by Dena Burroughs - January 2008 ®
BROWN EYED GIRL
She woke up and spent the first few seconds remembering where she was. She stared at the ceiling fan hanging from the varnished logs while everything came back to her – the drive up the mountain late last night, the paperwork she had filled out for the cabin rental, then falling into bed and crying herself to sleep. It only took a minute for her heart to feel heavy again, with the oxymoronic sensation of an emptiness that weighed like bricks inside her chest. The sunlight coming through the window helped, however. It had that radiant shine that is unique to the sunrays’ reflection against the snow. She sat up and peeked out between the thin curtains. The view was marvelous – a thick blanket of untouched snow, a perfect blue sky, and another cabin at a distance with its chimney already busy puffing out smoke. Two squirrels caught her attention as they ran up and down the trunk of a bare tree. She smiled at their nervous eyes and hyperactive tails and again admired how the creatures managed to resemble rats and yet be darling at once. As she closed the curtain back in place she knew she had made the right decision in coming up the mountain. The woods had always been relaxing for her, inspirational, and cleansing. This time, they would also be comforting.
The reflection in the mirror disappointed her. Her eyelids were so puffy that she compared herself to a frog. The whites of her eyes were so bloodshot that she thought she’d pass for a drunk. She was a mess. Looking intensely at her eyes’ reflection in the mirror, she told herself, “It is December 31st of 2007, Becka. In a few hours, 2008 will begin. Remember what they say: ‘the way you start the year is the way you’ll spend the rest of it.’ We can NOT start the year looking like this!” She filled her hands with cold water and splashed her face with it over the sink. She held her cold hands against her eyes, hoping the temperature would relieve the swelling and pleading with herself to snap out of it.
An hour later, at the diner, waiting for her cup of coffee and still wearing her sunglasses even though sitting indoors, Becka considered how different her trip was turning out from what she had originally envisioned. This was supposed to have been a wonderful New Years. She had reserved the cabin early in October, she had made the needed arrangements at work, she had bought a fabulous dress, she had reserved a New Years’ dinner table at Claude’s, she had thought of everything… except that he could do what he ended up doing. Whatever it was that had possessed him to send her that e-mail, just hours before his expected arrival, was still beyond her comprehension. It felt as if she had read that e-mail a trillion times already, but the masochist in her wanted more. Against her own judgment she pulled the paper square out of her backpack. It had by now been wrinkled up, thrown away, picked up again, unwrinkled, folded up, read and re-read time and again, but she wanted to do it one more time, as if the words could have possibly changed in any way; as if, perhaps, the light of the new day could have given the note a meaning she was too dense to comprehend just yesterday.
“Becka, I am sorry. I know you will hate me, but please try to forgive me. I am not going to go after all,
Becky. I am supposed to be at your house in just a couple of hours but I haven’t even left home. I just can’t
do it. I don’t want to start the year doing something that I fear won’t last for the rest of it. I will give you
time to think about this, let the holiday pass, and then I’ll call you. Please understand that I think I’m doing
what is best for both of us.”
“The best for both of us?” said Becka, just as her coffee was placed in front of her. “Excuse me?” asked the waitress. Becka waved her away apologetically. The first trillion times she had read the note she had cried her heart out. In fact, for the first few times she had actually wailed. However, this time more than sadness she felt anger. “The best for both of us?” she repeated silently. “Oh my gawd, how selfish are you Danny!” She sat there, coffee at hand, wondering if he had given any thought to her reaction, to her feelings, or to her heart. Had he considered her in any way? Momentarily, it dawned on her that she was moving rather quickly through the grieving process. A psychology major such as her has its four steps memorized - denial, sadness, anger, and acceptance. “I must be in the anger stage already because I’m starting to really hate you, Danny!” she screamed in her mind.
As she walked from the diner in the direction to her cabin, Becka thought about the ten months she had known Danny. She remembered getting introduced to him at a Salsa club by their common friend, Dale, and how she thought his amber eyes were gorgeous. She remembered the first time he asked her to dance and the electricity she felt when he took her hand. She remembered how hard she had worked to follow his steps smoothly, to glade along him to the music, to give him a great dance, so that he would be back for more. She remembered when he said that San Francisco was not that far away. “It is only six hours driving, only one on a plane!” he had said. She remembered the thrill of his first official visit, only a couple of weeks after they met.
Since then, he had been in Los Angeles and she had been in San Francisco at least half a dozen times each. They had danced together here and there, and also in Las Vegas, in San Diego, and in Phoenix. He had spent Thanksgiving at her folks’ and she had met his parents for Christmas. They were planning a trip to Puerto Rico for the summer. He did not know it, but he was perfect. She wanted him as a husband some day. In fact, she had already picked a song for their wedding dance. That was her secret, though - the song was Frankie Ruiz’ “Bailando.” “Y todo comenzo… bailando…,” she sang out loud, and upon hearing herself, she stopped walking. There, in the middle of the road, where, although cars came and went constantly, she had, just a minute before, been all alone in her world, her eyes showed her that she had digressed a step back in her grieving process - back into sadness.
Nine o’ clock in the evening came and her reservation for two at Claude’s was now waiting. Perhaps she would be the only service-for-one at Claude’s tonight, but Becka was not about to let 2008 ring in without some sort of noise about her. She pulled out the beautiful red dress she had paid $200 for in November, when she had thought that Danny would love the way the fabric clung to all the right places in her body, and figured perhaps someone else at Claude’s tonight would take the time to appreciate it. The reflection in the mirror looked much better than it had earlier and Becka was much thankful for make-up and Visine. Warmly wrapped in her black beanie, coat, gloves, and scarf, she drove her car to Claude’s.
The largest restaurant in this mountain town and the only venue with live music, Claude’s was the most popular hangout in the area tonight. By the time Becka arrived the parking was almost full, the music could be heard from the street, and from the outside the inside looked like a bee hive. As she stepped in, Becka heard,
- “Good evening ma’am! Do you have a reservation?”
- “Yes, under Rebeca Montoya please,” she answered.
- “Ah! Yes ma’am, table for two. Is your other party here already?”
- “No. It’ll be just me for now please.”
- “No problem, Ms. Montoya. Follow me, please.”
Becka walked into a noisy crowd of happy people who wore silver crowns and prematurely blew on their midnight horns. She walked pass several tables cluttered with wine bottles and glasses and people who smiled at her as she went by. She was pleased to see that her own table was rather close to the band. It was a good thing, she thought, first of all because the band would be something for her to look at, and second, because people would be too busy dancing to notice she was there alone. As she took her coat off, however, she noticed a few men seated in the bar area to her right looking in her direction, and she was a little relieved to suspect that she would not be alone for long.
She was right. By the time she ordered her second glass of Shiraz, she also needed a bottle of water. She had danced swing with a short, bald, plush, baby faced gentleman who had given her such an enjoyable dance she had forgotten her troubles. She had dance a two-step Country song with a tall, pinkish, nervous looking cowboy who had loosened up by the end of the song enough to leave her with a smile. She had danced a Merengue with a short Latin Don Juan who had called her senorita and had kissed her hand to thank her for the dance.
“That’s the great thing about this type of band,” she thought as she sipped her Shiraz. “They play a little of everything and can make everyone happy.” She then heard the first notes of “Brown Eyed Girl” and she sighed. She had always joked that the song was written for her. “See?” she had told the men in her life. “The song talks about these eyes, my brown eyes!”
Just then she felt the tap on her shoulder of another gentleman looking for a dance. She set her glass down and turned around to face him, and immediately felt her heart fall off its socket and crash somewhere in her insides. Danny stood there, looking down into her face with an expression she could hardly translate - between fear and thrill, between panic and embarrassment, between a simple “hi” and a silent beg.
He said: “I know this song is about you… Please, my brown eyed girl, could we dance?”
