Genie stood in the doorway of the apartment shaking her umbrella dry into the hallway with one hand while attempting to remove her coat with the other.
“I don’t care if you get the carpet wet. Just bring me those damned pills!”
Kristin lay on the sofa her leg propped up, a tray table set beside her with crossword puzzles, a novel, a glass of water and the remains of a sandwich. The pain in her injured leg was almost intolerable and each of the toes sticking out from the plaster cast was cursing silently at her. She mentally relayed those curses to Genie who was taking forever to bring her prescription of darvacet. “Do you know what I had to go through to get these?” Genie fumbled the childproof cap off and tapped two orange ovals into her palm, “A little water falls from the sky and everyone in the city forgets how to drive.”
Kristin took a stab for her water, her other hand held out expectantly and soon she swallowed what she hoped would be instant relief.
Genie plopped into the over-stuffed chair beside her friend and lifted her dripping shoes to rest her feet on the coffee table.
“It’s gonna take at least a half hour you know.” Genie scanned the room for the TV remote. Found none.
“Huh?” Kristin almost never watched TV. The set was only for company and usually she hid the remote to promote chatting.
Genie stood again and began making her way to the kitchen straightening objects as she walked. The sofa pillows stacked on a chair, jacket in the closet, some dishes in the sink. She grabbed a sponge and with the aid of hot tap water began cleaning what she had just added to.
“The painkillers” She intended to stay until they kicked in, which would probably put Kristin to sleep and then she’d have just enough time to get home and change before work. She heard Kristin grunt and saw her grab her novel and throw the blanket from her uninjured left leg onto the floor. The place was a little warm with spring pushing toward summer. “Have you heard from Brian?”
The paperback slapped down on the couch. Kristin pulled herself up into more of an incline being careful not to move her bad leg too much.
“No.”
Genie pushed the soapy sponge into a glass. She didn’t press. Kristin and Brian had a pretty nasty break up about two weeks prior to the accident. When you’re with someone for three years, though, thought Genie, you at least call to she if she’s all right after a car crash. She’d always thought Brian was a prick anyway.
“What about your mysterious cemetery dweller?”
Kristin’s apartment had a wonderful view of a quaint little cemetery and if you looked out her glass sliding door off the balcony you got to see it in its full glory. Supposedly many famous people were interred there and it was not unusual for tourists to be wandering about at all hours.
“He was there yesterday.” Genie watched her friend lower back onto the couch, the book being raised again, but not opened. “It’s pretty sad. But, he’s so damned cute.”
“You should call to him. Invite him up for a drink or something.”
“I’m sure that’s just what he wants while he grieves, some broken-legged, medicated, pissed off girl to talk to. I’ll say, ‘yeah, I know what you’re going through, I just split with my boyfriend’ and he’ll say, ‘how can you compare that, my wife is DEAD’. I’ll be lucky if he doesn’t kick my cast on his way out.”
Kristin gazed out the back window through the morning rain toward the gravestone where Kyle came to sit almost every day since she had been made immobile and forced to stay home. She was still upset about Brian and trying on a minute by minute basis not to obsess over him, but at the moment she was more disappointed that Kyle wasn’t there sitting cross-legged before his grave, flowers laid out before him, hands clasped around his knees. It was during these moments when she was able to put her own troubles aside. She looked forward to these hours, normally between two and four pm every day.Kristen had dubbed him Kyle because he reminded her of what she envisioned the hero of her favorite novel that she was even now in the midst or rereading for the ninth time, to look like. Kyle loses Emily at the end of “The Longing Heart” and each time she reads those last few pages she would break down and cry right along with Kyle. When she reached chapter 42 this time it promised to be an explosion she wouldn’t soon forget. She was almost looking forward to it.
“Ehh, it’s not his wife in the grave,” Genie emerged from the kitchen, pushing the chairs in and spritzing some Windex on the dining room table. LA is so damned dusty. “If he’s as cute as you say, he’s probably gay. So maybe it’s his gay lover.”
Kristin wasn’t really paying attention. Genie had hypothesized almost every possible explanation to be the object of Kyle’s attention; from a pet to buried loot. Kristin would have none of it. It’s his true love. Gotta be. Why else would he come every day with new flowers and stay so long, talking to her, reading to her, looking at her with such a hopeless, forlorn, gut-wrenching expression? His wife or perhaps his girlfriend.
Genie was back on the over-stuffed chair.
“How’s the book going?”
“Kyle and Emily are in Rome.”
“Ah”, Genie sighed. She too had read and loved the story, “The happy part. And of course the happier it gets…”
“…The more tragic when things go bad”, Kristin finished, thinking of the final outcome, her eyes tearing up with the memory, “I love this book so much.”
Genie grabbed the tissue box and went to toss it over, paused, took one for herself, and flung. The girls shared a moment of literary compassion.
Eventually, the drugs kicked in and the throb became an ache and the ache a minor pressure. Kristin’s eyes began to droop and Genie, after making sure her friend was safe and secure, donned her rain gear and made for the door.
“Poor Kristin”, she thought. “It’s just all coming down on her at once. Well, just as the depth of happiness can define the sad it works in the reverse as well.”
Kristin awoke some time in the early afternoon. It was still drizzling and probably would continue until the end of the week. Her leg throbbed, but in a bearable manner. She gazed lethargically at her prescription bottle, then across to the clock on her DVD player beside the TV. 3:03.
Her neck jolted to the side to glance out the back window.
There he was. Kyle sat cross-legged in the rain, staring fixedly at Emily’s marker. Kristin referred to the grave as her favorite heroines, unbeknownst to Genie. One time she had asked her friend to go down, find the stone, and tell her what was written on it. Genie had balked saying something about how it was bad enough to watch this poor guy, but that sort of transgression was a little more intrusive then she was willing to be. It was really the only time Genie had ever shown her any feelings of sympathy for the young widower. Kristin didn’t see what the big deal was and had determined to go down herself as soon as she felt up to it. The doctor said she’d be in a considerable amount of pain and should stay completely off her leg for the first month. That left her another two weeks of wondering.
For the present, the secret remained to Kyle who even now appeared to be reading the inscription. Kristin’s heart immediately flew to him. He was soaked through and shivering, though it was a warm rain. The fresh flowers were laid, but he didn’t bring any of the other accoutrements that he sometimes carried. He just sat and shivered.
Kristin watched almost spellbound.
Suddenly Kyle’s body wracked with a spasm. His head tilted down and the shiver became a perceptible bounce as if he were listening to music, his hand went to cover his face. Then, almost with apparent effort, the hand lowered. Instead, he crossed his arms, holding himself tightly. He forced his face at first skyward, then straight ahead to the grave. The bounce became a rock and Kyle rocked away the next twenty minutes or so.
To Kristin this crying fit was silent in the pitter-patter of the rain. Her eyes welled up at the spectacle. It was the first time she had seen his grief overtake him so. His tears were lost in the drizzle and her distance from him, but it didn’t take much for her to imagine his red eyes, the water leaking in thick droplets down his cheeks. She could feel his hot breath emitted in small choking gasps with the occasional quivering sucking in of air. The mouth set in a thin line, slightly open, bottom lip in motion as if whispering his anguish to the emptiness surrounding him.
When the bout let up, Kyle stood tall over her marker. First staring down at it and then tipping his face straight up into the downpour. Was he smiling or grimacing? Kristin couldn’t tell for sure, but she watched him breath deeply and exhale, run his hand along the stone, turn and depart.
The rain lasted another four days. Each day the pain in her bone increased and she was forced to take a pill and a half at a time or consume her prescribed dosage more often. Kyle showed up each of those dreary days. He was becoming more and more emotional, crying every day now and sometimes throwing small fits, beating at the ground and clenching his fists so tight that Kristin could feel the nails biting into her own palms.The last day of the showers, Kyle arrived early. He placed fresh flowers before the stone, spoke aloud to his love, and sat down as he had so many times before. The tears came almost immediately.
Kristin watched entranced. The spectacle was so moving that for the first time tears escaped her own eyes and rolled down her cheeks.
He left after a particularly long visit and not twenty minutes later the sun came out.
It was the last time Kristen saw Kyle in the cemetery.
Genie had the day off of work Monday and spent the afternoon with Kristen. She stopped at Jerry’s Deli on the way and brought lunch for the two of them. The end of the rain brought a reduction in Kristen’s pain and they shared a pleasant day together chatting.
“Of course the one day I’m here would be the one day that he doesn’t show”, laughed Genie around her corned beef sandwich. “Have you been making this whole thing up?”
Kristen was hobbling out of the bathroom on her crutches. She preferred to hop short distances, but Genie was adamant about her getting used to the crutches. She laid them against the table and sat beside her friend.
“Yeah, I’ve been so delirious with pain that I’m seeing things.”
“Well, the next time he comes”, Genie unwrapped a ball of tinfoil exposing a bunch of pickles, “Make sure to take a picture.”
But he never came back.
Eventually, Kristen’s leg healed. The cast came off three months after the accident that warranted it. She still needed to use crutches and would for a while yet. The pins that held her bones together were working well and her doctor said in time she wouldn’t even limp in the slightest.
For now, though, as the dead of summer transformed Los Angeles into an oven, Kristen was thankful the cast was off and even enjoyed her therapy, as painful as it was to perform.
Kristen’s job allowed her to work in relative comfort from home. She got back into it just after the week of rain and was so behind that she had very little free time. In fact, she was so busy she neither had time to obsess over Brian, nor even finish the last few chapters of her novel. By early October she was caught up and realized, not without some amazement that she actually missed Kyle more then she missed her former lover.
Genie had laughed at this.
“You never even met the guy. You built up this fantasy of him from what you decided was his love for his lost wife and gave him the personality of your favorite romantic hero from that book of yours. I mean, I never liked Brian, but at least he was real. The feelings you had for each other and the times you shared actually happened. I’m glad you’re getting over Brian without difficulty, but don’t pine over someone who might be an even bigger jerk. Forget about him. Guess what? I was at the movies last night with Paul and you’re not going to believe what I saw a preview of.”
Kristen didn’t really care. Movies were not of major importance to her at present as work consumed her every waking moment these days. Even in more normal times she wasn’t film obsessed as most others in Hollywood. She loved to go to the theatre or catch a fun flick elsewhere, but that was as far as it went.
Genie was almost out of breath with excitement, though.
“Guess, just guess!”
Kristen shrugged, “Lord of the Rings?”
Genie gaped at her friend. “You know they’ve already made that a movie, right?”
“Really?”
Ok, clearly Kristen was joking, but she spoke with such a straight face and innocent naiveté that for a moment Genie wasn’t sure. She sighed, semi-deflated and sat down.
“The Longing Heart.”
“Well you don’t say.”
“Well, I don’t say?” Genie glared in slack jaw amazement, “They’ve converted your favorite novel of all time into a movie and that’s all you have to say?”
"They’ll probably ruin it.” Kristen was stuck on a work assignment and only half listening over her powerbook. She asked with a sneer, “Who did they get to play Kyle and Emily; Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes?”
“I didn’t recognize either of them”, which was saying something because Genie was a movie aficionado. She knew her titles and actors well enough to win major movie trivia competitions. “But they both looked just as I’d always pictured them.”“Hmm, that’s good at least. When does it come out?"
“Two weeks.”
“Going with Paul?”
“Only if you turn me down.”
Genie was such a great pal.
STAY TUNED FOR PART 2
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