Dating Perfection

Eliot stared in the mirror. He looked sharp. He made faces, practiced glances, wished his jaw line was stronger. He smuggled his dad’s cologne and applied it liberally. He shaved twice. He flexed, and, satisfied, pulled on the neatly folded clothes he’d picked out the night before. He carefully buttoned up the dress shirt, and pulled it down so it fit him perfectly. He straightened his back, pulled his shoulders back, and breathed. No zits. He looked into his own eyes, brushing his white teeth. His gums bled and he rubbed a towel hard on his teeth. They were really white now. A couple more faces, decisions about details that she would probably never notice. Into the mirror again, almost ready, not perfect, but close. One more check just to make sure, perfection from all angles. Shoes on, laces tucked under black jeans. Eliot was still checking, looking for holes. It was fifty-two. She was going to be downtown in eight minutes. Good enough. Eliot walked with a purpose to the hook where his mom kept the keys to the Volvo. He had begged his dad for the BMW, but it was a company car, and the ’94 station wagon should be good enough for Taylor or any other girl Eliot got involved with.  No deep breath, big loud strides, out the door, and over his shoulder “bye mom, bye dad, thanks for letting me use the car, I’ll talk to you guys later.”

Dad shouted goodbye from the basement, and his mom looked up from her hardcover, “Hey you look sharp Eliot.” Her tone hit well, slightly surprised and genuinely warm. Eliot stopped his dash for a second.

“Thanks mom, you guys have a good night.”

“Okay bye E, keep in touch.” She called him E sometimes.

Hurried heavy steps down the stairs, “Bye mom.” No deep breath and it was fifty eight now. Eliot hit unlock, but pulled the door handle before the car felt the command. He pushed the button hard and deliberate, waiting the painfully long break for the dying remote to communicate its message. Eliot heard the car unlock and yanked the door open, and stuffed the key in the ignition. He turned it, the key rotated a centimeter, and stopped. It stopped with certainty; there was no give. Eliot pulled the key out easily and pushed it in slowly, listening for some clue, but he’d never listened to the key slide into the ignition before, so nothing was different. He turned it again, slowly, and hit the same certainty. He tried again. He turned the key pushing the break, the clutch, putting it in neutral. Eliot pulled the emergency break up another click and turned the key. He turned the steering wheel and buckled his seatbelt and turned again. Nothing. And it was five past; he felt something like adrenaline, blood beating in his temples. Eliot hadn’t though about Taylor, just about the key rotating that missing inch. He didn’t think about Taylor then, and tried the key again and there was no wall. Metal hit metal, current completed, starter, pistons, spark plug, an unseen explosion, and Eliot put it into first.. He went three blocks before realizing the parking break was still on. Ten past, he gunned it, shifting late, and the engine hit high racecar notes.

He screeched downtown, and parked two feet from the curb. He jumped out of the car; clouds of adrenaline clearing, and Eliot started to remember why he was moving so fast. He saw images of Taylor’s foot tapping, arms crossed, holding herself with cold certainty that Eliot was the same waste of time. Seventeen minutes late, Eliot slowed his jog to a brisk composed stride before he went around the corner. She wasn’t outside the theater, or in the warm foyer. Maybe she was in the bathroom. Eliot couldn’t see her leaving; he was her ride home. But they had planned ahead, the movie started at the half hour, maybe she forgot that they were supposed to grab hot chocolate after they got the tickets. He waited in the foyer. That’s probably what happened, Eliot couldn’t even remember if the hot chocolate had made it past his own daydreams. He went ahead and bought the tickets. It was supposed to be an insightful film. Eliot thought they would both like it.

Taylor was different. She wasn’t the kind of girl to walk out of a movie with just a “that was deep.” Taylor hung out with all those popular girls, but she was a wonderful outlier. She gave him reasons, for what he had sensed about her, why she wasn’t the same. Taylor wore less makeup than all her giggling friends. She just put in way less effort into her looks in general. But she an undeniable, innate beauty that made her friend’s attempts to look pretty, seem desperate. She cared about politics. She played soccer. She was real. Somehow Taylor had avoided succumbing to the superficial materialistic culture she grew up in. And Taylor had standards too, she didn’t just get drunk and kiss the first guy she sees, like all the other girls. Eliot knew she had made a couple mistakes, she had admitted them herself. But everyone makes mistakes, and especially for the girls she hung out with, she was doing pretty well.

And she was late. Twenty four past. Eliot wanted to walk so he could stop waiting. Taylor was the one who was late; he had a free pass. It was cold night. It was early August and the ruthless cold reminded Eliot of the deep winter. Wind bit into his chin, forcing Eliot to bury it behind his jacket. News papers blew by him, and slowly skidded down the sidewalk. Hands in pockets, head bent away from the wind, Eliot walked. He steps were deliberate and slow. He forgot Taylor, and watched his feet take him to his middle school.

The courtyard had been redone. The asphalt patchwork, spectrum of miss matched greys, replaced by the smooth universal blacktop. Crisp white lines sparkled, outlining timeless bases and boundaries. The nets were new and white too. Eliot heard the whip of a jumper hitting the bottom of the net. It sounded like pond ice cracking. The whip echoed into the dark, tracing a crack in the deep ice. He walked towards the playground, and remembered glancing over at Laura swinging on the bars. She was cute and blond and happy. She giggled and liked being nice to people. He never told his sixth grade friends about Laura, didn’t like it when anyone talked about her. She was his, even if she didn’t know it. Eliot was too shy to ask her anything more than if he could please borrow a pencil. And she was shy too, but sometimes even in his sixth grade eyes picked on certain occasional looks meaning something. On the last day of school everyone got yearbooks. Everyone wanted to get everyone to sign their yearbook. Eliot wanted everyone to sign his yearbook too, but he never snatched his back right away to read that he should have a good summer. No one ever noticed, but he just closed the book softly every time without glancing at it. Eliot had twenty three people sign his yearbook. The twenty forth smiled at him. Eliot looked up for a second, and half focused on the blue eyes, before his petrified pupils snapped onto his safe shoes. He chanced a glance up, she was signing his yearbook, he couldn’t remember asking her in the nervous blur of their interaction, but he’d got his point across. She took her time, and Eliot shuffled his feet until curiosity forced his eyes up to see Laura carefully writing her signature. She handed him the yearbook and Eliot took it gently, and threw a wild glance up in the general area of her face. “Thanks.” He read it later in his room, by himself, in cozy pajamas.

“Hey Eliot, it was a fun year, I wish we would’ve talked more.

I didn’t really tell anyone but I’m moving to Livingston two days after school gets out. It’s not too far from here. So maybe you could call me some time and we could talk, just be nice to my parents so they let me stay on the phone for longer. Well bye have a great summer.

Laura Wells

(406) 686-9193”

She left two after that. He called her a week later and the line was disconnected. Eliot dialed again, wondering if his timid fingers had hit a wrong number. The call could not be completed as dialed. Eliot tried again and watched the tip of his index finger push each key. He hung up slowly. Eliot called the number the rest of the summer taking weeks off, but never forgetting. He felt a climax coming and called on the last day of summer, memory moving his fingers with slow certainty over the numbers. Disconnected. And there was nothing to punch, no one’s fault, he just hit a wall. He punched walls, composure abandoned, feeling a rich sadness somewhere deep.

 Eliot lay down on the cold new asphalt. His white button-up shirt collected dust and dirt left by countless small sneakers. The cold of the asphalt went through his clothes. Eliot’s body was taught and flexed. Eyes closed he listened to details echo along cracks in the ice. He couldn’t tell where his body ended and the sleek asphalt began.

He opened his eyes and felt the difference between his body and the asphalt. Forty six past. He should probably go back and check for Taylor. Eliot stood up and walked out of the school. He moved slow. The cold seemed amplified, almost tingling, coming from a beautiful awareness of small, inexplicable, sensual details. Happy and certain and lost, Eliot walked and listened.

He found himself back at the movie theater. She was there. There was an gushed apology, a hug, bambi eyes. She reacted perfectly, and somehow he couldn’t see her; she was out of focus, blurred by unseen ice frozen over his pond. He couldn’t make eye contact, he looked at her eyebrows and forehead. He listened to echo of some things so painfully certain he could never find again. She blurred and Eliot heard echoes running along cracks in the ice.

“