The Lovers' Tree

(07/00)

The best tree to sit in was at the edge of the field, near enough to the swings, but not so close that their creaking was unbearable. It was not the best tree to climb, having long, low branches in V-shapes instead of plenty of strong, staggered branches up to the clouds. At least five or six people could sit in it at once, but it was most comfortable for two. It seemed to naturally be a lovers' tree. The field was beautiful to walk through at night, moon shining above the red brick school building, slender grass blades gently tickling the bottoms of bare feet. The flower garden in the middle of the field was distracting, especially among random soccer nets and the large expanse of just grass, like an overly artistic oasis marring the gentle beauty of the scene. At night, you could feel the moon watching over you, her pearly face clinging to the speckled blackness. It was on a night like this that Shanie ran alone to the field and the tree for comfort as soon as she could.

She woke up after dreaming of long hours spent in the tree, forgetting momentarily the cause of her pain. She got up, got dressed, and moped her way to work. The store had seemed particularly full of happy couples that day, and as Shanie rang up purchase after purchase, she became more and more sickened by all their lovey-dovey stuff. It was just one of those days she wished she hadn't bothered to get up. Nothing particularly bad happened, it was more of an internal difficulty stomaching the world.

It had been two weeks since Scott had broken up with her, but Shanie had barely felt it until now. She studiously avoided passing the field, where they used to sit curled up for hours a few feet off the ground. She just let herself get entirely absorbed in her work, school, and anything but thinking about her own life. As she dressed for work this morning, though, her feelings seemed to begin to reappear from their buried hiding spots. Scenes from the last weeks came flooding in like fragments from bad TV shows, finally streaming through Shanie's filters.

To pass the time behind the cash register, she had made a game of figuring out who people were and why they bought what they bought. The other employees were much older than she, and not usually very talkative, so the customers' lives were her source of amusement. The old lady with the blue-grey hair wrapped into a tight bun had come in once or twice to buy something for her granddaughter, usually colourful paper or paints of some sort. She always looked sad, as if the little girl and the small talk at the cash register were all she had left. There was a tanned woman in her twenties who always wore a Mickey Mouse shirt who came through a few times, sometimes with a man who seemed to be her husband, to buy stationery. Shanie thought they were writing letters to their family down in Florida. But once, she saw him acting very friendly with another woman out on the street. They walked into the pizza place next door, and she watched his Disney-printed arm wrap itself around this other woman's blue silk blouse. The scandals erupted in Shanie's mind faster than the tabloids announced new alien sightings. Today, all the couples had seemed happy, kissing behind carefully designed displays as if no one could see them. Shanie saw them, just like she saw everything going on in the little store. She was used to watching the candid movements of people, but today all this was like a punch in the stomach. Even the elementary school boys wandering around with their parents seemed to be teasing the girls more than usual. Shanie saw one little boy sneak up behind a blonde girl in a pink jumper and kiss her on the cheek. The little girl screamed and ran away, of course, she didn't want cooties. But she was smiling the whole time.

She had actually met Scott during one of those really slow days at Stationery `N' Stuff. His short but shaggy blond hair had caught her eye as he walked in the door. The store was almost empty. She only had to ring two customers while Mystery-boy was quickly wandering around, obviously knowing what he was looking for. Intrigued by his apparent sense of purpose she watched intently as he walked deliberately through the aisles, only looking from him briefly when the bell on the door informed her another customer had entered. He stopped at the display of ceramic figurines, carefully picking up one that was shaped like an angel. That, a card, and a pink bow were all in his hands as he walked towards the registers. Shanie desperately hoped this interesting-looking boy would come through her lane, even though she figured the angel was probably for his girlfriend. She was always looking for someone who just might be the perfect one for her. He was headed for her, but a minute or so before reaching Shanie, the other customer cut him off. In his hurry, the boy with the shaggy hair and bright blue eyes turned to Joseph's lane and placed his purchases on the counter. He glanced over at Shanie and caught the disappointed look in her eyes as she was punching in $.58 into the cash register for the chocolate bar the woman across the counter was buying. She smiled at him shyly, and he turned the corners of his mouth up slightly as he picked up his plastic bag and walked out the door as quickly as he had walked in. The next day he was back. He wandered around the store for a bit, aimlessly picking things up, turning them over in his hands, and putting them back down. After a few minutes, he wandered over to Shanie and introduced himself. He charmed her with his comments on her exceptional smile and explained that the angel (which reminded him of her perfect face) had been a birthday present for his mother. He asked her to a movie that night, and she accepted. They were together for five months after that, until Shanie caught him, like the Disney man, with his arm around another girl. A customer startled Shanie from her disturbing reminiscence by slamming a hard-covered journal down on the counter. Slowly, still half in her dream state, she reached towards it to ring it up.

When Shanie got home from the store, she flopped down on her bed and closed her eyes. Her mother called up to her that dinner was in half an hour, and Shanie lazily got up to shower. She let the cool water flow over her hair, bringing her hands over its water-induced silky smoothness. Cold water felt much cleaner than warm. She relaxed for the first time in weeks. Relaxing was not the best thing for her to do now, though. The motions of life and the world around her ceased to be dots of light on a movie screen, her life finally becoming her own again. She moved further under the stream of cold water, letting it rush over her face as well, to hide the tears trying to form at the corners of her eyes. She wasn't going to cry, not for this, and certainly not right before dinner with her family. As her mother screamed "Dinner!" out the back window to her little brother, she quickly toweled off and threw on a comfy sweater and jeans. She was very quiet throughout the meal, and took her brother's usual place as the first to ask to be excused. Finally free of obligations for the night, she ran down the street to the field. That field had been her refuge since she went to school there, always her place to go when people got to be too much. She'd moved her observatory seat from the swings to the tree in middle school, not wanting to seem like a little kid anymore. As she grew older, she stayed out later and later with her friends, but almost every night she still climbed into the tree to write for a while in her journal. She got used to the low light and quickly made friends with the moon.

Now she climbed up into her familiar seat and cried to her Moon over a lost love, remembering all the times they'd spent entwined in those same exact branches of that tree. She'd shared it with him, and only with him, not thinking about the consequence when their relationship ended. After all, who thinks about breaking up when they're first going out? She hadn't cried in ages, not for herself anyway. Sometimes she'd cry for artistic visions gone uncreated, for the overwhelming beauty of the world, for her friends' pain, but she almost never indulged for herself. She didn't have her journal with her, but the moon silently recorded every word she spoke aloud, every pained question asked to no one in particular but anyone who could answer.