When I pray for my life to be changed, that is one thing.” I reach for my Americano from a harried barista and keep talking to Denton, who stands behind me. He is the minor character I have chosen to help me process my ambush intervention.
I stop speaking while we wander around the coffee shop looking for a table not occupied by the unemployed clutching classifieds or pairs of Brads going over their monthly figures. A corner booth opens up, and I clear it of breakfast debris.
“But when others pray for someone to change in front of said person, then it is hard for one to not feel like their life is a complete mess.” I have switched to third person. It is safer from a distance.
Denton sips his green tea. I am counting on his nature as a peacekeeper to not add insult to injury by agreeing with my confronters. An administrator at a nursing home, he was my table partner several years ago at a conference entitled “Staying Healthy in Health Care.” We exchanged phone numbers, compelled by a force larger than us. In a room of mostly over-fifty-year-olds, our twentysomething souls felt obligated to consider pairing up, mating for life, procreating, and perpetuating the species in the face of extinction. One date later, we realized we would have to leave the populating of the earth to another couple…a couple that perhaps found more than safety issues and state codes to discuss.
Still, though Denton and I are a boring combination, he is like a thick cotton sweatshirt that resurfaces in the bottom drawer just when the weather changes—a never-failing source of comfort that is forgiving and fits perfectly every time.
“I believe they assessed you properly, Mari.” The pressing of his tea bag occupies his field of vision while I sit and stew across from him.
Did I say comfy sweatshirt? I meant unforgiving, lace-up, full-body corset.
“Geez, now I’m sorry you didn’t get an invitation to the big event.” Bitterness coats my tongue, and it isn’t the freshly brewed French roast. “You could have joined the club or signed up for the newsletter that must be circulating. I haven’t seen it, but it has to exist because suddenly everyone is inspired to comment on my life.” My frustration pours out and sets like concrete. Something else for me to carry around.
The shoulders of my counterpart shrug slightly. Then he sits back and puts his mug down with a ceramic thud. A judge passing a sentence. “Mari, my evaluation is made only because you brought the subject to my attention, not because you are so pitiful I feel compelled to fix you.” He motions his flat hand up and down, like a crossing guard requesting a driver to slow down.
“True.”
“Maybe you take your work home with you too much.” He doesn’t look down this time, knowing he hit a kernel of truth.
“Look who’s talking.” Yet even as I say it I know that he speaks as one who has crossed over to the other side of workaholism. And not just because he is drinking tea.
“I’ve taken up with a book club at the Reading Room bookstore over by campus.”
I nod to honor his big step, but I roll my eyes on the inside.
“I started training for a 10K run and have just signed on with the Trail Tweeters, a hiking and bird-watching group that has the lofty, admirable goal of walking a different trail and identifying a different bird each week.” Denton pauses to literally put his finger on the right word. He points to his phone resting by the napkin dispenser. “Connected. Mari, I feel connected to my peer group for the first time in my life.”
I want to comment on the way his ridiculous suspenders would be evidence to the contrary. But as I consider my list of reasons for not connecting, I notice that Denton has a chic edge to him. The difference from old Denton is subtle, but nonetheless, he is slightly more attractive. What is it about him? A bit of stubble darkens his narrow features. Once-beady eyes seem brighter and more observant, ready to identify an Ash-Throated Flycatcher or, if one is lucky, a Yellow-Billed Cuckoo.
“Want to go with me this weekend? We are hiking a trail on Mount Lemmon and hoping to catch a glimpse of the mating Ruby-Throated Hummingbird.” At the mention of mating, his cheeks flush the shade of this rare bird’s throat. Could there be more than birds and lack of connection causing Denton to take to the hills? I imagine a college girl clad in REI attire embarking on the Catalina Trail. Her tousled hair and drooping safari hat blends with her bookish nature to camouflage what is model beauty. She lifts her binoculars to her bright blue eyes…no, hazel…but she doesn’t direct them toward the bird as the leader has suggested but toward her fellow fowl-tracker, Denton. She scans him from bottom to top and becomes flustered when her close-up view reveals that his eyes are not focused on the wing span of fowl but are peering right through the convex glass of her standard equipment to her soul. She loses her balance. Denton is so sensitive he instinctively knows she is about to tumble. His surprisingly strong arms reach out, pulling her back from the abyss.
Isn’t this what all of us want? To be pulled back from a fatal misstep by the very person who will eventually agree to keep us from falling into the bottomless void forever after?
The force of his modest changes and my overindulgent imagination pushes me back in my chair. All I can think of at the moment is that everyone is doing it. If Denton is merging with society, I don’t want to be left behind. I mean sure, we weren’t meant to populate the earth as a couple, but we still comforted one another in our shared, uncouth universe.
“The world of birds is really quite fascinating. Before, I used to shoo away anything with wings, and now, after looking them up in the Little Big Book of Little and Big Birds, I am compelled to spend moments contemplating their vibrant colors.” He is peering out the window, willing a bird to land on the shrub outside so he can introduce me to the nirvana of air vermin.
“No, thank you, Denton.” I mean the no and the thank you. I am not sold on his version of transformation, but I am inspired. Here I wanted Denton to be on my side. To say, “Mari, you’re perfect as you are.” But instead he offered a glimpse of what life can be like if we give ourselves over to risk. I consider what new things could be a part of my future: respectable job, recognition, exotic travel, a broader circle of friends, clout at the best restaurants, a new apartment in the trendy part of town, a date.
We leave our breakfast chat without making plans to meet up again. Between his day job and his extracurricular activities there isn’t time to laze about with someone who isn’t yet crazy for cuckoos. He strides over to his dazzling silver SUV with a “Tucson is for the birds” bumper sticker; the morning sun glints off of his compass watch, waterproof up to fifty meters, and I sit on the torn vinyl driver’s seat of my lackluster car and know that dreams do come true for others.
Maybe…for me too.