The Death of the Butterflies
By
Phoebe Kate Foster
Since boyhood, he'd been searching for his soul mate.
She'd
always believed that fate would bring the right man to her.
He probed the faces of every young female -- and some older ones, too
-- waiting for the click of recognition like the sound of tumblers
falling in a lock as destiny played safecracker with his heart.
After one date, he dismissed women who were as polished as platinum or
sweet as a peach or had ways as winning as a Las Vegas lucky
streak. "I just knew it wasn't going to work out…" he told his
buddies, who promptly asked for the phone numbers of his rejects.
She fantasized about lovers who spoke with their eyes and sucked her
toes and covered her with their incorporeally perfect bodies. At
night, she hugged her pillow tight and tenderly kissed the back of her
hand and hungered for someone she didn't know. Men asked her out,
but she wore excuses like a chastity belt. She claimed she saw
their flaws as plain as grease spots on a linen suit.
They swore it had to been destiny that
brought them across a city of anonymous thousands to the same
hole-in-the-wall trattoria one afternoon and seated them at nearby
tables. When the fat man at the table between them bent to
retrieve his napkin, they found themselves staring straight into each
other's eyes -- and the butterflies they felt in their stomachs weren't
from too much garlic in the eggplant parmigiana.
"We'd never felt like that before with any other person," they told
family and friends. "It was like we'd always known each other."
And everyone made faces behind their backs, because they knew it was
too good to be true.
***
They lived in their own special world. They slept in a bed barely
big enough for one. His eyes followed her when she walked across
a room. She called him at the office a dozen times a day just to
hear his voice. He stopped putting milk in his coffee because she
drank hers black. She ate her steak rare because he liked his
cooked that way.
They didn't bother having children. They were the perfect couple,
and having each other was more than enough.
***
The relationship, however, wasn't exactly made in heaven.
He had a short temper, a sharp tongue, a swift slap. She had bad
moods, a mean streak, a spendthrift's style. He drank too much
and threatened to leave. She developed mysterious maladies and
promised to die. He'd sweep the dinner dishes off the table in a
rage. She'd announce they were through and lock herself in the
bedroom to cry. The next morning, she'd serve his favorite breakfast,
wearing something fashioned from little bits of lace held together by a
tenuous ribbon or two. He'd kiss her long and slow, and make her
moan.
And for better or worse, the butterflies would fly again and the
romance would go on.
***
On the anniversary of the day they met, they always returned to the
same Italian restaurant. One year, however, they found that Tony's
Taste of Tuscany was now Nishimura's Swingin' Sushi Bar.
"This is terrible," she moaned.
"It's still a restaurant," he said, "and we're still the same
people. That's what matters."
"You don't understand," she wailed. "It'll never be the same
again."
They dined uneasily on conger eel-and-cucumber rolls and toasted one
another. "To kismet," they said as they clinked cups of lukewarm
rice wine that smelled like dishwater.
"Is there anything we don't know about each other?" she remarked,
certain that there wasn't, of course.
He thought a minute. "Did I ever tell you my mother made me take
violin lessons when I was in junior high?"
Her eyes widened.
"I studied with
this weird old woman named Madame Pasquale. She gave lessons in
her dumpy apartment downtown somewhere -- Why are you looking at
me like that?"
"15 East 10th Street. Apartment 2-C."
"That's right! How did you know?"
"I studied violin with Madame Pasquale when I was in junior high,
too. Every Thursday. 3:30 to 4:30."
"What a coincidence! Mine were from 4:30 to 5:30 on -- " He
hesitated, frowning.
"Thursdays." She stared at him, grimacing as if she'd
bitten into a piece of rotten fruit. "Oh, God! You were that
revolting little creep who was always waiting for his lesson when I got
out of mine. You were always chewing your nails or picking your
nose or scratching your crotch. I thought, 'I'd never waste my
time on a loser like him.'"
He glared at her. "I remember you now! You were that horrid fat
girl with the sour face and frizzy hair and a butt so big your skirt
rode up in the back. Every week, I watched you waddle past me
with your nose stuck up in the air like you were someone special and
thought, 'The guy who ends up with that bow-wow needs to have his head
examined.'"
She smacked her chopsticks down on the table, grabbed the sake bottle,
filled her cup, tossed it off, and poured another. He signaled
the waiter and ordered a Scotch. "Make it a double. No, a triple."
They turned away from each other, sipped their drinks, and scrutinized
the other diners.
She considered a
broad-shouldered man with a beard as he drank an imported
beer. Across the room, a spiky-haired blond guy in tight jeans met
her gaze and winked.
He studied the svelte brunette at the next table. A perky redhead
passed by, shooting him an inviting smile as she smoothed the
miniskirt that just barely covered her shapely buns like Cling-Wrap
waiting to be peeled off.
The formerly perfect couple stared in opposite directions across the
restaurant, while they pondered for the first time the endless
fascinations and infinite permutations possible in an unfated and
butterfly-free life.