{"id":424,"date":"2010-09-24T20:41:35","date_gmt":"2010-09-25T00:41:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=424"},"modified":"2010-11-27T15:46:44","modified_gmt":"2010-11-27T20:46:44","slug":"formula-romance","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=424","title":{"rendered":"Formula Romance"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Caru Cadoc
\n
<\/br>
\nRolling out of Los Angeles, Steven imagined his arrival as a scene in a romance comedy:\u00a0 Noticing <\/em>\u2018<\/em>unavailable<\/em>\u2019<\/em> on her caller I.D., Gala asks where he<\/em>\u2019<\/em>s calling from.\u00a0 He replies <\/em>\u2018<\/em>look outside,<\/em>\u2019<\/em> and from her window she sees him hanging up the phone in the street below.<\/em><\/p>\n

He turned back to The Times<\/em> to distract himself.\u00a0 There was only a small story about the flurries\u2014covering a protest of the new petal incinerator in Inglewood.<\/p>\n

\u2026<\/em>Rev. Jones shouted through a bullhorn, <\/em>\u201c<\/em>The neighborhoods in which our Caucasian brethren reside,<\/em>\u201d<\/em> he mentioned Santa Monica, Westwood and Culver City, <\/em>\u201c<\/em>have not a single incinerator among them! Now we got two!<\/em>\u201d\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

At first, when the flurries still dominated the news, reporters had rushed out in heavy gusts to be filmed with backdrops of whirling pink.\u00a0 Breaking footage of the first storm was seared into the collective memory.\u00a0 Reviewing quarterly reports at Kaufman Property Management, Steven had noticed people gathering at the break-room television and followed, fearing a terrorist attack.\u00a0 Everyone had crowded the windows to see them flutter down like mammoth pink snowflakes.<\/p>\n

When the news agencies realized the phenomenon was global, people wondered if they blew in from outer space\u2014somehow surviving the atmospheric incinerations of other debris.\u00a0 Transmissions to orbiting astronauts were not returned, the reception presumably lost.<\/p>\n

Weeks later, rumors spread that the international space station was due to run out of food.\u00a0 In a press conference, a disheveled scientist mechanically read, \u201cIt is true a mission to the space station is not currently feasible due to transmission conditions, but deployed astronauts have enough supplies to last years.\u201d\u00a0 He didn\u2019t elaborate or take questions\u2014leaving as reporters shouted, \u201cHow many years?\u201d<\/p>\n

Steven still occasionally saw, standing in the line at Vons, tabloids pronouncing:\u00a0 Flurries or Furies? Astronauts Presumed Dead.<\/em><\/p>\n

He was amazed at how fluidly everyone had returned to their daily routines.\u00a0 The morning after the first flurry, the president addressed the nation saying the world\u2019s best scientists were working around the clock.\u00a0 Eyes gently skimming the teleprompter, he highlighted the emergency priorities of keeping roads clear and ensuring no one, especially the elderly in rural areas, were trapped in their homes, emphasizing everyone\u2019s responsibility for their own loved ones and neighbors<\/em>.\u00a0 We are working with local governments to retrofit snowplows and pick-up trucks into street sweepers.\u00a0 More information will be forthcoming as the situation develops.<\/em> Thank you and God bless America.<\/em><\/p>\n

Apart from his old USC roommate, Nick, showing up at his door in a petal inspired frenzy, normalcy returned.\u00a0 Steven went back to watching Monday Night Football (Zamboni like carts raking the fields during half-time, the bestial athletes sporting pink smears on their uniforms), back to helping LLCs squirm through tax loopholes at Kaufman, back to awkward dates across white tablecloths and baskets of Italian bread.<\/p>\n

Then, six months into the flurries and less than a week after Nick signed him up for Facebook, in the avalanche of messages from forgotten acquaintances was a friend-request from Gala.\u00a0 The<\/em> Gala.\u00a0 She had wanted to be an artist and he\u2019d fallen hard for the acrylic smears on her jeans.\u00a0 Fallen hard, after her mother died sophomore year, for the sexually mythic aura of teenagers with dead parents.\u00a0 Fallen hard for her dark humor about it, for gleefully pulling the \u201cdead-mom card\u201d to convince him to join her for movies he didn\u2019t want to see.\u00a0 But when he summoned the courage for a confession she had said, under wincing half-Chinese eyes, that she only wanted to be \u201camaz<\/em>ing friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, <\/em>the message with the request read, who are you these days?<\/em><\/p>\n

That was Gala.\u00a0 Shift one letter of one word and revolutionize a clich\u00e9.<\/p>\n

He clicked accept, knowing she\u2019d be able to see the phone number on his profile.\u00a0 She called the next night.<\/p>\n

After the laughter and mutual professions of how weird it was to hear each other again, he learned she was still in Chicago, living in a loft and \u201cplaying the starving artist.\u201d\u00a0 He could hear her smile through the line.\u00a0 He was \u201can accountant, a total sellout, I admit it,\u201d and she replied with wonderful, shameless laughter: \u201cI knew it!\u00a0 I totally knew it!\u201d<\/p>\n

Soon they were talking everyday about their lives, routines, past relationships.\u00a0 Gala was waitressing for her day job.\u00a0 Her current project was a collage called Raining Men.<\/em> It took the oldies hit literally with men falling from the sky, splattering on the street in comedic bloody gore, women stepping out of stores with designer bags and avoiding the brains and entrails on the concrete.\u00a0 She spent her free time in the Harold Washington archives finding photos from wars and catastrophes to use for the corpses.\u00a0 Keeping the conversation off the banalities of his cubical, Steven brought up his eccentric friend Nick\u2014who had moved to Antioch after college but saw the petal storms as a life affirmation, packed up his car, and drove back to act.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wants Hollywood<\/em>?\u201d Gala disgustedly, delightedly sneered.<\/p>\n

He remembered her contagious excitement.\u00a0 On his seventeenth birthday she\u2019d taken him to his favorite Italian restaurant and gasped at the menu.\u00a0 White sauce,<\/em> she looked over the rim with wide, excited eyes.\u00a0 I haven<\/em>\u2019<\/em>t had white sauce in forever<\/span><\/em>. I<\/em>\u2019<\/em>m definitely<\/span> having the Chicken Alfredo<\/em>.\u00a0 She dropped the menu with dramatic flair.<\/p>\n

\u201cNick corrects people who say he\u2019s trying to make it,\u201d Steven went into his deep imitation of Nick\u2019s voice, \u201cI just wanna see the scene.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAh,\u201d she replied.\u00a0 \u201cNot pursue<\/em>, peruse.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

At thirty-two, with no acting experience, even that had seemed unlikely.\u00a0 But Nick was finding work as an extra, making enough money since he slept in Steven\u2019s living room\u2014even bringing home girls he\u2019d met on set.\u00a0 Steven left out the argument they\u2019d had about sex on the leather couch.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t want to seem yuppie to her.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis new thing\u2019s planning a drive to Tijuana.\u00a0 He read about Kerouac massaging Mexican prostitutes and wants to go buy time with one to give her a massage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou live<\/em> with this guy?\u00a0 You\u2019re crazy!<\/em>\u201d\u00a0 Her voice was wonderfully shocked, suggesting his own eccentric bravado for living with such a nut.<\/p>\n

Steven segued into whether she<\/em> was living with anyone.<\/p>\n

Just a roommate.\u00a0 He mentioned the Relationship Status<\/em> on her profile had read In a Relationship<\/em>.\u00a0 She explained she was seeing a guy casually but wasn\u2019t \u201cdiving-in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOr even wading in,\u201d she quickly added.\u00a0 \u201cJust a shallow bath to wash off my ex.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gala Lee has changed her relationship status to: It<\/em>\u2019<\/em>s Complicated.<\/em><\/p>\n

Three weeks later, the night fading to morning, their conversation fading to silence and neither initiating the hang up, she said, \u201cI wish you were here.\u201d
\n
<\/br><\/p>\n

***<\/div>\n

<\/br>
\nToasting a bagel for breakfast, Steven asked if surprising her in Chicago, just showing up, would be romantic or creepy.<\/p>\n

\u201cCreepy?\u201d Nick asked through a half-chewed mouthful of microwave mozzarella stick. \u201cYou got<\/em> to!\u00a0 Petals are falling from the fucking sky!<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the petal line daily.\u00a0 Like the storms themselves, its romance had been faded by constant exposure.\u00a0 Still, Nick\u2019s flower-induced joi de vie was infectious.\u00a0 Steven had felt it, and chomped at the bit of his own<\/em> life, but until now had no goal to chase with the Zen-like focus Nick threw into extra-ing and women.<\/p>\n

The train ride would take just under two days.\u00a0 Since satellite communications were generally blocked by the unpredictable flurries, traffic control routed air travel through landlines prior to flights.\u00a0 The cost skyrocketed\u2014far too high for anyone but business execs, the military and entertainment elites.\u00a0 A renaissance of train travel blossomed.<\/p>\n

He was secretly giddy for days.\u00a0 He knew he didn\u2019t know her now but lamented the stagnation of his past five years.\u00a0 He wanted to charge into her with the refreshed recklessness of what Nick called “neo-youth”:\u00a0 the refined carefree abandon some geriatrics return to, cleansed of the arrogant-insecure pendulum of \u201crough-draft youth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t scream my name when you fuck her,\u201d Nick joked, dropping him off at the station\u2014the same line he used whenever Steven left for a date.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll do my best.\u201d
\n
<\/br><\/p>\n

***<\/div>\n

<\/br>
\nThe train was delayed and it was already past midnight when Steven\u2019s Audi pulled up outside her place.\u00a0 He tended to rent a Lexus on vacations but still worried about seeming yuppie.\u00a0 There was no payphone outside her building for romance comedy fantasies.\u00a0 But across the intersection was one of the new booths, installed after the flurries effectively killed cellular reception.\u00a0 She might see a figure hanging up the phone inside if the petals didn\u2019t pick up.\u00a0 He called\u2014no answer.\u00a0 He returned to the Audi and watched the building\u2019s front door under the washed out fluttering streetlight, turning the car on occasionally to wipe off the gently gathering foliage.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere,\u201d he remembered her saying, during the last week they had hung out before he left for college, grabbing his hand and leading him through the glass doors of a Crate and Barrel.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cExcuse me,\u201d she asked the sales clerk.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re looking for a barrel.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA what?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of those big wooden barrels.\u00a0 The kind monks keep wine in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t carry barrels.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAny crates?\u201d<\/p>\n

The lady, seeing the game, turned her back on the pair while pointing, \u201cOnly the white ones over there.\u201d<\/p>\n

So Gala<\/em>, Steven had written in his effusive teenage diary later that day, stroked her pale porcelain chin skeptically.\u00a0 Laying a hand politely on the clerk<\/em>\u2019<\/em>s back she says, <\/em>\u201c<\/em>I<\/em>\u2019<\/em>d like to speak with your manager please.<\/em>\u201d<\/em> <\/em><\/p>\n

At the time they thought it was hilarious.\u00a0 He\u2019d written that she was a guerilla performance artist battling gentrification<\/em>.\u00a0 But four years later, working at the front desk of a USC dormitory, Steven was confronted by a freshman in a frat shirt with a tank-topped girl in pajama pants, freshly curled hair, and make-up.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u201cThe so called \u2018bathrooms<\/em>,\u2019\u201d the frat boy raised an eyebrow theatrically, \u201conly have showers.\u00a0 No baths.\u00a0 But this official dorm brochure, here on page fifteen,\u201d he laid the pamphlet on the desk, \u201crefers to them, in writing, as \u2018bath<\/em>rooms.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 He pointed to the word. \u201cTechnically, that\u2019s false advertising.\u00a0 And I demand,\u201d he paused and stifled a smirk as the girl giggled, \u201cmy bath.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steven had immediately remembered and empathized with the woman Gala mocked years before.\u00a0 Luckily, Nick was working that shift too and fielded the question.<\/p>\n

\u201cDude, are you telling me you have no better way of trying to get laid than dragging this poor chick here and pulling this<\/em> boring shit?\u00a0 That\u2019s pathetic.\u00a0 Go sneak in some beer or something.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sitting in the Audi at thirty-three, fourteen years after bowing to his mother\u2019s pressure and changing majors from digital cinema to public finance, on the Number Crunchers<\/em> accounting team of Kaufman\u2019s interdepartmental softball league, Steven realized he now identified with the Crate and Barrel manager who\u2019d threatened to call the police if they didn\u2019t \u201cleave immediately,\u201d and snorted to himself.
\n
<\/br><\/p>\n

***<\/div>\n

<\/br>
\nHe checked his watch: 1:21<\/em>.\u00a0 He wondered where she was.\u00a0 In her apartment, ignoring his calls, in bed with the guy?\u00a0 On a date?\u00a0 On her way home with someone?<\/em> His mind launched into second tier fantasies of his reactions.\u00a0 If another man showed up he\u2019d just drive back to the train.\u00a0 Then again, maybe she was gone because she just had a death in the family.\u00a0 Maybe she would wear pajamas on the couch and nestle her tear-streaked face into his engulfing arm.<\/p>\n

Even from across the street he recognized the walk.\u00a0 She bounced on her toes like a little kid.\u00a0 Alone.<\/p>\n

He waited ten minutes before calling.
\n
<\/br><\/p>\n

***<\/div>\n

<\/br>
\n\u201cLook out your window.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLook out over Wolcott.\u00a0 Across the intersection.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have a window that looks onto Wolcott.\u00a0 I live on the other side of the building.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFuck,\u201d Steven smiled.\u00a0 \u201cThen just come down and let me in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her arms thrown around his neck, he felt on his temple her cheeks were flexed into a smile through her kiss.<\/p>\n

After the \u201ctour of my chateau\u201d \u2013 scratched hardwood floors and naked brick walls \u2013 she took him out a window to the flattop roof of a lower building.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy balcony,\u201d she smiled, picking up a half buried broom and sweeping a small spot free of petals.\u00a0 \u201cI sit on the ground so much all the asses of my jeans are stained.\u00a0 It\u2019ll start a trend.\u00a0 Abercrombie and Fitch\u2019ll smear pink paint on the butts of their jeans to stay hip with the kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

The petals.\u00a0 The humid August night.\u00a0 And Gala.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpeaking of kids\u2014I thought you\u2019d have some by now,\u201d she said, brushing petals from the short black spikes of her hair.\u00a0 Her boyish haircut was countered by the mascara, the curves under her tank top, the blue denim stretching tight on her thighs still smeared with paint.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlways took you for a romantic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFuck babies,\u201d Steven said.\u00a0 Gala grinned as he smiled\u2014he was quoting a rant she had given him back in high school.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll they do is eat and shit and,\u201d he noticed the grin wasn\u2019t toward him<\/em>, but out into the sky, \u201ccry and piss and drool.\u00a0 They\u2019re like old people.\u201d<\/p>\n

She nodded nostalgically.<\/p>\n

Nick, in an impassioned rant, announced every conversation is a child of the participants\u2014from conception to untimely or miserably drawn out death.\u00a0 Steven, sitting on the roof as she changed the subject from one mutual acquaintance to another, watching the contours of the conversation develop like a teenage body\u2014looked solidly at Gala\u2019s eyes as he spoke, as she spoke, and in the silences.\u00a0 But her eyes kept moving.\u00a0 To the sky, him, the roof, the light of a window, darting around as she talked like he was her brother.\u00a0 In the absence of a returned glance, he noticed in the light from her window the delicate crow\u2019s feet slicing tiny rays into the corners of her restless eyes.<\/p>\n

Even late into the night, when\u2014telling himself he had nothing to lose and everything to gain\u2014he really<\/em> looked at her, she really<\/em> didn\u2019t look back and everything was embarrassingly clear.\u00a0 Then she casually and tragically asked, \u201cSo what brings you out to Chicago anyway?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe wedding of a an old buddy from college.\u201d\u00a0 He had preplanned the lie for an emergency.<\/p>\n

She nodded.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are you thinking?\u201d he asked during a conversational lull, fantasizing she would, with typical gallantry or perhaps a last ditch effort (maybe she was just nervous all along), reply wondering when you<\/em>\u2019<\/em>ll kiss me.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cAbout the stars,\u201d she said.\u00a0 \u201cI miss them. You never see good stars anymore.\u00a0 Not that Chicago had clear nights before all this, but I liked seeing some<\/em> stars.\u201d<\/p>\n

She shrugged.<\/p>\n

Stephen tried to put this decelerating escapade in the same reflective light.\u00a0 He remembered another of Nick\u2019s rants:\u00a0 that Life is God raping you.\u00a0 You can squirm under the thrusting and anthropomorphize, orient, sanctify or despise, cry like an abused lover or even get bohemian and decide that if you\u2019re getting raped anyway you might as well enjoy it.\u00a0 But ultimately you\u2019re getting raped.\u00a0 He was powerless to make Gala want to give form and texture to the half-kiss festering in his mouth, sinking down to his chest and, robbed of its own potential, brooding like a ghetto teenager in prison.<\/p>\n

Realizing he was comparing kisses to fetuses and impoverished teenage convicts, he decided it was time to leave.<\/p>\n

Gala was still looking off into the huge quivering shadow.\u00a0 Steven imagined watching the scene on a Depression era silver screen\u2014Gala looking dreamily into the gusts, him looking the same direction with wide, exasperated eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d he stood and shook his pants to clear the stray petals, “it\u2019s getting late.\u00a0 I should check into my hotel.\u201d\u00a0 The night, the roof, the girl\u2014it was all a bad dramatic sequel to an anticlimactic teenage soap opera.<\/p>\n

He watched the clasp of her black bra under the back of the white tank top in the low light while she stood up.\u00a0 She said hurriedly, as though she\u2019d been planning to say this and now seized the imperfect moment as a final chance, \u201cAsk your friend Nick if a petal storm is any more phenomenal than snow.\u201d<\/p>\n

He could see she was fishing for a parting smile or a comment of what an interesting thought that was and to spite her he only replied, \u201cOkay.\u201d<\/p>\n

They wiped the crushed petals off their shoes on a welcome mat under the windowsill.\u00a0 Hugging in the doorway, she told him to call for lunch before he left town.\u00a0 He smiled, agreed and drove straight to the train station.
\n
<\/br><\/p>\n

***<\/div>\n

<\/br>
\nWaking slowly in his seat the next morning, Steven stretched his back and looked out the train window.\u00a0 Hundreds of Latinos waded the fields with snow blowers billowing tiny clouds of pink in front of them to save the crops.\u00a0 Petals drizzled down from the vast Nebraskan sky.\u00a0 He remembered sitting on the steps of Whitney Young with Gala in a snow flurry.\u00a0 She had insisted they eat lunch outside because, \u201cJagged little shards of water are fluttering from the sky!\u201d\u00a0 He refused but she shamelessly smiled, \u201cI\u2019m pulling the dead-mom card.\u00a0 Vamos.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking up, she said, \u201cThey\u2019re so unique and anonymous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steven bit into his sandwich, one side of his body warm, pressed against hers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat one,\u201d she pointed with her red mitten as though he could make out the one she meant, \u201cis named Roderick.\u201d<\/p>\n

He bunched a half-chewed chunk of ham and cheese into the side of his mouth, \u201cRoderick?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIsn\u2019t that a great name for a snowflake?\u201d dimples pushed into her pale Asian cheeks.\u00a0 \u201cYour turn.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat one,\u201d he stifled a smile through his full mouth, \u201cis named Snowflake.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was then, when she made a playful gargoyle face at him the in cold, scrunching up her cheeks and sticking out her tongue, that he had realized he loved her.<\/em>
\n
<\/br><\/p>\n

***<\/div>\n

<\/br>
\nSteven summarized the trip to Nick with a shrug.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a sign!\u201d Nick stabbed a finger in the air, pulling his rusted Corolla out of the train station parking lot.\u00a0 \u201cTo Mexico!\u00a0 The hookers await our massage!\u201d<\/p>\n

Steven nodded.<\/p>\n

\u201cCheer up!\u201d\u00a0 Nick smiled.\u00a0 \u201cPetals are falling from the fucking sky<\/em>!\u201d
\n
<\/br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Caru Cadoc Rolling out of Los Angeles, Steven imagined his arrival as a scene in a romance comedy:\u00a0 Noticing \u2018unavailable\u2019 on her caller I.D., Gala asks where he\u2019s calling from.\u00a0 He replies \u2018look outside,\u2019 and from her window she … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":325,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-424","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P15duy-6Q","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=424"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":830,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/424\/revisions\/830"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}