Category: Winnie and Rowe

Upon exiting the Book Loft, Rowe bought some sunscreen at a five and dime next door. Once back on the sidewalk, Winnie applied it carefully to her face and shoulders, all the while, feeling Rowe’s eyes upon her. It soon became clear to her that her plan to not touch him the entire day would be tested by her desire not to burn the back of her shoulders. Sanity won out when she asked if he’d do the honors in applying it to the portion of her back visible above her sundress. 

He agreed. 

The first thing she noticed was the strength in his hands and how restrained it was. This was precisely what she had noticed when he had caught her stumbling of the last step at Decker hall – power with a delicate touch, such an odd combination. The manner in which his hands slid over her skin was also very conscientious– like his speech. Her mother had told her you could tell the quality of a lover by the quality of his conversation. If he cared enough to listen to your words, he’d listen to your body. 

Rowe was a good listener. 

Once back in the car, she asked if they could play minigolf. Yazoo City didn’t have a single putt-putt course, but her father often took her to the driving range when she was young and while he’d drive balls, Winnie would play on the practice green. Rowe, being a fan of any sport, readily agreed.

Clairmont Hills Golf and Games was a new addition to Anderson, and it felt positively futuristic when compared to the rest of the city which could have been used as a set for a 1960s period drama were it not for the fast-food restaurants that dotted the interstate exit. 

The course had a “Volcano” theme and consisted of artificially built hills, fern trees, imitation rocks, tiki totems, and a couple of unexplained dinosaurs. In the spring and fall, bands of college students would flood the course, but in the summer, it was largely a family destination. 

A high school girl with braces was working the desk, and when Rowe asked for two passes, she explained that if they waited until 3 pm, it was date night which meant two for one tickets. 

“This isn’t a date,” Winnie was quick to point out. 

“She loathes me,” Rowe explained. “Is there like an ‘enemy rate’ where you pay double?” 

The girl smiled awkwardly. 

“I don’t loathe you,” Winnie said. 

Rowe smirked. 

Rowe paid. They selected putters and balls – Winnie choosing red for herself and blue for Rowe, and by the 15^th hole, she was ahead by one stroke. 

“So, you’re pretty good at this,” he said watching her line up a putt. 

“It’s cause I’m connected to the man upstairs.” She gave him a look and then struck the ball. It sped along the green Astroturf,  bumped into a block of wood with the characteristic “thunk” and slowed next to the rock tunnel. 

“So, you haven’t told me, have you been in love?” Rowe asked as he lined up his putt. 

Winnie thought about her answer – staring blindly at the family two holes behind them. A father helped a small boy putt. He wore adorable OshKosh B’gosh shorts and a tiny, collared shirt. Finally she answered: 

“You say you don’t know what love is, but you have been in love, I’m the opposite,” she explained.

“You know what it is,” he said. 

“But I haven’t found it.” She finished. 

“Really?” he questioned. 

“I’ve been in like, puppy love,” Winnie answered. She lined up her ball and took a stroke, missing the gap between the rocks that led to the second half of the hole, giving him a chance to catch up. 

“I was infatuated with a mad crush when I was sixteen,” she said. 

“Sixteen could be real love. Juliet was younger”

“Hmmm… maybe I don’t know. We were like a forbidden love.”

“Nice.” 

“It was in Ecuador with one of the locals on a mission trip. My dad had a fit. We had to hide in the church van.”

“Was that your first kiss?”

“It was.” 

“What do you remember about it?” he asked. He sunk his putt, the ball clunking into the hole with the pleasing low-pitched rattle.

“It was not bad… very visceral… he never wore a shirt; you would have liked him.”

He wasn’t even sure what she meant. 

“My heart was pounding… sympathetic nervous system,” she gave him a sly smile before she hit her next shot, missing the hole by inches, bringing them even in score. “I don’t know… all in all, it was pretty awkward. Do guys practice kissing on their hands in Jr. High like girls do?”

“We usually practice something else with our hand.” 

“I bet you’re very good by now.”

“I’ve never really talked about it,” he shrugged. “But I assume I’m the best.” 

She smiled but gave him a little sexy, “you naughty boy” look with her eyes. 

Rowe struck the ball off the last rubber mat – the 18th hole – it shimmied past two water hazards, climbed a ramp into a tiki totem’s open mouth, and exited on the lower green – rolling 3 inches to the right of the cup.

“So, you haven’t been in love since then? … other than,” he tapped his chest to refer to himself. 

She rolled her eyes and lined up her putt. “Okay, what’s the score?” she said. 

“I think we’re tied,” he replied. 

“So, this is for victory if I ace it!” she said. 

“Yes… a true miracle I might add, beating me,” he boasted. 

Winnie eyed the hole and looked back to her ball. 

“If you make this,” he said, “a hole in one – I will concede my augment. You will have converted me.” 

“I don’t need God to make this shot,” she said while narrowing her eyes. 

“And we’ll get married,” he added. 

“I don’t think that’s a reward. That should be the punishment.”

“Okay. If you miss, we have to get married…”

She drew in a breath. “Now the pressure is really on.”

She lined it up again. 

“And it’s incontrovertible proof that God doesn’t exist.”

“I’m not agreeing to that,” she said, and then looked up to the sky. “I’m not agreeing to that.” 

Rowe looked to the sky. “With all due respect sir… or ma’am, it’s not about her, it’s about me.”

“All right…” She smirked. “If that’s what it takes… I will make it with my eyes closed…. just to prove my point”

“Oh my god, yes, I will fall down on my knees and dedicate my life to jesus”  

She grinned, lining the putt up before she theatrically shut her eyes and took a deep breath. She wanted to shrug this off as a joke, but somehow it did mean something to her. She genuinely wanted to make it, and somehow she felt she could. She was familiar with turning her will over to God and it had always served her well.  She closed her eyes and let the putter in her hand swing gently back and forth as the sound of the kids laughing on hole 16 faded away – then the birds chirping quieted in her mind. Soon it was nothing more than her and the swing of the putter. She suddenly realized the allure of golf – why businessmen around the world craved the escape from their hectic lives, its singular focus allowed all else to dissolve – in this vacuum, she felt at peace – as if she could see her life more clearly. Her own emotions became more true – she could glimpse the sheer ecstasy of being alive – a state of bliss so often eclipsed by the needs and “have-tos” of life – by the endless distractions of cell phones, Facebook, and Netflix. She saw the folly of her self-imposed loneliness and felt an ocean of gratitude for today – the brief respite from it. She could feel a warmth within her – one she knew emanated from Rowe. She adored his kind heart in a way she hadn’t yet realized – hadn’t yet let herself realize. She enjoyed his company. She thought of standing in the dark next to her electrical box – the smell of coffee and bacon in the diner, the glorious breeze through the leaves at the park, the single blade of grass. It was from this state of pure heart and mind that she pulled the club back one last time and swung. 

She whiffed. 

The club missed the ball by a fraction of an inch, but she did manage to hit it on the backstroke, sending it tumbling backwards down a few concrete stairs and bouncing it off a rock directly onto hole 16. 

Her eyes opened and widened. 

Rowe giggled with mirth and applauded good-naturedly–teasing her. 

The ball, meanwhile, rolled to a stop at the feet of the little boy wearing the Osh Kosh B’gosh. He immediately picked it up, threw down his putter, and started running toward her. 

Winnie’s mouth dropped. She watched in amazement as he ran right by Rowe, right by her, past the water hazard, around the tiki totem, and placed it in the hole.

She raised her arms in victorious joy, high fiving her newfound assistant, and did a little dance which he promptly joined. 

“No, that doesn’t count!” Rowe insisted, laughing, and shaking his head.

“It does count! In fact, it’s more amazing, that’s a true miracle!” 

“You’re seeing what you want to see,” Rowe grinned. 

“No, this is proof! God works through people,” she countered. She gave a little pistol “thank you” to the sky and winked then looked back to Rowe “Admit it.” 

“Come on!” Rowe laughed. 

It was too late; she was doing a victory dance. 

“I think you’re seeing what you want to see,” she chided. 

He was amused but unmoved.

She made her case as they returned their putters. “You have to let yourself see God. It’s like a voluntary thing. And it won’t slap you in the face. Like take this morning. Why did my power go out?”

“Well, clearly I screwed something up wiring that light.”

“See, you, like, default to a logical explanation. The logical explanation will always be more likely than the spiritual one.”

“Yeah…” he was a bit confused. “Is this an argument for or against my position?”

“You can’t determine the truth of any one incident by playing the odds. You can predict or guess, but you can’t decide the truth based on the odds if you do, you’ll always miss the outliers.”

“You really think God wants us to be together?” 

“Oh God no, he wants me to save you!” 

He thought about it. “Maybe they wired that light after the fact and put it on the same circuit as the furnace so when the light and furnace are on together, it overloads it.”

“You’re incorrigible.” 

Rowe asked Winnie where she’d like to have dinner and she requested that he “surprise her.” It took him less than sixty seconds to fabricate a genuine surprise. Recalling the day in class she shared that she was “addicted” to humus, he arranged for takeout from the Souvlaki Lounge, which served no less than three different recipes of hummus. But it was the location of their dining experience that would be memorable. He made her close her eyes as he turned on to the dirt road to the now-defunct General Motors plant and let her open them when they arrived at the Delco water tower.

It was a tower roughly four stories high, a large globe surrounded by a metal walkway around the entire circumference. Winnie had heard rumors of students climbing but they seemed to be stories from a bygone era. Forty feet was not exactly the Eiffel Tower, but in a town like Anderson, this afforded a view of most of the city. And while scaling the ladder was technically illegal, the tower itself was not functioning – it shut down the same time as the GM plant five years ago, so security was lax. 

It was still something Winnie wouldn’t dream of doing were she not with Rowe. But she was feeling daring, and the ladder was surrounded by a safety cage. 

“You go first, so I can catch you if you fall” Rowe suggested. 

“Not in this dress!” She replied. 

“I’ll be a gentleman” 

“You’re going first” She insisted with you naughty boy half scowl.   

“You just want me to go first so you can look up my shorts!” 

She cocked an eyebrow and nodded in the affirmative. 

He smirked, inwardly admitting that she was likely correct in her assessment that he would not have been a gentleman – he had been imagining the going ons underneath that sundress all day, and just thinking about it right now made his body come alive. 

Rowe was, like Winnie, a bit odd when it came to sex. Although, in truth, this could be said for every human, for the sexual peculiarities and predilections of people are as unique and varied as fingerprints. So in this sense, everyone’s a little odd to anyone else. 

He was, at this very moment, six months into an abstention from pornography, which for a college age male without a girlfriend is quite noteworthy. His goal was to increase his motivation to establish real relationships, however this had proven a difficult task for an atheist at Holy Trinity. 

Thus, for the last six months, his self pleasuring practices relied entirely upon his own mind to paint pictures. And, more often than not, Winnie herself, had a starring role in the stories he weaved.  

She never, in a thousand years, imagined herself his muse because he had, up until today, concealed this attraction to her on account of their religious incompatibility. But in his mind, in the last six months, he had already undressed her after hours in the dark chemistry lab illuminated only by their bunsen burners.  He had hungrily ripped her dress off in an 18th century castle, ceramic buttons scattering on the floor. He had awakened her with oral sex, in a tent perched on a mountainside in Yosimite national park, and made love to her standing up, her palms pressed against the glass wall of his imagined future NY loft. 

He had read once that men fall in love with the women they are attracted to and women become attracted to the man with whom they are in love, but he thought this a crude stereotype. For him, love, friendship and sexual attraction were inexorably linked. For instance, he never once, fantasized about his beautiful lab partner, Allison Graham. He may have, before he had heard her speak, but her flat intonation void of all unique character not to mention her words void of insightful content quickly extinguished that idea. 

Winnie, on the other hand, could exude more depth without even opening her mouth. She had this way of smiling with just her eyes when he said something amusing that did not quite warrant a full blown smile that penetrated his heart and melted his defenses. She could convey more emotion with this little micro-expression than other women could in a ten minute speech. 

Add to this her quick wit, the earnestness with which she shared her own insecurities, and obvious intellect and it created a cocktail of attraction that became sexual attraction. The flaws Winnie imagined about her physical appearance became assets, simply because they reminded him of who she was and how she was unique. 

For the last six month he was able to consciously deny this attraction — at least while fully awake and in and about society. Late at night, when he was alone and naked in bed, left to fantasies with no consequence, he was less inclined to deny it. 

This melding of romantic and sexual attraction, while beautiful in many ways, actually created some tension and confusion in his mind, for he feared he could not discern the difference. He had witnessed first hand at Holy Trinity, a number of couples – having promised abstinence until marriage, let their hormones push them into premature (and unwise) union so he had always been careful in his mind to discern genuine attraction from  the runaway hormones that coursed through his veins. 

But this is difficult for a 21 year old male to do.  For Rowe was not, as his admires imagined him, some immortal living on Mt. Olympus, but rather a man of flesh and blood, and as such, he had not been immune to the manner in which Winnie’s sundress floated on a cushion of air around her bare thighs for the entire day. 

It was all too much for him to think about as they approached the tower. These were things he might ponder late at night with his pants unzipped. But when he was actually with her, her personality filled up his senses – her quick wit, soft voice, demure glances, and playful laugh, all stimuli rushing past him as if on a roller coaster: Too fast and vast to stop and ponder anything at all.  

So to let her retain her modesty, Rowe climbed the ladder the first. It did seem safe enough with the cage around the ladder, although Winnie nearly missed a rung or two trying to see up his shorts. Jess had long theorized that Rowe wore no underwear,  and the notion that she’d be able to report back to her roommate in the affirmative was too tempting to pass up. 

By the time they reached the top, the sun was already setting. The sky was an artist’s pallet of orange, red, and pink. The air was still, and the sounds were distant.

They ate in silence for a few minutes, enjoying ancient Greek food that people had enjoyed for a hundred generations and a sunset people have enjoyed for thousands of years. 

At length, Winnie spoke. 

“I don’t believe Jesus rose from the dead.” 

Rowe gave her a glance but let her continue. 

“And the whole ‘he died for our sins thing just smells of after the fact justification. What’s that even mean? How does Jesus dying help me? Why would it? Why should it? If I cheat someone, I should seek their forgiveness and try to make it right. I shouldn’t have forgiveness bestowed on me by Jesus from 2000 years ago. It makes no sense really when you think about it…. I told Mrs Zimmerman what I thought and she didn’t really disagree”

Rowe just listened. A breeze rustled the leaves. 

“Course you probably think Jesus never existed,” she added. 

“I think he existed… I don’t understand atheists that insist he didn’t. I mean, just about every religion in the world was started by a charismatic leader… I can’t think of a single religion that wasn’t. I think some atheists are just… they get hung up on this evidence thing… I mean we infer a lot of things for which we don’t have direct evidence.” 

“Like God,” she said. 

He started to smirk – he wanted to say something about some inferences being better than others, but he held his tongue and just smiled – letting her score a little point. He was good at that: sensing the mood of the conversation, knowing when to joust and when to relent. 

 If he was honest, when the day began, he had one goal: To change her mind. To remove the one impediment that had given him pause. But something curious had happened over the last ten hours. Her one “flaw”: her spiritual devotion to an ancient religion – had almost become an asset, if, for no other reason, that it now reminded him of who she was. It was a part of her –  one that could not be easily dissected. And as such, a part of him no longer wanted to do so – indeed feared doing so because he didn’t want to change the young woman he had fallen for. 

And while an atheist may be risking eternal damnation in the mind of a believer, nonbelievers see less tragedy in belief. There was something almost sweet about it. It is, after all, indicative of the desire to do good. He could appreciate that quality, and yet it was difficult to discern if it emanated from her or from her belief. Perhaps it was just her nature. 

Whatever the case, he felt a warmth in his chest when he looked at her. It radiated throughout his body and filled him with a sort of sanguine comfort. 

So, he didn’t respond with a jab. In fact, he didn’t say anything at all. The breeze was gentle and their view grand and he just wanted to enjoy the silence. 

She would have none of this. 

“No witty retort?” she asked. 

He just smiled. “I’m listening.” 

“Oh God” She said. 

“What?” 

“Stop, you’re freaking me out. You’re supposed to disagree with everything I say.” 

He smiled and studied his shoes for a moment. He was sitting with his knees raised high – resting his arms upon them and picking at his shoestring. 

“Sometimes I speak too quickly, and I feel like… the… what I’m communicating is not an idea, but rather just… I’m just trying to impress people…” 

She wanted to tease him and say, ‘It’s not working,’ but she held her tongue. The truth is that she, too, was good at sensing the mood of the conversation, knowing when to joust and when to relent. This was why they were a good match. And the truth of the matter was it was working, he did impress her. She knew it deep in her heart, but her mind was keeping her heart under wraps. 

Rowe was, like all men who are capable of tempering their ambition with sensitivity to those around him, a product of a great mother. She was, like his father, a doctor, but a general practitioner, whereas his dad was a heart surgeon. They divorced when he was nine. His father was perhaps overly concerned with income and status, his mother more “spiritual”. 

He spent the bulk of his time with her. She knew full well that Rowe was destined to be handsome and smart, and spent a great deal of time teaching him to be empathetic to the needs of others. 

She gave him his depth. He and his father had good rapport and were naturals at witty banter, but there was a depth to his mother that his father did not possess. A depth that Rowe saw in himself. Indeed, he never felt as if he fit the roles that were given him. In 10^th grade, when it was clear he was an athletic and academic standout, he wrote a sophomore thesis entitled, “The differences between reputation and true self.” For he did not feel as a sports star ought to. There was something inside him that almost wanted to be an outcast. 

By 11^th grade, he had developed a greater appreciation for objective truth, and he had an epiphany of sorts. Perhaps he did not know himself as well as he imagined, after all, who would be more biased in his own favor? Perhaps his reputation was correct, and he was mistaken? It made logical sense that 100 friends and acquaintances might be more objective than his own grandiose opinions of himself. So, he titled his Junior thesis – with all the melodramatic flair of a 17-year-old wannabe philosopher: “The differences between objective self and self-delusion.” 

By senior year, he had decided that no “self” existed, there was only what he thought he was, and what others thought he was – neither were in error, but rather, they were two separate entities, both equally valid. The more authentically he lived his life, the more similar the two would be. 

This sort of complexity in character is not gifted to one at birth – it is nurtured, crafted, and sculpted by careful hands. And Rowe’s was nurtured through gentle questioning over the dinner table by his wise and competent mother. His mother taught him to never accept things at face value. “Don’t think like a lawyer, she would say – cherry-picking data to build your case, rather think like a detective who doesn’t know the answer yet and follow the clues where they take you. “The truth is seldom what we want it to be, it just is.” 

She also taught him to be comfortable with silence. “Sometimes the spaces between the words say more than the words themselves.” 

So, they sat, enjoying the silence. The sunset like a painter mixing shades of orange, blue, and black on the pallet – each color fading into the next – stratus clouds acting like brushstrokes in the sky.

Winnie did not typically share this comfort. Her father was a preacher, who was gifted with a loquacious tongue – although he seldom got to use it at home because her mother could speak twice as fast. Add to this the fact that she was the youngest of four siblings. This made her environment an ocean of words to swim in every day. It was the background – the white noise to which she was accustomed. Getting words to be noticed in this ocean of sound was often a challenge. 

This was the sort of moment that she typically would find uncomfortable. 

But she did not. 

For one, it soon became apparent that it wasn’t silent at all. The breeze rustling through the leaves above laid an orchestral bed for birds chirping, and squirrels chattering. Furthermore, there was something in her that trusted him. Up to that point in her life, quiet time was a time for sleep – a time in which you were in the house with family, those you loved and trusted. Somehow this moment seemed natural. 

It invited self-reflection. There are within every human, vast, infinite spaces filled with stars burning with bliss and also vast deep caverns of pain into which light seldom reaches, for they are closed off by design–close off by self-preservation–areas too dark and frightening to enter – at least, enter alone. But with someone at your side, somehow, it’s easier to summon the courage, and you realize it wasn’t so frightening after all.

Winnie had these caverns inside of her. 

And somehow, it seemed she could enter them with him by her side. 

She wasn’t ready to share. Not just yet. 

But just feeling that she could be filled with a heavy warmth, the kind one gets under covers in the cool night air. 

There was a part of her in which it felt natural to curl up with him and enjoy the view together. 

But of course, her mind would not allow it. Her mind set the rules this morning – no touching allowed. Her heart was pleading its case, but her mind remained ever vigilant. 

The sun finally disappeared below the horizon and Venus made its evening debut. The sky was an orangish-red at the horizon, rising into shades of pink. It would be dark soon. Somehow, out of all the moments they had shared, this was her favorite. She felt small in the cosmos, and yet not alone. She could not think of anyone she’d rather be with. It was the perfect moment. 

“Look! Cedar Lake!” he said, breaking her out of her stupor.

In the distance, the lights of the Summerfest rides had just turned on. A small roller coaster broke the line of the horizon, and if they squinted, they could make out the cars clearing the first hill. On the other side of the park, stage lights lit a music stage they couldn’t hear.

“Oh my God! Let’s go,” Winnie said. 

Rowe nodded in agreement, but soon Winnie’s attention was drawn to a single pair of headlights coming down the dirt road that led to the water tower. Winnie squinted before announcing, “Po Po!” 

“Po Po?” Rowe said with a furrowed brow. 

“It’s the police!” 

He looked at her with an amused smirk. 

“Haven’t you heard that? Just how old are you?” 

He genuinely laughed as they both rolled over onto their stomachs – snuggling up next to the side of the tower so they could be hidden by the metal walkway. They lay flat – in a straight line, their bodies meeting at their faces, and spoke in hushed tones. Rowe peered over the edge. “Oh shit, my car.” 

The cruiser circled around the tower once. 

Winnie’s eyes went wide – exaggerating her concern. “I can’t get caught! Oh my God! We have to do something. Quick call 911 and make a bomb threat downtown or something” 

He couldn’t contain his laughter “No! I’m not calling in a bomb threat.” 

“I’m a PK! This would be a huge scandal in Yazoo!” she had a hint of mirth to her voice, happy to be making him laugh. 

“You’ll survive,” he peered over the edge again. “Look! He’s not even stopping.” 

The cruiser made a complete circle around the tower as if to show them he knew what they were up to but apparently, he really did have better things to do and drove off. 

“Oh my God” Winnie rolled onto her back and sighed, “I would have never let them take me alive.” Rowe laughed some more. 

“It was my prayer you know,” Winnie said. “See, proof positive God answers prayers, what more proof do you need?” 

Rowe grinned broadly. “You did not pray,” he said. 

“I did… I prayed for God to call in the bomb threat and he delivered!”

Rowe laughed. “Come on, let’s go to the festival.”

By the time they reached the Summerfest gates, all the colors in the sky had dissolved into a deep black, sparkling with a thousand points of light. To the south, the vague glow of Indianapolis silhouetted trees on the horizon, but every other direction was sufficiently dark enough to give one the feeling – quite accurately – that the earth itself was a spaceship, hurling through the Milky Way. The ability to see the Milky Way in the night sky was a benefit of living in a small town that does not show up charts of home prices, school rankings, or unemployment rates. To be reminded of one’s infinitesimal size in this universe can have deep, lasting effects on one’s mental health. When viewing the infinite universe, possibilities abound. 

Cedar Lake Summerfest was a small-town Indiana carnival consisting of three basic attractions: a live music stage at the north end by the lake, a maze of food trucks, and street vendors hawking everything from authentic Indiana craft art to glow in the dark plastic necklaces at the south end. And between them, a midway filled with games and rides, including a small roller coaster. It was the type of place that would have smelled of cigarettes in the 1970s, but now smokers were confined to two corrals, thirty feet from the festivities. Instead, it smelled of caramel apples, cinnamon buns, grilled hamburgers, and spicy lamb from the Gyro Shoppe’s food truck. 

Winnie loved carnivals. She had many childhood memories of travelling to the Jackson City Fair every July. Just an hour’s drive south of Yazoo, and half-price after 6 pm. The Jackson City Fair provided more dazzling lights, sights, and sounds than a twelve-year-old girl from Yazoo could absorb in one night. Her brain couldn’t possibly contain it all, and when she lay in bed after a night of riding and games, she’d close her eyes to sleep and the afterimage of lights and fireworks would dance on her retinas. 

Much to her delight, upon arrival, Rowe immediately bought her three glow-in-the-dark necklaces. She donned one around her neck, another as a halo, and the third wrapped twice around her wrist. “How do I look,” she said with a smile, putting her hand on her hip and kicking it out with confidence. Rowe smiled, pleased, feeling a twinge of nostalgia in his mind and memories of cute girls in glow necklaces prancing around just out of reach at Six Flags after dark. 

Winnie’s eyes lit up upon seeing the midway. It was a feast of blinking, brightly colored lights, and bouncy electronic pipe organ music. She turned to Rowe, her face lit yellow on one side and rimmed in blue moonlight on the other, and while she did not take his hand, the magnetic pull of her eyes implored him to follow. 

The center island of games was attended by carnival barkers – mostly locals who had just graduated high school – tempting walkerbys to join the fun. There were opportunities to throw small rings around bottles, large rings around floating rubber ducks, pop balloons, shoot basketballs, and toss softballs into baskets. 

The games were surrounded by a dozen rides. Winnie was overjoyed to find many of the same rides from her childhood at the Jackson City Fair: the black eight-armed “Monster” in Jackson was called the “Octopus” in Anderson but it appeared to be the same eight arms spinning, raising, and lowering in the hypnotic pattern of joy. She also recognized the Tilt-a-Whirl and the Scrambler. The roller coaster was unique, although it appeared to be hastily renamed the Hoosier Hurricane by way of a hand-painted sign which was doubtless changed depending on which city they called home that week. There was a small fun house that looked more like a facade nailed on to a semi-trailer standing next to a “Haunted House” that looked to be several trailers hooked together with accordion-like tunnels. 

Winnie felt that her years at the Jackson City Fair made her an expert in carnivals, so she proceeded to lead Rowe to each of her favorites. She was especially fond of “The Zipper” due to its random nature of turning ride-goers upside down and she wanted to see how Rowe would react. He did not let her down, perhaps exaggerating his surprise, sending her into giggling fits. 

Next, she led him to the haunted mansion which people rode through two at a time in cramped metal cars on a track. A mannequin holding its head in its arms “spoke” to them before entry – its mouth not quite synced with the recording. “Welcome to my haunted abode! Be strong and you may survive the tomb of doom!” It was a nice sentiment, however, not entirely appropriate since the ride had a mansion motif and not that of a tomb, but Rowe and Winnie were not a particularly discerning audience at the time. 

The cart lurched forward and sent them into a spinning tunnel followed by various blacklight illuminated skeletons, a creepy clown robot, and a loud witch that managed to give them both a mild jump scare. Spooky organ music maniacal laughter piped in various speakers set the proper mood. It was dark and fairly intimate in a high school romance sort of way. Indeed, Winnie found her unruly mind – or was it her heart – imagining Rowe putting his arm around her as she sat. This elicited in her, as most thoughts of Rowe did, a cacophony of conflicting emotions. In truth, she had warmed to him throughout this day. And the cart they were in lent itself to incidental touching – the kind that builds the sort of necessary familiarity required before intentional touching, such as holding hands, occurs. The close quarters gave her ample opportunity to press her leg up against his while enjoying the protective charade that it was merely a circumstance of proximity. 

It was altogether too much for her to think about. She remembered her promise not to fall for this man beside her, so she focused the whole of her energy to the going-ons outside the cart, leaning against her side, enthusiastically pointing to various skeletons, ghouls, and witches that she recognized from her own haunted mansion in Jackson which appeared to be designed by the same company.
As they exited the ride, her eyes grew wide and she pointed to the ring toss game. 

“Oh my God! Tiny Tim! And Busters!” 

Tiny Tim and Busters were the names she gave to teddy bears of varying sizes that she won as a child at the Jackson City Fair. The larger one, Busters, currently sat at her parents’ house in her bedroom, but Tiny Tim was, in fact, in her room here in Anderson. Both were well worn and showed their age, so it was a great delight to see them fresh from the factory, hanging on the prize walls of various gaming booths, tempting would-be players. 

After careful examination of each game, Winnie led him to what she imagined to be the game that gave him the best odds of victory: the strongman game. It was called “High-Striker” and consisted of a puck on a lever to be hit with a sledgehammer in an attempt to ring the bell at the top of a tower. She reasoned that if Rowe couldn’t win this, then no one could 

They approached the game and heard the common carnival barking: “Step right up! Test your strength! Who are the men and who are the boys?”

“I’ve got your man right here” Winnie proclaimed in a manner that was quite out of character for her. 

Rowe completed the role reversal by becoming uncharacteristically quiet. He sheepishly took the sledgehammer, sized up the target, and prepared to swing. He had, unbeknownst to Winnie, a considerable amount of experience pounding fence posts, so he knew the secret did not require great power, but rather precise technique. To maximize the velocity of the hammer, one only need reduce its swinging radius at the last second, producing that characteristic “jerk” just before impact. Sure enough, with a swing as pure and true as a railroad worker, he sent the puck directly into the bell. 

Winnie threw her arms into the air, bounced forward as though she was going to throw them around his neck but ended up chickening out and settling for a high five. She selected her brand-new Busters and poured whatever desire she had to hug Rowe into hugging it, nearly squeezing the life out of the stuffed bear. 

They then both attempted the basketball game, but it was Rowe who sank three to win her Tiny Tim. 

They walked the midway – Busters sitting on Rowe’s shoulders while Winnie carried Tiny Tim like a baby in her arms. They shared a caramel apple, Winnie letting him know it was the first she had eaten since Jackson. 

They rode the “Hoosier Hurricane” with the stuffed animals in their laps. Likewise, for the scrambler and bumper cars. 

When they arrived at the top of the giant slide, they were one of three other couples and were handed a double sack to share. This quickly abolished Winnie’s no touching rule and they made something of a train, Tiny Tim in Busters’ arms, Busters in Winnie’s arms, and Winnie in Rowe’s arms. 

She felt small. She was not only in his arms but between legs – utterly enveloped in manliness. The slide consisted of three hills; each one pressed her back into his hard chest. It felt simultaneously safe and exciting, although she could not tell if her heart was jumping due to the sudden drops or due to their sudden close proximity. Either way, she knew that night she’d not see fireworks when she closed her eyes, she would remember this feeling. 

Upon reaching the bottom, he helped her up and gave her the softest eyes he had given her yet. Something had clearly just happened. 

He picked up Busters, she grabbed Tiny Tim, and they made their way into the main plaza in front of the Tunnel of the Love. It was nearing closing time and the pipe organ music was replaced by 80s hits over the speakers, starting with a Journey medley. 

“So, I uh, I got suckered into signing up for season tickets at Artco,” he said. 

“The theater group?” 

“Yeah.” 

“That’s cool.” 

“There’s a show next Friday night… I thought maybe you’d like to come… with me.” 

She grew mum. 

“That wasn’t a good way to ask,” he said, “I can do better.” 

“No, it was fine. don’t kneel!”

He stood up straight. “I, Rowan Collins, would enjoy the pleasure of your company for an evening of dining and entertainment.”

She managed a half-smile, but it faded into something more serious. It was obvious what was on the line here. This wasn’t about another date. It was about their future. 

Rowe could sense it and encouraged her, “You have to admit, today hasn’t been that bad.”

She gave him the softest eyes she could but then sighed, “Neither one of us is ever going to change our mind.”

“Maybe that’s okay.”

She studied him. She wanted it to happen, she knew it couldn’t.

“Okay for a really hot affair… yes… a future? A life?” she said. 

“Both?” he shrugged. 

“But why do it if it can’t lead anywhere? It’s fun now but what about in five years? We couldn’t get married and have a family, how would we raise our kids?” she asked. 

“We’d tell them the truth.” 

“Whose truth?” 

He didn’t know how to answer. 

“Yes,” she said. “We get along. Yes. I think you’re adorable… and yes, we’d be a huge mistake.”

“Mistakes are what life is made of. You could stand to make a few more mistakes.”

“What’s that mean?”

“You’re very measured… A perfectionist.”

She was listening now; this rang true in her heart. 

“Prim?” she asked. 

He raised his eyebrows, nodded and sighed as if looking at Sandra Dee, and added, “You’re an idealist.”

“Yes,” she said. 

“I’ll put money on the fact that you were either your high school valedictorian or the homecoming queen.”

She covered her face with her hands in dismay. 

“I’m right aren’t I?” he said. 

“I was not the homecoming queen.” 

“You were valedictorian.”

“We had a very small school.” 

“You probably went the first eighteen years of your life without making a mistake…. Now you’ve got three more years until you graduate and have to face the real world, so you better start getting your mistakes outta the way.” 

“You’re encouraging me to make more?” 

“Absolutely. You have to learn to love the mistakes,” he said. 

“Love the mistakes?” 

“My whole life has been a series of mistakes… My conception was a mistake.”

“Your parents told you?”

“They didn’t use the word mistake.” He shrugged. 

“That’s awful” 

He shrugged. “I like that feeling… I figure anything I do in life is better than not existing at all… I can’t lose.” 

She was skeptical. 

“All I’m sayin’ is. You gotta loosen up and try things. You don’t know the boundaries of what you can do until you realize what you can’t do. You gotta risk lookin’ dumb… Here. I’ve got an exercise for you that’s gonna solve every problem you’ve ever had.”

“Every problem huh?”

“Once a day, you should try to do the absolute dumbest thing you can think of.”

“The dumbest thing?”

“That’s right… I’ll start.”

Rowe stood up and thought for a moment. Then hiked his pants up as high as possible, kicked a leg out in front of him, as if trying to maximize every stride in his gait. All the while, his arms failed about like an inflatable tube man air dancer powered by a fan at its base, creating the most discombobulated out-of-sync walk she had ever seen. Adding to the madness, he began reciting the Gettysburg address in a spot-on Bullwinkle moose voice. 

“Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth…” much to Winnie’s delight, in the span of three mere seconds, every ounce of cool that he possessed had evaporated – eclipsed by a persona too insane to be called a clown, it was, in nearly every respect, “the dumbest thing” she had ever seen. 

The very fact that he could do this at a moment’s notice, seemingly without any preparation filled her with mirth. She could not contain her laughter. Whether it was due to his comedic skill or a laughter of pure embarrassment was undetermined. She quickly begged him to stop. 

He did not torture her, he stopped quickly enough that onlooker’s confusion turned to smiles. 

“Your turn,” he said. 

Winnie’s eyes widened. “No,” she stated emphatically. 

“Come on.” 

“I never agreed to do that.” 

“You can’t do that; you have to do something even dumber. ” 

“That would be impossible because that truly is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen.” 

“And yet, the world didn’t end. We’re both fine,” he said. He persuaded her. “If you can’t do it in front of me… a total nerd who you have no need to impress, then when can you do it?”

“I don’t want to,” she said, her voice growing quiet. She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. 

Rowe saw this was going nowhere. He didn’t press it but sat down next to her. 

“Sometimes I think I’m…” Winnie said, her voice distant and quiet. “Sometimes I feel like there’s something wrong with me…”

“There’s nothing wrong with you… you may be wiser than I. Maybe we are a mistake.” 

She managed to turn to him, studying his eyes. “You know you’re a dreamboat…. The most amazing catch in the world…. For someone else,” she said. 

“You can be someone else.”

“No, I can’t. Not an option. I’m looking for a soul mate and you don’t even believe in souls.”

He glanced down to the ground… He had no comeback for that.

“I’m sorry,” she said. 

He nodded… “It’s okay,” he was giving up. She could feel it. 

She leaned back on the bench, depressed. 

“Oh God… I don’t want to be one of those people in a church singles group,” she said. 

Rowe took a deep breath and shrugged it off.

“Let’s find you a man.”

She studied him, skeptical. 

“Maybe we make lousy lovers, but we’re already friends. You’re stuck with me in that regard. And as your friend, I’m telling you that you’re a gorgeous, kindhearted woman. You deserve a good man.”

She managed a smile. “I’m clueless around men… can’t you tell? I was so sheltered growing up, my parents let me go on one real date in high school, it was like a group date to senior prom and I had to be home by eleven… the prom wasn’t even over by eleven, we had to leave early.” 

Rowe smiled. “You’re very good-looking, I’m sure a lot of guys are intimidated around you.”

“Ha! Look who’s talking” 

“You are,” he said in a way that let her know he meant it. 

“Don’t make fun.” 

“You have a cuteness about you that just… punches me my chest.”

“Stop!” she put her hands over her ears and drew her knees to her chest. 

“See, here’s your problem, it’s your body language… You’re not real accessible.”

“Accessible? What’s that mean?”

“Your body language is… guarded… It’s hard to make a move on you… I’ve known you for almost a year now and I don’t think we touched until today.” 

“That’s not true” She stated. “You caught me on the steps of Martin Hall” 

“I mean conscious decisions to touch… you’ve only done it three times today. You let me put sunscreen on your shoulders, you high-fived me after I rang the bell, and just now on the slide.” 

“You put your hand on the small of my back when we left the Book Loft.” 

He smiled. “Well, if we’re gonna get technical about it, your bare leg brushed against mine in the haunted house, and I took your hand when we stood up at the graveyard.” 

She eyed him, her mouth curling at the corners with mirth. 

“But these were just either accidental or utilitarian touches.” he said. 

“Not the hand on the small of the back.”

“I snuck that in from behind… it’s hard to navigate you from the front.”

“What do you mean?”

“Stand up.”

They both stood. She was nervous – arms folded. 

“See. Your arms are already folded. I don’t know how to get in there.”

Winnie played supercilious. 

“Get in where,” she said, squinting her eyes skeptically. 

“Just to hold your hand or something,” he half gestured to grab her hand and she instinctively backed away.

“See, you just backed away.”

“I do it instinctively… I don’t want to be like this,” she clenched her fist in frustration. “I’m just not good at things like this… like just talking about it makes me feel my heartbeat in my chest.”

“You just gotta take it one step at a time… if you ever want to kiss this mystery man of your dreams, you’re gonna have to touch, and if you ever want to touch, you’re gonna have to break your personal space.”

“Personal space is like…my thing. It’s like my sanctuary.”

“I didn’t say it was gonna be easy, doing it is like telling someone you like them. It sets you up for failure. Now I’ll be the first to admit, I like you.”

“Oh yeah?” she said with a grin. 

“Yeah.”

“That’s ironic,” she put on airs. “Because I don’t like you at all,” she gave him her sly grin. 

He smirked. “Then I’m the perfect candidate to practice on… you can’t fail. Say you’re with a guy. What’s a comfortable distance to have a conversation?”

“I don’t know… three feet?”

“Okay, you’re with an upstanding Christian gentleman. You’re three feet apart, I’m not gonna move, you step a half step closer, cross the neutral zone… just to get a feel for it.”

Winnie’s arms were folded tight. This wasn’t easy for her.”

“This is ridiculous,” she said with a gasp. 

“Life is short… If you can’t get within three feet of another human, marriage is gonna be a long way off.”

She rolled her eyes but decided to play along. She stepped a half step closer, chin down, demurely glancing at him out of the tops of her eyes.

“That’s good,” his voice was softer now. “How’s it feel?” 

“Okay,” her voice softened as well. 

“Now, I’m not gonna move,” he reassured her. “You’re the one in control. Just one more half step.”

She smirked. 

“Whenever you’re ready,” he said. 

“I’m not sure about this.”

“I don’t bite. I can’t reject you, cause you don’t even like me.”

She grew nervous under the weight of his stare. 

“You have to close your eyes.”

He obliged her, closing his eyes. 

“Okay. Just don’t…. take my wallet or anything.”

She studied him with an amused smile.

“And you cannot open them until I say so.”

Finally, she stepped closer – just inches apart by now. Her heart was beating. The smirk dissolved from her face as she glanced to his lips, back to his closed eyes, and back to his lips. She quickly licked her own lips.

“How’s your heart?”

“Okay.” 

“You feelin’ faint?” he asked. 

“I don’t think so.”

“Your arms are still folded, aren’t they?”

“Maybe.”

“You have to unfold them.”

“What do I do with them?”

“Put your hands some place innocent.”

“Innocent?”

“Yeah… on my shoulders or grab my hands or something.”

She gingerly placed her hands on his shoulders.

“This is feeling less innocent.”

She dropped her head out of nervousness, her forehead colliding with his nose. 

“Oh,” she reached for his nose. “I’m so sorry.”

Rowe opened his eyes, his own hands reaching to his nose.

Their hands met at his face.

Her fingers touched him, caressing his face for a moment.

His hands took hers – wrapping around them and bringing them down to chest level. 

“See we’re holding hands… Once you break the personal space, all kinds of things happen… You don’t even have to think about it.”

She looked into his eyes – heart pounding. 

He was quite relaxed. 

“People are watching.”

“Is holdin’ hands against the law?” he asked. 

Her eyes flit from his lips to his eyes. 

“No.” 

“It’s Summerfest… they’ve seen stuff like this before… first dates… young lovers… old flames… Public displays of affection don’t bother them… do they bother you?”

Her lips parted, breath quickening. “No…”

“Then we should be fine.”

This is it. He let go with one hand, running it through her hair, then both hands moved to her cheeks, he gently lifted her chin, pulling her in for a kiss. 

It was all too much for her though – she flinched, breaking away and pulling back. 

“I can’t,” she gasped. 

He froze, easing off. 

She looked up at him – her heart torn.

“I made a promise before we left today that I wouldn’t do this.”

He nodded – resigning. He pushed it too far already. He stepped back. 

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry.”

He ran his hand through his hair, snapping back to reality. 

“You probably could have told me ’bout that promise…”

“I’m sorry,” Winnie overlapped his words. 

“Before I made an ass of myself,” he laughed it off. 

“No, you didn’t.” 

“Hey, it’s alright.”

“Where would it lead?” she pleaded. 

“No really. You’re right. You’re right it’s… it’d be a mistake,” he said. 

Rowe took a deep breath – a new beginning – releasing his want – letting it go – as if he flipped a switch inside. 

“I should probably get you back anyhow.”

Winnie looked injured. She didn’t want it to go down like this… she missed his affection already.

He gave her a little smile – but it was only patronizing.

“It’s okay, seriously… Seriously it’s no big deal,” he said. 

Winnie could feel him pulling away – his defenses rising and the intimacy dissolving. Somehow, she wanted it back. She retreated inside, folding her arms. 

Rowe put on the air of confidence – his vulnerability evaporating. 

“I want to explain,” she pleaded. 

“You don’t have to. I get it. You’re a Christian, I’m not. You made a promise to the big man upstairs… I don’t even believe in the big man upstairs… It’d be horribly awkward at the Rapture when Jesus comes and gets you and leaves me to fight all the demons.”

She didn’t laugh. It stung and he knew it. 

“That’s a low blow. I’m sorry… Unless you believe in that, then it’s… it’s… judicious foresight.”

“You’re angry.” she said. 

“Yeah? Maybe.”

Something in him was simmering and it was about to boil over. 

“Not at you. I’m angry at the world. It’s just not easy being an atheist… I mean… Christians act like victims in this country, but atheists can’t get elected to office. I’m angry that this world looks down on me for using my brain. I’m angry that fifty percent of this country thinks Adam and Eve were real people, and I know you don’t, but you let them think that. I’m angry tele-evenglists and politicians exploit people because half our nation learned their thinking skills in Sunday school. I’m angry that the first girl in my life as an adult, I really like won’t give me a chance because of her imaginary friend.”

Winnie’s eyes were watering now. 

Rowe immediately knew he went too far. He drew in a breath and extended a hand, trying to soften but unsure what to say. But then Winnie snapped. 

“This whole thing was your idea. You’re the one that wanted to change me. It’s like a game to you.” 

“It’s not a game.” 

“You just said it’s imaginary!” 

“It’s an imaginary thing getting in the way of what’s real – we are real – this – between us,” he gestured his hand between their chests. “It doesn’t happen every day.”

“Oh, come on, every girl at school is in love with you.” 

“They’re not you.” 

“What do you want me to say? That I don’t believe in God?” she pleaded. 

“I don’t know,” he said, shrugging, defeated, embarrassed.

“I can’t… because I do….” she said. 

Rowe nodded… agreed… softened… sharing a glance with her – wistful, sad, thinking of what could have been, then sighed heavily, gathering himself. 

“Listen, I’m sorry. I do respect you,” he told her. A look of incredible pain and affection came across his face and he nearly reached out to her, but then he closed his eyes as if shutting that emotion down – ran his hands through his hair in desperation and gathered himself once more. “I guess now you know what it takes for me to become an ass, you only need to reject my clumsy advances.” 

She looked at him, unsure of what to say. She wanted to give him a sly look and say, “They weren’t that clumsy,” but she still felt injured and she wanted him to know it. She wanted him to take her in his arms, kiss her lips, and promise he’d dedicate his life to making it up to her. She wanted to slap him across the face for not believing in God and trying to change her, but that seemed too rude. She wanted to take him in her arms – the man she just rejected–and tell him she loved him – that she always had, and she was kidding herself to say otherwise, but that seemed absurd. All of these thoughts and emotions lived inside her at once, inside her 19-year brain in full bloom, the age at which the world was nothing but possibility. 

The northern sky lit up with lightning and a few seconds later deep thunder rolled over the cornfields. A gentle breeze brought the smell of rain. 

“We should go if we’re gonna beat rain,” he said – his words simple and without ornamentation, but they felt different to Winnie’s ears, some switch had flipped inside him. They were not delivered with the same care and attention he had afforded her the entire day, but rather a matter-of-fact quality that he might use with his buddies, or worse, a boss might use with a subordinate. 

She had to remind herself that she had just rejected him. 

She missed him already. 

They drove home by way of country roads, largely in silence, the local public radio station playing its 11 pm ambient playlist hosted by John Diliberto. The interior of the car was lit by blue moonlight and orange dash lights. Cornfields zipped by windows on either side – silhouetted against the night sky. She could tell things weren’t right, but how could they be? She did not yet possess the wisdom or skill to fix it. She only knew that she wanted it fixed. 

Soon the city streetlights welcomed them, rhythmically shining through windows, and cascading over the cabin when they turned on to Blackstone Ave. 

They got out of the car. The hum of a sodium vapor streetlight almost lost under the cool breeze bringing impending rain. 

Winnie stepped up to the stoop, Rowe followed. 

She turned around. This was it. Time to say goodbye. 

They shared a long look. So much to say, but unable to find the words. 

“I had fun today,” he said, with a little bit too much upbeat confidence. Like an uncle talking to his nephew. “Despite all my rants,” he added. He might as well have winked and made a little gun gesture with his hands. She wanted to talk to the man who fixed her electrical box at 5 am, the man who dropped to his knees to apologize in the diner, the man who laughed with her atop the water tower. But he just managed a halfhearted smile. 

“Me too,” she smiled softly. 

This was madness. There were moments today she was able to be herself – wholly herself with a man – something she had not yet experienced, and now they were stumbling through what could be their last goodbye. 

“Who knows, in another life, we could have been good together,” he said. 

She didn’t like the air of finality in his words. She wanted to correct him. But how? And why? What did she want? She had just stated they couldn’t end up together. Her brain might have reminded her heart of this fact, if it had her heart’s attention, but it was too preoccupied with the moment before her. 

“Are we not gonna see each other again?” she blurted it out, hearing too much emotion in them, trying to dial it back. 

“I’m sure we’ll keep in touch,” he said with a shrug – shifting his weight, preparing for the inevitable exit. 

The indifference in his words stung. Yes, she had pushed him into this position, but why the standoffish formality? It was a defense mechanism. Her mind raced and it started raining, just single drops, spitting in the breeze. The stoop did not cover him entirely. He was going to get wet. She wished time could stop. Life moves too fast. There are choices we make that we ponder for hours when alone, but when we’re in the moment, time doesn’t slow down for us, it keeps racing by. There was a dizzying array of possible futures. Some in which they walked away never to see each other again, others where she pressed her lips against his, each of these images were fleeting in her mind. Just stay.

She couldn’t say it out loud, but something in him could see her turmoil. He was good with things like that.

Rowe’s eyes softened. In an instant, she could see him again. It was as though his shell was suddenly imbued with the man she had spent the entire day with. He wrinkled his brow, pained – concerned. 

“There’s a reason you made that deal… with the big man upstairs before you left this morning,” he offered. 

There’s a reason I want you to stay, she thought but was unable to speak. She felt herself nodding like an actor, going along with the script that there was nothing wrong. Her heart ached but part of her brain was relieved. No drama, she couldn’t even imagine the scandal of bringing him back to her Yazoo church. Yes, her apartment was lonely, but it was familiar and safe. She had Netflix; she didn’t mind sleeping alone. If she were older and wiser, she’d identify this voice as that of fear, but she was nineteen and still learning. 

He studied her as one would who is trying to soak in the Grand Canyon one last time before leaving it forever. Yes, he wanted to stay, but he reminded himself of her rejection of him at the carnival. Her words were clear. He inhaled deeply summoning resolve. 

“Goodbye Winnie,” his voice was quiet and sincere. 

“Goodbye,” her voice was weak – almost a whisper. 

He turned and walked into the rain. Which now consisted of slow, large drops. She did not move until he closed the car door, at which point, she felt her emotion swell enough that it nearly forced her to run after him. She fought the impulse, spun, entered her door, closed it behind her, and leaned into staring up at the ceiling. She often did this when she fought tears. As a child and the youngest in her family with an aversion to being called a “crybaby,” she would actually lie on her back on her bed and hang her head off the edge so that tears would not run down her cheeks. Now she just looked up at the ceiling. It didn’t work, of course, she soon tasted a single salty tear in the corner of her mouth, but childhood habits shape our adult selves. 

She finally slid down the door to the floor and pulled her knees to her chest, put her head in her hands and turned the world off.

What just happened? The myriad of possible futures each dissolving with a pop.

It’s easy to think about life choices in the abstract. To imagine long-term goals in a career or relationship, but life doesn’t happen in the abstract, it happens in real-time, in moments like this, where two doors are open, and you have to choose one. She closed her eyes and just as when she was 12 and the compressed carnival lights would playback on his eyelids at night in bed, the day’s events came back to her in an amorphous montage of memory. Lying side by side in the graveyard, Rowe’s leg against hers in the cart of the haunted house, his hand on the small of her back at the Book Loft.

Outside her apartment, Rowe pulled to the stop sign at the corner of Blackstone and High. There were no other cars, but he didn’t move. It was raining in earnest now and he let it beat on the sunroof as he laid his head back on the headrest, inhaling deeply – centering himself. He turned the radio on but quickly turned it off. There was no assuaging his discomfort. Now that he was alone in his car, he could take his armor off, those defenses meant to protect his heart had only left it hurt and alone. His mind, as well, was a collage of possible futures, each one popping out of existence like popcorn leaving nothing but loneliness in its wake. In truth, it wasn’t altogether clear to him yet what had just happened, what had happened just now, nor what had happened this day. All he knew was that he felt sharp pangs of regret. He glanced into his rearview mirror at Winnie’s house. 

One by one, the windows lit up with warm glowing yellow lights, looking cozy in the rainstorm.

He stared at the glow – not with a look of pain, but one of longing. Her amorphous shadow passed from window to window as she walked from room to room until suddenly, in perfect unison, every window in the house went dark. 

Not only was every light in her house out, but the lamp post outside her house went dark as well. This, he knew, was on an optical sensor that he had installed himself. Her power was out. He froze, let it sink in. His logical mind could conjure many reasons and explanations for what just happened, but somehow he didn’t want to listen. There was a deeper voice inside of him – one that had faith that this could mean more than the facts suggested, and for the first time in his life, he found it quite persuasive. 

Winnie stood in her dark kitchen – heart pounding. She knew her breaker had just blown, her mind could explain it, but in her heart it was so much more. Her possible futures suddenly exploded in a thousand new directions. Should she call him right now? Wouldn’t that be incredibly awkward? She should wait until morning. This was her head talking.  Her heart – her internal compass –  had already made up her mind. 

 So while her mind fretted, her feet, riding a lava swell of hope, moved her to the front door – just in case – she opened it. 

There he stood, in the rain, soaked to the skin, his linen shirt clinging to his broad chest and shoulders. He was silhouetted by his headlights, and it wasn’t until the timer turned them off that she could see his face. 

She said nothing, but gently took his hand and pulled him in. It was the smallest token of affection, but the first she had shown with such deliberate intent. 

He shut the door behind him. 

“Aren’t you the guy who fixes breakers?” she said, looking up at him through the tops of her eyes. 

“I am,” he managed a faint smile, cautious, waiting to see how this was going to play out. 

“You’re all wet,” she said – her voice small and distant. 

Her eyes moved from his eyes to his body and she gently extended her hand – caressing the edge of the placket on his shirt. 

His breathing quickened. He raised his own hands, took hers, and pressed against his wet chest. She could feel it rise and fall with every breath – so alive. 

“You can’t tempt me like this,” his voice was husky. “You know how I feel about you.”

“Tell me,” she said. 

He looked her over, sizing up his own emotions. 

“This morning I wanted to change your mind, now I just want you. I want to know what you think, and what you feel, how you came to be, and where you’re headed, because I can’t predict anything about you. Every time you open your mouth you surprise me… and make me smile. You’re the most honest person I’ve ever met. And this is the truest emotion I’ve ever felt”
Her eyes softened and head tilted. 

“And if you spin around one more time in that little sundress” He added  “I’m gonna have to take it off you.” 

Her mouth fell open. 

“But you made a promise to yourself,” he continued.  “You said we’d be a mistake.” 

“A mistake?” she raised her eyebrows. “Well then,” her breathing quickened as she gathered her own resolve. 

“I’m about to do the dumbest thing I can think of,” she said with just a hint of a mischievous grin.

Her eyes moved from his chest to his eyes, her hand clasped tightly around his and she walked backwards, leading him into the living room. 

He followed – eyes intent on her. She raised herself up on her tiptoes and simultaneously pulled his head down to meet her. He helped remedy their height difference by placing his hands under her arms and lifting her. She instinctively wrapped her legs around him, her sundress bunching up around her waist. 

They shared a moment – face to face – to mutually acknowledge their newfound intimacy. She drew in a breath and moved her lips toward his.

They would not sleep apart again for forty-two nights – when he left for Brown. 

On fall break, she’d take him to Yazoo to meet her parents. That Thanksgiving, she met his. 

They would be engaged that winter and married by the following year.  

The wedding took place in her hometown church in Yazoo Mississippi. Jess, Kat, Miyuki, and her older sister were her bridesmaids. 

They never did decide who had won their debate, Winnie was going to bring it up the very next day but somehow forgot when the movie on the sofa turned into passionate lovemaking. Rowe thought about bringing it up the following week when they went to the library, but they were distracted by books on birdhouses because she wanted to build one in the perennial garden outside her window. 

If either were asked who won, of course, they would each stubbornly declare complete and total victory, but though the subject arose from time to time, the debate never rekindled. 

Winnie did become an art therapist at a church, and while their children never did embrace her faith, they were quite active in the church youth group where they met their closest friends. But in terms of arguing the existence of God, the question just faded away. They were busy with wedding plans, building cribs, and choosing schools for their children. They were busy with career changes, walks through the woods, games of scrabble on the porch, helping their daughter plan her wedding, preparing meals for family reunions, watching movies on the sofa late at night where their clothes ended up on the floor. The fire of their lives was too bright to see anything else.

One thing was certain, however; they both believed in magic. And they knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, this was real. For they were the ones who had created it.