gum-chewing came through the phone.
“To Anabel. Love, Rex. I guess.”
Click.
Rosie found Rex and the whole interaction to be entirely and maddeningly insulting to her and to the verb love. Again.
And so Rosie filled out the card in the manner that she felt appropriate, with her favorite e. e. cummings poem:
love is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
more frequent than to fail
it is most mad and moonly
and less it shall unbe
than all the sea which only
is deeper than the sea
love is less always than to win
less never than alive
less bigger than the least begin
less littler than forgive
it is most sane and sunly
and more it cannot die
than all the sky which only
is higher than the sky
And then she signed it on his behalf: “I love you, Rex.”
This was the first time Rosie had ever used anyone’s words besides her own on these notes. She had never invoked any of her favorite poets. But this time, with Rex Thorpe’s supreme jerkiness to counterbalance, it felt just right.
Even to Rosie, it was unclear whether she was trying to rescue Rex’s girlfriend in some small way, or whether she was tacitly trying to tell Rex something about how love ought to be. Either way, now her effort was written in ink and it would be showing up on Anabel’s doorstep in thirty-six hours.
And Rosie was happy.
* * *
When Rex arrived at his girlfriend’s doorstep to receive credit for the flowers he had sent, Anabel immediately and energetically threw her arms around him. Unbeknownst to Rosie, Anabel was a literature student and a great fan of e. e. cummings.
“Your note is perfect,” Anabel told her boyfriend.
“I will treasure it always. I love you too,” she said.
Rex knew Anabel felt sure they would get married and Rex hadn’t yet thought of any reasons why she wouldn’t be correct.
Rex received his undeserved hug without a word in response. But when he saw the card on that bouquet, he was furious. Because he was not interested in flowery language and he was definitely not interested in anybody doing anything without his explicit permission.
At thirty-one years old, Rex Thorpe was both serious and particular about the things in his life. About his Brooks Brothers pants and steamed, button-down shirts. About the Eames furniture in his apartment. About the Upper West Side restaurants he frequented and the academic degrees of the people he interacted with. About the whiskey he drank and the shape of the glass it came in. About the brand of black ink in his ballpoint pen. About his vision of himself as a respected and successful man. About being a man of authenticity.
Rex focused his attention so meticulously and intensely on all of these things that he never felt it logical or worthwhile to spare any energy on Anabel DeGette. He never cared enough about her to go out of his way even though she was both pleasant and beautiful enough. Rex, himself, was acutely aware that if a pleasant and beautiful woman were not part of his idea of what a “successful” life looked like, he probably would not concern himself with women at all. But since it was, Rex knew he needed occasionally to express some sentiment of affection while simultaneously ignoring his girlfriend and spending all of his time at work. And a bouquet of a dozen roses with a note that said “Love, Rex” was what he had decided on.
“What the fuck did you do?” Rex shouted rhetorically at Rosie that next day even before he had both feet in the door of Blooms. “I gave you very clear instructions for my note. And nowhere did those instructions include a poem from fucking e. e. cummings. Who the fuck are you to interfere and manipulate my words?”
He was prepared to continue his rant, but stopped abruptly at the sight of Rosie in her knee-length paisley dress. Her messy brown hair slipping out of a loosely tied braid. Her bangs that nearly hid the curvature of her thick eyebrows. The flower-stained gloves that were comically too large for her undoubtedly tiny hands at the end of her tiny wrists. Her petite bones. The slight scoop of her nose. Her freckles. The way the corners of her eyes turned down. The way she jaggedly swayed her hips and hummed the tune of Stevie Nicks and Don Henley’s “Leather and Lace.” The way she radiated.
And most importantly, the way she casually ignored his fury.
Rex was struck breathless by it all.
He stood in his place, mouth agape, disappointed that Rosie had yet to look up at him. He thought he could catch her eye. Just for a moment. He wanted to catch her eye. He wanted to gaze right into it and see something new.
* * *
Without even looking up from her daily thorn trimming, Rosie knew it was Rex stomping through the door. She peeked out quickly from underneath her bangs. Handsome and jerky, indeed.
She tried keeping her eyes cast downward at the roses in her hands as Rex spoke at her but lost the battle when his words stopped. She met Rex Thorpe’s eyes for just an instant and there everything was. His unruly eyebrows. His strong shoulders. His smooth skin. The creases in his cheeks. His black hair.
His presence.
Rosie couldn’t bear being in the shop with that overwhelming toughness. That simultaneous repulsion and attraction. So she shook her hands until the canvas gloves fell to the counter. And then Rosie picked up her tote bag full of scribbled-in notebooks and sweet-tooth fixings and scurried past Rex without saying a word. She put such focus on getting out the door and such little attention on what was happening in that shop, that she didn’t even stop to acknowledge the blue crayon and couple of pennies dribbling out of her bag as she dragged it behind her.
As Rosie walked toward the door, she felt another twinge. Although she did not share Rex’s principle, she quite admired his authenticity. Not all people, all men, spoke their mind like this. Not all were willing to let others know what hurt them. Vexed them. Pleased them. Excited them. There was a sexiness in Rex’s assuredness. His masculinity. His convictions. But even with all of those thoughts about the man standing so firmly in the middle of Blooms, Rosie waltzed right out and decided to take the afternoon off.
She hopped on her bike and, without a care in the world, headed straight for her favorite branch on the willow tree in Central Park. Just the tune of “Leather and Lace” playing in her mind. And Rex’s sylvan scent lingering in her nose.
As it were, Willow Thorpe hated
