had dated before. There was something else about her, something that is difficult to explain. All my life, I had wanted to feel a perfect love, one that asked no questions and surrendered itself only to the moment. Not merely unconditional, but perfect. Some would say that it is only the love of God that is perfect; that, because God is love, only God’s love can be perfect. I could never reconcile myself to this article of faith. If other things made by human hands could be perfect—a line of poetry, a painting, an object—why then couldn’t human love be perfect? Movies, songs, television shows—all these things portrayed love that was impossible, by the opinions of cynics, or worse yet, self-described “realists.” The songs that said everything you ever wanted to hear from a lover. The books that described love, fragile and often tragic, but nonetheless perfect. The movies showing star-crossed lovers guided by the gentle hands of destiny, finding each other against impossible odds. I had always settled for less than that. A wife who cheated on me as we both spiraled into an alcoholic danse macabre that I had only just begun to shake free from. Girlfriends who drained me like vampires as I gave all I had and more. People in my life who saw me only as a means to an end or as a bridge to the next phase in their life: a romantic rest stop, a place for rebounds, and a rock to rely upon. It had never dawned on me that there was anything wrong with them. I had assumed that I was the problem and destined for unhappiness. This assumption had manifested in one self-fulfilling prophecy after another and until I met Christa, I had decided not to seek love again. But being with her, just being near her...was perfect. “Put your arm around me and stop looking so pensive.” I had been lost in my thoughts and I put my arm around her, feeling the soft suede of her jacket rubbing softly against mine as we walked towards the shimmering lake that lay in the distance amidst the frost covered fields.

The lake was nestled between two hills and was surrounded by clusters of eucalyptus and pine trees, as well as a garden laden with various pieces of statuary and a monument to the veterans of foreign wars. A pathway led from the road to the church down to it. The circumference of it was paved with an asphalt path that was used by joggers in the spring and fall. Dark green benches were scattered here and there and at one end of the lake stood a tall archway and several Roman-looking columns that had been built years before for aesthetic flavor by an eccentric donor, long since dead. Now they were overgrown with vines, lending an air of history to their stoic solitude. I liked them, as out of place as they seemed, especially in the winter. I liked their defiant archaic nobility. They added a melancholy air to the lake, a persistent memory of someone’s rejection of the modern and longing for the past. I walked there often, always by myself, when the crowds were thinnest, whenever I needed the luxury of space that living in the suburbs and working in the city did not afford me. In the summer, ducks swam in the lake and gondolas could be rented to traverse its length. On golden days I liked to watch the ducks. At times, they were the only things that ever made any sense to me.

We proceeded down the winding path before stopping at the shores of the lake. The lake was still and the wind coming across it, icy and thin. The asphalt was covered in a fine gray mush of ice and dirt and it crunched beneath our feet as we walked. A lump grew in my throat and I felt a strange pang of wanting to say something and not having the words to say it. We came to one of the dark green benches and we sat on it, though it too was covered in bits of ice. Christa snuggled into my jacket again and I could smell the warm vanilla and lavender scent of her hair, her skin, in the cold, misty air. “Hey,” I said, “I need to tell you something.” She looked at me expectantly.

“What?”

“It’s kind of hard, so I’m just going to say it and be done with it and then we don’t have to talk about it at all, ok?” In spite of the cold, my face warmed and I cleared my throat as she looked at me, waiting.

“Ok.”

“I’m just going to say this and be done with it.” The air seemed to suddenly grow colder and the sky was washed over with the color of steel. An amused look crossed her face and my courage began to wane. I spoke through clenched teeth and my voice sounded forced, hesitant, foreign, even to my ears. “I’m falling in love with you.” I swallowed hard, expecting relief, but instead feeling dizzy with anxiety. There was no taking it back even if I had wanted to. I had just committed myself to the possibility of a genuinely painful rejection and the razor’s edge of it spilled out like a dark path of worry in front of me.

“I’m falling in love with you too.” Her unhurried words were soft and serious and quiet and loving and I could feel my eyes grow wet as the heaviness left my chest in breath that disappeared in a white cloud. I turned my head towards her and, putting my hands to her face, kissed her slowly, deeply, hungrily, tasting her mouth, warm and sweet, against mine again. I felt something brush against my face and opened my eyes. Christa’s face seemed to glow and she pulled me towards her, kissing me. Something else brushed against the nape of my neck and when I opened my eyes, I saw that the sky was filled with swirling white snowflakes that clung to us like tiny beads. For a moment, the world stopped spinning and time stopped to allow us to remain still, locked in each other’s eyes and embraced by the first snowfall of winter.
 
 

Story List And Biography For K. S. Anthony

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