Romance Briefs

Romance Briefs: Online Chronicles - Like a Box of Chocolates

Worth a Thousand Words

She worked with her hands; it had always just come natural to her. Her late father, a carpenter by trade, and an artist when it came to touching brush to canvas, also had an uncanny knack for working with his hands. Perhaps her own talent was not as consequential or refined, she often thought to herself, but nevertheless it was fulfilling in a way that an office job or some less creative occupation would not be. Working on cars did involve a sort of an artistic eye, and at least in a small maybe not obvious way, she was still proud of that connection to her father.

Needless to say however, the idea of woman-as-auto-mechanic...not exactly a turn on for many men, loomed, which had brought her to the wonderful, unexpected world of online dating. While casually scanning through men who'd contacted her, she came across a guy, decent enough looking, but a little too 'stuffy' for her liking, she surmised; ready to pass, she was instead caught by something in the background of his photo. Enlarging the pic, she couldn't believe it, her jaw dropped. On the wall behind him was a painting of a girl holding a lily; smiling shyly as if embarrassed to have been the subject of that particular painting, of that particular moment even...but sure enough. She knew that picture just like she'd dreamed of it a million times—knew from memory the nuanced shadings, lines and even subtle smudges.

That was it, unmistakably so...She looked at it a long time amazed...That was actually it—the missing picture, the one her father had sold when she was 17 in a desperate attempt to make the mortgage. There was no doubt about it; she had the other three, the ones her father painted of her at 11, 12 and 14, but here was THE 13 year old version...and it was behind a guy on a dating site of all places, of all coincidences, unbelievable. She had to look a dozen more times to make sure, and every time, her heart grew more and more hopeful, more and more wistful.

The man's profile, said: 'I am a structural engineer who enjoys the challenge of designing things that other people will use and appreciate'.

She looked at his picture again; not the type she would normally go for, odds were his nails didn't have any grease under them and his hands rarely if ever got dirty. But, he had her painting—the missing one and she wanted it back, more than she had realized.

Playing off of what he'd conveyed in his profile, she wrote: "Your passion for creating things that will last and be appreciated got my attention"; she hit send.

Okay, maybe trying to "connect" to a guy in order to somehow get her hands on a long lost painting was a bit underhanded. But there was just this inexplicable tie she had to that portrait. It was her face, but her father's heart. And that heart belonged with her and her alone. She missed him terribly. He'd died when she was just 20 and the three remaining paintings were among her most treasured possessions. To have the fourth...

A response: 'I see you fix cars. You must be pretty handy to have around.'

'Don't you find my line of work unusual...for a woman that is?' she wrote back, curious as to what his response would be.

His message belied that "stuffiness" she'd originally assigned him. He began by saying that people should follow their hearts, regardless of where it took them. She liked that and of course she wanted to get close to her beloved portrait...so she gave him her phone number. They actually talked that evening; it was of course a bit awkward as most first time dating site interactions can be, but over the course of the call, things grew strangely familiar.

They decided to meet for dinner at a restaurant that she had picked specifically because she thought that he would like it; not necessarily the kind of place she would have picked for herself.