Page 25 of Come Back To Me

“I don’t have a physical type.” He shrugged. “Is that what you were looking for?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact I was.”

“I like smart women, English. Cultured women. Funny women. Kind women. I like that type in every color and size.”

I liked that.

“When was the last time you had a blonde?” I asked. We were up the stairs and almost to his door.

“Last night when I had you.”

“That’s not what I mean, Lisey.”

“You’re my first blonde,” he admitted.

“So you’re going through a blonde stage,” I joked.

“No,” he said. “No more stages. I found what I’m looking for.”

And then I was stunned into silence, playing his words over and over in my head.

“This is the most beautiful my life has ever been,” David said. “This is what I want.”

I wondered about that when I was away from him. David had barely left the Pacific Northwest. I’d traveled all over the United States and a little bit of Europe—yet I never felt like I’d arrived at a significant moment. I chased that moment so hard I could barely stay still in one place for more than six months, yet he could eat anchovies, his teeth stained with wine, and tell me it was the most beautiful his life has ever been. It was innocent and simple, and all the things I wanted to be. That’s when I realized that David was who I wanted to be. Someone who hadn’t necessarily mastered his art, or his life, but was goddamn trying with everything in him. There was this creeping feeling that sneaked up on me, mostly when I was alone, it made my throat close up like I was eating too many crackers without anything to drink. He was too much and I was too little.

I learned that David cared about everyone. The homeless man on the corner of Union and 2nd that he bought sandwiches for, the crying forty-something woman walking out of the sushi restaurant that almost bumped into us, the girl with the piercings who sold hand-knitted beanies at the Market. He wanted to discuss their plights in detail.

“You don’t just end up on the street. He had a mother, a family. Someone loved him, so what happened?”

I thought him naive. He could have been a foster kid. He could have had a disinterested mother like me.

About the beanie girl, he said, “She has the saddest eyes I’ve ever seen…”

Beanie Girl, she was the one that bothered me most. I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. We had to pass her to reach the sausage shop we liked, and once David bought two beanies from her just to see if she would smile. Pink and a mottled grey. He took the pink one and gave the grey to me, though I stuffed it in a drawer as soon as I got home.

“Do you think she knits beanies because she’s sad, or that she’s sad because she has to knit beanies?” he asked. He always looked really stressed out when he spoke about her. I was rather annoyed by it.

“Well, first of all, you need to stop staring. It’s making her quite uncomfortable. And why does she have to be anything? She makes beanies, end of story.”

“She’s sad. Have you looked in her eyes?”

I gave him a look. “Have I stared in Beanie Girl’s eyes? No, David, I have not.” That wasn’t exactly true. She had very, very blue eyes—startlingly so. She wore a kohl eyeliner around them which made them pop out even more.Look at us!they said.We’re so vulnerable!

“Well, that’s where she keeps it all.” He made circles with his fingers and lifted them to his eyes like they were binoculars. “Everyone has a story.” He took my hand and squeezed it as we walked.

“So I’ve heard,” I replied tartly.

The last thing I wanted was David sniffing around some pierced, blue-eyed Olivia Newton-John lookalike. One with sad eyes at that. Men had a thing for female vulnerability. They wanted to be their hero.

It was a Sunday morning, the boys were playing a gig two hours away in Bremerton, and I had all day to be alone. That was one of the things you forgot to miss when you were in a relationship, how good it felt to be uncoupled for a time, to enjoy your own company. I chose a book from my shelf, one that I’d been promising David I’d read, and carried it to a little Asian tea bar that sat under the Market. Colorful stools made their way around a low circular bar. Today most of the stools were filled. I spotted an empty seat and made my way over. I didn’t recognize her right away—her hair was hidden underneath a bright yellow bandana. She glanced up at me as I shrugged out of my jacket and I startled for a moment when I recognized her face. I slid into the stool and cleared my throat wondering if I should say something. No. That was weird. I ordered my tea and pulled my book from my bag. I’d read a few chapters and then we could talk about them tomorrow when he got back. It was then that Beanie Girl looked over and asked if my book was any good.

“I just started actually. My boyfriend has been hassling me to read it, so I thought I’d give it a go.”

“It sounds…hostile,” she said, staring at the cover.

“I suppose it is a bit, yes,” I said. And then I added, “He likes violent art. I think he’s drawn to it because he doesn’t know how to make it.” I was surprised that I said something so honest to a complete stranger. I thought about how mortified David would be if he knew that’s what I thought about him and I felt ashamed.

She smiled. It was a sort of faraway smile that didn’t reach her eyes. David was right. Nothing reached her eyes.

---