Heavenly

“The Royal Enclave has a wonderful view of the city. Should I book a table for us there, Colin?”

“Well yes, you can do so. How about the buffet from nine?”

“Very well, then. Yes, looking forward to meeting you as well.”

Beep. The phone went black and Eva lay back on her chair. Her satin, mauve shaded dress sighed on her behalf as the cloth dragged over the wooden chair. Her eyes fell on a picture, as they always did, kept on the mantle above the fireplace. It was a Polaroid, torn on one edge, placed against a crystal ashtray. A young man peeked cheerfully from the frayed picture, with brown stubble similar to newly mowed grass and eyes the shade of a glass of watered-down blue lagoon. She forced her shaking legs to stand. Her eyes had started playing a terrible game of tug of war, between watering down her cheeks and keeping it together, if only for the layer of her expensive mascara. The battle was a lost cause.

She secretly yearned to tear down her get up, feel the utter surrender of her heart as she collapsed in a heap of self-pity. Instead, she knew she had to go outside, let her tears dry in the chilly winter air, let her feet drag her places she didn’t want to go, and smile at people who didn’t deserve the effort. So, she bent down to strap on her heels but if someone had had them replaced with battle armor, she wouldn’t have flinched. One last look in the mirror, she made herself laugh by thinking of a weeping banshee wrapped in screaming glitter. The mirth soon dissolved as her eyes slid to the picture again. Her nose tingled with his phantom cologne. She could feel his body pressed to her back. Him tracing his finger from the back of her ear to fingering her dewdrop earring.

“Angelic.”

Eva slammed the door behind her back. She tore down the stairs. She knew that if she didn’t hurry out, her body would drag her back to the black hole that was her bed, which had a clear view of the mantle. Click, click, click. The ends of her heels slammed the asphalt like ballpoint pens. Before she could flag down a cab, the chilly air grabbed her without any warning and she pulled her shawl closer but that didn’t help. As she clambered into the cab, her mind began coming up with things she would like wrapped around her. Perhaps a fur-lined coat, the warmth of her room’s fireplace. His arms.

Horn after horn blasted through the thin glass window of the cab, shrill voices of New Yorkers shouting and the rancid smell of diesel together concocted yet another reason for her to consider heading back. But she soldiered on. The Royal Enclave was only twenty minutes away but it felt like two hours before the car pulled to a screeching stop before the restaurant. Even with her lack of enthusiasm, she had to admit that the place was pretty. Gorgeous lights crisscrossed paths and rose up the length of the building, lighting it up like a Christmas tree, topped at the very end with a sign that read, “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out”.                               

Her mind doubled over, lurched, and then launched into memory. White pillows, creamy bed sheets, bare chests, and his husky morning voice breaking into an out-of-tune song, on her special request. “To die by your side, dear Evangeline is such a heavenly way to–”

“Fan of The Smiths, are yah?” Colin stood behind Eva, a big bouquet of lilies in hand. He wore a well-rehearsed smile on his lips, a simple black suit, and a red tie which was two shades too bright to match. His face was shaven clean and a layer of cosmetics shone in the golden light.

“I wouldn’t call myself a fan. Heard a few songs of theirs.” She gently responded. Of course, she wasn’t about to mention how the first thing she had done was stash all their Smiths records under the bed when she had gotten her letter of regret. It always made her laugh through her tears how simply the government ‘extended their regret’ when they were the ones who had sent him off to his muddy death.

The sliding glass doors did well in keeping out the chill and Eva shivered as she sidled into the warmth, Colin guiding her forward with a touch on her waist. Inside, a manager dressed in white searched for their names for far too long in a big, brown book and then took them to a table which was far too small. Her chair was pulled back graciously by her date and when both of them were seated, the air grew uncomfortably silent. After a few moments, Colin flashed his signature tight-lipped grin.

“I must say, Eva, you look absolutely gorgeous.”

Eva dipped her lips in a glass of sparkling water before replying. Her mind reminded her, however uselessly, about how he used to call her Evangeline, one of the only people to do so. How the use of her full, formal name could be twisted to make her feel more loved, more comfortable, and more intimate. But then again, he could do almost anything.

“Why, thank you, Colin.” Her lips responded. Again, the silence found its way in and formed a giant cloud of dust between them.

A waiter arrived carrying a platter of menus and she sighed with relief. The young waiter bent down to press a beautiful silver menu on the table when her eyes locked themselves onto the nametag pinned to the waiter’s chest. Aiden.

Blast. Another blast. Was it fireworks? Or was it happening in her mind? When her eyes came to focus again, she saw Colin staring at her with lips slightly agape, the waiter had a blush sneaking past his cheeks and the sparkling water was rolling off the table and onto her lap, from where she had unconsciously spilled it. The room felt small and constricted, her lungs cried aloud for air. The silence didn’t bother her now but rather she welcomed it, better than the blasts her mind wouldn’t stop hearing. She whispered an apology which seemed to un-pause the situation; Colin offered his handkerchief with a smile and the waiter left for other tables. Colin’s handkerchief soaked up the moisture from her skirt and her mind slipped again like it stood on packed ice and just couldn’t standstill.

We regret to inform you about the honorable perish of soldier Aiden Smith during his services in the militia. He stood tall and saved many of his field mates before succumbing to his wounds. As a token of our repentance and as compensation, we would like to offer…

Eva ordered for herself a plate of Botticelli and Colin smiled flirtatiously before saying, “Make that two.” A few taps sounded on the floor with her heel before she began speaking.

“The weather is quite chilly, is it not?”

“Certainly. Though, I can’t help but feel concerned for our countrymen at the front lines. Living in tents, giving nightly patrol and all in this wretched weather…”

“And when they die, their wives are given a wad of cash as if that is the whole worth of their husbands who will never come back home again.”

A full minute passed before Eva realized that she actually hadn’t said it, but the words had been screamed loud enough in her head to make it seem real. His eyes, expectant of an answer hovered around hers before slipping down to her red-painted lips. Eva cleared her throat.

“Yes, of course. My concern and sympathy for them as well.”

Colin recounted the tale of his family moving from Asia to America and something big and grand that his grandfather had done for the country but the words jumbled up into a ball of nothing which she chomped down like the basil leaves on her pasta. Instead, she looked at him. How his chin was so shiny it refracted the light from the chandelier and how his eyes just weren’t blue enough. He swirled his fork against the plate to gather some pasta and popped it into his mouth.

On a similar chair, Aiden sat. His stubble was rough, rubbing sweet scratches on Eva’s hand as she grazed it down his face. His hair was all over the place, not having made acquaintances with a comb since they left the comfort of a hurricane of bed sheets. His ice-blue eyes outshone the tube lights and they laughed aloud in between giving their order of exactly six slices of garlic bread and nine wontons. Giggles ran around their table like babies who first learn to walk and every single touch was an invitation to fairylands. The waitress had rolled her eyes, but could not quite feel offended. Their newly marital bliss roared through the pub like a forest fire.

“…and then of course the gold medal for outstanding social services belonged on my grandfather’s neck… Are you listening?”

“No, I’m not. I’m not because I’m in love. I have been in love since the summer of 1969 and I can’t help it, I can’t help it anymore. Everywhere I look it’s him, he has ingrained himself so deeply I can’t scrub him out of my skin…and believe me, I’ve tried. I feel him with me all the time; he is here right now as well. But in reality, he is buried somewhere under a heap of mud and rubble with an unmarked stone. No one to kiss him goodbye or to bring him flowers. But I feel him…in the thread hanging from the seam of this dress where he had gotten his watch hooked, from the shoes I wear which he used to take off every night and in my everything because he is in my nails, my hair and in the last breadth I remember breathing before drifting off to sleep.”

Without much guessing, she knew that she hadn’t actually said these words but had let them run a carousel in her mind as they had for the past year.

A few bills were shared without much argument and Colin hurried out of the restaurant leaving Evangeline to gather her shawl and exit slowly through the glass doors. The open, burgundy sky which greeted her outside put a smile on her face, much like the one we smile after crying for something we have lost. 

On the ride back home, she let her mind wander, laying back on her seat she let go of the reigns from her bloodied and line-stricken hands. That seemed to untie the barbed wire wound around her lungs as well. Breadth after breadth she took in, most smelling like Aiden’s hand, rubbed with sand and soil. She let the memories come, felt the rainfall on her, and wet her; the very rain she pretended she wasn’t under all this time.

She let the emerald shade of the cab seats remind her of Aiden’s crisp, hand washed uniform the day he left. He had raised her hand to his lips and somehow that was passion enough for Eva’s cheeks to flame. The driver’s golden, round glasses were similar to the pair he wore, and she let that similarity light a smile. Aiden would wear those, his hair cascading over his forehead, as he read military letters.

“I’ll be back before you know it mon amour…”

She resolved to make him regret that promise, once she met him again. She was sure of it. She could almost taste the kisses he would leave on her face, as a mark of apology.

Eva kneaded the black asphalt with her bare feet as she walked towards her home, heels dangling from her arms. She imagined herself getting swept off her feet in a bridal style cradle as she crossed the threshold, the way he did it, not once but several times after their church wedding. Things never seemed to slow down with him; he didn’t make the dust settle but rather was the wind that made it flutter. Her fingers twirled at their wedding rings, hanging from a chain on her neck. His was bent and had dust encrusted in its grooves. She didn’t wish to clean it. With a powerful tug, out slid the dirty Smiths records from under the bed, and with that their wedding photo held between seashells glued together to form a frame. The seashells from Coney Island.

Her red sundress floating in the breeze, bronze skins clashing together, and love which refused to dissolve with the waves.

The record player began spinning, going round and round in joy, perhaps because it still felt its owner’s last touch. With tears, seashells, and pictures together, Eva lay back on her bed, which had a clear view of the mantle.

“To die by your side, dear Evangeline is such a heavenly way to die.”