blind date

It was both delicious and nauseating at the same time — that is, the cheese platter was, the $17 platter that he had insisted on ordering because it would have been a waste to order a large portion of only one type of cheese for $8 when the platter would offer smaller portions of three different cheeses for only a little over double the price. She knew he wasn't a cheese connoisseur (though neither was she) from the way that he had stiltedly read the names off the menu, like each syllable was an inconvenient pebble in his mouth. So, she agreed to leave this most awkward dinner in the hands of a capable chef.

"So," he attempted, carefully wielding the cheese knife, "what kind of music do you listen to?"

"I listen to whatever's on the radio at work," she answered. "The girl I share an office with keeps something on all day." 

He nodded, fumbling with the knife as he attempted to spread the cheese on a slice of bread. "So no favorite singers or bands or anything." 

She took a sip of her water to fight the nausea. "Guess not." 

He got up and excused himself to use the restroom. She took the opportunity to do a phone check — text messages from her mom, work emails, the obligatory scan of friend news on Facebook and real news on Twitter — and hastily put her phone away once she saw him walking back towards their table. It killed her not to have it on the table where she could better see updates buzz in, but she knew quite well that it was bad manners. 

The next dish was an asparagus and brussels sprout appetizer that had been repeatedly recommended by the online community. 

"What do you think?" he asked.

"It's pretty good," she responded. "Crunchy."

"Yeah." 

-------

He wasn't sure how to make things better. Despite glowing recommendations from mutual friends, she wasn't quite as engaging or friendly as he had thought she would be. She was pretty, with long straight hair and a dash of freckles (unusual for someone of Asian descent), but so far, that's all he knew about her. And it had been almost an hour already.

Their respective main dishes appeared before them without much fanfare: crab cakes for him, catch of the day (trout) for her. 

"To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of seafood," he offered.

"Oh." 

She didn't look all too puzzled, but he continued, "But I'm trying to diversify my tastes so I'm not forty years old and still ordering chicken nuggets and spaghetti at every restaurant I go to." He was joking, but she didn't even bother smiling.

"How do you like the crab cakes then?"

"They're better than I expected, actually." He paused before asking, "How is your dish?"

"A little dry," she stated. "But flavorful." 

-------

She regretted agreeing to the date. Not because he wasn't agreeable or polite — it was painfully clear that he was trying to make it an enjoyable time — but because she knew she wasn't being fair.
She was waiting on a text message. Or phone call. Or social media update. Or something. Anything that would indicate how a different date was going that evening.

-------

He saw her fidget, then realized she had placed her phone on the edge of her seat so that she could at least feel the phone vibrate against her knee when an update came in. He wasn't sure whether to feel offended or sorry.
"You can check your phone if you want to," he said, smiling as gently as possible to show that he wouldn't think poorly of her or be angry with her.
"Oh no, it's okay," she said, turning slightly pink. She tossed her phone back into her purse. "Sorry about that."
"No, don't worry about it. Really, if you're waiting on something or something at work came up, you can check if you need to."
"No, no," she repeated. "It's fine."

-------

"So," he attempted again as the waitress cleared the table, "have you been keeping up with the [insert politician here] story?" 

"Not particularly," she admitted. "I should, since it's all over the news. What stance has he been taking?"

"Well, at first he said the government shouldn't have been liable for what happened, but it seems that public pressure has made him change his mind, at least, outwardly so."

"I see."

"It's unfortunate, he should have just started and stuck with the right stance."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "What is the right stance?"

He tensed up visibly. "Well, I don't think the government could have done anything differently to warrant these calls for liability. Even if people think government should handle instances such as this, it can't. Practically, it can't. It doesn't have that kind of power."

She had to refrain from staring at him too openly in half wonder and half disgust. "What do you mean, it doesn't have that kind of power? It could definitely support a particular policy and work to change the laws and that would send the message that, hey people, this isn't how things are supposed to be. We're not a backwards nation. We care about our people. We're a democracy." 

He laughed, surprising her. 

"What?"

"Nothing. It's just that those are the most words you've said all evening." 

-------

After her outburst, she went back to being relatively reticent. He wasn't sure if he should have laughed, but he couldn't help himself. He could see why friends had thought they would get along well, but that had only been the first glimpse, and it wasn't all that promising.

-------

It was her turn to excuse herself to use the restroom, and she took her purse along with her (to fix her make-up, of course).
She took her time washing her hands, letting the lukewarm water run while she peered into the mirror. She felt a mixed sense of disappointment and dread and weariness weigh down on her as she prepared herself to return to the dining area. She willed herself to smile, practicing a few different expressions, then reapplied the lip gloss she had bought yesterday on impulse.
He had told her to have fun, that he hoped this guy would be able to match her in wit and style — people didn't say things like that to someone if they secretly harbored feelings for her/him, right? All this noble sacrifice of true feelings to defer to someone worthier was stuff that only existed in novels and movies, right?
Right, she reminded herself.

-------

Surprisingly, she suggested they take a short walk in a nearby park. He had to get back to the office to do one last thing before the weekend, but because it was on the way back, he agreed.
Considering it was almost April, the weather was still too cold to walk around without a jacket, but she held onto hers instead of wearing it. He also noticed that her right shoulder was slightly higher than her left shoulder, perhaps out of a habit of always carrying her purse with her right shoulder, as she did now.
"I love coming here whenever I visit," she said quietly. "Lots of memories."
She looked like she had more to say, so he kept silent.
"One summer, I saw a cellist here. It was incredibly hot outside — you couldn't take two steps out the door without sweating — and most of the people in the park were either sunbathing or quickly passing through, but he played like he was in Carnegie Hall or something. Of course, he was wearing a wife beater and sandals, and there were all these strange floral patterns in the wood of the cello, but he was more convincing than any concert cellist I've ever seen."

-------

She smiled at the memory. He had been there with her, taking photos of the cellist from all different angles even as she complained that it was too hot for any non-sadistic human to subject others to the rays of an angry sun. He waved away her complaints, telling her to drink from the frozen water bottles that he had packed, promising to treat her to ice cream in a minute.
"Just one more shot," he kept murmuring.

------

"Have you been to a lot of orchestra concerts?"
"Not a whole lot. Maybe about a dozen or so."
"That's a dozen or so more than me."
She turned to him and gave him a pitying(?) look. "You're missing out," she said.
"Classical music makes me fall asleep, unfortunately," he admitted. "My mom used to turn on a Yo-Yo Ma c.d. every night when I was a kid, for years, probably until I was maybe twelve years old? It was a good c.d., I guess, but it's made me associate classical music with bedtime for my whole life."
"That's terrible." She sounded genuinely disappointed, but instead of feeling apologetic, he suddenly felt very annoyed.
"Well, to each his own, right?" he managed to articulate before clamping his mouth shut and belatedly realizing that he had been feeling this way all evening.

-------

He almost never took shots of her, she had noticed over the years. Whenever she happened to accompany him on a photo shoot, he took hundreds of pictures of their surroundings — a random bench, a construction crane in the distance, ornate clocks, high schoolers playing hand ball, street vendors, broken glass, the clouds on all sorts of days — but not her.
Except once, when he asked her to be a part of one of his photography projects. Despite her best modeling efforts, the photographs turned out terribly in her opinion. It wasn't that he didn't have the skill; she believed it was because he didn't have the heart.

-------

Though he desperately hoped for someone from his office to call him so that he would feel less awkward or rude about making his imminent getaway, his phone remained uncalled. Luckily, they were reaching the edge of the park again, so he tried to think of a different topic to smoothly end their "date," if one could actually dub it a date after the way the evening had gone.
But before he could toss out the subject he came up with (whether she had made an NCAA bracket) she came to an abrupt halt.
He turned to look at her, and she wordlessly lifted one hand and wiped away at her face. He blinked.
"I'm really sorry," she said unexpectedly. "Coming into this, I really wanted to make this work if at all possible, but I just haven't been all..." she made a circular motion with her hand around her face "...here tonight."
"I noticed," he blurted, surprising himself. She too seemed startled by his honesty.
"I mean," he shifted his weight from one foot to another "it's okay. It was supposed to be pretty low-key, low pressure. Or actually, no pressure at all."
"Still," she rested on the word before she became silent.

-------

She had noticed a photograph that he had posted on his blog a few months ago — a girl reading a book. He had posted several portrait shots before, some from gigs and others from simply walking around the city, but there was something different about this one particular shot, and it bothered her.
She then found out a couple days ago that he had been interested in her, and that they were planning on going on their first date during the weekend she would be in town.
"Awesome," he responded when she told him she would be around. "You can help me decide what color tie to wear."
She laughed it off, then declined to do so, explaining that she had to get ready for a date too.
"No way," he said. "Well, if our dates are going awfully, we should plan to fortuitously meet in the park and turn it into a group date."
"What, and then try to set up our dates with each other?"
"No, just make it so awkward that they both feel compelled to leave early."
"Okay then, we'll have to time it right. Let's say two hours in?"
"Deal."

-------

They seemed to linger for a long time (in retrospect it was likely five minutes or so) in silence before she finally spoke up again.
"You know what, let me make it up to you," she started.
"You really don't have to," he assured, not sure what she had in mind and not sure if he wanted to know.
"I'm actually not this terrible of a person," she laughed nervously, "so can you do brunch tomorrow? I'm leaving on Sunday, but I don't really have particular plans for tomorrow before six o'clock."
He thought about it. Sensing his hesitation, she added, "It'll be even more low-key and definitely no pressure at all. But I understand if you don't ever want to see me again. I just feel like I've done a huge disservice to you, as well as our mutual friends."
She seemed genuine about it, but he wasn't sure if it would be worth it. He had planned to do some chores he had put off for the last two weeks tomorrow, and while he mentally conceded that those were some pretty lame excuses, he just felt more resistance the more he sat on the idea. He had just experienced first-hand what it meant to strive to keep the attention of someone who clearly did not want to be around him.

-------

She was big on commitment and big on responsibility. And she felt responsible for making a nice guy's evening difficult, committed to rectifying the situation.
But he ultimately declined, saying that maybe it just wasn't meant to be and that she made things easy for him, in fact, because he had actually been somewhat worried what would happen if things did work out — the distance, the mutual busyness of work and life, the artificiality of communication through technology.

-------

He felt uneasy about turning her down, and he felt uneasy about leaving for the office.
"I should probably walk you back, actually."
She shook her head. "No, it's fine, I'm not too far from the next block over anyway."
"So, even more doable for me. It'll just be a few extra minutes for me. I would probably have just spent it staring at the computer screen blankly anyway. It's been a long week."
"Well, it's the weekend now, so you should catch up on rest."
They passed by a rowdy bar and then a few trinket shops and then waited for the crosswalk to turn.
"Thank you though," she said.
They were three simple words, but they sounded strangely defeated. Maybe he was projecting, maybe it was the growing certainty that she had been wiping away tears earlier, maybe he thought he would regret not giving someone a second chance. But they did, and he sighed as the "walk" sign lit up and she started making her away across the street.
"Hey," he called out.
She reached the opposite side of the street and turned towards him.
"Low-key, no pressure, right?"
She nodded slowly.
"Let's do it. Round two? Or round one if you don't feel like counting tonight." The crosswalk started to count down so he quickly crossed and met her on the other side.
She smiled. "Okay."
He smiled back.
"Maybe leave your phone at home though."


© 2013 by Sarah R. 

2012

It seems so very incredibly wholly totally strange that this year has come to an end. Today is the last day of 2012, a year that I anticipated would be a momentous year for me, as well as many peers around me.

And in many ways, it was - or so Facebook says: events on my "2012 in Review" thingamabobber  show that I 1) went on one of the best trips of my life with some of my favorite people in this world, 2) completed a senior thesis and graduated from college, 3) vacationed with my family (and possibly for the first time with my grandpa too?), 4) visited the motherland after a four-year absence, and 5) started law school and successfully(?) finished my first semester.

I wrote in the beginning of this year:

As I look towards the rest of this year, it's really all up in the air what will go down. Where will I go? What will I do? What relationships will I form, strengthen, keep, break, lose? What ideas, projects, goals, dreams will come up and come to fruition? A lot of questions, not a whole lot of answers.

I guess I thought that I would get answers by the end of this year, and I did get some temporary answers (e.g. I am now in city X, I have strengthened relationships with Y and Z but not so much A and B, I have started to dream of seeing C and doing D) but what I have come to find is that there will always be these questions and there will always be only temporary answers - at no point will they ever be completely answered ahead of time because each day spent living my life, guided by His voice and His hand, provides an answer for that day or part of an answer for that month or that year.

God has been faithful, no doubt, but like I told a certain snail and fruitbat this morning, it feels weird that tomorrow will be 2013 because I feel like I've only really been living towards 2012 (no, not because I believed in the whole Mayan end-of-the-world hulabaloo) and everything from here on out is new stuff to me. Sure, I have yet another graduation date to look forward to, but that date doesn't seem quite as momentous to me right now because there's so much else that needs to get done before that date that it almost just seems like a formality. I feel like I'm swimming out into uncharted territory and I am neither excited nor terrified...I just feel strange.

But I do feel like it's time to grow up, which also means that it's time to expand my knowledge of God with kind of like a firm step up, rather than this slow upwards crawl that I've been doing over this last year. What is God's heart, really, towards me? Towards this world? Towards issue E and idea F? In this way, I think/hope 2013 will be a lot about trying to pick God's "brain" and as I know Him more, hopefully I'll feel more secure and optimistic about what's ahead, not because I'll come to know what is ahead, but because I know and trust Him that much more.

Happy New Year!

note

Thought at 12:45 AM - random, and I should be sleeping, but I wanted to jot it down before I forgot or I changed my mind.

There are some things I can't say right now, given the circumstances. Maybe I'll never be able to say them.

But this one I will:

I'm happy.

winter tree

I took a short walk to the ATM machine earlier today - along the way, I saw a bunch of barren trees (most of them became super bare after the thankfully very, very mild remnants of Hurricane Sandy) and then I saw one tree that stood out to me because many of its beautiful fall-colored leaves were still there for my viewing pleasure.

At first, I was happy about this tree, this last vestige of fall despite the small snow flurries flying around in the wind today. Looking at the barren trees just made me dread the super long winter ahead. But then, something changed my frame of mind and I began to think to myself —

Wait, maybe that tree is stubbornly holding onto its leaves from this past year because it doesn't know that next spring it will have new, fresh, green leaves.

Maybe I am that tree. 

Maybe I am unable to let myself shed my old leaves, become vulnerable and barren, and just die to myself because I don't believe that next spring (figuratively speaking, that is,) I will have new, fresh, green leaves.

But I want to believe, because I know that just as the sun will rise again tomorrow, these trees will bear new leaves in time.

Am I willing to become a winter tree?

new beginnings

It's been a little over a week since I have found myself in this new place, and I felt like I had to write something, but I wasn't sure what to say.

I've been trying to decide whether to continue this blog or to move on. It has been a rather faithful account of the last four years, but now that I am at a new beginning, I wonder if I need to leave this blog behind (maybe return every once in a while to reflect upon His goodness and fond memories from college) and spew my musings elsewhere. I haven't decided yet, so here goes my first entry from a new location.

School is pretty fun. I had many, many (MANY) anxieties about whether I would enjoy what I was learning or at least understand it, and those anxieties would even keep me up at night and swirl around in my head during the day. But it turns out, not only can I mostly follow along (I admit, one of my classes makes me feel like steam is coming out of my brain from thinking too hard lol), I also feel like it's all pretty interesting and I once again realized that I was just born a nerd.

But man. I thought I had braced myself for the inevitable impact of reality and heeded all the post-grad horror stories I had heard over the years, but I guess I'll have to spell it out here:

There is no place like GCC. (okay, maybe other AMI churches, but outside of the AMI fambam)

I'm probably being too clingy, and maybe other people are just better at this whole YA business than I am, but there is really no place like GCC. There is something very special going on in that church (and actually, there is something very special going on in Philly churches in general), and I am so glad that God gave me such a powerful undergrad experience, but now I'm kind of at a loss over how to handle these next three years.

What am I doing here, specifically? What did You see that I did not see before coming here that You would bring me to this place?

Like I said, it's been a little over a week, but I'm already so tired. I am thankful for all the little things, little answers in whispers, unexpected moments of grace. But my heart is heavy and I'm torn between my own sinful/selfish nature and this gnawing feeling that I'm sure You promised me more than this. There's got to be something more than what is visible to the eye right now, but what else can I do besides seek and wait?

I will wait on You. Open my eyes to see beyond what is in front of me — I'm striving to live by faith and not by sight.

there is meaning

Praises be on our lips 
For You are worthy, You’re worthy, You’re worthy 

What other Savior could so lovingly
Shed the robes of a king and put on our rags of sin? 

Your grace is beautiful
Your grace is beautiful
(There is meaning after all, there is meaning after all)

All glory and honor
For You are holy, You’re holy, You’re holy

What other God could so mightily
Command the sun and sea and the devil to flee?

Your power is glorious
Your power is glorious
(There is meaning after all, there is meaning after all)

Pleasure and riches
Wisdom and power
All that the world has
To give and offer
Nothing has meaning
Life is just fleeting
So I will stand in awe of the true King

Your grace is beautiful
Your grace is beautiful
Your power is glorious
Your power is glorious
I will stand in awe
Yes, I will stand in awe
I will stand in awe

[Sarah R. © 2012]

music+explanation.

the check (pt.3)

A private investigator just seemed too unnecessary. And intrusive. And cheesy. So she held off on formally searching for her somewhat anonymous benefactor, choosing instead to focus on advancing her career at the museum so that when she did find her, she’d be able to firmly let her know that though she had fully appreciated it and benefited from her kindness, she didn’t need the money at all anymore.

It took her a month for it to finally occur to her to visit the website of the editorial assistant’s company, but there was no author picture, only the brief biography:

“As the heiress apparent to Miriam & Marcus Stationery in West Village, Manhattan, Magnolia Daly has always dreamed of publishing the words she used to scribble on the leftover samples from her parents’ store. She studied Comparative Literature at Middlebury College and earned her Masters in French Literature from New York University, though she wholly prefers writing in English. Unable to Stand, her debut novel, will hit bookstores in Summer 2013.”

That following Saturday, she ventured downtown to find the stationery store, heart pounding at the thought that she might actually come face-to-face with this elusive woman. But the store was small, filled with the scent of vanilla-lavender candles that sat near the cash register, which was currently manned by a slim hipster male wearing brown thick-rimmed glasses, a skinny green tie, and a thick beige cardigan sweater that she was fairly sure she’d seen on her aunt years ago. She poked around the room, glancing at the handmade cards against the wall and the table of various kinds of stationery, stamps, and even teapots. There was a curtain separating the store from what she supposed was the storage and/or design&production area, but she only saw another man, a bit older and larger than the cashier, drift in and out, carrying small boxes in and new products out.

The cashier indifferently asked if she needed any help, barely paying attention to her response that no, she was just looking. She made two circles around the store again before heading towards the door, slightly disappointed and more-than-slightly relieved. She knew she wanted to set things right, maybe even pay the woman back over time, but at the same time, she feared that she wouldn’t even know where to start talking. She might even start crying. She stepped out onto the sidewalk, thinking of buying bread from the bakery across the road, but turned around and reentered the store. The youth glanced at her before poking his head back into his used copy of Cannery Row. She found her voice:
“Do you know if Magnolia Daly ever comes into the store?”
He looked at her from beneath his goldenrod bangs. “Who?”
“Magnolia Daly? Doesn’t she...or a relative...own this store?”
“Not a clue.”
“I see. No business cards or anything?”
He fiddled in the drawer under the register and pulled out a lacy cream card with the store’s name, address, and phone number. No contact name. She turned it over in her hand twice and bit her bottom lip.
“If I write my name and number down, could you give it to the store manager or something?”
“Any particular reason?” a voice called from behind her. It was the other man who had been walking back and forth.
Her mouth became dry as she started to feel a bit ridiculous. “I’m looking for a Magnolia Daly.”
“Maggie? She’s my sister. She doesn’t really come into the store, hasn’t for a good number of years since she bought a house in Seattle. What do you need her for?”
She didn’t want to explain the whole situation, knowing that it would sound extremely suspicious or more likely, very crazy, so she settled with: “She’s an old college classmate. I’ve fallen out of touch with her, but I saw that she was publishing a book soon, so I wondered if she was in the city somewhere, and I would love to see her again.”
He stared at her for a minute, as if determining whether she was telling the truth or not. He slowly pulled out the pen tucked behind his ear and took another business card from the drawer and handed it to her. “She flies over every other month these days. You can leave your name and number here, email address if you prefer. I’ll let her know.”
She felt a cool sweat of both relief and anticipation line her forehead. It was finally happening. She was going to meet this woman face-to-face.

-----

His office phone had rung four times before he finally was able to extricate himself from a chatty coworker complaining about the spacing in the Excel document he had produced for him that morning.
“Hi Mom.”
“She’s found us.” It took him a second to register the statement.
“How?”
“She stopped by the West Village store, saying she was a college friend of mine. She left her name and number with your uncle.”
“What are you going to do?”
She didn’t reply, just breathed into the phone, thinking.
“You could just ignore her and tell Uncle Martin that you had a falling out with her.”
“Maybe I should just meet with her, now that I’m going to be living in the city apartment for a few months anyway. See what she says. She’s doing well at her job, right?”
“Mom, you know it’s not only about the money.”
“Sweetie, if it’s not about the money, then maybe you should just send her flowers instead. Or one of those edible arrangements or monthly fruit club cases.”
He rubbed his eyes and breathed out heavily. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling for a few seconds.
“Plus, how long can you keep this from your dad?” His dad had no idea this money had been going out; not only was he constantly busy with international business trips and tennis tournaments, he also would have flat-out refused to let such a thing happen. He would have dismissed it as excessive. It was not your fault, son. Do you understand that? It wasn’t your fault at all, he had said on various occasions.
“Just...don’t meet with her yet. I just want to see this year through, okay? Maybe I’ll send the fruit basket in December or something.”
“This is getting a little ridiculous, you know. I just don’t get it. It happened almost ten years ago. Don’t you think she’s moved on with her life by now? Don’t you think she would be offended if the truth ever came out?”
“Mom, I really don’t want to argue with you about this right now. Just don’t do anything until I stop by after work, okay?”

Despite several protests from his mom and confused queries from his uncle, he decided to let the communication fall through. His parents had decided on New Year’s Eve of that year to move to Hong Kong in a rare attempt for his dad to truly settle down in one place and spend some time with his soon-to-be-famous-or-so-he-believed wife. They flew over in February and bought a dog; they jokingly threatened to call the dog by his name at first, saying it was going to replace him in the family. He stayed behind in the city due to work commitments and the like, and it was nice to have some distance from his family, a freedom unknown since his college days. His parents had offered to hand over the apartment to him, but he preferred the studio where he had made his home; plus, he had just met a wonderful woman and he wanted to give off the impression that he was an independent, normal young adult just like her.

-----

November passed, December passed, and she still had not heard from her. She tried visiting the shop again to speak with her brother, but he had taken a three-month leave to travel to Spain, entrusting the store to another manager, one who had no idea how to contact the elusive woman and had no relational ties with her.

She saw Magnola Daly’s book in the bookstore in late June, as promised on the website. It briefly hit #10 on the New York Times Bestseller list before resigning itself to a lower number somewhere along the list of fiction books written by highly educated, middle-aged white women with a nostalgia for their once-in-a-lifetime wild days back in the 1980’s. She picked up a copy; she enjoyed it a decent amount, and when she reached the end, she stopped to reread the author biography, which indicated that she was now living in Hong Kong with her husband of 25 years and her dog, Theodore. The photo was a side profile - she looked quite young for her age, with soft eyes gazing out pensively at a 30-degree angle north.

She tried one last time to get in touch with her again, emailing a contact at her publisher and using the comment box on her personal website. Nothing. She had previously considered finally flying out to Seattle, a vacation of sorts, but now Hong Kong was very much out of the question.

Then life became extremely busy again, like life before the checks — she was promoted and put in charge of a lot more events; her ex-husband came to visit her, and he told her about his new family; her cousin’s daughter got married in August of that year, while her mother passed away quietly in November; and before she knew it, another year had come to a close.

She was having dinner with her ex-husband when he abruptly brought up Navah, how old she would have been and how she would have been doing had she been alive. It nearly made her choke on her food, and she tried not to glare at him for making such unnecessary speculations. There was no doubt in her mind that Navah would have been successful, whatever she had become, and no doubt Navah would have been a huge comfort to her as a one-woman support system in the midst of her father’s presumably continued absence and various unavoidable hardships. Though she found the mention of her daughter’s name aloud to be a foreign act, for it had been consciously avoided by all who knew to spare her the pain, the memory of Navah was no stranger to her mind. She had even consulted Navah mentally when she had received the two checks: would she have been sad and disappointed and ashamed to know that her mother had been desperate enough to cash the first check? Would she have searched for Magnolia Daly with her? Or would she, as she always had, simply laugh at God’s provision, and then suggest that they donate it to real charity?

Returning to the last thought over and over finally made her act upon it; if Magnolia Daly had enough money to send a check to her, a complete stranger, surely she would not mind if it were paid forward to benefit those who were truly in need?

-----

His wife had agreed to accompany him to the museum where Navah’s mother worked; there was a special exhibit going on that his coworkers had deemed absolutely necessary to see before the two of them moved to the west coast. Of course, the real reason for his going was that there was also a special kids’ event going on in another part of the building, and he had wondered if he might see Navah’s mother there. Having no kids of their own yet, they borrowed his wife’s nephew to take him to the event.

There were plenty of screaming toddlers running around in the room, mild-mannered toddlers doing the assigned arts-and-crafts with their cooing parents in the center, and infants sleeping in baby carriages in a corner opposite from the speaker, supposedly soaking in the kid-friendly mini-lecture like they supposedly soaked in their Baby Einstein recordings. His wife led Tod to the group of behaved-and-engaged children and began working on the craft, attempting to instill the excitement of fun educational activities. (Tod would later become a graphic designer and half-jokingly attribute the beginnings of his artistic passions to this visit with his aunt and uncle-in-law.) He circled the room twice, snapping some photos of Tod and his wife hard at work, sneaking other photos of hilariously bored looks on some of the kids’ faces.

A slim woman with slightly graying hair pulled back into a loose bun entered the room to check on the event’s progress. Despite the large-framed glasses that covered the eyes that so clearly identified her as Navah’s mother, he could tell. The way she held herself in a muted way, as if silently shielding herself from being noticed as the mother who had lost a child in an unspeakable disaster, the wife of a troubled husband who had deserted her without an apology, the woman who chose to consistently work overtime for so many years so she wouldn’t have to feel the emptiness of her tiny apartment — it was very similar to the way her daughter had held herself when she had walked into the cafeteria hall for that first lunch. He watched her exchange words with the lecturer from afar and came to sit down at the art table with his wife.

“Is that her?” she whispered, as they both watched Tod make deliberate strokes with his pastel crayons.
“I think so.”
His wife stole a glance at Navah’s mother. “She looks very sweet,” she murmured.
He took another glance too; she was now walking around the room, checking on supplies and organizing the catered boxed lunches that came with the event. “She looks fragile.”
“Really? I think she looks resilient.” His wife took his hand and drew a smiley face on it with one of the markers. “Just like you.”

-----

One December, a few days before Christmas, she opened the door to a deliveryman holding a giant fruit basket for her along with a card with a Santa teddy bear on the front.

“Wishing a warm holiday for you and your loved ones,” it read in the familiar blue scrawl, “as well as continued peace and strength in all the days to come.”

There was a small drawing tucked into the envelope as well: a family of three at Disneyland, smudged slightly because of the pastel crayons that had been used. The date and the young artist’s initials sat in the bottom right-hand corner, N.M.

She didn’t need it confirmed to know what the N stood for: Navah.


© 2012 by Sarah R.

the check (pt.2)

When her mother had essentially refused to speak with his own mom — and by transitive property, him — he was overcome with guilt. After the phone call, his mom had conceded that she was grateful that he hadn’t been the one in the front, repeating that she did feel terrible for the other mother, but not as terrible as she would have been if he had been the one to die instead. He couldn’t say anything to her at the moment, and slightly nodded his head in understanding, not agreement, but once he got back to his room, he stared at the bandages on his left arm in the bathroom mirror and proceeded to throw up into the toilet.

Somehow, life moved on.

But he dreamt about her. Several nights in a row following their abrupt camp-wide return home, she occupied a space in his subconscious, and for years afterwards. He wasn’t the type to remember his dreams, but these were imprinted into his mind, and he didn’t think he’d be able to forget them for as long as he lived.

She was only 16 at the time of her death, and he hardly knew her otherwise, so most of the dreams were what-if scenarios and fulfillments of her “never had she ever”s played out with the aid of his subconscience. They went to Disneyland together, and he heard laughter bubble out of her at the sight of Goofy (which may or may not have been her favorite character, but that is what his mind projected). They ate lobsters together, him waving the meatless claws at her nose and her shying away from him, disgusted and yet fascinated by his odd sense of humor. But more often than not, he dreamt of stealing her first kiss at some point in the dream, sometimes in nightmares of those last six minutes together. He didn’t believe it was for any romantic reason, since he hadn't been particularly attracted to her when she was alive, but then again, the dreams were so vivid that they inevitably did confuse him once he woke up. She always turned pink afterwards, the way she did during the game, and she would always ask (partly flustered and partly pleased), “Does your hair naturally stick up like that?”, to break up the awkward silence that ensued between them.

The dreams made him feel somewhat sick and other times crazy for dreaming — borderline fantasizing — about a dead person, especially one he had known for only three weeks. It didn’t make for a very good first date or internship interview topic: “I held a dead person in my arms for five whole minutes before realizing that she was dead.”
“Oh, really? How was that possible?”
“We had zipped ourselves up in a double bass case to hide from a scorned-and-vengeful teenage gunman at camp and we got unzipped eleven minutes later by the police.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. She smelled like apples and rosin.”
“Okay.”
Of course, such an exchange never happened outside the confines of his slightly (or more than slightly) perturbed mind. He did confess to his college roommate, Jake, who would later become his best friend and best man. He admitted that he didn’t know how to respond to the story, and he didn’t blame him. There wasn’t much anyone would be able to say but just, “Wow.”

After a seemingly countless number of nights filled with imaginary interactions with Navah, he finally met a girl who wasn’t scared off by this ghost that haunted him. She made him feel like a normal person, trauma and guilt and general male immaturity aside. More importantly, she made him laugh, like really laugh, again. And he married her the year they turned 28 and they moved to San Francisco the year after that, six years after he had sent Navah’s mother the first check.

-----

When the second check arrived in her mailbox, she was newly anxious to meet the donor. Though she had already given up hope of ever receiving an explanation, let alone a response, from Magnolia Daly, not a day had passed without her pondering this woman’s existence.

Magnolia Daly. Had Magnolia Daly ever lived near her? Had she just been oblivious to a neighbor that had lived upstairs or down the street, maybe a former coworker in another grade or a congregation member who was either too old or too young for her to know? The postmark on the envelope indicated that it had been sent from within the city, not from Seattle this time, but when she went back with the mailman to the post office from where he picked up the mail, the workers really had no way of helping her out short of digging through each box when it was emptied — surely a bit too much to ask, right, Miss?

But she really didn’t know what to make of the mystery, and she didn’t feel right accepting yet another large sum from a woman she did not know and could not, at the very least, thank. Though she eventually deposited the check again, she didn’t need the money as much as she did the last time, and decidedly set the check’s sum apart so that she would be able to return it when she finally met the woman. Being uncomfortable with the Internet herself, she had asked a coworker to do a Google search, but was told that nothing significant had come up.

Six months from the second check passed rapidly before she finally got a lead.

She had entered a local store for a cup of coffee and a place to read, but the place was a bit crowded and there was a shortage of open tables. As she loitered briefly, coffee mug in hand, she saw a man start to pack up and headed over to claim the table. Moments later, a bespectacled woman came up to the same table and asked to share it. She obliged, knowing that she wouldn’t take up too much room with just her cup and book. The woman smiled in gratitude and camaraderie and pulled out a thick stack of papers with a small note attached to the front. She took out the binder clip that held everything together and set it and the note aside.

Absentmindedly turning the page of her book with one hand, she sipped from her mug held in her right hand, then briefly lost her grip as she set it down on the table, causing a small amount of her latte to splash over onto the note. She darted up, apologizing, and went over to get napkins to clean up the spill. The woman waved her hands, insisting that it was all right, it was only a small spill and it was just a cover note anyway, and it was while she was cleaning off the table that she got a good look at the now splotched piece of paper: teddy bears on the border.

She did a double take, then peered a little too closely for it to be considered normal behavior (after all, it wasn’t as if she was looking for stains to clean out). She tried envisioning the teddy bears on the envelopes, the checks, and found that there was an eerie similarity between the decorations she had memorized in her mind over the past three and a half years and the decorations that appeared before her.

Trying to cover up her burning curiosity with a tamer, more appropriate one, she asked what the woman was doing. The woman was an editorial assistant at a small publishing company in the city, and this was the first manuscript left in her charge — a new author they were thinking about debuting. She politely asked if it was any good, feigning moderate interest in its literary merits, and the woman replied that the first ten pages so far were rather captivating, albeit a bit sad and strange. She then asked if the woman wouldn’t mind sharing the name of this new author, just so she’d be able to be on the lookout for the title when it hit bookshelves. The woman hesitated, unsure if she was able to share somewhat confidential information with a complete stranger, then gave an awkward laugh before saying:

“Magnolia Daly.”

-----

Promising to deposit the exact amount into her account, he had asked his mom to send the money for him, knowing that if he used his own check, Navah’s mother might refuse the money, or worse, feel highly offended and hurt. Over the phone, all those years ago, his mom had only introduced herself as Maggie, no last name, so he figured the name wouldn’t be easily recognizable. In addition, his mother had kept her last name after marriage, being a writer who wanted to eventually publish something with her name on it, separate from her husband’s name, influence, and bank account. This made making a connection between him and his mom not as immediately perceivable, which was perfect.

“Why do you have to do this?” Jake had asked at a company luncheon.
“I don’t know. It just feels right.”
“I think it seems like...too much.”
“Too much money? Does it come off as burdensome, do you think?”
“No, it’s just creepy. And sad. I just think that if she ever found out the reason behind the check...she would be crushed, like as a mother.”
“I mean, it sounded like she wasn’t holding up that well from what Mrs. Dixon said, though.” Mrs. Dixon was the receptionist at the school where Navah’s mother taught until the economic crisis that occurred a few months before he started sending checks; Mrs. Dixon had also been his babysitter when he was a toddler. It was somewhat of a fluke that she had mentioned to his mom during yoga class how Navah’s mother — who sometimes let her borrow art books to browse when she was bored in the front office — was a phenomenal teacher, but now on the verge of being let go. At the mention of her last name, his mom immediately recognized it — it was rather unusual and memorable, Mrs. Dixon admitted as well — and relayed the information to him. At that point, he had been working in investment banking with Jake, straight out of college, and had been lucky enough to not have his livelihood mangled by the Great Recession; he worked constantly to keep his mind focused on something in the present because otherwise, the past kept threatening to keep him from living.
“But that’s not the point, kiddo. I know you’re thinking of this with good intentions, but it’s almost like you’re trying to make up for a person’s life with money, you know?”
He stared at his best friend for a while, collecting his thoughts before saying, “No. This is something I want to do.”

His mom, at first, didn’t agree with the task either — not because she thought he was out of his mind (which he could see others thinking), but because she was afraid it would eventually stir up trouble that should be left in the past. But he insisted that it would actually help him to heal, to know that he could help Navah’s mother out in this literal way, particularly in this time of need.
“I’ll stop once she gets back on her feet.”
“So a few months, you think?”
“However long it takes.”
He probably could have stopped with the first check since good news arrived about seven months later; Mrs. Dixon informed them that Navah’s mother had been able to get one part-time job at an arts-and-crafts-related non-profit and another as a kids’ educational events coordinator at the art museum. But he wanted to keep an eye on her, make sure nothing went awry. And when the economy went into a double-dip recession three years later, he didn’t bat an eyelash before sending off another check.

© 2012 by Sarah R.

the check (pt.1)

Not sure how plausible the storyline is, but wrote this last summer and recently got around to editing it a bit - it's longer than anything else I've published on this blog, so I've broken it up into three parts for your reading (dis?)pleasure.

(And as always, this work is mine, so don't mess.)

The Check

She remembered when the first envelope arrived in her mailbox. It was in March, years ago. She had thought that it was a mistake, that it had been addressed incorrectly or that the mailman had organized his mail haphazardly that day. But she found that the barely legible blue scrawl clearly indicated her name and her address. And then she found herself at a loss for words.

She had fallen behind on her rent at that time, unsatisfied with her job search but trying to not lose hope. She regularly visited a local resource center run by college students in the area, filling out job applications and picking up flyers when she saw something doable and, more importantly, meaningful. Her church members and her aunt tried to help out when they could, but she didn’t like being dependent on anyone for issues of money.

But it helped.

She was blown away by the amount at first. She was hesitant about cashing the check too, though she was in need, though her name was boldly written in the same blue scrawl on the “Pay to the order of:” line. She was mostly hesitant because she wasn’t sure who the sender was, the name “Magnolia Daly” not ringing any bell. Magnolia Daly's address noted that she was in Seattle, but there was no way of visiting that address, since buying a plane ticket was out of the question. The accompanying note said, “Please do not return,” and though she wanted to disobey, something about the sternness of the handwriting kept her complicit.

The check lay uncashed on her bedside table for a week and a half. Every night, before turning out the lights, she would look at the envelope, adorned in flowers and leaves and smiling teddy bears, just like one of those check-and-envelope sets she would see in the coupon pullouts of newspapers. She had always wondered if people actually ordered those from the advertisements; it seemed like one person did. She would pull out the check and examine that as well: examine the handwriting, examine the teddy bears’ faces. They smiled at one another, and the one in the bottom right hand corner smiled up at her, as if saying, it’s okay, you can use this. It’s safe.

Was it? She couldn't remember what being safe felt like.

Her husband had left for the office one day, when Navah was seven years old, and never came back. In retrospect, she should’ve guessed something was off. He had kissed her goodbye as if he was never going to kiss her again; he spent a long time at the breakfast table with Navah, asking her about 2nd grade life and making her giggle so much she could hardly keep her breakfast in her mouth. When he didn't return from work at the normal hour, she had simply assumed that he was working late, or perhaps had fallen asleep at his office. But when she finally decided to call the office, they told her that he had never come in to work that day. In the era before cell phones, it was practically impossible to reach him otherwise.

She was worried out of her mind, as well as furious, devastated, heartbroken. She had no idea why he had left, but she waited for him to return, to apologize for disappearing and scaring everyone.

He finally called after two excruciatingly long days, saying that he was doing okay and that she didn’t have to worry. The call was frustrating — he dodged questions and gave noncommittal answers.  Toward the end of their conversation, she asked if he wanted a divorce; he said he just needed some time. He said he had sent a money order in the mail as “child support” for the time being; she told him to just come back home.

The day she took the teddy bear check to the bank was one of the most nerve-wrecking days of her life. She half expected it to turn out to be a cruel joke of sorts, something that might ruin her financial reputation or come with an unwritten clause. But it went into her account, no questions asked or issues raised, and she was able to pay for two months of rent and utilities, with money left over to spend on groceries and subway fare. She sent a grateful letter to the address written on the check, but never received a reply. So, she decided to consider it a one-time deal, a stranger’s act of random kindness that God had brought to her at a time she needed it the most. Until another envelope arrived in the mail a few years later.

-----

He remembered the first thing she said to him: “Does your hair naturally stick up like that?”
“Uh...yeah,” he had answered stiltedly, unsure what to make of the petite brunette sitting next to him in the auditorium.

The group had played “Never Have I Ever” at lunchtime on that first day, a game where each person held up ten fingers and the person with the most number of fingers at the end of the game was he or she who had lived the least (each person had to go around saying something they had never done before, and if the rest of the group had, they would have to put a finger down). She was one of the few remaining, with four defiant fingers still held up; he had gotten out much earlier in the game, but it was more fun to watch.

It was her turn, and she hesitated, turning slightly pink before saying, “Never have I ever been kissed before.”
The other two looked at each other, paused, before slowly putting down a finger to a chorus of “Oooooooh”s from the circle.
She eventually won — she also had never been to Disneyworld and had never eaten a lobster before.

They didn’t talk too much in that first week because they were in different primary concentrations — she was there for biology and he was there for social studies. During the second week, they saw each other a bit more once their secondary concentrations — music for both of them — started up. They were both surprised to find that the other was a violist too.
“We don’t get enough credit,” she had said.
“It’s because there are too many bad violists out there,” he responded. She agreed, nodding mock-solemnly. They decided to practice the orchestra music together, every Thursday after lunch and before secondaries time, in room 551, the one at the end of the practice rooms hallway with the “good” piano.

“Wow, look at this!” She had held up a giant double bass case. “I think it could fit both of us if we squished in.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “That’s pretty scandalous.”
She gave him a confused look. “What do you mean?”
“It’s like saying we should share a sleeping bag or something.”
She turned pink, just like she had the first day during the game, and quickly put the case back down to open up her own viola case. “That’s not what I meant,” she said quietly.
He laughed and straightened the music on the stand. She sat down next to him, somewhat embarrassed, and smoothed her skirt once.
She cleared her throat before asking, “Do you think a bassist was practicing in here before us?”
“Well, if they were, we can just move if they come back.”

Twenty minutes had passed when they started to hear faint popping noises from upstairs. They would have missed them if she hadn’t paused to rosin her bow again.
“Is something wrong with the air conditioning?” He went over to mess around with the thermostat a bit before turning it off. The room was silent for a brief moment before the noises started again.
“That’s strange,” she pondered. They both looked outside their practice room windows and saw a few other heads poke out their doors before returning to their respective rehearsals.
He had turned on the air again and they had resumed practicing when they suddenly heard a loud crash and what sounded like screams, which jolted both of them up to their feet. Her face turned pale, paler than she already was to begin with.
“What...is going on?” she whispered.
“I don’t know,” he whispered back. “Maybe I should go check outside?” He was thinking to at least lock the main door at the other end of the hallway, just in case.
“No!” she whispered with incredible force, her anxiety wrapped up like a ball that was stuck in her throat. “It sounds too dangerous.”
She suddenly took his hand, which might have stirred teenage hormones within him in a different situation, but in that moment, it seemed to emanate both security and fear simultaneously. It unsettled him for various reasons, but he held on tightly.
“What do you think we should do?” he asked after a prolonged second of shared anxiety.
They stood there, immobile and cold. The small sliver of a window was much too small for either of them to squeeze through, and moving the piano to reach it would have caused too much noise and expended too much effort and time. There was a chance that whoever it was causing the chaos upstairs might not come down into the basement, but neither of them wanted to take any chances.
She looked at the bass case in the corner. “Maybe we should hide in there.” She looked embarrassed for suggesting such a thing again, but they both knew that was their best bet. The practice room was locked from the outside, requiring a code to get in.
They hesitated for a moment, both trying to figure out the best way to go about getting in and zipping up. They couldn’t fit side-by-side by lying down on their backs, but they would have to stack in so the case would sit sideways.
“You can go in,” she said first. “You’re taller; I can squeeze in.”
He pulled himself into the case, having the most fleeting peace of mind to momentarily feel ridiculous. She looked down at him, pondering, before zipping the case up a third of the way. She then slipped in front of him and zipped the case up from the inside, leaving a small opening at the top for air.
And they waited.

It had felt like it had been forever since they zipped up the case, but later it turned out that it had only been about six minutes before the gunman appeared in the hallway.
He had been holding his arms awkwardly at his side, as still as possible, breathing in the scent of her hair and the rosin dust from the case. Both were breathing heavily, but also as quietly as possible. When they heard the main door crash open, out of surprise and fear, he immediately wrapped his arms around her and they both seemed to stop breathing from that moment forward.

The gunshots did not seem to be methodical in any way; they seemed to just be sprayed in every which way into the practice rooms, destroying pianos and other instruments left in some rooms for safekeeping. They both heard one soft but clearly discernible cry in the distance, which got her trembling violently against him. He felt tears come to his eyes.
Then fire opened on their room. They heard the wood of their instruments splinter, the bullets ricocheting off the carpeted floor. He felt her jerk once against him and then searing pain from his left arm and left leg, but neither made a single noise, just a single sharp intake of breath from both of them. Footsteps authoritatively walked away, and he barely whispered, “Are you okay?” He thought he had felt her nod in response.

Even after silence had settled into the hallway, they stayed in the bass case until they heard police officers come downstairs to check on the rooms. Despite the incredible sting in his arm, he pulled open the zipper to face two officers staring down at them in panic, and it was then he found that she had been shot in the neck, dead upon impact.
His voice got sucked back into his throat before he let out a howl in pain and in tears.

-----

The number of casualties was 14, but this had seemed too few to her to justify Navah’s death, especially since it turned out that the main objective of the frustrated teenage gunman was to kill the music directors and destroy as much property of the music building as possible — not to kill fellow students. But investigators and psychologists determined that once an unstable person, especially a child, comes into possession of a gun, they can easily lose sight of their “main purpose,” so to say, and they quickly become trigger happy. The explanation seemed too stupid and obvious to be of any comfort to her.

She wanted to sue. She wanted to sue the summer program and the university where it was hosted out of all the money they had, but money was of no use to her at that point. She felt like her world was caving in and turning itself inside out, and she felt like she was going to go mad with grief. She wanted to mourn in peace, but she also felt like screaming at the world and exclaiming how unfair it all was. The local paper contacted her a few times for an interview, which both infuriated her and tempted her before she declined once, twice, three times. She had nothing left to say. The boy, not having fully succeeded in his “mission” (that is, killing the main director who had rejected him a spot in the program), had shot himself in the head, so she really had no one to curse. His parents had tried contacting her as well — as they did with all the victims’ families — but she hung up on them, unable to fathom what kind of negligent parents would raise their children to become like that.

Her husband had either seen the news or read the news and had driven into their old neighborhood to see her, to mourn with her. It had been nine years since she had last seen him, and he had felt like a complete stranger to her. But she let him drink with her, glass after glass, until she felt more sick from the alcohol than she did from the pain of losing her child. She let him sleep in the living room one last time, watching him furrow his eyebrows in his sleep one last time, and in the morning, asked for a formal divorce. She told him that he didn’t have to send money anymore — they no longer had a child to support.

Her mother was essentially senile and under the care of a hired nurse; her father had passed when she was thirty, so it was her aunt and uncle who prepared the funeral with her and held her as she sobbed uncontrollably at the altar. She told them she was moving into the city and getting a job as a public school teacher, what she had originally been doing before she got married and had Navah. They were worried she would harm herself or fall into serious depression if she lived by herself; she assured them that she would do no such thing. If anything, she would have to live twice as hard to make up for the vacancy that was so clearly visible in her world.

There was one last person who tried to contact her before she left: the mother of the boy who had been found with Navah. She was unsure of whether she wanted to know what Navah had said or done in her last moments. A curiosity kept her up at night after she received her voice message, but there was also a firm resistance from within — part of her was upset that between the two of them, her daughter had to die on the spot and that woman’s son could live to tell the tale. She knew she couldn’t necessarily blame the boy; at the very least, he had made sure that she wasn’t left alone, and she was thankful for that. The only thing she knew about how they were found was that he was holding her until the very end, and since she wasn’t there to do it herself, at least someone had.

She called to let the boy’s mother know that she appreciated her message, but that she also expected nothing and desired to know nothing. She mustered up the most polite thank-you-and-goodbye that she could before her throat closed up and then hung up rather abruptly. She unplugged her home phone for the next few days.

© 2012 by Sarah R.

getting back in touch

I find myself confused every so often these days because sometimes I feel like I can't really remember who I am — I mean, God's daughter and co-heirs with Christ aside (not that that doesn't essentially encompass everything that I am and aspire to be), who am I?

Roles and titles aside too: granddaughter, daughter, sister, student at X university, leader of Y, member of Z and A and B, best friend of C, mentor to D, mentee of E and F... and (hopefully) later on, employee at G, wife, mother, etc. etc. etc.

Who am I apart from the expectations and responsibilities given to me by others?