Copper Arrows

See a penny pick it up all day long you’ll have good luck. Desiree Malone wasn’t superstitious yet, she needed something good in her life. 

She glanced at Mr & Mrs Franco they were good people and her job as their home care nurse was a godsend. She amended her thoughts she needed something better, luckier. An apartment she could afford that didn’t take two hours to get to in horrible rush hour traffic. One that was in a neighbourhood that didn’t have her clenching the mace that hung on her key chain.

The wind picked up, somewhere wind chimes rattled, and the sun cast a glimmer on the copper coin. If Desiree had been a believer of signs, she would have taken this as an omen. Since she didn’t, there wasn’t any hesitation as she picked up the penny.

Mrs Franco’s waited at the battered Toyota she bought off her foster mother when she aged out of the system. Making sure Mr Franco’s wheelchair got placed in the boot, she slipped into the driver’s seat. 

They pulled away from Windfall Senior Apartment headed for their destination. Twenty minutes later they pulled up to the park where a Welsh lad met a New York girl.

It surprised Desiree when her old social worker recommended to the Franco’s. She figured a job tidying up after old people would suck. Before the job, she never realised how much the elderly hated being frail. As the years went on, Desiree found comfort in Mrs Franco’s sage relationship advice. Mr Franco was quiet unless he was having a good day.

Desiree secured Mr Franco’s wheelchair next to the park bench and sat next to Mrs Franco. At 8:30 on the dot, Mrs Franco would remind her husband about their first date. Here, under the willow tree with love notes tied around it. 

Desiree didn’t know when the willow first became a place where lovers left messages to each other. Even after all of Mrs Franco’s advice, she got no one to stay around long enough to give them her heart.

Desiree glanced at the red box next to the tree with a stack of pencils next to it. The box contained different prompts for couples. Tell your lover a future you’d like to see, place it on the tree to watch it come true, come back once it’s fulfilled. Offer your gratitude to help new the saplings planted around the park to grow. Desiree wondered how many couples were still blissfully happy.

While she waited, she looked at the penny in her palm. It was the strangest coin she’d ever seen. Stretched out to look more oval and melded flatter. 

Mrs Franco shifted beside her and Desiree thought she needed luck more than her today. Sure, life wasn’t great for her, but Mrs Franco was a part of the reasons things had changed. Not being able to share the intimacy of a love of 39 years had to sting.

“For luck.” Desiree placed the penny in Mrs Franco’s palm. The minute it glimmered and the street lamp busted, Desiree re-thought their luck. “Is everyone okay?” Darkness shrouded all the lights around the park had gone out.

                             ***

Logan Franco glanced at his sweet Ellie. Everything seemed clearer than it had for a long time. His mind had been murky, a jigsaw puzzle of pieces of his life. No matter how hard he tried to surface, he never broke through the polluted waters of his mind. Even his legs felt less frail. Wiggling his toes, he felt the sensation of numbness. The kind of numbness that sparked to life after a bit of walking to wake up a sleeping body part. 

He smiled. 

Logan turned his head to the caramel-brown goddess before him. He didn’t understand what was happening. Ellie looked exactly as she did during their first date. Knitted sleeveless shift dress in stripes of yellow and orange at the top and navy at the bottom. Complete with yellow stockings and white knee-high boots. Even her hair was bone straight by a hot comb until the end where large curls fluffed out to hit her shoulders. 

Logan knew from the wheelchair he sat in that something wasn’t right. Although his mind clear, he knew she was no longer the 18-year-old girl he fell in love with that summer night. The summer of sneaking around, Motown, and chasing dreams. Unsure of anything, he waited to get back the feeling in the rest of his body before he moved.

                              ***

Ellie Franco was positive she got acid slipped into her medication. She trusted Desiree completely. The girl that came so that Desiree could go to her night classes at the community college was another story. 

There had to be a reason she felt like her old self, and Logan looked like his. Dusky blonde hair replaced grey. Shaggy bangs in his face, and not the closed to none existent, so Desiree didn’t have one more thing to worry about. Brown bellbottoms, shielding dancer thighs, and a loose white pirate top. Round sunglasses blocked most of his face.

Ellie thought the same thing looking at him she thought that first night. They’d get caught for sure who wore sunglasses at night? But they didn’t have to worry about people harassing them for loving each other. Not during this era. Black and white couples were less of a stigma.

Ellie wondered if she should say something. She glanced at Desiree, who had taken out her cellphone and help her mouth agape.

“Mrs Franco? Mr Franco?”

“Oh, thank God! I haven’t gone crazy!” Logan declared. He furrowed his brows as he looked from his wife to their caretaker. “Unless I’m dying. That’s it, isn’t it? I’m seeing you like this because it’s when I fell head over heel.”

“Well, if that’s the case, I’m dying too. Why’s it so dark? Shouldn’t there be light and a tunnel?” 

“Uh... It’s the penny I gave you.”

“Penny?” Logan raised his eyebrow and glanced between the two ladies.

“That’s right, you gave me this thing for luck.” Ellie raised the odd coin up to the moonlight. The trio watched it glimmer and spin around in her hand. “Pennies don’t do whatever this one is doing. Where did you get that penny?”

“I picked up outside the senior apartments.”

“Ellie, who cares where she got it luv, we have our youth back. Let’s enjoy it. Do you The Parlour is still open? A banana split is calling my name.”

“Where do you think you’re going? Do you even know where we are?”

“Chestfield Park, which means The Parlour is three blocks over. Maybe. It’s been a few years, eh? Coming luv?” Logan held out his hand to his wife.

“A few years? No, it’s been a few decades, decades, Logan. We should figure this penny situation out it could be dangerous.”

“Magic pennies giving us our youth back on our anniversary sounds like a gift. Come on, baby let’s go celebrate.” Logan stepped closer to his wife and teased her lips apart for a heated kiss.

                           ***

Desiree didn’t know what to do, she wasn’t used to the Franco’s being hormonal teenagers. She wanted to leave them their privacy, but what if the magic gave out? Mr Franco would need help to get back into his wheelchair. “We should take the car to The Parlour, it’s still open by the way.”

“Do we have to its four blocks at the most? Please, I have walked in, I can’t remember how long. Plus, to get to hold my girl’s hand down the street would be freeing.”

Desiree bit her lip. She didn’t know about this, on the one hand, she got it. The duo before her never got to live in their love without oppression during their time. Before she could answer, the Franco’s were off chatting and joking down the lit park path. Desiree looked up at the sky. “Ok universe since you’ve given them this gift, keep them safe.”

                           ***

Ellie never felt so happy in her life. She and Logan were walking down the street together. Hand entwined together. No snarky comments from people. “Little sister you head messed up they’ve got you enslaved.” She understood what the civil rights movement was all about. How could she not? She had two uncles and an aunt that were part of the black panthers. But at 18 all she wanted to do was love the man swinging his hand in hers. No chatter about how wrong they were, how disconnected to her roots she’d become.

Ellie was sure love could never be wrong. She smiled at Logan when he opened the door to The Parlour.

“Whoa, it looks the same. Red vinyl and the jukebox’s still here. Think it’s still a dime?”

“Not even with magic in our pocket.” She laughed at his disappointed face. “What say you buy me that sundae soldier?”

Logan saluted her and kissed the back of her hand before he walked up to the counters.

“They would have bought you guys the menu,” Desiree said, sitting into the seat in the booth across from Ellie. “I know you don’t want to think about this, but in case things change, I put the wheelchair in the boot.”

“Don’t mention anything about whatever has happened to us when Logan gets back. You see Desi, my husband was a dancer, and he was good, broadway good. I never mention it out of fear he’ll hear despite everything. Tonight Logan and I are, Logan and Ellie, not Mr & Mrs Franco let us be that will you?”

“Of course.”

                         ***

Logan watched his wife eat the chocolate sauce off the spoon he offered her. He traced his fingers on the fluff of curls at her shoulders. 

Looking at a waitress who was watching them, his back stiffed. Logan prepared himself for her to walk over and tell him he couldn’t do that here. He blushed when she finally came over and leant to whisper in his ear. “Be a nice young man and spare your chaperone from the heavy make-out sessions.”

At first, he didn’t understand the waitress, then he saw Desiree. She looked everywhere but at him and Ellie as she tore napkins into bite-size pieces. He’d never been so giddy in his 75 years. 

The waitress who looked a decade younger than he had been an hour ago wasn’t disgusted. She was reprimanding him about his horn doggedness. 

Logan tried to temper his need to laugh. He couldn’t help wanting to touch his wife. It’d been too long since his body could do anything. To love her openly was enough for him to nod his head.

After their sundae, they went to the beach. The three of them played in the arcade on the pier all night.

Logan hadn’t realised until that moment how lonely he and Ellie were in lives. Neither of them had friends. Coming to the south from Welsh was already something unheard of in the 60s. Most thought American didn’t have culture or class. Logan found America intriguing and planned to backpack through it while he took a gap year. He never suspected his trip would take him to a Carolina girl who had plans to move to New York. He especially didn’t think they’d leave New York’s crazed bubble. Everyone from the Upper East Side to Harlem had ideas of what and how he and Ellie should behave. He’d lost a few jobs under famed Broadway directors who told him exactly how they felt about his feelings.

Walking down to the beach, he stripped off his clothing. He kept on the boxers they bought in a CVS to replace his adult diapers.

“Ouch!”

Logan turned away from the water when he heard Ellie’s voice behind him. He looked down with her to the sand where the penny spun faster and faster.

“It burned me.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Desiree said.

They continued to watch the penny until it shot out a copper light. It hit Ellie first who fell back, Logan shouted and tried to reach her but the other light knocked him out. Desiree stared at the pair with uncertainty. She was about to call for an ambulance when Ellie sat up.

“Eros said he hadn’t seen people fight for such pure love in a long time. He said our second chance was a gift.” Ellie blinked back tears and went over to Logan.

“I can’t believe he shot us with his arrows!” Logan shook his head as he sat up. “That freaking hurt.”

“That light was arrows?”

Ellie and Logan nodded.

“Hey, you got your youth back are you really going to complain.”

“Well, yeah... I guess not.” Logan turned to his wife. “It’s been one hell of an anniversary after all.”