There can be no doubt in his mind that it is now or never. Standing outside the door with a bouquet of freshly-watered roses in a chiaroscuro of colours, Victor allows the fingers of his free left hand to wander to an errant part of his nose where an itch is developing. His legs are like jelly, and even though it is a cool breezy evening, he can already feel the beads of perspiration forming in a ring around the back of his neck.
He has been carrying a torch for Jeannie ever since they were classmates in junior college. The gawky teenagers of yesterday have grown with the advent of Time's interminable hands to be the freshly-laundered adults of today, standing crisp on the threshold of nascent careers and emerging responsibilities.
Standing outside Jeannie's door, a myriad of thoughts crawl through Victor's mind. He could still remember the time when their fingers had touched each other while sharing a glass of iced lemon tea. A frisson of excitement had coursed through his back then. He was particularly chuffed when Jeannie withdrew her hands in an overly exaggerated gesture of embarrassment. "She must have liked me", he had thought then.
Five years ago. That was how long ago. Gauche JC kids struggling with studies, the palpitating sensations of puppy love...Looking through the glass panel as her flight wheeled down the runway, before developing wings and ascending into the thick blue azure, trailing a plume of smoke, like the last tinges of regret he had felt then. Regret that he had not told her he loved her, while both of them were standing together, a "goodbye with a five-year expiry date" hanging at the tips of their tongues. And it was all over, as she turned around and headed into the boarding area; did he detect a trifle of her shoulders hunching in disappointment as she walked away with her customary big gait?
While, the flames of passion he nursed for Jeannie were doused five years ago; today they are burning bright and evanescent. Ever since that chance meeting three weeks ago, when they had bumped into each other at the atrium of a commercial block downtown - she, there for a job interview, having just returned from Down Under; he, on a trip to meet a client - the flames were simultaneously reignited. He realised that his love for her had never flickered or burned out - rather he had stashed love away like an old photo of a bygone memory lovingly cloistered in the treasured confines of one's old wallet.
Victor stirs himself from his dip in the pool of reminiscences, and left index finger trembling, depresses the doorbell. The shrill ring punctures the early evening's quiet, and the seconds seem to tick away ever-so-slowly, before the door is yanked open.
"Victor! You are early!" Jeannie chirps. "Such beautiful flowers!" She receives the bouquet from him and grabs his left hand, pulling him into the cool living room. And then he sees him.
He gets up slowly from the sofa, his right hand holding on to the television's remote control. There is a langourous air about him as he shuffles slowly forward to shake Victor's hand.
"Victor, meet Pete. He's my fiance. Pete, this is Victor, my JC classmate and a wonderful friend of mine. We met three weeks ago after losing touch for five years. Is that right, Victor, five years?" Jeannie gushes - a deluge of sentences dousing Victor's fiery heart.
The treacle doesn't taste sweet on his tongue, and he chews through the limp tendrils of pasta abstractedly, all the while, an unhappy and unwilling witness as Jeannie's happiness writes itself on the scroll of her alabaster face, as jibes and jokes trade readily between her and Pete.
He never keeps in touch with Jeannie after dinner, and he never thinks of the past again.
No comments:
Post a Comment