Our Story

Chapter 1

     “Richard.” I stare comfortably over our corner table in the coffee shop at the young man across from me. “Why do you suppose people find love so profound?” I muse, absentmindedly twirling my coffee stirrer with a finger, swirling the creamy liquid, causing a welcoming aroma to rise into my nostrils. “Other emotions might be discovered for the first time in someone's life, but love... people tend to make a big deal of what they call 'true love'.” I say, thoughtful. My mind is working it's way back to yesterday's noon tea, when my second eldest sister proudly and giddily, announced her engagement to Scott Winfield, licensed pediatrician.

    My second eldest sister is studying to be a nurse practitioner, so immediately Scott was happily accepted into the family. None of us have actually met Scott yet, so a party was promptly planned for the noon bell the following day. Today, that would make it. It's a warm Sunday, for March, and every member of the family is going to be there, except for Aunt Julia, a strictly conservative Christian woman with high expectations and a fierce devotion to all things involving the church. No one really minds when she doesn't show up on Sunday outings. Her tendency to preach her morals at anyone in a ten foot radius have made things terribly tense, on more than a few occasions.

    I snap myself back, and focus on Richard's face, which has molded into a familiar expression of ponderance. I stay quiet, waiting patiently. I can tell he's formulating all the possibilities in his head, and finding eloquent sentences to match. Finally his face opens up, and I stop stirring my coffee, all ears.

    “I would think,” he says in a low, rumbly tone that indicates a thought process in the workings. All the girls in his class fall under a strange spell whenever he gets thinking hard and speaking at the same time, and I briefly wonder if this could be why. It might not. “I would think that love is so profound, because it is the one thing that we humans are set on this earth to find.”

    The statement is almost romantic and I'm mildly surprised by his answer, thus far, but I keep it off my face. His answers always surprise me. “Of course, some may beg to differ on this matter, but what other meaning could there be to living, than to find something you are truly passionate about. Love intensifies that notion, because, to find one thing you can be truly, fully, consumedly passionate about is remarkable enough,” he pauses for a moment, stealing my coffee stirrer, “but to have the object of your passion have the same emotions directed towards you...” I'm watching his hands, as he moves the coffee stirrer in a straight path to mine, which is motionless, and lets it rest there. “I would imagine the reaction to be explosive.” In agreement, I nod, as Richard crushed both stirrers together in an impossibly elegant way, then casually reaches over to tap the face of the gold wrist watch I'm wearing.

    “Don't you have somewhere to be?” He asks, eyebrows raised in a knowing manner. I glance down and check the time. 11:59 a.m., with the secondhand already halfway around to the six. I sip the remains of my coffee, and shake my head.

    I don't feel like meeting Scott so much anymore.

 

    The bell for the start of eighth period rings, jolting my brain from a far off place. Apparently, Scott is a very nice man that my mother adores, and my father approves of. Cousin Claire was casting envious looks at Kate, my sister, the whole evening. Or so Kate had told me. I can believe that.

    Paula slips quietly into the previously empty seat beside me, obviously unhappy with this seating arrangement. Little does she know she's only sitting there because she doesn't speak much, and therefore, I can tolerate her.

    Richard, naturally, is the last one to show up, dodging into class seconds before the bell rings. I roll my eyes, and he catches it, shooting me a glare. I grin on the inside, and keep my face straight. He can read me anyway though, and gives and injured huff, turning his back to me and the rest of the class, as he begins writing on the chalkboard with a thin stick of plaster-of-paris, which miraculously never seems to rub off onto his fingers.

    His handwriting is scrawly, and swirly, and appealing. I’d be even more pleased though, if he weren’t writing what he happened to at the the moment.

    “Homework: Exs. 15-27, pg. 230 and an answer to the following question: Why do people find love so profound?”

    I swear I hear one of the preppy girls swoon. Richard, my teacher, turns back to the class, positively beaming. God, sometimes I hate that man.