I leaned against my ruby red car, feeling a split second of torture as my tshirt rode up and the bare skin of my back touched the icy suface of the side of the trunk I was balancing against.
I jumped and pulled it back down over my belt.
Dangit, February. A million times warmer than January had been…but I was still from California.
I think I’ll always be a Californian at heart.
It’s a miracle I’d finally stopped wearing flip-flops with my coats.
For now, at least.
The chill Northern wind blew the smell of gas high in the air as I waited for my tank to fill, and I felt my hair blow behind my shoulder.
“I like your shirt.”
Her voice was scratchy, timid, rough with disuse or years of cigarettes, maybe both.
I raised my eyes to find the owner of it, and looked into two green orbs peering at me from the pump station directly across from my car.
I quickly glanced back down at my own body, taking inventory in the way most people do when a compliment is received – as though a kind word on something they’re wearing makes them completely forget what they put on that morning.
It was a chocolate colored shirt with two hot pink conversation hearts on it, in honor of the current day: Valentine’s Day. The upper heart said, “LUV”, the slightly lower heart said, “MEH”.
It matched my own heart lately with my series-of-unfortunate-events status love life, and “the verbal equivalent of a shrug” seemed to be summed up quite eloquently within those last three little capital letters.
I raised my eyes again as my mouth had already started to form my response. I studied the green eyed woman.
Her face was gaunt, and she looked like she hadn’t had a truly restful night’s sleep in months. Her dark blonde hair was in a sloppy ponytail as if she’d just thrown it up in a hurry as she ran out the door.
She wore a fraying oversized coat, and she fiddled with the strings on it as she looked nervously back at me.
“Thank you,” I said, “as you can see, I’m truly getting into the Valentine’s Day spirit…” I grinned at her.
She smiled shyly at me then. She was missing several teeth.
How old was she? In her 30s? 40s? 50s? It was too hard to tell. Her life had obviously been a hard one.
She stepped out from behind the cement barrier, came 2 steps closer to me.
She was silent.
My gas continued to pump.
“I like your sweater too.”
Her voice was like a whisper against the wind.
“Thank you, my mom gave it to me. Even though I’m not a huge fan of Valentine’s Day this year, somehow wearing a sweater with hearts on it makes me feel a little bit better.”
She watched me for a moment, then lowered her eyes to her feet. Someone shouted across the parking lot.
She moved a rock with her toe.
She spoke again, even more quietly this time in her scratchy voice.
“I have a cake in the backseat with a rose on it. I just bought it, but I don’t know what I’m going to do with it.
I’m alone today.”
The statement was so simple.
So honest.
In that moment at the gas station, this perfect stranger looked at me, and her eyes became glassy for just a moment.
I felt my heart beating, and for a second, I could have sworn I felt hers. Two humans with different experiences, upbringings, habits, memories, hobbies, lifestyles…probably different everything. But we were both human, and in that moment, I felt it.
She held my gaze.
“So am I. But if I were you, I’d use this silly holiday as an excuse to eat that cake tonight. Guilt free.”
Her tired face split into a real smile, and I thought it was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen.
The gas pump clicked, signifying my full tank.
We said our goodbyes, and I drove away.
I wish I’d been able to say, “let’s sit here right now and eat that cake together.”
I wish that in this day and age, there was a non-creepy way to be…friendly. To offer a hug to a teary stranger. To ask her what I could do to help her. Maybe I should have asked her anyway. Maybe I missed my shot.
Tonight I sit here, thinking about the woman with the green eyes, thinking about that cake in her backseat with the rose on it. Thinking about her loneliness. Thinking about all the people in the world who buy cakes hoping to have someone to share them with.
There are so many Eleanor Rigbys. There are so many Father Mckenzies.*
Look for them.
*Eleanor Rigby, The Beatles
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