~This
story was previously published in The
First Line (2005).
"That
was the best game we've ever had!"
Her eyes were shining as the setting sun glinted off her long dark hair
with the pink streaks. She looked like a
little girl instead. Instead of the 25
year-old with a wasted B.A. in English, suffocating as an administrative
assistant that she was.
He
dumped the Scrabble tiles into the box without another thought. She suddenly looked like she'd been
stabbed.
"What
are you doing!" She was standing
and looked agitated. She was digging her
nails into her palms. The blood started
to drip again. He wondered, not for the
first time, why she filed her nails to a point.
He
looked shocked. "Wha' "
"The
perfect game! The perfect game! It's gone!"
She
sat down and looked about to sob. He
looked around the park to make sure no one was looking. "Look," he said covering her hand
with his, "we know we played the perfect game. We know we did it, finally, we used every
tile, and we know the score was exactly even." The wind stirred the leaves at his feet. He put his hand in his pocket, fingering the
blue velvet box that he kept there like a talisman – the box that would come so
close to making a public appearance and then disappear again-- and instead
grabbed a clean napkin from lunch.
"Here," he said, handing it to her so she could dry her
hands. She stood, wiped her hands, shook
her head, as if to shake a thought out of it and then smiled -- off they went
for coffee at the new place around the corner, as planned.
*************
