I’m Amanda. I’ve got wide eyes, a smart mouth, and a MetroCard. And I’m not afraid to use them.
Tonight could have been that night. I didn’t love him yet, but mentally prepared for it. We sat in a vinyl booth watching the windows cloud with cold. He brought a notebook of poetry, and I didn’t think that was trite. This was before I convinced him not to smoke, back in the days when one could enjoy a coffee and cigarette in a diner.
Otis Redding’s live performance of “Try A Little Tenderness” is playing on Youtube. Cade is quiet; I don’t even know if he’s paying attention.
When Garden of Eden, my local chain gourmet market, sold cartons of raspberries for $1.25 a few weeks ago, I thought I’d died and gone to a sixties commune. The fact that I rushed to the sale on a break during work, generating enough sweat to glisten Bob Dylan’s entire fan base, confirmed my thinking. Ditto for the sweet, stomach gurgling tripping after eating four cartons consecutively.
My dad used to like to tease my mom about how the more educated she became, the less she actually knew how to do. I viewed this as an overt display of insecurity that he was married to a woman with both nice boobs and a Master’s degree, when he merely finished high school, followed by a few college courses. And he doesn’t have nice boobs, either.
Cade is trying to impress me with his Spanish.
Cade: Yo soy Amanda’s butt.
When you’ve dated someone awhile, but can still remember life before the relationship (B.C. in my case), the little anniversaries mean a lot. Cade and I can’t agree when we started dating, but we can’t argue the significance of Sakura Matsuri, the annual Cherry Blossom Festival at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. We went last year when my camera was a new plaything with all sorts of functions I didn’t know how to use, and I guess you could say the same thing about our relationship. We were total rookies, having fought once. We’re old pros now. In fact, we’ve earned Heisman trophies for arguing. I’m the MVP, Most Valuable Pouter.
Tonight my window’s open wide as the golden-petaled daffodils that line the sidewalks. It was a beautiful weekend in NYC. The spring fashions were finally unhindered by jackets and sweaters. Flip flops revealed pale, boot-distressed feet. My freckles square-danced in the sunlight.
I ought to write
something about
today before my
feet betray the
desire to remember,
hot water washing
away the caked,
discolored
soreness that comes
of laughter and
adventure and walking
step after step
through neighborhoods
that change like
seasons.
Yesterday was the one year anniversary of Cade and me not hitting it off on the first date.
