The days of rainbow ribbons

‘Did you see that couple that just walked by?’

‘Yeah. What about them? Seemed like a loving couple. Looks like they’ve been together for some time.’

Livvy would not disagree with the sentiment behind his thoughts, but she was a professional people watcher having spent many days (and nights) reading or day dreaming, but never letting life pass her by. Each person, each couple, everyone that passed by offered a glimpse into a world she wanted to understand better. Some young women might go off to college as soon as they finish high school, but not Livvy. Life was more than just a boat, or a house, life was an observation sport. She was wearing a new ribbon, just purchased at a little store off of Yamhill Street. It was rainbow colored and perfect for a late spring day where every ray of sunshine seemed to wrap around short spurts of light rain. Portland often presented tumultuous weather at this time of year.

She had spent the last few days pondering what exactly made Cuddyback seem attractive to her as he was not at all like any man she had dated. He was bulkier. She had never really been attracted to men who spent any amount of time in a gym; they were too much into themselves, but Cuddyback had an understated nature. He was not particularly tall, and not really built like a bodybuilder, but she could see the outlines of pectoral muscles buried beneath the shirt as he sat and moved. With certain movements, lifting his arm and moving it to grab the glass, there was the slightest of unintentional flexing which made her wonder exactly why he was not like those others; tight shirts, showing off to the world their ill-gotten musculature, as she believed that all those body-builders were using steroids. The ones with whom she had contact were arrogant, rude and, pretty much insufferable human beings. Cuddyback, he seemed not just disinterested, but downright diffident, in his approach to his own existence and worth.

Livvy was confident and brash without apology. Raised by two professors, one of philosophy, the other of economics, she had been taught a healthy respect for her own individuality within the confines of societal existence and had chosen a path neither parent would have preferred, yet begrudgingly accepted as there was little else to be done. Livvy spent free days, those days when she was not working, at different courses. She never really audited any classes, she would simply show up for a different topic, listen, read, observe, become a better Livvy through the process.

Only their second official date, she felt comfortable enough to speak openly with Cuddyback about some of her observations without divulging the deeper secrets hidden inside the garden of her mind. Too many men. Too many lessons learned. Portland had become a haven for men looking to beguile and defile a caricature of the internet streaking programs which had portrayed the women of the town as somewhat naïve and completely gullible for the ‘perfect’ line. With Livvy, that had been a true statement for the first several men with big promises and bigger letdowns. She had become circumspect and aporetic.

‘Let me tell you about them. They love each other, I think that is obvious. Betcha when they get old, the second one to die will be preceded by the death of the other in less than a year’s time. They know only each other and cannot consider the possibility of life without each other.’

‘That sounds sweet. I mean, it would be pretty incredible to see two people, our age, that loved like that for as long, don’t you think?’

‘I suppose. But that’s the good part of their story. They cannot live without each other because they have no contact with anyone else. Their lives are lived surreptitiously alone. Did you see? All they did as they walked was look down at their individual phones. They are together, and they are alone. Constantly alone. Like chronic aloneness even when they walk down the street holding hands. It’s illusory, their love.’

“That seems pretty cynical. Maybe they were just having an off night. Maybe they were waiting on some kind of news. Like, a grandkid coming, or a friend who was in an accident. Maybe one of them just lost a parent.’

‘Could be any of those. But that looked like a date to me and that looked like two people tied to a wired life of wirelessness. Enough about them, though, tell me about your night. What did you do after you left the bar?’

‘Not much. Went home, read some more from that book I was reading.’

‘How far did you get?’

‘I think I am about half done. This thing is a monster, but a fascinating character study about the people in and around the event. The writer has a fascinating portrayal of seventies era New Yorkers. Seems pretty bleak. What did you do?’ He added emphasis on the word ‘you’ as if to dig a little deeper. Livvy had a curious manner about digging, deep, with an emotional shovel, into the lives of everyone around her without ever baring even the tiniest fragment of her own humanity. She was wearing a simple blouse with a pair of khaki shorts. The blouse was soft pink and almost lacelike material. Her hair pulled back with the rainbow ribbon showed off her green eyes and perfectly colored eye lashes. She needed no makeup or eyeliner, her lashes were thick and light brown, and the tiny gold flecks of her eyes sparkled in the sunlight which peeked through the trees more and more frequently as the summer approached. Unassuming in her clothing she was beautiful in her simplicity. Her shorts were above her knees and colored so that you could barely tell where the shorts ended and her nearly opaque colored legs began. Creamy and smoothly flowing, they were like two white toothpicks elegantly extending from her shorts. Her shoes, flip-flops that showed immaculately cared for feet with a tiny gold ring around her third tow on each foot. She emanated understated beauty from every limb as if she were from a different era where beauty was not wrapped inside plastic surgery or agelessness. She was natural in a way that looked affected.

Her hair, especially when held back by a ribbon, framed her face craftily and flawlessly. Perfectly formed around her creamy white complexion, she was not a model, and models were jealous. For every touched-up photo a model needs shot; for every makeup artist; for every hair stylist; for every ounce of food they had to forego, Livvy simply lived and breathed the kind of natural look for which magazine editors spend their working lives searching. There was an effortlessness in her stride and even the way she crossed her legs, or changed her seating position when reading for long stretches of time, as was quite often the case – nose buried in book people watching peripherally while grasping the meaning of a life learned, appreciated and experienced. Her appetite for words was voracious and there was rarely the moment she would not be seen with a book in hand. Not always the mammoth which she had been reading when Cuddyback happened upon her on his first foray into the downtown of Portland. Sometimes the books were whimsical. Infrequently, rarely a better description, she even allowed herself a book of entertaining value, a sappy romance story that made so many women shed a tear when reading, she would secretly read and wonder why she could not feel that simplistic about love. It’s not that she did not believe in love, just not story book love; not fairy tale love. Love was something she thought she felt several times before, feelings which had betrayed her and left her not necessarily jaded about the concept, just feeling as if it was not as simple as books, movies, television shows, our parents, our teachers (which in her case her parents were also teachers of their own right, as we know) would have her believe. Love was complicated. Men and women were complicated.

Secretly she wished she could simply feel like the women in the books; like the women who read sappy love stories or watch the ever popular, and to Livvy ever nauseating, rom-coms which gave a real life to the fairy tales of yore. No longer was Cinderella a cartoon fairy tale, she was suddenly a real life girl searching for love and being swept off of her feet.

‘Oh, you know, just did not much. Watch highlights from some baseball games. Thought about life, Green River, Portland, did some reading of my own. It made me think about this girl I had met that day, thought about the scariness of all this new stuff. It’s weird feeling like a stranger.’

‘I’ll bet. Who was the girl? Can I meet her? Wanna warn her about the strange dude she met. Did she know you were from out of town?’ There was a smile shared as the young couple, it’s not really an accurate description of their status at that moment, but there are not many ways to describe the two, as they smiled across the table and took another sip of beer. A shared moment can be brief and yet more meaningful, than a hundred sexual encounters. Livvy smiled infrequently in the manner she had tried to avoid in the moment, but they knew the sarcasm and tone and were okay with the ability to minimize what Cuddyback was saying with his inert ‘a girl I met’ statement as if it was just one of the hundred million things that occurred in a monotonous day where all aspects are considered part of the monotony.

‘Truthfully, though, was it just kind of part of the list of things you did? I mean, you say thought about a girl like it was ‘peanut butter’ on a grocery list.’

‘I mean, yeah, well, and not to sound like it is some sort of disrespect, but, yeh, we met, we talked and it was great, but, I don’t know, it’s not like those movies where people are instantly in love. Your attitude is fascinating, you are very pretty, and it’s a bonus that you’re smart, but not the kind of smart where you have to be right, or prove yourself with every sentence.’

‘Well, good. Not really disrespected by that, I have been ‘swept off my feet’ before. Do you know what happens when you get swept off your feet?’

Now, Cuddyback knew there was something following and he frantically searched every corner of his mind, as diffused as it was by her beauty and smile, for the answer. Her soft jasmine scented perfume wafted into his nostrils and further distracted his process, she smiled. Then she furrowed and still Cuddyback searched for clues with her movements, her eyes. She was tapping a finger in the glass repetitively making the not so annoying “clink, clink, clink’ sound as he delved deeper into the recesses of his imagination in his attempt to solve this peculiar riddle. He was unsuccessful.

‘You fall straight on your back, wind knocked out of you flailing. You look like a turtle. Guy gets some sex and gets bored, looks for another broom. Leaves with a stupid note. Or stupid words. And the girl is left weeping wondering what she did wrong. Alone. Feeling like a whore where she had once felt like a princess. Fucking fairy tales. And we still believe in them for some ungodly reason I have no clue.’

‘Well, guess it’s a good thing I did not fall in love at first sight. But I think that is impossible. First sight is like a blinding look directly at the sun. Debriefing time afterward.’

‘Ah, the romantic type I see,’ and both began laughing at the thought of Livvy as a sappy romantic.

‘Well, enough gooey shit, let’s take a walk down to Waterfront Park, stroll along, maybe we can stop and people watch.’

‘You mean make fun of everyone as they walk by us?’

‘Now how’d you know I would be doing that? You an alien? Mind reader?’

‘Worse.’

‘Worse? Oh my God, you’re a scientologist! Aren’t you!’

‘Nope. Even worse. A man. But I promise this, I haven’t had time to buy a broom yet, so if you have a leftover, I could sure use it to sweep up at my little apartment.’

In every world where Cuddyback and Livvy would meet, this conversation would happen in various incarnations. Mostly she would find this funny in every one of those theoretical worlds, and this was one of the times where she not only found the humorous intent as desired, but also felt that Cuddyback had the right kind of mental fortitude to foster another day, another date, and another conversation. Not everyone could. Not everyone even made it past that first book, the gargantuan encyclopedic novel which acted as a perfect buffer. Nate and Jamie were additional buffers that seemed to at least feel this Cuddyback character, with his frizzy hair and clean shaven face, an oddity around these parts for someone under thirty-five to be sporting the bare face look. Getting by them was no small task; it was a test he had no idea he had already taken at this point.

In those late spring days, Livvy was fond of the rainbow ribbons. It allowed her hair to stay out of her eyes. Everything seemed clearer with her hair back, everything seemed brighter. Sometimes in the dead of winter, even with rain pouring over her like a lanced waterbed, nothing but torrents of water falling non-stop, she would wear the ribbons. It reminded her of spring and better days, would revive the spirit of light inside that she desperately wanted to ignite on occasion.

David Cuddyback just liked how it made her whole face shine.