Time Theft

Time Theft

She was surprised he agreed to meet her– though she shouldn’t have been. Of course, he would be happy to sit with her as the minutes ticked by, a hand inevitably creeping across the space between them until it rested on her thigh.

At least that was how she imagined it as she sat at the vanity, smearing creams across her face one after the other. She waited until her skin was dewy, glistening, and then she patted concealer under her eyes and dusted her eyelids with shadow. Manny liked girls who were “naturally beautiful without makeup”, which meant he actually liked girls who wore makeup he couldn’t tell they were wearing. Truly bare faces made him shake his head in disgust.

“Women really do have an expiration date of 35,” he would say. He would laugh a second later, a hand protectively clasped around the back of her neck, as if he forgot that she too would one day be 35 and then 40, 45 and then 50. He wasn’t worried about that then— her inevitable decline.

Mascara, blush, lip stain. She applied the finishing touches dutifully, then sat back with a satisfied sigh.

She looked good. Would look even better in the dim lighting of the bar where they would meet. From her bursting closet she picked a knit black dress with a deep v in the front that hugged her hips like a snake skin that would soon need to be shed. Each element she chose especially for him, for her Manny.

She placed only the necessary items in her small black leather handbag: lip gloss, gum, her ID. Just enough space left for her final essential. She lifted up the opaque bottle and looked at it, backlit by the bulbous lights of her vanity mirror. She twisted it between her manicured fingers, watching the liquid splash up the sides of the bottle. Smiling slightly, momentarily lost in the past, she tucked the bottle into the bag and stood from the stool.

It was time to get her man.

–

Though she purposefully arrived late, Manny was even later. She sat at a small booth, a thin stemmed glass in front of her. She held onto it, desperate to steady her trembling hands. Even years after their breakup, he made her nervous.

Between one second and the next, a broad shouldered man appeared at the door. He grinned when he saw her, a slightly crooked smile that made her stomach flip. He looked annoyingly good. Specks of silver dotted his perfectly trimmed beard, and more wrinkles framed his eyes, and mouth, but he was still devastatingly handsome. Men aged like fine wine, while women were left to curdle. Even now she could feel herself spoiling, her smile twisting and her jowls lengthening. Her breasts sinking further and further down her chest.

“Hey beautiful,” he said, his voice a rumble in the crowded room.

“Hi, Manny.” She looked at him and then away in the manner she knew he liked. Demure. Shy. That was how he wanted his women.

“I was surprised to get your text.”

There it was, of course. She thought he would at least wait until they had a drink in them, maybe two, before exposing her weakness in reaching out. She waited, a full minute stretching between them like the pull of a string. He stared at her, waiting for her to say something, but she held his gaze instead, memorizing the green flecks in his dark eyes. “You missed me?” he said finally, inching closer to her on the bench, his thigh pressing against hers. “How long has it been? Two years?”

She scoffed before she could stop herself, then blushed. Turned it into a stilted laugh. It had been four years. Four years since he broke her heart. She was 31 at the time. “Yes,” she said. “Something like that.”

He inclined his chin slightly, a beckoning, and she knew he wouldn’t let this go. She would have to prostrate herself to satisfy him.

“I did miss you,” she said finally. “I miss the time we spent together. I want it back.”

It was true. She did miss those hours and seconds of youth. Desperately. Achingly. She wanted to wrap her fists around it and tug with all her might. To stuff it into her mouth and swallow it.

“Poor Mellie,” he said, not even trying to hide his delight. “I know it was hard for you when we broke up.”

Hard was an understatement. She broke apart. He was the man she thought she would marry, the father of her imagined children. She hadn’t just mourned him. She mourned the promised future that was stolen from her. Now she was just another desperate woman fighting against the unrelenting tidal wave of time.

“Did you miss me?” she asked, her voice coming out thinner and weaker than she could bear to acknowledge.

He turned on the bench to look at her, his hand coming to rest on her shoulder heavily. His fingers splayed, cresting down the top of her chest possessively. She looked up at him, surprised to see something akin to pity or regret in his eyes.

“Of course I missed you,” he said, his fingers tracing her collar bone distractedly. “You were the main person in my life for years. I’ll always miss you, but…”

He trailed off, taking a deep inhale and she watched his practiced demeanor slide back down into place. The moment of humanity lost to his need for control and domination. He was the same as he had always been. One second of connection with her and then a cool knive’s cut of separation. Her neck used to ache with it– the whiplash. The small moments were enough to make her long for more. Even now, she wanted to split him open and drag that part of him back to her. To amputate until he became someone who could love her.

“I have to be honest,” he said, his voice a performance of regret. “I’m dating someone. Soon to be engaged. I already have the ring. Three carats.”

He pulled his phone out of his pocket and tapped the screen, holding it up to Mellie’s face.

“This is her.”

The girl in the photo was smiling, her smooth skin elastic and taut. She couldn’t be more than 23. The makeup Mellie so painstakingly applied hardened and broke over her face. She could feel it shedding.

“How did you meet?”

He cleared his throat, adjusted in his seat. For the first time she sensed he was uncomfortable.

“She started as an intern at the office,” he said finally. “Caused a little bit of a scandal. You know how sensitive people can be. But she isn’t there anymore. She decided to leave to make things easier.”

Mellie turned to her glass, taking a sip to conceal her disdain. Yes, Mellie was sure the girl decided to leave. Just as Mellie had decided to leave behind the friends Manny didn’t like– the ones he said were too “political”. Women were happy to sacrifice their careers, ambitions, friends, and livelihood for the vaguest promise of a good man. How many times had she done so? How many times had they all?

Men were always stealing from women under the guise of empty promises. Not so long ago Manny had told Mellie he wanted to marry her. He’d talked about rings and cuts and carats. They named their future children for god’s sake. And while he talked and promised she gave and gave and gave and he took and took and took, just to discard her. Claiming they’d become too much like roommates and friends. Claiming that she didn’t inspire passion in him anymore. After all he’d taken, she was at fault for the shell that was left. She was a failure for not being able to regenerate, to inspire. What was a woman after all, when she was no longer a muse?

“That’s great. She-She’s beautiful.”

And she was. Mellie didn’t hate this woman in the photo. If anything, she would do this tonight for herself as well as for her.

“I know. She’s done some modelling on the side. Imagine how gorgeous our children will be, right?”

Mellie could imagine Manny’s children. Could imagine them with this child bride. She wished to grate the image from her brain with sandpaper.

“How about another drink,” she said. “So, we can make a toast? On me.”

He nodded his agreement. Always happy to be the center of attention. The person of honour.

She stood and walked to the bar, ordering two drinks with well-liquor. Even though he purported to have expensive taste, she knew from experience Manny could never tell the difference between Everclear or Grey Goose. He was only discerning with appearances.

As she waited for the drinks, she opened her bag and applied a fresh coat of lip-gloss, even though she knew it was futile. Lipstick on a pig. She put the tube back in her bag and her fingers brushed against the other bottle.

“Here you go,” the bartender said, placing the two glasses in front of Mellie on the bar. Like her, the woman was older. Her skin was sagging slightly, and Mellie could see the pain of a life not easily lived etched in every divot and wrinkle on her face.

Mellie handed over some crumpled bills, including a generous tip and the woman accepted them graciously, tucking the extra into her pocket. Mellie couldn’t shake the sensation that this woman was her, and she was this woman. She had the same smile lines that carved her face deeper every time a man told her to smile. The same drag around her eyes from all the tears of unmet promises and unfulfilled futures. Between them there was a fabric of experiences and disappointments, of time fading into the past. Of the devastating sense of never being able to go back.

But Mellie would go back. She would crawl and drag herself through time if necessary.

She pulled the bottle from her purse and tipped it into the left glass, swirling it in with the olive topped wooden sword. She looked between the glasses, satisfied to see they still looked identical.

When she walked back to the table, she let her hips flow back and forth, satisfied to see they still drew Manny’s eyes. He watched them, the smallest hint of lust warming his cheeks. Mellie leaned over, placing the left glass in front of Manny, and holding the right up in a salut. Manny’s posture was open, his legs spread and relaxed, as he inclined his glass upward and watched Mellie. He was victorious of course, while she had become what he had always expected she would— forgotten.

“To you, Manny,” she said, letting her eyes linger on his. “As you look forward to your engagement, I wish you luck. I can only hope that one day my time will come. Cheers”

They both tipped back their glasses and drank. Mellie kept her eyes on Manny while she swallowed, until the last dregs of the liquid passed from the glass into his hungry, gaping mouth.

There. It was done.

She could already feel her heart beating easier, her skin smoothing out and her spots fading to a porcelain gleam. Across from her, Manny coughed then cleared his throat. His face was waxy and shadowed. She didn’t care to stay to see the transformation complete. She didn’t need to see the years fall from her shoulders and push his down until they were sloped and hunched. Instead she would remember him like this– on the brink of his youthful extinction.

“It was healing to see you,” she said, standing and placing a heavy kiss on his cheek. It left behind a smear of crimson gloss. “I’m sure your fiance is waiting, so I won’t keep you any longer. I know how precious every moment is. Thanks for giving a few to an old friend.”

Manny looked surprised, but he regained his composure quickly, wishing her goodbye as she turned to walk out of the bar. Maybe he expected to sleep with her. Take one more night from her before going back to his life. But he didn’t realize then he would never take a single second more from Mellie.

Tonight, she finally took from him.