A True Story of Happenstance and Love
I walk into the hobby shop/used book store with my husband who is going to be hypnotized by the comic books and toy soldiers for the next 25 minutes. I decide as usual to get lost in the stacks of second-hand books in the back. I’m such a sucker for classics and humor but today there’s no new humor, just a lot of Erma Bombeck and classics are a bust as well. Who needs two ratty copies of “Lord of the Flies”? I peruse the new arrivals looking for anything interesting. My eye lands on a book of poetry. It’s a small, red, hard bound, just my style. I pick it up and see Poems of Love. I don’t really subscribe to romance in general. In fact I warned my husband if he ever bought me roses and a lovey little teddy bear on Valentines Day I’d promptly divorce him. I’m more of a dirty limerick great bottle of wine kinda gal. I put the book back.
Stacks and stacks loom ahead and I walk through the endless hallway of romance novels and then the looming wall o’ sci-fi. I’m not finding anything so I find Dan. There he is talking to Jason, crap we’re going to be here even longer. I wonder back into the books, it’s hard to imagine that all these books have been read. Some are dog eared and well loved; you can see how many times the spine has been cracked open. I always assume the ones that look new aren’t very good, they haven’t been loaned to the neighbor or re-read on vacation. I imagine they’ve been looked at once or twice and then traded in here at the book cemetery. Some books sit for so very long on the shelves that every visit I look at their familiar old spines like visiting an old aunt in the nursing home. Yep, there she is How to Keep Slim, Healthy and Young With Juice Fasting and good old Architecture in Spain: Journal Articles Published 1970-1985. I wonder what will become of them.
I look out into the store and Dan is immersed in the bargain bin – I’ve got at least 10 more minutes. I’m back at the new arrivals wall. There it is again, the little red book. I have now wandered around these books so long I feels like it would be sacrilege to not buy something, so I pick it up. Maybe it has some good poetry in it. I open to the Contents page and find a long list of love poems and hey, someone has underlined their favorites! I just love finding books that people have written in. It feels like you are taking a peek into their psyche and how personal to find a book of love poems that has been written in. I’m so definitely getting this book. Look they’ve underlined The Flowers Name by Robert Browning, Sonnet by William Shakespeare, The Lady’s "Yes" by Elizabeth Barret Browining, Adam & Eve by John Milton, and oh delight! They’ve underlined Annabel Lee by Edgar Allen Poe. I Love Poe, this underliner has picked some of my favorites! I am sooo getting this book. Oh hey look there’s an inscription in the inside cover…
Jen
Read, and know my love.
… It’s my husband’s handwriting. It’s unmistakable, it’s his. He has the worst, most recognizable, left slanting way of inventing his own letters. I’m sure of it… Jen is his ex-girlfriend just before me. I’m sweating. I put in back on the shelf. I pick it up. I put in back on the shelf. I pick it up again. It can’t be – I find Dan. “Honey? Wanna see something funny?”. Dan looks, “Hm”. That’s all he says??!! Hm. Oh crap, I have to hear him say it… “Is that your handwriting?” am I mad he loved before me, or that he was never an immature foolish mush around me? I warned him not to be an immature foolish mush, maybe I want him to be a foolish mush, maybe he can contain the foolish mush when he’s with me ‘cause his love is containable… crap, I’m over thinking this. “Yep, that’s my handwriting, were in the world did you find this?” he says. Freaking duh! “Where do you think I found it?” oh God, that sounded mean and crabby, why am I even mad? I’m so NOT getting this book. “Give it here; I’ll just put it back.” I snap. “Are you mad?” he asks “Nope” is all I can muster. I can’t even help it now I don’t even know why I’m upset. I put the book back on the shelf and find Dan.
I am sulking and my mind is racing, can I just leave that book on the shelf for someone else to buy? They’ll buy it and think how nice it is that this man loved this woman so much he gave her poems. Well screw that! He doesn’t love her anymore! He never really knew what love was till he met me! Screw them thinking that! I have to have that book. I go back and pick it up. I buy it and then the inscription will be sitting on my bookshelf, in OUR house, it would be like he is cheating in OUR library for eternity and our children will look in the book and SEE it. They will catch him in the act! Maybe I’ll buy it and then burn it. I’ve gone insane… I put the book back.
Dan walks over, he knows I am clearly upset. I can see the desperation in his eyes, I know, it’s just too weird – how can he fix this for me? I tell him “Darling, you are going to buy this book for me and you are going to change the Jen to Jenny”. Dan looks relived. He buys the book and asks the guy at the cash register for a pen. The “ny” is added and now the book can come home with us. I don’t think I will probably ever read the book though. It’ll just sit on the shelf next to the books that Dan meant to buy for me and our children will never know the difference.
What would you do?
14 comments:
Will you marry me?
Only if you buy me good wine and recite dirty limericks?
Done.
If were only lesbians...but alas, our hearts belong to anohter.
I still haven't ruled out this lesbian thing.
Men are too difficult.
There once was a girly Green Bean
Whose ass was fiece in her jeans
Her tits are sublime
And so is her mind
She is truly the one of my dreams
I wonder if I could wear that around town on a t-shirt.
I'm gonna go with a "probably not" on that one.
This is the PG-13 version...I had another one with the word "cream". Use your imagination.
Little odd, no?
I'm not sure this is where I expected this post to go... but ok - I'll go with dirty Limericks.
Here's one of my fav.
When I was a little boy
Snuggled safe in bed
They said I should play with my soldiers
If I wanted to get ahead
I looked down at my soldiers
Generals and Majors and said
Sod the higher orders
(And I played with my privates instead!)
Now that I look - I don't think that fits the meter of a limerick
Sorry - I won't head down that road again...my dirty mind took over...I was helpless to its power.
I can't do dirty limericks -- too repressed in my old age. :-)
But my thought upon reading this is (and this sounds corny) -- I think you were meant to find that book, and look in it. You were obviously drawn back to it more than once. I don't know if it's so you could have a discussion with Dan whereby he reassures you that you are his ultimate love, or something like that. Maybe it's just a reminder that you two were meant to be, that he had a life before you but the one he chooses now is the one with you?
OK, I'm getting sappy. But hope you see what I'm saying.
It's ok the whole story is sappy
I've often wondered if the universe was trying to tell me something or if it was total coincidence. I wonder if I'd left the book there if I'd still remember that it was out there. I wonder how it got there, did she hang on to it that long (it was in new arrivals) or was it just that her parents finally cleaned out her room.
Dan never re-assures, he just states things very plainly and you can choose to believe him or not. He never lies. No kidding, he’s the guy that people call on the phone to start the conversation with “I need an honest and brutal opinion…” I’ve learned not to ask him if I’m afraid to hear the answer. I wonder how much easier this situation would’ve been had Dan just lied and said “Nah, I’d never write anything like that.”
I can't get over the fact that Dan's ex just happened to sell or donate this book to this particular store, where you just happened to go in with Dan, and just happened to find the book. The coincidences are unreal.
It's in the list of wild wierd unbelievable things that have happened to me. Yes, there is a list. Sometimes I feel like I'm in that movie "Signs".
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