I can remember the days when the smell of mint gum meant I was on a date. a co-worker is chewing the gum about 8 feet from where I am sitting. Now she is stretching. The smell brings me back to high school when the girls still wondered what sex was and when they still thought the smell of their breath might turn boys off. Innocent enough; to smell like mint and to taste like mint, just in case.
Mint still growing green and fragrant; young and moving in the breeze and sun. I am taken back again to a couch in a family room of a young teenage girl’s family’s home. Her parents are gone. We are sitting on the couch, and she…is…chewing…mint…gum. I swear I am back there again, sitting beside her in a vast vacuum of a universe of a room her family gathered in on a floral couch to watch TV together on early evenings.
And here we were. Now. Excited and anxious. Scared in some moments. Heart beating. Mint in the air. How she seemed calm and in control. How I felt new in a new situation and wondering what was right and if I was doing the right thing to make her think I knew what I was doing. I can feel the texture of the couch—the stitched red roses on green vines that felt bumpy as individual threads while my fingers flicked them and tried to feel each stitch as I stared and studied them intently trying to locate and ignore the questions in my mind.
And then she said she’s sick of babysitting and she wanted to have fun for a change. I knew she was interested in exploring the borders of her young teenage experience but I was now scared. Scared I had gotten myself in too deep. How do I make a move. If we get started, how will i make the next move—what was the next move? New and slow-motion, awkward movements took my arm around her shoulder like I saw people do. I leaned in and she did too.
I realized I needed to take my arm away and off her shoulders in order for our lips to touch. So I awkwardly slid my arm back across her shoulder and craned my neck to kiss her young lips and taste the mint inside her mouth. I remember my neck hurting, but most of all, I remember the mint.
I am brought back to reality. Sitting at my desk. Staring at my dual monitor set up so I can work more efficiently, navigating from my personal e-mail to the internet radio with the greatest of ease.
And time is ticking by. Not quickly, but just as it should. Look out the window. now, hands, fingers on the black keyboard in front of you. type type type type. Stare at the white mug in front of you.
Reality.
Here I am.
Sitting and writing.
Thinking about last night.
Thinking about the date I was on.
Thinking of the girl I shared drinks with at a dive bar I’ve never been to that had a good beer list.
The way her cheeks became flushed was endearing.
Her cheeks turning pink and me thinking of strawberries blooming in little patches.
Vines, green, growing and spiraling, turning back over on themselves and sprouting little precious succulent fruits.
Right there, on her cheeks, in front of my very eyes.
She is pretty.
She is nice.
We talk and laugh and have fun and remember other times when we felt new and our skin is fresh from peeling the dead cells off and I am exposed.
I am exposing myself.
And I am enjoying it.
The beers flowed from the taps and we shared time together.
I had some ipa’s.
I think I had a
Belgium.
She enjoyed the beer.
Her skin was so smooth and white.
It looked so soft.
All I wanted to do was lightly run the backs of my fingers over her pink and white cheek to feel its smoothness imaging it is cold and rigid and made of marble or porcelain.
The time went by quickly now. I didn’t think of time or movement and then she offered to drive me home. We were ready to leave and it was late. I didn’t want it to end, though. The next day of work didn’t exist. Clocks ran backward and the streets buckled. The exercise was fruitful. We pulled in front of my place. I thanked her and was not at all thinking about how to end the night. I was just being. Talking. Not wanting to let her out of my site. I said I was going to kiss her on the cheek. I was going to feel her skin. Feel her delicate, strawberry little gardens. The cold, hard cheek. What would my lips, my lips! Get to feel. How would it be? How will my beard react after being exposed to such a treat. These facial hairs that get abused, rubbed, left out in the cold, forgotten and overlooked. How all their service would be paid back with one short, pretty moment brushed up against her swirling, spiraling sweet skin. I say I am going to kiss her on the cheek and she smiles and I move closer to her. Me sitting in the passenger seat, leaning over the console to where this jewel lay, this jewel I am not sure of, this jewel I know is precious but not yet known. I’m like an idiot with a lightbright. I know it will be fantastic but I am not sure how it will be fantastic. I kiss her. It’s fantastic. Now go, mike. Say thanks and leave. Thanks and go. I left the car tasting strawberries.
And suddenly, I am back at work. logging on to my computer and doing things that are completely average and not at all extraordinary.
